The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman

by Silkstone, Barbara

  I nod in agreement.

  “You can’t keep that going even if you’re madly in love, if you have nothing else going for you.”

  He stands and stretches. He’s a tall, lean man with a shock of white hair, easy to look at.

  “Love means much more than the bedroom to women. It means the caring, it means the commitment. Commitment means ‘honesty’ to a woman.”

  I touch the glass to my lips again. I’m starting to feel a little more relaxed. It’s been a rough week.

  He smiles, “Seldom do friends get married. I see people in court who hate each other. They won’t sit in the same room. You don’t see friends getting a divorce. If more friends got married, there’d be less divorce.”

  A look of pity makes its way into his eyes. “I divorced this lady in my court the other day. Her husband didn’t even show up. She was a good looking lady. After it was all over she said, ‘I’m going to go and buy a bottle of wine to celebrate. Would you join me?’

  “I said, ‘I’d like to, but as your judge that wouldn’t be appropriate and besides why would you ask me?’

  “‘I want somebody to be nice to me for a short while. Just now I need it. You’re the only one who has been nice to me through this whole thing.’ Isn’t that sad? There are people that nobody will be kind to. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t.”

  “Please give me some advice for people.”

  “Short version? If you want a good marriage, marry a friend.”

  Whit exits after four hours of chat and I race to the phone to check my messages. It’s been three weeks and not a word for the investigator. Has Sam found Mark?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “I think we just bored each other.”

  ~ Martin, 34, divorced

  Case 517 / Martin

  “It was during Thanksgiving dinner – I was getting ready to carve the turkey. She says to me, ‘Before you do that, look at this.’ She hands me the divorce papers. I was standing there with a sharp knife in my hands. She must have been crazy.”

  He’s dating an acquaintance of mine. They seem to have a good thing going. Martin sure can talk. Talkers make the toughest interviews as they wade around in a stream of consciousness. Nothing short of cannon fire will slow them up.

  A grocery store manager and part-time musician, Martin’s current lifestyle is minor league, his aspirations are big time. His sandy hair and hazel eyes reflect his heritage, a mixture of Irish, German and Welsh. His bitterness is his own. It hangs in the air around him like a sulfur-colored haze.

  We’re in his apartment in Nashville, a cluster of early packing crates. He shows me around, proudly pointing out plants clinging to life in assorted green bottles. Martin gently handles one of the tendrils. “When this is strong enough I’m going to replant it.” I get the idea he’s speaking for himself as well as the vine.

  He motions me to sit on a black plush sofa that runs half the length of his living room. A friendly German Shepherd pup rests his head on my boot, while two well-fed cats battle over their master. Martin begins to dissect his marriage. “I was twenty-three and thought it was time to settle down. How stupid can one person be? We had a son. I was working in a video store during the daytime and playing with a band at night. I was watching my son while my wife was out with her girlfriends, who covered for her. One of the girlfriends called me. I don’t know what her motive was but she said, ‘I think your wife’s having an affair with her new boss.’

  I had a friend watch our son and I went to this club not too far from where we lived. I had a feeling she was there. She was making out on the dance floor with her boss. What made it worse was that it was at a club where I played before. All the people who worked there knew me. She wanted to get caught. I said to her ‘we can go to counseling if you’ll end your affair.’ But she kept saying, ‘No, no. You’ll never forgive me. No.’”

  “What do you think of marriage now?” I ask.

  “I’m kind of scared to get into it again, but if I find the right person I guess I could give it another try. After our divorce, I took revenge on women many times over, especially if they were married. I don’t know why I did that, ‘cause I wasn’t that type of person. Before I was married, I was always the one who got dumped cause I was always so sweet to the women I dated. I guess I was too clingy then, I was in dire need of someone.”

  I wish for a bandage for his psyche. Something large and sticky to hold him together before he bleeds all over the sofa.

  Martin continues, “Guys detach most of the time. But when I hear women talk about cheating, I guess that male part of their minds kicks in.”

  “How did you feel about the married women you were involved with?”

  “I just figured that’s what I was there for. Women have always found me very attractive. They would hit on me. About fifty-percent of the time I would know they were married.”

  I keep a straight face as I wait to hear the refrain “it just happened.”

  “The last woman I was with before I settled down, I think she was married. She was here visiting from St. Louis. She never gave me her last name. I saw the little indentation on her finger. She didn’t say much and that’s why I was suspicious. We fooled around. She took my phone number but I never heard from her again. I was used.” He fakes a whine.

  The whole interview seems strangely familiar. “Why do you think married women cheat?”

  “Maybe they suspect their husbands. Guys will be going out just to hang out with their friends, not cheat. But they’ll say things like ‘I have to work late,’ instead of just saying, ‘ I’m going out with the guys.’ Then when she calls the office and there’s no answer, she’ll get suspicious, especially if it keeps happening. Then she’ll want to even the score. And some women just live for the adventure of it. But it’s too dangerous.”

  “If you fell in love again, can you imagine ever laying your life down to save your woman?”

  “Of course not.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  “I knew she was the right woman for me.

  She just kept marrying other guys.”

  ~ Garrett, 42 married

  Case 519 / Garrett

  Although I’m here to interview her husband, Linda does most of the talking. Garrett seems to enjoy her verbal domination. Despite my gentle suggestions for her to leave the room, Linda stays. “It took me two wrong marriages to realize that the guy for me was right in front of me.” She squeezes his arm. I try to contain my frustration. Who invited her? Sure, she called to set up the interview but I figured she understood no girls allowed. The bait for me was that her husband Garrett had waited through her two previous marriages and twenty years of separation to finally wed his first love, Linda.

  Garrett and Linda sit side by side on a small sofa in their clean little tract home in a subdivision just outside Birmingham. “I was always attracted to the bad boys,” she says. “Garrett is such a great guy, I just thought of him as a friend.”

  Her new husband is tall, slender, and muscular. He has a shock of unruly hair and freckles which make him look like a kid. “I waited for Linda for half my life,” he says as he reaches for her hand.

  “Garrett’s a nurturer. He’s one of ten children,” Linda says. “I’m the youngest of three sisters, spoiled and proud of it.” Linda looks younger than her forty something years. She’s pretty in a wholesome way.

  “How come you waited all that time for her?” I ask.

  “I knew Linda was the right one, but she kept marrying other men.”

  “How did you not get married during those twenty years?” I ask him as he appears to be a nesting-man, the kind of guy who needs a wife and home. At this point I’ve gotten good at deciphering the hieroglyphics of the emotionally hungry.

  He looks at Linda before speaking. “There was a woman I cared about once, but I knew it wasn’t love. I almost proposed to that woman, but something stayed my words.”

  Linda’s nasty little dog chops at my boot heel. I tu
ck my feet against the sofa. “The pup?” I ask helplessly as the Chihuahua takes a personal dislike to my boots... THE boots. She pulls a strip of leather from the left heel.

  “Yeah,” Linda laughs. “She doesn’t like strangers. Just hold still, she’ll give up in a minute or two.”

  Not a fan of drop-kick dogs, I bring my notebook toward my neck just in case. The dog didn’t look like a leaper, but we cat people are uneasy around nippy mutts. I focus on Garrett while glaring at Linda and the snarler.

  “At the moment I almost proposed to that other woman, Linda was divorcing for the second time. This time the universe was working for me.”

  Linda interrupts him. “I just knew it was time for me to settle down. I was ready to fall in love. Before then I had my wild oats stage to go through. Garrett’s always been my first love but I wasn’t ready for him. He’s always been ready for me.”

  It takes two to make a first love successful. As I listen to Linda tell Garrett what he feels and what he’s thinking, I silently swear that I will never attempt to interview women. As I pull out of their driveway and head back to my hotel I realize I’m at the end of my rope. I will most certainly lose my mind if I continue. I’m slightly over halfway to my one thousand men and I’m not sure I can go any further.

  There are no messages on my cell. Sam hasn’t found Mark. Maybe he’s dead. No... it would be easier to find him if he were. No. He’s alive. But if he’s married, he’s as good as dead to me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “Love? At one point in my life I think I was optimistic.”

  ~ Ty, 43, married

  Dying for Love

  I’m at the end of my journey and the taste of Sal’s warning sits dead in my mouth like last night’s beer – Don’t ask a question, if you can’t handle the answer. I’ve asked too many questions all in the name of love. I still don’t know if love is real or just an illusion dreamed up by lonely people and dating services.

  I’m at a dinner party in a private home somewhere south of Alexandria, Virginia. After the first round of scintillating conversation about babies, lawn fertilizers, and politics, there is blessed silence, and then my interviewing project becomes the entrée. “What was the most surprising thing you learned from talking to all those men?” Jane, the wife-half of one couple asks. The dinner conversation slides to a halt. Six sets of inquiring eyes turn my way.

  I hesitate to answer her question. Can she handle it? Can anyone?

  “Tell us, please,” Jane’s husband, Pete, asks.

  I look at the faces of my dinner companions. They hunger for the romantic imagery they hope I’ll conjure up. Our hearts are strongest where they have been broken. I decide to share my strength with them.

  I’ve completed over five hundred interviews and I’ve altered in the process. I’ve stood by while clueless men picked through the bones of relationships. I’ve nodded in agreement as each one mourned the demise of something I questioned the existence of ... true love. Was love real or something created in the Disney studios?

  The tale of Ty sums up my most surprising lesson. And so I choose to dissect him for the smiling dinner guests. My hosts will regret inviting me because at this stage I’m not the best entertainment. All eyes are on me.

  I think of the movie scene where Hannibal Lector serves the villain his sautéed brains for dinner, and the villain numbly eats them. I’m about to cook their hearts and serve them with fava beans. Sorry folks.

  “Here’s a perfect example of what I encountered.” I smile at my companions. “At forty-three, Ty is a hunk. He has his own construction company in the Carolinas, specializing in designing and building large rustic second homes for wealthy Floridians. His wife is a beauty with a degree in interior design. She recently closed her business in order to spend more time with their kids. Their twins are fifteen and both the boy and girl need a bit more supervision.”

  “Exactly where were you when you interviewed him and what were you wearing?” Cammie asks.

  The need to identify with me is something I continue to find amusing. Everyone wants to be there with me in spirit as I talk the talk. “We were in one of the homes Ty had recently completed. He was doing a final walk-through that afternoon. We used the morning to get into his head. I was wearing my usual inquiring reporter outfit – jeans, a sweater, and boots. Ty was dressed as hunky lumberjack.”

  The women at the table nodded. They’re now in tune with me.

  “Ty talked about meeting his wife and loving her first for her and then as the mother of his kids. He confessed to his embarrassment for not ever having had an affair as his work involved being around other guys most of the time and so there was no opportunity. Ty didn’t use the Internet and wasn’t a drinker. His conscience in the adultery column was clean.”

  “Was he passionately in love with his wife?” Jane asked.

  “No, actually his feelings were more brotherly. He said he couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex. His caring for her was confined to her status as the mother of his kids.”

  I sense a little squirming at the dining table and decide to go right for the punch line. “After we talked for a few hours, I asked Ty the most important question I carry in my quiver of queries. I asked him if he would die for his wife.” My words hang suspended over the dinner table.

  “‘Why would I want to do that?’ Ty asked.”

  In unison the men find something of great interest on their plates. There is no further guy eye contact. The women are deer in the lights of my oncoming car.

  “I pushed Ty a bit more until he finally responded. ‘Maybe I answered too quickly. Give me an example.’”

  My fellow dinner guests sit stricken with fear. It’s as if they sense what’s coming.

  “I set the scenario of the small plane going down with only one parachute on board. Would he give it to his wife?”

  “‘This is confidential, right? You won’t use my real name, right?’ he asked.”

  I watch their faces – actually the women’s faces as the men continue to look down.

  “Ty answered, ‘If there were only one chute and it was just my wife and me I’d take the chute.’”

  There is a long, dark pause. No one at the table speaks.

  “Ty kept on digging love’s grave. ‘What would that accomplish... dying for my wife? She doesn’t have a career.’ I wait for their response. There is a collective look of disgust on the faces of the lady guests. I feel the need to give them the complete picture. “Once Ty realized how bad he sounded, he tried to correct what he said. He made it worse.”

  “‘If we were being held at gunpoint and the gunman said – it’s either you or her – I wouldn’t say it’s her, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t say take me instead either.’”

  The woman diners hang on my words looking for comfort.

  “Less than three percent of the men I interviewed said they would be willing to die for the woman they loved.”

  “What?” Lady voices whisper.

  Jane speaks first. “Only three percent of the men? That’s like only fifteen men out of five hundred.”

  The husbands are quiet as they wait for a reprieve.

  Jane persists. “Maybe they didn’t understand the question. Maybe if they really were in a life or death situation, they might react differently.”

  I sigh. “No other response from the men was that consistent or that lopsided in percentages. Had it been fifty-fifty, I might buy that theory. They understood the question.”

  “Maybe they were all just lying to impress you,” Jane processes her shock.

  “In that case, the answers would have been just the opposite, wouldn’t you think?”

  The ladies all nod in agreement. Nancy, an attractive blond turns to her husband of twelve years, “Jeff, I’d die for you in a minute,” she says, hoping that he will respond in kind.

  Jeff stares at this wife. “Why all the drama? Dying for love. How often does that come up?”

  “It j
ust helps to quantify love,” Nancy responds.

  Cammie jumps in. “You’d give me the chute, right Rob?” She hugs her lover and laughs. Two years together with much to learn.

  Rob ceases to butter his bread. “We’re being honest here, dead honest?”

  Cammie nods, gnawing on her lower lip.

  Rob sounds their death knoll. “What would be the point?”

  “I don’t think I wanted to know that,” Jane says.

  “I know,” I say.

  It occurs to me as I drive back to my hotel that perhaps my project might have attracted a number of upside-down narcissists. I know what the right-side-up versions are like. Sleazy Steve’s counselor made that clear. Narcissists are very reluctant to open up and trust. They lie. They misread people and often erroneously believe they are liked and respected. They want to be told that everything they do is better than what others do.

  My interviewed men are the exact opposite. They’re completely open and looking for some shred of confirmation. But then I think of all the Chet’s and Len’s and Mitch’s who enjoyed the opportunity to narcissistically talk to me in safety. Either way I have over-indulged and feel sick at heart.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  “Love is something I haven’t mastered yet.”

  ~ Roland, 61, married

  Case 520 / Roland

  Roland is tall, with a high forehead and a friendly face. He has a funny way of wrinkling his upper lip as if smelling something awful. Despite this quirk, he’s a pleasant man. His five children are his joy, his career is his passion, and his church and his forty-year marriage are his strength. Roland is a Mormon.

  I’m having one of those days when I’m sure someone is sticking little pins into a doll that looks a lot like me.

  Roland greets me in the foyer of his building and leads me to his private office. As we walk in, I miscalculate the layout of his room and sit down in his chair which is closer to the doorway. I sit there wondering why the drawers in his desk face his guests.