Can't Buy Me Love

by Chris Kenry

  “How ’bout we pick up some food and go back to my place?” he said, nuzzling his goatee into my neck suggestively. It felt wonderful, and the thought of “rehearsing” for tomorrow’s filming was a pleasant idea, but one that was soon usurped by the thought of the large cause of all the trouble.

  “Where’s Marvin?” I asked. Ray pulled back, swung me around in the chair, and kissed me.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and took a seat on my lap. He put his arm around my neck, pulled my head toward his, and kissed me again. “And I don’t give a shit right now.” Another kiss, longer and deeper this time. I tried to speak in between them.

  “I should ... probably find him ... and ... apologize.”

  “Apologize!” Ray pulled his head back, slightly annoyed, but his voice was still breathy and rough. “I’m trying to get you naked and you keep bringing up Marvin, which isn’t the image I want in my head when I’m all ... aroused like this.” He kissed me again and placed my hand on his arousal. “Besides,” he said, casually picking some wheat chaff from my hair, “he’s the one who should apologize. Nothing like cleaning up after a three-hundred-pound tornado.”

  “Ah, I know,” I said, “but it’s probably my fault, too. I shouldn’t have left him alone so soon. I knew he needed more training. Poor guy, he looked so pathetic sitting there eating, like some big kid.”

  Ray got up and pulled on his suit coat. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  I exhaled noisily, switched off the computer, and got up and put on my own coat.

  “Do you think he’s good-looking?” I asked as we stepped into the hallway.

  “Who?” Ray asked, lighting a cigarette. “Marvin? If he lost some weight, maybe, and got some wrist splints.”

  I laughed, but then tried to picture a thinner, less effeminate Marvin. Yes, I could see it—a good cardiovascular program, some diet changes, a shorter haircut. All he needs is guidance, I thought. Training. An idea was fermenting.

  “What if he was more masculine?” I asked, continuing the conversation as I locked the door and followed Ray across the parking lot to his car.

  “But he’s not,” he said tersely.

  “It would bring in a whole different clientele ...” I said suggestively. He stopped and looked at me over the roof of the hearse.

  “You’re not thinking ...” he said, shaking his head. “But he’s not masculine, and I don’t think all the testosterone in the world could change him.” We got in and he started the engine.

  “I like the guy, too,” he said, “but get real. Some leopards just can’t change their spots.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” I sighed, and surrendered all thoughts on the matter to my growling stomach and the discussion of where to eat. We decided on spring rolls and drove to a Vietnamese restaurant on Federal Boulevard. There was a huge line, and after we put in our order we sat outside on the sidewalk to wait. It was June and the night air was warm and perfumed with the strong smell of curry. While we waited, Ray and I smoked and he read one of the weekly papers, Tally-Ho, while I sat up on the step behind him and read over his shoulder. When he got to the entertainment section, I scanned the movie schedule longingly, wishing I had the time to see movies, or even the energy to stay awake through an entire video on the rare occasions when we rented movies. I got to the schedule for one of the revival movie houses, and remembered fondly the days I’d spent there with my mother during my period of unemployment, and I felt guilty for having gone so long without returning her calls. It was Audrey Hepburn week. She’d love that, I thought and scanned the list of the movies that were going to be shown: Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, Charade, Sabrina—all the classics. And again I thought of Marvin, and remembered his dismal cubicle at Cardmember Authorizations, every inch of which he had plastered with the photos of old movie stars. I was still staring blankly at the schedule, thinking, when they called Ray’s name. He folded up the paper, got up, and went inside to pay. There must be something poor Marvin can do, I thought.

  “Ready?” Ray said when he returned with the bag.

  “Uh, yeah.” And I picked up the paper and put it under my arm.

  It was a stupid idea, looking back on it, but sometimes the most outlandish ideas, the ideas you think will never work, are the best ever. I felt sure that if it was a bad idea it was at least the Edsel and not the meat-flavored ice cream.

  “Do you mind if we make another stop?” I asked as innocently as I could.

  “The food’s cold anyway.” He shrugged. “Where to?”

  “I know this sounds dumb, but I just want to find out if Marvin is okay.”

  “Sure,” he said, and there was a surprising softness in his voice. “I’m a little worried myself. He’s just the type to OD on Tylenol over something like this.”

  I looked up Marvin’s address in my Day-Timer and we headed back up Colfax to Washington Street.

  Marvin’s address was not a coveted one. The building was one in a series of brick buildings that had been constructed after World War II, all named after women. This one in particular was called the Susie Lynn, and it was obvious from her peeling paint and rotting window frames that she had let herself go. We parked on the street and walked up the cracked steps into the small security lobby. I looked over the mailboxes, found Marvin’s apartment number, and pressed the buzzer. Nothing. We waited for a minute and I buzzed again. Nothing. I was beginning to worry when Ray nudged me and pointed to a bundle of wires coming out from behind the mailboxes, their frayed ends dangling uselessly a foot from the floor. We tried the door, which wasn’t locked, so we entered, went up two steps, and followed a dank passageway to apartment number four. Inside, I heard the tinny sound of a small TV struggling to do justice to a dramatically soaring violin soundtrack. We were most definitely at the right apartment. I knocked. The TV went silent. I knocked again.

  “Marvin, it’s Jack.” No response, but I heard the sound of crinkling plastic.

  “I know you’re in there,” I said, “unless there’s someone else in this building watching AMC.”

  He shuffled over slowly toward the door and threw it open, his enormous frame blocking the view inside. He had obviously been crying.

  “What?” he asked defensively.

  “We just want to talk to you, okay? I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Can we come in?” I asked. He didn’t move.

  “Look,” he said, and tears started welling in his eyes, “I’m sorry about today. I know I fucked everything up, but—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It was my fault. I didn’t give you enough training. Forget about it. We have something else you might be interested in,” I said.

  “We do?” Ray said, surprised.

  “Yes, we do. Now, can we come in?” I asked again.

  He shrugged, turned, and walked back into the apartment. Inside it was dark, save for the blue glow from the TV, and there was the unmistakable stench of a litter box in need of emptying. He led us to the sofa and turned on a Tiffanyesque lamp on the end table. The floor in front of him was littered with plastic wrappers, and several boxes of Little Debbies sat open on the coffee table next to a can of diet soda. On the screen a young Fred Astaire was effortlessly tossing Ginger Rogers up and around. Ray helped himself to a Nutty Bar, opening the wrapper and sniffing the contents cautiously.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you today.”

  He shrugged again, and continued staring at the screen.

  “It’s just that I’ve worked really hard to get things running smoothly, and I guess I assumed someone else could just slide in and understand my system.”

  “Well, I couldn’t!” he said petulantly. “Call me stupid.”

  I sighed and examined him again with professional eyes. He was good looking. His jawline and facial structure were strong, and the five-o’clock shadow was very becoming. I hesitated a moment and spied a framed picture of him and his lover sitting behind a piano, playing and singing. It was
obviously a posed shot, but they looked so happy and content sitting there. I decided to continue.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said, staring back at the TV screen, “that maybe you could come back to work for Harden Up, not as a receptionist, but, you know, as one of the guys.”

  Ray choked on his Nutty Bar. Marvin looked at me and emitted a dubious hiss.

  “I’m serious,” I said, pushing aside the boxes of snack cakes and taking a seat on the coffee table facing them both. I spoke more to Ray than to Marvin.

  “We don’t have any guys like Marvin, and I think with a little work—okay, maybe with a lot of work—we could open up a whole new market.”

  Blank stares.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think you’re insane,” said Marvin. Ray heartily nodded his agreement.

  “I’m not,” I protested. “There is a market for guys like you.”

  “Look at me!” Marvin cried, and made a sweeping gesture down his body. “I’m fat! Nobody wants a fat girl.”

  I chuckled in spite of myself and could hear Ray doing the same. I looked down at the floor and struggled to regain my composure.

  “You are ... large,” I said. “Granted. But there’s a huge market for bigger, macho top guys like yourself, and I think with you we could really tap into that.”

  “Oh, you do?” Marvin said, his voice oozing sarcasm.

  “Hey,” Ray whispered to me. “Could I talk to you outside for a minute?”

  “Yes, I do!” I said, ignoring Ray and focusing all my attention on Marvin.

  “Well, there are two little problems with that. First,” he said, pointing to Fred and Ginger, “I’m not macho. And second!” he boomed. “I’m not a top!”

  I nodded and rocked back and forth pensively for a moment.

  “Like I said, it will take a little work.”

  “Oh, Christ!” said Ray and Marvin, both certain I’d gone mad. I was beginning to wonder myself. I thought of giving up, but then thought of something and quickly took out the copy of Tally-Ho that I had folded under my Day-Timer.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, and I flipped through the pages until I found the movie schedules. “Haven’t you ever seen this movie?” I asked, thrusting the paper at him and pointing at the ad for the art house. He looked at it a moment and his expression softened.

  “Ohh,” he said wistfully, his chubby hand caressing his stubbly neck as if it were Audrey’s long, elegant one. “That poor George Peppard! How can you start out with such promise and end up opposite Mr. T?”

  “Not that one,” I said, leaning toward him and pointing at My Fair Lady.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, and started humming “I Could Have Danced All Night.” I felt a swift kick in the shin from Ray’s foot. I winced, but didn’t look at him.

  “Have you seen that one?” I asked. He rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue as if I’d just asked the most ridiculous of questions. I went on.

  “Well, then, you know the story, right, about the Cockney flower seller that Rex Harrison transforms into the elegant lady?”

  “Girl, duh!” he said, dropping the paper to his lap and shooting me a condescending glare. “Of course you know Julie Andrews should have had the lead. She had it on Broadway, so the movie was rightfully hers. Audrey doesn’t even sing. She lip-synchs through the whole movie,” he said, nodding his head knowingly. He then closed his eyes and began humming “The Rain In Spain.”

  “What are you doing?” Ray hissed, grabbing my arm firmly. I pulled away and continued.

  “Well, my point exactly!” I said to Marvin, suddenly seeing an opportunity. “She was acting. She couldn’t sing but she pulled it off! And in the movie her character was acting, too, right? She wasn’t really a lady, at least not in the beginning; she was just some dirty, foul-mouthed daisy seller.”

  “Violets,” Marvin corrected.

  “Whatever. The point is,” I said, “she transforms into something else, right?”

  He nodded.

  “She was still the same person, but Rex Harrison taught her how to act differently, how to play a role. Get it? It’s all acting. What I do, what Ray does, what all the guys do is acting. Top or bottom, you just need to learn how to play the part. But in your case, we’ll need to do the opposite: make you into less of a lady and more of a lower-class thug. More of a young Brando.”

  “Oh ... yes?” Marvin said, leaning forward on the sofa, cautiously interested.

  “Oh, God!” Ray groaned, and fell back into the cushions.

  And that is how we came to add our eighth subcontractor. Our seventh was a young boy, Josh, fresh off the bus from Cheyenne, who had come in hoping for a hustling position, but at the age of seventeen was a risk I didn’t want to take. He was a quick learner, but nevertheless I spent a full week teaching him everything he’d need to know to be a receptionist. Then I pulled my ads out of the paper and focused on making movies during the day and watching movies at night with Marvin.

  As the first step in Marvin’s transformation we went to the library, which has an excellent collection of classic videotapes, and checked out every early Brando film we could get hold of: The Wild One, Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, One-Eyed Jacks—and studied them closely. We studied his movements and gestures, the way he sat and the way he walked, but most of all what he did with his hands, since these were the appendages that gave Marvin the most trouble. Brando’s voice, being somewhat whiny and nasally, would not work, so we went to one of Hole’s boutiques and bought some Jeff Stryker videos, since his speech (both its form and its content) would be best suited to our purpose. We took them back to Marvin’s apartment and listened to them with the picture blacked out so that we wouldn’t be distracted. Before I left, I made a sweep of the apartment and confiscated all of his Broadway musical videos (they filled two garbage bags) and placed him on a strict television diet of police shows and ESPN.

  Next I got him started on a cardiovascular and weight-training program at the gym, with me as his personal trainer. The first two weeks were difficult, but once he got over the initial shyness and soreness, he became almost fanatical about it and started going on his own.

  His appearance presented other problems. I envisioned making money off of him as a leather top, but we were both alarmed when we saw the prices of the equipment, so I abandoned that idea and together we hit the thrift stores, where we bought several pairs of used Levi’s, several tight undershirts, and several flannel shirts, some weathered workboots, and a well-worn Carhartt jacket (all of which I deducted as a uniform expense). We had a barber cut his hair very short, and I instructed him to shave only in the evening before he went to bed so that he’d wake up ready to go with a five-o’clock shadow. When we were finished, I stood back and assessed him. He looked like some sort of blue-collar something, an image we were both satisfied with.

  Then, gradually, almost as gradually as the seasons change, Marvin began to change. He began warming to this new character. No, more than warming—he started becoming him. Ray had done an ad for him and we posted it on the Web under the name Chet, figuring we couldn’t go wrong with one syllable. He studied the ad, unable to believe that it was himself, but soon he began to adopt the persona, and gradually his Pygmalionation was complete.

  The whole process was a huge investment, but from a financial standpoint the risk proved well worth it. Within hours of posting his ad, we had twenty-seven hits, and we started making back the money. He developed a strong client base of repeat customers and had far more young, good-looking guys than any of the rest of us. Guys who wanted to believe they were getting a manly man. And, after a while, he had them, and himself, convinced.

  23

  TOIL AND TROUBLE

  Ray and Salvatore and I were sitting in the office one morning before our day of filming began. They were discussing camera angles and were readying the equipment, and I was seated at the desk typing up the last few schedules for the day, and calling the guy
s to make sure they knew where they were supposed to be and when. We were all busy and scarcely noticed when Johnny came in. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and gave a silent nod hello, as I was on the phone. I looked again and saw that his eye was black and his upper lip had been split.

  “I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up. “What the hell happened to you!” I quickly came around the desk, led him over toward the window, and tilted his chin up to the light. The skin around his eye was dark purple and there were fingerprint bruises on his throat.

  “That new guy last night, the one I met here,” he said. “He got kind of rough.”

  “Christ!” said Ray, who had now joined us by the window.

  “I thought I better come in and tell you, because he punched a hole in the wall of room three,” he said, swallowing hard.

  “Screw the wall!” Ray said. “Are you okay?” We led him over to the sofa, and Salvatore, always calm in tense situations, went and got him a glass of water.

  “I think I’m okay,” he said softly, “but I’m scared. He didn’t use a condom.”

  Ray and I glanced up at each other.

  “Who was he?” Ray asked me. I got up and went back over to the computer and pulled up the spread sheet from the day before. I had only the name “Tom first-timer” listed.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He was new and he called the number for Johnny’s ad, so I just set it up.”

  “Here’s the money,” Johnny said, fishing in his pocket.

  “No, no, forget it,” I said. “Just tell us what happened.”

  Johnny described the scene slowly. The man had arrived before he did and was waiting in his car when Johnny arrived. They went inside, got started, and everything was fine at first.

  “Then he started getting rough and pulling hair,” he said.