Coover's "The Babysitter"

Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" should be a fun story for class discussion. Granted, the narrative is mangled, the POV is scattered amongst 6 or 7 characters, and each bit of the story is shrouded behind layers of sexual fantasy--all of this is frustrating and chaotic, for sure, but it's also titillating.

But, because this semester is starting to weary me, I can't "get it up" in front of the classroom anymore. I've lost my spark. I've been doing what I hate most--carefully spoonfeeding my interpretations to the class, then asking them shallow questions which elicit in the guise of innovative response the exact things I've already said. I'm tired of the same five or six interested students raising their hands while everyone else sits and stares--and I'm getting to the point where the five or six are starting to fade, because I'm fading.

That said, we did have some fireworks during our discussion this morning. One of my students is a tough-looking, saucy blond with a fantastic body and a brash manner. She has Tina Yothers hair and wears very 80s spandex pants that display her dancer ass. She's probably in her mid-to-late 20s and I love her for the outrageous things she says. There's a scene in "The Babysitter" where our heroine is fascinated by the penis of her young charge, and thinks to herself how ridiculous it is, and how small. "Is this what all the songs are about?" she wonders, imagining what it would be like to have one. My blond student went nuts on this. "If she's imagining that this child's penis is small and rubbery, then that means she's seen one before. I'VE seen one before. It wasn't small, and it wasn't soft! Plus, I don't think it's at all appropriate for children to appear in a story of such a frank sexual nature."

Immediately another student jumped in, and defended the story and the babysitter: "She's not having sexual thoughts, she's merely observing this boy while he pees and noting his genitals. She's curious." I agreed: "I think she's right. The babysitter has likely never seen one, and here she's got an opportunity, and it's not sexual in any way, though later her thoughts turn to sexual fantasies, as do most of the characters'." I didn't say that I thought the blond's imaginings were completely unrelated to the text, and were in fact significant in themselves...Woof!

One of Coover's great tricks in this story is to free us from chronological/linear narrative. We get a more realistic portrait of the way people experience the world when seen through their saucy imaginings; straight narratives with tidy ends and meaning are bullshit because they don't actually mirror the world at all--how many events in our lives are tied up neatly? How many short stories actually reflect the manic and senseless droning of much of our thinking? Coover lets his characters be human, and humans imagine things all the time, and often they imagine fucking and getting fucked by a variety of people. I recall vividly having erotic thoughts about my babysitters (tho at the time of course I had no idea what those thoughts were), who would often tickle me, tease me, tell me things my parents never would. When I was six or seven my little sister and I had a babysitter who was 13 or 14--she used to show me her boobs. Those were the days! I was a nanny for two boys (7 and 9) and their 14-year-old sister when I was 18, and the boys were always trying to fool me into walking in on their sister in the bathroom--or, they'd try to get her to walk in on me as I changed to go to the pool. Then there was the lady of the house (never mind).

The two times I've taught "The Babysitter" students have objected to the fact that the little boy peeps at the babysitter while she's in the bath. I can understand not wanting to think about children as sexual beings, but let's be honest--children are extremely curious about sex and sexuality. I was from a very young age, as were all of the children I grew up with, male and female (mostly female). Coover honestly presents his characters--he doesn't condone children being used sexually by the babysitter, nor does he condone the babysitter being used sexually by the boyfriend and his buddy, nor by the father; he simply presents us the fantasies ALL of these characters are having about each other in a crazy mish-mash of randy imaginings. It's a hoot. And everyone ends up dying in all the fantasies by the end, so you get a Puritanical guilt revenge fantasy from each to boot. If you carefully strip away the fantasies in the story, there's actually a rather innocuous evening; despite all the filthy perverse imaginings of the father, the babysitter, the teen boys, the children, the mother, they do what most of us do--repress their thoughts and go about the normal routines.

I think the fractured narrative Coover uses also teaches us something about sex and desire. I asked the class what they thought, and one timid young lady said "all of the characters, when they fantasize about sex, are doing it like they do it on the Discovery Channel. It's raw, it's about dominance or submission, and there's absolutely no romance." Indeed. The way most literature forces the world into false, convenient, linear narratives is perhaps similar to what civilization has done to sex and desire--we try to force them into the convention of marriage, two kids, house, car. Simple boxes, simple labels--is that where fucking belongs? Is it where love belongs?

After class the blond asked me if I had chosen the stories for the course, or if the Department gave me a list. "I chose them," I told her.

"Why did you pick this one?" she demanded. There were maybe six other students waiting to talk to me.

"Because we had to discuss a post-modern story, and this is the only one in the reader. Plus, I like it a lot, despite how frustrating it is."

"Well, I almost didn't like you anymore for this one. I really couldn't get through it. I don't have time for this sort of bullshit! See you later."

All I could do was laugh.