by Lou Cove
“You know I don’t like coffee.”
“You’ll like this. No one could NOT like this. Try it. Drink it.”
“I don’t want to.” I chew my muesli, the morning’s cud. Atjeh rises unannounced from beneath the table, lands paws-first in my lap, scraping my thighs and toppling my cereal bowl.
“That dog is out of control,” Mama says.
“You know, if you drank coffee and skipped breakfast you’d actually have far more energy,” Papa says, inured to complaints about Atjeh wildness. I wipe my cereal and milk from the table back into the bowl. “That gruel’s just going to weigh you down for the day. And it gives you gas.”
“Peter,” Mama rebukes him, as if she’s never heard it before. The arguments don’t change, they just go round and round.
“We don’t need it!” he says again, tossing the paper on the table, not looking at her.
“You don’t need it. Or you say you don’t need it. But children need sustenance to grow.”
“What?” He hasn’t heard. “Well, I’m off. Stay busy today, OK? February vacation isn’t just a time to do nothing. Try to be productive.”
“Bye, Papa!” Amanda calls after him as he dashes out of the dining room.
“Pa?” I start as he grabs a long wool coat from the brass tree in the front hall and pulls on his gloves.
“Yup? In a hurry. What’s up?”
“How come you never talk about the whole Playgirl thing? Do you like them? The pictures?”
He scratches thoughtfully at his perm. “I don’t know if ‘like’ is the word. The photographer seems talented enough. And Howie looks good. He looks great. Aside from too much makeup. But I’ve seen him naked in the locker room. I don’t need to see him like that in a magazine.” He opens the door to the foyer and the hall immediately chills. “Gotta go now. Hug?”
I hug him but stay close. “Are you happy for him? Now that he’s famous?”
“I’m not sure that’s the kind of famous you really want to be. But it’s his life. I don’t judge. He’s on his own adventure.” He descends the front stairs, stops, and holds up his hands. The whipping snow almost carries him away. “I’ll see you tonight, OK?”
“I’m going to help him win.”
“Win what?” Papa sighs heavily.
“Man of the Year.”
“That beauty contest? Jesus. He’s a smart guy. He needs a job.”
“When women win that beauty contest they end up on TV.”
“That’s women. This world loves a naked woman. Naked men, not so much.”
His skepticism makes me flinch. “Well, are you ever going to hire him?”
“Hey, I’m not Santa Claus here. Every man for himself. But if the money comes in, then yes,” he assures me. “Now good-bye!”
“Pa?” I gasp against the bite in my throat.
“Tonight!” he calls, walking backward and waving. I come down, follow onto the brick sidewalk, feet freezing in the snow.
“I just have one more question.”
“Jesus, you’re going to get sick.” But he sees I’m not giving up, sighs once again, and grants a flustered, “What?”
“Did you know that Carly sets up … that she calls…”
He checks his watch, flips up his collar against the wind, and then kneels down to make eye contact with me. “Girls for Howie?” Papa offers. I nod. “Yes.” I wait for more but there is none. “Is that it?” My legs are starting to shake, my pj’s no match for the season. “I’m going to miss the train. Is there something more you want to ask me about it?”
“Does Mama?” Two words. I’m not sure what they mean or why I’m asking.
“Does Mama what? Set up affairs for me? Ha! Come on. You know by now there’s a big difference between Howie and me, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“And between your mom and Carly.”
“I know,” I repeat, feeling foolish.
“Howie has his own way of doing things. He wants to show everybody his penis? He wants to play around with girls in the office? He wants to have his wife coordinate his extramarital affairs? His business. I don’t work like that. I think that some things are meant to be kept private. You carry your own water, and you don’t spill it all over everybody else.”
“What water?” I shout against the gust.
Papa shivers and his curls dance to the whip of the wind. “Tonight!” He yells, turning to walk. “Anything you want. We’ll talk all night! OK? I promise!”
My head shakes so vigorously from the cold I don’t need to nod consent.
What Salem Wants
Howie has painted a sign with a pink lady, naked, popping off a blue background, pointing the way inside, on the door to his guest room. She has a Jewish nose, one beauty mark under long lashes, and two acrylic nipples. Her breasts are petite but her hand is beefy.
I step in and take a quick inventory of all the things Howie and Carly have managed to assemble here since September. I don’t see them shop very often but there’s no way all of this stuff could have fit in the minibus. Every corner has something new: an easel and box of paints; three milk crates of magazines, plastic toy figurines, and Betamax cassettes; a stuffed Winnie the Pooh close to Amanda’s size; a Kodamatic instant 35 mm and a video camera on a tripod; burlap bags filled with silky clothes; a gigantic water bong filled with tar and green murk; and, on the bedside table, a heavy, hardbound black book. Howie’s journal.
I reach out to flip the cover with a finger, catch a glimpse of a brilliantly colored page, and hear footsteps coming up the stairs.
I can’t leave without being seen so I go deeper, slip into their bathroom, pull down my pants, sit on the toilet, and pretend I’ve been here all along.
Howie’s humming happily to himself on the other side of the door. There’s a flick and a burbling sound like someone gargling before bed. Then his voice, muffled grunting like he’s moving something heavy, Mmphhhh. Mmmmppphhhhh. Caffffhhh. Unnkhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Wooooooooosh.
The bong.
The smell of pot creeps under the bathroom door. Howie coughs uncontrollably. Takes another hit when the spell subsides. Footsteps again, and the door opens.
“Oh! Hey, little man. Didn’t know you were here. Everything cool?”
I nod, folding into my thighs. “You know, just because I’ve seen you naked doesn’t really mean I want you to see me naked.”
I stand, pull my pants up, flush the empty toilet.
“So today, we campaign for me. Are you in?”
I smile.
“Grab your paperboy bag. You’re going to need it,” Howie says, ripping off his shirt and bending back to the mirror, squeezing at his chin with strong fingers. He has different fingernails, shaped like perfect Preston Beach shells, so different from Papa’s ridged, oily half-moons. The muscles in his back roll and flex under the skin. Not a single hair there.
I follow him back into the bedroom.
“Paperboy bag?” he repeats.
“Huh?” I’m staring at his nipples, lost in thought.
“You been smoking my stash?”
“No.”
“Grab your bag, chief, and let’s go.”
*
No one’s strolling Chestnut Street in the middle of the day, but I catch the lace curtains of the imposing old brick captains’ houses drawing just a bit to one side as Howie and I walk by. The brittle leaves start to whisper over our heads with the wind as we stride along. Howie walks with my paperboy bag dangling from his shoulder, bulging with a dozen Playgirls and a pile of fliers made for the occasion. It’s warmer than it was this morning, but still too cold to be walking.
“How come we’re not driving?” I ask.
“Wow. Déjà vu. ‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.’ Nietzsche.”
“All truly great friends let their friends drive their minibuses. Me.”
“All in good time, Mario Andretti. I know you’ve got a hard-on for my wheels. And that pretty Penny. No
t sure I’d date a girl whose mom is a witch…”
“Yeah. But her mom likes me.”
“She likes the Red Sox, too, but her spells haven’t broken the Curse of the Bambino yet…”
“Her spell on her cats so I wouldn’t get asthma worked.”
“Why doesn’t she just cure your asthma and leave the kitties alone?”
I never thought of that.
We cross Summer Street where Chestnut turns into Norman. Howie stops under the massive pink and orange Dunkin’ Donuts sign. “Well, this is as good a place as any to start.”
I stop him before he opens the door, feeling a sudden burst of anxiety. If it was awkward at our reasonably enlightened dinner table, how will complete strangers react? “What do we say?” I whisper. “When we go in, I mean?”
“I don’t know. Vote for me? We’ll figure it out. I haven’t really given it that much thought, now that you mention it.” Somehow, I’m not surprised. Nor am I disappointed. Instead, I feel there’s an opportunity here to learn, or get burnt, together. Starsky and Hutch style.
The doorbells jingle and the girl at the counter looks up.
“Howdy!” Howie calls, waving to her and the three people huddled at the far end of the counter. One of them, a man with slick hair parted down the middle and a black Allman Brothers T-shirt, stares at us silently.
“How ya doing?” Howie asks. The Allman Brother turns back to his companions—a gigantic woman in a blue golf shirt with pimpled pork-belly arms, and a teenage boy three or four years older than I am. His hair is jet-black; his dandruff chunks visible from across the room.
“Can I help you?” the counter girl asks, leaning forward over the glass to get a better look. She’s oddly pretty yet not pretty. Her blonde hair hangs in curly waves, almost touches her shoulders, frames huge eyes—brown and blue at the same time. But her nose and her chin are hard, and her two front teeth stick out.
“Hey!” Howie says, like he’s known her all along. “How are you?” He leans across the glass so the girl has to step back toward the sweet wall of donuts.
“Fine,” she drawls.
“You are. You are. So, I’m Howie Gordon. This is my personal attaché, Alexander von Snugglepuss.”
She laughs.
“Your ashtray?”
“Ha! You’re swell. Attaché. That would usually mean a personal assistant to an ambassador, pertaining to a military campaign, perhaps. But in this case, it pertains to my personal campaign to become Playgirl Man of the Year. Know the publication?” Howie pulls a copy out of the bag with a flourish.
“Oh, Jesus,” the Allman Brother says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Circus is in town.”
Pretty Unpretty blushes. Howie just stares, waiting. “You’re kidding,” she says, finally.
“Nope. I’m November right now, but I want the year.”
The girl looks toward the trio at the counter again, maybe for help. The Allman Brother shakes his head. Pork Belly may have swallowed something bitter.
“So … Do you want any donuts?”
“Éclair for my attaché. I’ll take a black coffee. But would you mind…” he pauses, reaching back into my paperboy bag for a flier, “posting one of these in the window of your fair establishment?” He hands her an eight-and-a-half–by-eleven-inch sheet of white paper with a xeroxed image of his smiling face from page fifty-nine of his Playgirl spread, strategically cropped at the waist. Above the photo he’s sketched a hand dropping a checked ballot into a box that says “Man of the Year” on its side. “CAN I COUNT ON YOUR VOTE?” is stenciled in colored-pencil letters at the top of the page, and at the bottom there’s something else, typed. Howie pulls out a second, differently colored copy and starts to read in a loud voice that immediately drives me backward toward the door.
“Hi! My name is Howie Gordon. I’m from Berkeley, California, living in Salem for a bit, and am currently appearing in the November 1978 issue of Playgirl magazine as a centerfold. Whether you read the magazine or not, your vote could make a big difference in my life. I know this isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it could be my ticket to bigger and better things. So please vote. Thank you for your support!”
Pretty Unpretty doesn’t say anything. Allman Brother sighs. Dandruff Chunks is glowing red.
“By the way,” Howie adds, smiling, “I like your freckles,” and he lays three more fliers on the counter.
*
Our campaign’s success rate does not improve. Down the street from Dunkin’ Donuts we hit the Irish bar (no go), a stationery store (no go), and then a place called Off Your Head Smoke Shoppe.
“My dad says I’m not allowed.”
“Why?” Howie asks, halfway in.
“Dunno. He just buys his cigars there and tells me to stay outside.”
“Cigars, huh?” He looks down the street like he’s looking for a bus that’s late. “OK, this time you stay outside. I don’t believe in this kind of hierarchical, separation of church and state shit, but he is El Jefe and we don’t want to question his wisdom unless he’s here to defend it.” He kneels down, looks me in the eye. “That doesn’t mean we don’t question authority, understand?” Then he pats me on the cheek and slips into Off Your Head.
The plate glass window is taken up entirely by two posters, one above the other. The top is of a roughly drawn bald man in a yellow dress-length tunic with a long white beard and a finger pointing to the sky. MR. NATURAL. Above him is a comic book bubble with the words “QUEST into the UNKNOWN!” Below that there’s another image, striped white and yellow with big script lettering in red and black, familiar because Papa has the album in his collection: Big Bambu—Sobrinos de Cheech y Chong.
I stare absentmindedly at the displays when suddenly the Big Bambu poster comes peeling away from the glass on one side, replaced with Howie’s smiling face.
*
At Steve’s Corner Store, the eponymous Steve pulls nervously at the loose fabric of his Hawaiian shirt, cleverly peppered with bold-color drum kits.
“You can’t post your fliers here,” he says, tapping a staccato beat on the counter with his pointer fingers after he hands the sample back to Howie. “What’s up, kid? Stay to the clean side of the store, right? Where’s your other buddy? The nose picker?” I shrug, head for the comics for all ages rack.
Howie, unfazed, admires Steve’s arrangement of behind-the-counter products and pulls a beaded Asian change purse from his pocket to get a few packets of Pop Rocks and Wacky Packs for me and a pack of Camel unfiltereds for him.
“You a Chet Baker man?” Howie asks, tucking away his purse.
“Max Roach,” Steve keeps tapping, chewing gum, warming.
“Right. Drummer,” he points at the print shirt.
“Right,” Steve smiles.
All the walking and talking is making me tired. I find an unsold copy of the final Doc Savage Marvel published last year, pull it off the rack, and sit on the dusty floor with my back against the cooler.
“You want that?” Howie says to me, pulling his purse out again. “We’ll take that, and a Yoo-hoo for him, too. Seems a little low energy for a kid, don’t you think? Yoo-hoo’s the trick. And I’ll take a Oui, Hustler, and a High Society … wait, I have that one. Just the Oui and Hustler then.”
Eventually Steve agrees to keep the fliers behind the counter and put one in every bag that has a nudie magazine. “And they all want a bag,” Steve assures us.
“I’ve got my own,” Howie smiles, holding up my paperboy bag. “But thanks for the support. Remember: Your vote counts!”
“I’ll do the bag stuffin’ thing cuz yer a fahkin’ laugh riot, but I ain’t sendin’ my name in to a gay guy magazine, no matter how many packs a’ butts ya buy.”
“Fair enough. Though you can always use a pseudonym. You know, like Stephanie instead of Steve?”
“Don’t press ya luck. The cops are breathin’ down all our necks about the dirty rag biz, so watch yourself.”
“Right. Yo
u’re a mensch. Thanks, Steve.”
Steve gives a reluctant nod and grins.
It’s our second win, but our luck turns as we zigzag across town, circulating through the business-heavy section of Essex Street. Most stores are too established or too conservative to consider posting a flier of a naked guy. It’s a big NO from the manager at the men’s clothing store, the lady at the counter at Pewter Pot, the ticket booth girl at the Witch Museum, the impossible-to-understand cobbler, the iron-armed baker at Athens, even Mr. Getchell, my wrinkled paper route boss at the North Shore Sunday.
“I like you, kid,” he says to me as if Howie isn’t here. “Don’t get mixed up with this kind of thing. It can only lead to drugs. And jail.”
“Hey, this is news,” Howie waves the flier cheerily.
“You end up in the pokey, don’t come cryin’ to me,” Mr. Getchell’s eyes stay fixed on mine.
“Come on, there’s a story here.” Howie leans over the counter. “You’re a newsman. Think of the headlines.”
“Tell your hippie friend I’m in distribution, not editorial. They tell the stories. I just sell the stories. They’re a mixed bunch in the newsroom, but at least they wear real pants.”
*
We have better luck handing fliers to strangers on the street. Well, at least with the women on the street. Some run away or just look horrified, but most read it, do a double take when they see the photo is actually Howie, giggle, fold it into their purses, and do a triple take as they walk away.
The bars and restaurants speckled around Pickering Wharf have more of a sense of humor about our cause. Most let us post, but only in the bathrooms, alongside the Bruins and Celtics scores.
Howie bursts out laughing as we approach the Bunghole.
“I gotta think this is a joke,” he says, staring at the swooping neon letters.
“The Bunghole? That’s what pirates call the part of the booze barrel where you stick a cork.”
“Oh. Well, excuse me. Now get in the frame Doctor Etymology,” he says, raising his camera to his face and motioning for me to stand in the doorway. “Lou, about to enter the Bunghole,” he narrates. “Ready to sniff out clues to the secret of the universe, buried deep within its hidden folds and twisted passageways.”
