by Chris Kenry
I tried to implement a system where I’d check pages only once an hour. Then, wherever I was, whoever I was with, I’d sneak away to an isolated corner with my Day-Timer and my cell phone, and answer page after page as quickly as I could, do the scheduling, and then call everyone to make sure they each knew where they were going. It was unnerving, to say the least, and I realized that I was going to have to do something when one Saturday evening I kept a trick waiting in the car while I sat in a convenience-store bathroom for thirty minutes on the phone.
So here’s what I did: I spoke to Ray and to all the guys who were working then and asked if they would feel comfortable if we rented a place, maybe one with multiple rooms, and started working out of there. Of course we’d still do outcalls, but if tricks wanted or needed to come to us, then they could do so. I’d have to take another five percent of their gross, I told them, but we were so in demand then that I figured we could probably raise prices to compensate for the amount and they probably wouldn’t even feel the pinch. A place of our own would be safer and it would make it much easier to keep track of everything. Everyone agreed, and we all decided something centrally located in Capitol Hill would be best. I started looking immediately, but was quickly discouraged because all of the live-in rentals I looked at were always short on rooms and usually had an on-site landlord. I banged my head against this wall for a week until Roger, one of the poli-sci students, who was doing an internship at the state capitol, mentioned that he’d seen some office space for rent on Thirteenth Avenue, within spitting distance of the capitol building itself.
“Office space!” I said doubtfully. “That won’t work. People coming and going all day. Too suspicious.”
“Dude, it’s not like that,” he said. “This is crappy office space. It’s been for rent forever. Check it out.” And he gave me the number of the leasing agent.
I called it right away, figuring it was worth a shot, and arranged to meet the landlord that very afternoon. I showed up on time, but he kept me waiting for nearly forty minutes, which infuriated me because I’d already had to reschedule one client and now it looked like I’d have to reschedule another. I was just about to leave when a man pulled up in a wheezing Plymouth from the seventies. He got out, and the first thing I noticed was that his suit had evidently last been cleaned sometime in that same decade, covered as it was with a menu of dried food. He apologized and explained that he was coming from Golden, a dismal city that can use the name only satirically, and it had taken him a while to get the car started. I nodded impatiently and asked some general questions about the building.
“This place was built back in the thirties,” he said, smoothing his greasy locks and opening the door. I looked at the building and had to agree; everything about it screamed Depression. From the outside it wasn’t terrible—a simple, rectangular, two-tone blond-brick made gray from auto pollution, with large metal windows, but inside it was dark and miserable: a central hallway lit by wan fluorescent tubes, off of which were dark rooms of various sizes. I smelled bathrooms, but saw none. The offices he showed me were on the second floor, which was completely vacant. The lower level, a series of storefronts accessible only from the sidewalk, was partially rented out to a hip-hop clothing store and an Indian restaurant.
I walked around from room to dismal room, and somehow I saw potential. The whole place was in desperate need of paint, and the carpet was beyond cleaning, but these units were not going to rent anytime soon and they were cheap!
It would be possible, I thought. Definitely possible.
I ended up renting four of the six rooms on the top floor, two of which were equipped with small bathrooms, each containing a sink and a toilet. I told him we would be setting up private exercise rooms, and was there any way we could run plumbing for two small showers.
“I don’t have anything against you doing improvements on the place,” he said, “but it’s Mother’s property, really, and I don’t know if she’d pay for any of it. We’re sort of hoping for someone to buy the place up.”
Not likely, I thought, looking up at the water-stained ceiling tiles.
“Well, what about a break on the rent, then?” I asked. “If we paint and recarpet ...”
He hesitated, thinking.
“I guess I could do that. You save the receipts and I’ll pay for one-third of the materials,” he said.
“Half,” I countered.
“I don’t know if Mother—”
“Look,” I said, not liking this “Mother” woman, “I’m renting almost the whole top floor; give me a break. The improvements will surely help the resale value.”
“Well, I guess that seems okay,” he said finally, and I wrote him a check for the deposit and first month’s rent and drew up a contract stating that he would pay for half the cost of materials and had him sign it.
And that’s how we started our office complex of ill fame.
I immediately hired Antonio and Victor to come in and plumb two showers and recarpet and paint. They were very professional about the whole thing: covering the windows with makeshift curtains and working at night so that the building-code enforcer wouldn’t discover that they hadn’t pulled permits, and buying twice the amount of supplies necessary so that my receipts would add up to the full amount, later returning what was not used for cash. In a little over two weeks, it was ready for us to move in. I didn’t have much capital left after I paid them, but I took what I had and bought four refurbished, full-size mattresses and box springs from Goodwill for a cost of only three hundred and ten dollars, and as many cheap sets of sheets as I could afford from Kmart. Then I bought four small “used” TV-VCR combos from, uh, “associates” of Antonio and Victor for thirty-five dollars apiece, all of which I was able to deduct from my taxes, along with the cost of the building improvements as business expenses since, under Hole’s tutelage, I had recently filed articles of incorporation and was now officially operating under the name Harden Up Inc.
I took the largest of the four rooms and made that into the office/waiting room, and moved my kitchen table, to which I had now grown attached as a desk, to this office. I had a phone hooked up with three lines, and Seth donated a computer system and got us set up with some excellent bookkeeping and accounting software. He also set up a spread sheet from which we could print everyone’s daily schedule complete with room assignments.
Millie’s girl Josie, for Millie had become a contractor too, came by twice daily for laundry pickups and drop-offs, and always did just the nicest job, everything pressed and boxed up like little presents, and no questions asked. Most of the guys took to giving her their own laundry to do as well, the cost of which I deducted automatically from their pay.
Print ads were giving us a lot of business, but with all of the new expenses I found we still needed more. I took a gamble on Sharise and it proved a profitable one. I approached her one day after class and asked if she would be interested in setting up a Web page for us, intimating that I wasn’t exactly running the type of business I’d indicated in class.
“Honey,” she said, giving me a world-weary look, “this is the Net we’re talking about. The World Wide Web! Believe me, I’ve seen it all. I’m telling you there is piss little that shocks me anymore.”
And, true to her word, she worked quickly and efficiently, apparently oblivious to the content. We gave her all of our print ads, and she scanned them and made us an incredible site, that at its peak was getting up to two hundred hits a day.
As if there weren’t enough on our plate, Ray and I decided to extend a branch of the business into filmmaking. The topic arose one night when we were lying in bed discussing what we found erotic, and agreed that most gay pornography would not make the cut.
“Everyone is so young and shaved and clean-cut,” I said, “which would be fine if there were some variety, but it’s all so one-dimensional and boring.”
“And all the limp dicks!” Ray added. “How exciting is that?”
And it was true. The
majority of gay film stars may very well be as straight as they say they are, since they never seem very aroused by their male counterparts.
“You know what would be my ideal porno movie?” Ray said thoughtfully. “Mormon missionaries.”
I laughed.
“No, really,” he said. “It’d be perfect. You have two fresh young guys sent out into the world in suits and on ten-speeds to spread the word of Brigham Young. Then, on some lonely night, in a barn, or maybe some hot afternoon when they stop for a swim ... things happen. Later on they can get seduced by—or seduce—guys in the outside world, going from house to friendly house, getting help with a flat tire from a horny gas station attendant ... It’d be great! It’s taboo, it’s sacrilegious, and it would be funny!”
I wasn’t laughing; I was thinking. Thinking that it didn’t sound at all like a bad idea. All of us working for Harden Up Inc. had, at one time or another, made movies in Dave’s basement or elsewhere, so we were all relatively comfortable in front of the camera, and most of us had slept together in duos at least once. My mind whizzed as I thought of the potential money to be made. Production costs would be cheap, copying videos could not be that expensive, packaging and distribution I could learn about from Hole, and I’m sure we could sell them in his stores. Hell, we could sell them on the Web site, maybe put an ad in Advocate Men; it was perfect!
I snapped out of my reverie. Ray was off on another plot....
“. . . and so they could all be camping in the woods, you know, to get their last Eagle Scout badge or something, and then the Scoutmast—”
“How soon do you think we could do this?” I interrupted.
“You serious?”
“Completely serious.”
He thought for a moment. “Well, let’s see, I know this friend, the one who helped me get my car, actually. I’m pretty sure Sally’s got all the equipment—and knows how to use it.”
I said nothing but got up to retrieve my cell phone. Ray looked up the number, called, and arranged for “Sally” to meet us at the office the next day. Well, imagine my surprise when Sally walked through the door and I saw that “she” was none other than slow-eyed Salvatore from the microbusiness class.
“Here’s the friend I was telling you about,” Ray said, leading him into the office and sitting down on the couch. Salvatore and I stared at each other, both terribly embarrassed, but said nothing about our connection. I filled Ray in on the details later.
“I pitched the idea to him,” Ray said, “and he’s definitely interested, aren’t ya, Sal?”
“Why, uh, yes,” he stammered. “It sounds most satisfactory.”
“Uh, great,” I said, and together we sat down very professionally and worked out the details in a contract, agreeing that in exchange for his filming services, we would pay off the balance he owed on his equipment, thus enabling him to get it out of hock.
Later that night, after I’d informed Ray of my previous acquaintance with Salvatore, he told me the story of how they had met: Ray had been taking pictures around the mortuary one day and Salvatore, curious about cameras, had approached him. They talked, and Ray persuaded him to let him take some pictures inside the mortuary, and a morbid friendship was born, one result of which was Ray’s acquisition of his unique mode of transportation.
“Sal’s a good guy,” Ray said reassuringly. “And he needs money. He’s had a hard time since he got fired, but I guess you know that.”
I nodded. “Why did he get fired?”
Ray laughed.
“Oh, big scandal! He got caught stealing the fillings from the stiffs when they came out of the oven. He had a nice little scam going with this crooked jeweler on Larimer Street.”
And thus we began our movie careers, with Salvatore, the former filling-stealer, as our cameraman. Ray and I wrote the script (which filled almost an entire page), and of course we cast ourselves in the lead roles, and our few free evenings were soon occupied with scouting sites and preparing the costumes and props, which was as much, if not more fun than making our advertisements had been.
Costuming wasn’t much of a problem, requiring only two identical dark blue suits and a couple of skinny ties, all of which we got from a vintage shop on Colfax. For props, we dug up a pair of bikes, a pair of small backpacks, and of course, two Bibles.
We did several outside shots of us riding our bikes together and walking together, Bibles always clutched tightly in our hands, and one scene where we sat on some porch steps and pretended to convert Millie’s girl Josie, who was confused and a little frightened, but played along anyway. The initial sex scene, the one in which Ray and I finally satisfy our long-repressed adolescent longing for each other, took place in a wheat field and was, to say the least, rough. The wheat stalks, although beautiful, were sharp and itchy, and the bugs and the traffic helicopter circling overhead were constant pests. But, being consummate professionals, we acted through the adversity and finished the show, only to discover later that the action, while highly arousing, was not visible much of the time, since Salvatore hadn’t thought it necessary to zoom in and get tight shots, or to really change the camera angles very much at all. A problem that was soon remedied after we sent him home with a stack of Falcon tapes to study. When we resumed filming a few days later, all went smoothly. All except the scene in which Ray and I are seduced by Burl, who, like a child at his own birthday party, smiled and waved at the camera.
That and the fact that I did something that almost brought the whole business down like a house of cards.
22
GAY MARVIN
I’ve often wondered about the thought processes, or lack thereof, that are behind really bad ideas. I don’t mean bad ideas like the Edsel, or the movie Waterworld, that started out well, but failed because they didn’t appeal to the market or because they were so over budget that they could never hope to make a profit. No, I’m talking about the ideas that were clearly destined for failure from the start, like meat-flavored ice cream or plus sizes of spandex shorts. What is it that clouds sound business judgment and hinders informed decision making, leading you to believe that you are doing the right thing, and only later, after the dust has settled following the explosion, are you able to see clearly how terribly stupid the idea was from the beginning?
Hiring Marvin as the Harden Up Inc. receptionist was just such an idea.
In my case, my judgment was obscured by a mix of things: overwork, fatigue, desperation, tenderhearted pity for those less fortunate than myself ... but if I’m truly honest with myself (self-delusion being self-pollution), it was all vanity. Oh, I was definitely overworked, fatigued, and desperate, as the business had increased exponentially in the past six weeks and the administrative work—the scheduling, the bookkeeping, the taxes, etc.—was killing me. But what really drove me to my bad idea was the vain decision to cast myself in the starring role of Missionary Positions. Filming would pull me away from the office for days, and I realized that I could not just abandon ship without having someone there to steer it in my absence. Why I thought Marvin would be capable of the task, I’m not sure. I knew he had some office experience (although I also knew he’d been fired for incompetence or tardiness from every job he’d ever had), and knew he wouldn’t be shocked about the product we were selling. Most of all, I knew he needed a job, and I liked the image of myself as his savior, giving him the chance, the opportunity, the brass ring he so desperately wanted and needed. I could help him change his life for the better. Could help him get back on track. Saint Jack. It was stupid, especially when you consider that I, of all people, should have known better, remembering Paul’s failed attempts at saving me. But, believing it was a good idea and would be a simple solution to my scheduling problem, I called him up and offered him the job.
I worked with him for an entire afternoon and evening, showing him how to handle calls and schedule appointments, how to keep track of the money, and then the next day at nine A.M., I confidently left the entire operation in his hands w
hile I went off to have sex in a wheat field.
“You’ll be all right?” I asked as I headed out the door. “Any questions?”
“Oh, no, no, I’ll be fine,” he said, nibbling his fingernails and staring apprehensively at the computer screen. “You go on; don’t worry about a thing.”
I did so.
Before noon the entire operation of Harden Up Inc. had essentially come to a standstill. Marvin had, quite inadvertently, sabotaged the whole business with a rapidity and thoroughness any Arab terrorist, computer virus, or Monkey Wrencher would have found admirable. He had hopelessly jammed the computer, had double-booked rooms and triple-booked subcontractors, had lost the keys to the building on one of his numerous cigarette breaks, and somehow managed to screw up every phone message he took, either writing down the name but not the number of the caller, or vice versa.
When I finally returned to the office, sunburned and itchy, in response to more enraged phone calls and pages than I cared to count, I found the room full of screaming people—clients, subcontractors, a locksmith, Millie’s girl, Josie, and of course Marvin, the large target of everyone’s ire. He was seated, as I’d left him, behind the desk, eyes staring blankly at the computer screen, but instead of his nails, he nibbled calmly on the remnants of a banana Moon Pie, which, I ascertained from the pile of wrappers on the desk, was not the first he had consumed that day. As soon as I entered (in my missionary garb, still clutching my Bible) and my entrance was detected, all the frustrated, angry, griping, whiny ones shifted their attention from Marvin to me, demanding I take action and do something, which I did, by calmly wheeling the saboteur and his Moon Pie to one side, pulling up a chair, and starting the slow process of extinguishing all the temper flare-ups, and restoring order.
Later, many hours later, when everyone had been placed or compensated accordingly, the computer was back up and running, and things had generally calmed down, I looked up, ready to deal with the next difficulty, and saw, to my relief, that Ray and I were alone in the office. He smiled, rose wordlessly from the sofa, and began turning out the lights. He walked behind my chair, and started massaging my shoulders with his gloved hands. I leaned back and closed my eyes.