by Lou Cove
“I feel it,” Howie says convincingly, joining us low to the ground.
“I feel it,” Mama says, and she’s crying again.
“I feel it,” I confess.
“We feel it,” Papa adds, bouncing David in his arms. “And we feel hungry! Let’s eat.”
We say good-bye for the last time before bed. When we wake up, just like that, our friends are gone.
Part III
The Center Folds
The Anticlimax Doesn’t Last Long
One week drags. Two. Penny averts her eyes in class, dematerializes when school is over. Gretchen deliberately fills the void, responding to any opening I provide. We try hanging out after school at the pool at Salem State. She rides my back in the water, nearly chokes me with her ferocity, grinds against my tailbone, and lets me reach behind and push aside her red one-piece. The excitement is bracing but when I get home my mind drifts. I never imagined fingering a girl would feel like a consolation prize, but there it is.
Truthfully, everything is a consolation prize. The naked wonders are gone. The extravagant scents, evaporated. But what I can’t understand, or even admit, is that the unity Howie and Carly brought to our family is gone, too. I thought their spirit had rubbed off on all of us. How could it slip away so easily?
I spend my nights waiting for a ring. What I wouldn’t do for a phone call, a telegram, a set of dashes and dots. There’s no way to know what’s happening out there in America. How many votes have come in. Who’s in the lead. Whether the boner is truly the competitive advantage it seems or the turgid nail in the campaign coffin. They don’t handicap this kind of race in the papers or on the CBS Evening News. It’s a blackout.
Until today.
“Hey, niño.” That voice, staticky and far away, pops the brittle bubble of feeling I’ve been holding inside. I hard-swallow a sob. “We won!” he shouts. “We won! Fuckin’ A, motherfucker! Pat yourself on the back, son.”
“I knew you would,” I tell him. Grief plus distance plus victory equals numb.
“We would,” he says.
But this is far from the triumphant scene I imagined of us sitting on the front steps, surprised by a Publisher’s Clearing House type with an oversized check. We’d be dancing in the street, TV reporters jamming microphones in our faces. Uli and Papa and the converted Chestnut Street snobs lifting us on their shoulders and singing “We Are the Champions” at the tops of our lungs.
“So listen, they’re sending me on a press junket as soon as I get back. Gonna see the world, score the new wardrobe, meet with the Hollywood elites, wine, dine, feel all fine.”
“Wicked,” I answer, aware there can be no real party without Howie here.
“And it looks like the tour’s going to bring me back to Boston in July or August. So we’ll get to celebrate together then, OK?”
My heart leaps a little. Settles. Too little, too late.
“Oh, and you’re not going to believe this. We’re in a truck stop in Nebraska and they’re playing ‘Disco Duck’ on the jukebox. Somebody paid to put that on. I gotta go before my head explodes. But listen, you’re the man. You’re my main man. And you should feel all kinds of proud right now. Do you feel it?”
“I feel it. I do,” I tell him, softening. “But mostly I’m proud of you. You worked so hard for this … I just wish you’d come back.”
“Soon. Soon.”
“Congratulations,” I say. “I love you.”
“We love you, too!”
Carly calls “We LOVE you!” over “Disco Duck” and they click off.
I stand in the front hall looking at the phone, the wallpaper peeling behind it. I pull at the frayed strip, stick the tip of my finger into the horsehair plaster, and dig a hole. The house has fallen quiet.
*
Playgirl received four million votes during the four-month voting period for Man of the Year. I have no idea how many came from the North Shore of Boston, but that doesn’t diminish the thrill of pride when my signed issue arrives in the mail.
From a business standpoint, though, the June issue is a bit of a disappointment. Howie’s not on the cover like Monique St. Pierre is for Playboy. It’s just some guy and some woman, fully clothed and not particularly sexy. There’s an interview with Joe Namath, an article about “What Men Really Do on Business Trips,” and a blue and yellow banner in the bottom right corner that says: “Special Sixth Anniversary Issue: Our Man of the Year Contest Winner.” It doesn’t even have his name!
The Inside Playgirl letter from the publisher, Ira Ritter, introduces Dianne Grosskopf as the new executive editor but doesn’t mention the contest.
Howie shows up first at the top of a painter’s ladder opposite Jimmy Hakim, Mr. October 1975, and twelve other former centerfolds, as part of the sixth-anniversary centerfold reunion. Hakim is doing a Tony Manero: bright red polyester shirt with oversized collar spreading out over the shoulders of his black leather jacket. Howie’s in a powder-blue three-piece, jacket slung over his shoulder and a look on his face that says Hey, wait a minute like something funny’s going on. Because something funny is going on. Why, for one, is he sharing the ladder with Jimmy Hakim? I think he’s one step higher, so his head is a millimeter or two closer to the top of the page than Hakim’s. Higher than anyone else, as you’d expect for the Man of the Year. But it’s by a hair.
The next page has an outtake from his original photo shoot. I haven’t seen it before. It’s a full nude, lying on his side, biting an apple, come-hither eyes. His circumcised penis, held loosely in his left hand, still has that plasticky makeup look to it. If you look closely you can see the tan line where his wedding ring should be. Maybe that’s why they didn’t use this shot the first time? But why now? And why not a whole new shoot? It’s not even an exclusive spread because he’s sharing this one with Rock Pamplin, Man of the Year 1976 and Man of the First Five Years. It says Rock just cowrote a song with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys called “It’s Like Heaven” that Shaun Cassidy will sing on his next album. But after the Brittania Jeans Hong Kong baloney I don’t trust anything I read in Playgirl.
“I do know one thing,” writes copy editor Dale Weintraub, who chauffeured Howie to a local LA morning show hosted by some guy named Regis Philbin, second name even stupider than the first: “Spending a day with this adorable creature convinced me that our readers made an excellent choice!”
And that’s it.
“Bit of an anticlimax,” Papa says, tossing the magazine on the bar and racking up the billiard balls for a game.
He’s right, but I’m in no mood to concede. “He still won,” I say, scratching on the break.
“Some victories matter more than others.”
I drop the cue and it clacks loudly on the floor.
“Hey! That costs money!”
“Why don’t you ever support him?” I ask hotly.
“Support him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you not notice him living in our house and eating our food for almost twelve months?”
“And helping. And taking care of me and Amanda and David…”
“And that.”
“You weren’t.” I gulp at the words, too late to pull them back, knowing it’s unfair to compare his presence in the house to someone without a job.
He doesn’t speak, just glares. Papa eyes. Then: “Where’d you get those sneakers?”
“Bradlees.”
“Who paid for them? And that pile of comics in your room? Or this house?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“That’s what taking care of your family looks like,” he says. “Not like smoking pot on the roof or driving a VW bus before you’re even thirteen or going on a speaking tour of the ladies from the yacht clubs and canasta cliques. That’s playing, not parenting.”
“Maybe you should try playing sometime,” I say.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing right now?!” he shouts.
*
The anticlimax
doesn’t last long. Within a week we learn that Howie and Carly will be on Donahue. Mama lets us stay home from school, eat popcorn, and watch in the TV room. We never get out of our pj’s.
Phil holds up a copy of Howie’s spread to his audience. “Can we talk about it for a second? Just for a second?” he asks plaintively. “Women have been posing nude in magazines for a long time, so it’s about time that women have the same opportunity to look at men.”
A bucktooth blonde lady in a white collared shirt and black vest raises her hand and Phil rushes to her with the microphone. “I agree, it’s been too long. Men sit around all the time looking at women. It’s our turn.” She smiles proudly, having taken a stance, but the audience isn’t going along.
“But I’ve heard from some,” Phil says, scratching at his silver helmet, “that women are not as … how can I say this?… positively affected by that as men are.”
“Well, they’ve never given us nice ones to look at before!” the bucktooth woman grins into the mic. This time she gets a laugh.
“Oh! Well, it’s alright then. How many think it’s alright?” Phil turns to the crowd. I’ve never watched this show before but I know it’s huge and I’m amazed by it. One man in a room full of women, leading a conversation about the issues of the day. He claps along, kind of egging them on, but makes a face when not everybody joins in. He squints, holds the mic to his chest like something’s hurting in his rib cage, and plays devil’s advocate when needed. “It’s, ahhh, just a little bit vulgar…” he says, allowing the prudish holdouts to vote their conscience. Phil approaches one of them gingerly and asks softly, “Will you talk to me? Help me out? Stand up for just a second. It’s easy, really. If I can do it, you can do it…”
I’ve gotten so used to Howie and Playgirl and men posing nude I hadn’t quite internalized just how radical this whole notion is for Middle America.
Sort of.
Phil lets us know that the magazine’s annual readership has broken the twenty million mark, pushing it to number six of the most profitable newsstand magazines for women and sixteenth most profitable of all magazines for the decade. They’re all reading it.
He takes the hand of an old lady objector and helps her to stand up.
“I think the children get into these magazines too much these days,” she says.
“And you think it’s worse for a man to pose nude than for a woman?”
“Oh, I think so. There’s more there!” The crowd laughs wildly and so does the old lady. She rides the wave, then adds, “We’re from the old school. We just don’t go for a lot of the new things.”
“I understand,” Phil assures her. “You’re going to be able to stay for the show, though?”
“Oh, sure!”
Phil holds up the fat boy photo first. “Cute, huh?” The audience agrees. “Well, here he is today.” He holds up a Playgirl calendar with Howie on the cover. “I want you to meet Playgirl’s 1979 Man of the Year. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Howie Gordon!”
The Donahue theme song starts to play, and here comes Howie in the powder-blue three-piece suit and tie.
“Look at him!” Mama says. “Look. At. Him!”
“He doesn’t usually dress like that,” Amanda lisps through the fingers in her mouth.
“What do you expect? Silk pants?” I say. “This is DONAHUE.” Howie’s waving to the crowd. He’s smiling. He shakes hands as he comes down the aisle! He’s practically bouncing to the stage to stand beside Phil. The audience, almost entirely gray-haired ladies, claps politely and smiles, some bashful, some disapproving. I know them all so well, the ladies from the JCC and the mah jong club. They’re no different in Chicago. “I should be there,” I say.
The show cuts to commercial—three things we discovered denture wearers hate about denture adhesives—and then we’re back. And Carly’s there.
“Carly,” Phil says to her in his let’s-be-honest way.
“Yes?” she giggles softly, smiling that bright moonbeam smile. The puffy eyes are gone. She looks happy.
“I’m not going to wait long to ask you this question: I mean how … what … what’s it like to be married to a man who’s in his altogether on every magazine rack in the country?”
Carly, smiling ear-to-ear, answers easily. “It’s kinda nice.”
“Howie…” Phil says, stopping and starting dramatically, “so, what’s it … well … congratulations, you’re the Man of the Year.”
“Thank you,” Howie just beams. He’s there. He’s famous. “THANK you!” he says again, like it’s about time someone said something nice, instead of asking how weird it is. Or vulgar. Or wrong.
“They voted for you, huh?”
“Yes!” he nods and beams.
“So, what do you do when you’re not having your picture taken?”
“I’m an actor, primarily.”
“So, this is a nice bit of hype for you. I guess it’s legal and…”
“Legal? Why did he ask that? Is Howie illegal?” Amanda asks, alarmed.
“No, he’s not illegal. Listen,” Mama says.
“It’s a great role,” Howie says, unleashing that trademark smile. “A sex symbol is a nice role to play and I have a year to try to perfect it. As long as you’re going to be a symbol for something, sex isn’t a bad thing to be a symbol for.”
“Yeahhh…” Phil ponders this, takes a question from the audience.
“I’d like to know who does the voting,” asks someone we can’t see.
“Playgirl readers,” Howie says. “Yourselves.”
Phil takes a few more questions, then decides to widen the conversation after a bit.
“Dianne Grosskopf is here,” he says, “and she is executive editor of Playgirl. You are the youngest executive editor of a leading magazine, are you not?”
“That’s right,” says a pretty woman in the front row.
“Are you the final judge and jury on this…?” Phil gestures to Howie.
“Yes, I am,” she laughs.
“How’d you get that job?” Donahue begins, then changes tack because the question sounds condescending. “In other words, do you review photos as well as candidates?”
“I’m the one,” she laughs again. “I’m the dirty lady.”
“I’m sorry,” Phil tries to explain himself, “but I’ve got this mental picture. You know, the old cliché story of the guy, the movie mogul, that walks up to the little waitress at Schwab’s Delicatessen and says ‘you’re gonna be a star!’ You do that for men, don’t you?”
“Little waitress…” Mama murmurs. “Feh.”
Dianne nods in response, explains the Playgirl process a bit, then brings it back to Howie. “Howie became Man of the Year,” she continues, smiling his way, “because his charisma came right through on the camera. His centerfold was one of our most successful because women could identify with him. His personality came across and it’s very difficult—men are not as comfortable posing naked as women who pose for Playboy.”
A woman who looks like a hippie version of Grandma Charlotte—bigger hair, bigger glasses—says, “I’ve never seen a centerfold and I don’t know if I want to. But they look great with clothes on.”
Phil offers to show her but then says, “I don’t want to make you see it if you really don’t want to.”
“I really don’t want to,” Hippie Grandma laughs, “but I do like them with clothes on!”
A pretty blonde stands up and says, “I’m a nurse, so I look at bodies all the time in surgery. And we keep a poster of Playgirl in the locker room to remind us that there are decent ones around.” The crowd erupts, and Howie cheers her on.
“I took off my clothes and got photographed,” Howie explains to the audience, which has gradually begun to melt in the palm of his hand, just like people always do. Just like I did. “OK, that’s a bit strange. Any time you’re dealing with the beast of sexuality you arouse a lot of feelings, positive and negative. But I don’t feel bad about what I’ve done, and I work at
not getting involved in other people’s disapproval.”
But Phil isn’t letting him off that easily.
“Hmmm…” he thinks aloud. “Women for a long time had to deal with the pressure that goes with not looking like those airbrushed people in Playboy…” Barbi Benton. Debra Jo Fondren. Susan Lynn Kiger. Jill DeVries. “… and some women have really resented the whole implication that bigger is better…” The audience titters. “If you took a profile of American women, most of them don’t fall into that kind of D-cup thirty-eight … Maybe men are buying into that same game of centimeters and maybe that’s worrying about the wrong thing?”
“I feel like that man with the white hair doesn’t like him,” Amanda says sadly to Mama.
“Some people don’t feel comfortable with nudity,” Mama answers her. “That’s OK. That’s what Howie’s saying. You don’t have to look if you don’t like it.”
“They’re hung up,” I tell them, seeing it all now. So 1950s! So McCarthyesque! “Repressed. Puritans.”
Mama laughs. “What do you know about being repressed?” She’s being soft but the comment chars.
“If adults spent more time worrying about nuclear death and less time worrying about naked boobs, we’d all be better off,” I recommend.
“I agree with that,” Mama nods, eyes on Howie.
“Then why don’t you pose naked in a magazine?” Amanda snipes.
An older southern lady stands up and says she grew up around brothers and isn’t intimidated by the human body and loves sex, but the male genitals are ugly and nothing will change her mind about that.
“Have you seen my centerfold?” Howie shouts from the stage. “Maybe that will be a first step!”
“Well, I’ve seen some of these magazines,” the lady snaps. “I don’t know if it was Playboy or Playgirl or what. But some of the things I’ve seen on the news racks today, they turn my stomach. They’re revolting.”
“You know, maybe we should take a break,” Mama says, standing to turn off the TV.
Amanda, David, and I shout in unison, “NO!”
The debate heats up, Phil Donahue defending women, men, anyone who might be objectified by the “adult industry.”
