The Last Manly Man

by Sparkle Hayter

  “Hey, I’ve seen you on TV,” he said.

  “That’s right. But I’m not who you think I am.…”

  “You’re Robin from ANN,” he said. “We thought you were in the hospital, in bandages!”

  “What? No, I’m okay. You recognize me?”

  “The video club in my village in India watches ANN all the time, by satellite. They know all about you in Balandapur, and how unlucky you’ve been in your life. Didn’t you get their letters about your last haircut?”

  “Haven’t had time to read through my mail lately.…”

  “We know all the ANN people in our village in India, and I watch all the time here, too, when I’m not working or studying. Dr. Solange Stevenson is a goddess in my village in India.”

  “That’s lovely. We’re in a hurry. Can you do this for me? I can actually introduce you to Dr. Solange Stevenson if you do.”

  In well under ten minutes, five other cabs, all driven by men from the same village in south India, were there. The apes were freshly diapered, and we all piled in and drove off like maniacs to Manhattan.

  By the time we made it to the Queensboro Bridge, the sedation was wearing off, the chimps were really starting to act up, and we were drawing more than a few looks. On the edge of the city, our procession of chimp-stuffed cabs excited a double-decker bus full of tourists, but nobody else seemed to notice. New Yorkers are still, all in all, the most self-absorbed people on the planet.

  When we pulled up to the Jackson Hotel and Convention Center, I didn’t even wait for the taxi to come to a complete stop.

  “Stay here,” I said to the driver, and I flew out the door and into the hotel, tearing through the lobby, while Jason, Hufnagel, and Blue followed with the bonobo chimps, herding them as if they were sheep through the lobby.

  “Stop!” yelled a hotel security guy.

  I kept running, up the stairs to the main ballroom, where Jack would soon be delivering a speech. Quickly, I scanned the room and saw Liz, with her Seeing Eye dog, and the camera crew.

  “Liz, where’s Jack?” I asked.

  “Robin? Is that you? You’re out of the hospital?” she said.

  “Do you know where Jack Jackson is? He’s speaking today.”

  “In a room down the hall. But …”

  “It’s out that way, to the left … why?” said Jim the cameraman.

  “No time to explain. We have a bunch of bonobo chimps. This is very important. Find Karen Keyes and let her know they’re outside the door,” I said, heading back out and down the hallway to the green room. It was locked, no doubt for security purposes.

  “Jack, Jack, it’s Robin. Let me in!” I screamed, banging on the door. I could hear the chimps squawking and the pounding of people’s feet coming up the stairs.

  The door opened a crack and Larry, Jack’s ethicist, peered out. Couldn’t wait for him—I practically kicked the door open. Jack was sitting with his lawyer, a couple of bodyguards, and Solange Stevenson.

  “You’re out of the hospital.…”

  “No time for that now. Jack, we’ve just liberated a dozen bonobo chimps,” I spit out rapid-fire. “We had to take cabs to get them here. We promised the cabbies a lot of money … and that they could meet Solange and have their pictures taken with her.”

  “Reb was on that story,” Solange said. “Why didn’t he call me? Where is he?”

  “He stiffed you,” I said.

  “Slow down,” Jack said. “The bonobo whats?”

  I repeated as much of the story as I could.

  Then I inhaled again.

  “How many cabs?” Jack asked.

  “Five. I think. Promised them a grand each.”

  Jack turned to his lawyer. “Where’s my petty cash?”

  The lawyer patted a briefcase.

  “Go down, give them two grand each, and take Solange down with you.”

  “Come on, Jack, we have to go into the ballroom …” And rather than finish explaining, I took him by the hand.

  Security had formed a cordon at the top and bottom of the mezzanine stairs to hold the chimps in. Keyes had come out of the ballroom and she and everyone else were all screaming at once. A couple of the chimps had slipped through and I scooped them up handily, as if I did it every day of my life.

  “Let them in!” Jack bellowed, just as the human wall broke and the chimps flooded through. This motley group ran into the ballroom, interrupting a heated debate between Alana DeWitt and Belle Hondo.

  Just then, I caught sight of the whistling white man and several other goons up on the mezzanine. “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “No time,” I said. “Call the cops or someone.…”

  The goons were making a run for it. Blue and I ran up opposite staircases to the mezzanine, trying to corner the bad guys. Blue stopped one on his end, but me, I’m a mere slip of a girl. The whistling white man handily shoved me aside, and I crumpled onto the steps as he and another goon tried to run past me. I was knocked on my ass, but I wasn’t out of the fight yet. Quickly, I stretched a leg across the steps, and the goons went tumbling over each other, coming to a stop a dozen steps below me. Security guards grabbed them.

  But it was too late. Air was blowing into the room along with, I guessed, the Adam I.

  The voices in the room got quieter and slower, like records winding down on an old hand-wound Victrola. There was a tremendous calm. All was silent. On the dais, Alana DeWitt and Belle Hondo were standing, confused. They turned to each other. DeWitt started crying. They hugged.

  Unfortunately, this human-aimed gas had no effect, or at least a different effect, on the bonobos, who were now out of control, some of them tearing around the room, pulling off their diapers, some of them loudly copulating. I saw Liz’s dog trying to maintain his composure as bonobos romped around him, beginning to strain against the leash, and abruptly breaking free and following instinct, barking loudly. Liz went flying and landed in a knot of now docile, weepy feminists, who fell into Suzy Hibben’s booth, bringing it and several of her Mrs. Degree girls down.

  Jack, meanwhile, was feeling his oats.

  “Open some damned windows,” he shouted angrily, followed by the rest of the men. “Round up the damned chimps. Let’s get control of things here.”

  Twenty minutes later, the chimps were subdued, the men were calm, and the women were starting to come to their senses. Karen Keyes got to the dais and explained for the cameras what had gone down, who the bonobos were, and why we needed to save them, as maintenance staff scooped up diapers and overturned chairs. Keyes ran her short film. When the credits started to roll, loud applause erupted and weepy women were whipping out their checkbooks.

  After that, Solange gave a speech introducing Jack, although it may have been the aftereffects of the Adam I that made her so sweet. Jeez, I wish I could get some of that stuff. It could come in handy.

  “My boss, my hero, my mentor, Jack Jackson,” Solange said, wrapping it up.

  Jack took the podium and winked, though he resisted slapping Solange’s ass as she handed the stage over to him.

  “Well, we’ve had some excitement here today,” he began. “It all kind of confirms my theory. People are surprising. But women are the most surprising.

  “Not long ago I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it was so farsighted. Predicted a lot. But it, and every other accurate sci-fi thing I could think of, missed one big thing. Almost all the women in these movies and books are in subordinate, traditional roles. Few of these visionaries envisioned feminism.”

  E.g., Wallace Mandervan, I thought.

  “It has been a big surprise for a lot of people. Men, generally speaking, kind of got caught with their pants down on this one. Since the women’s lib stuff really hit, the surprises have just piled up. Someone says, ‘A woman can’t do this or that,’ and right away, some woman will come along and do it. You know that saying, The only thing a man can do that a woman can’t is pee standing up? It turns out th
at isn’t even true. As one of my female employees tells it, all a woman needs is a proper-sized funnel to accomplish that. A little technology. And hey, we got a lot of technology these days, so who knows what else we can do? So where does it go from here? Probably, women will continue to surprise, and men will too.”

  There was some stuff about male conditioning, and female conditioning, and how men and women helped keep each other and themselves in their consigned roles in the past.

  “Things have changed, from the days of the modern Stone Age family,” Jack said. “Another one of my female employees called it the Flintstone Paradigm, based on an episode of the Flintstones (which incidentally, Jackson Broadcasting owns). In this episode, Wilma and Fred decide the other has it better, so Wilma goes to the quarry and Fred stays home to look after the house. Long story short, they discover that each has a difficult job, and they are happy return to their traditional roles. Well, we aren’t cavepeople and there is no going back. But it is true that men have now taken a greater role, not big enough, mind you, but a bigger role in housekeeping and child-rearin’, and women have joined the workforce in greater than ever numbers and shoulder more of the economic burden. And I think the result of this is that we all understand each other a little better, having walked in each other’s shoes, and we can use this to get along a little better in the future.

  “Men need your support as you need theirs. It seems like women want us to be strong and protective, but not too strong, not too protective, and we don’t know what the hell you want sometimes. Guys who aren’t tough enough might be called weak by women, as well as by other men. If we hold the door we’re patronizing, if we don’t we’re unchivalrous. It’s still harder for a man to quit his job and stay home with the kids. He faces a greater social backlash than women who left the hearth do. It takes guts to buck the prevailing thinking. Men are supposed to be so gutsy. In some ways, we are. But in some ways, men are much bigger chickens than women. No offense intended to the chicken.

  “Speaking of chickens …” he said, and proceeded to relate the story of Mr. Chicken, our favorite peg-legged chicken martyr who died protecting his hens and chicks from stronger enemies.

  “Mr. Chicken illustrates the pressure on men to provide for and protect their families, especially the women in their families. Sometimes, this protection crosses the line to control. Men are confused.

  “But that Mr. Chicken story has lessons that go beyond male or female. It’s a story about persevering despite handicaps, and a story about transcending a stereotype, because Mr. Chicken, whose breed is synonymous with cowardice, made of his little chicken life a testament to bravery. That’s what we all have to do, transcend those stereotypes we impose on each other and ourselves, see each other not only as men and women—and vive la différence there, hubba hubba,” he said, and winked. The rascal. “But as whole human beings. That’s my modest commitment to women, to see them as whole human beings, and I’d like women to see men that way too. Toward that end, I’d like to announce the formation of the Worldwide Women’s Network, a cable and satellite network that will debut early next year, bringing intelligent, provocative, and, yes, entertaining programming to men and women all over Planet Earth. Solange Stevenson, stand up again, will you? Solange is going to be the president of this new network.”

  Applause.

  Then he said, “And I hope women have a lot of great sex in the future. Women not enjoying sex just causes more problems for men. I know men have some problems in that regard, but you could do a lot by loosening up a little, having some fun!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Only after the conference ended was I told the details about my “death” and subsequent hospitalization. A woman bearing a startling resemblance to me, with my NYPD press ID, was found following an explosion in an abandoned warehouse in Long Island City. The initial report that she was dead went out before paramedics were able to revive her. In the meantime, my death had been announced on television, and Robert Huddon’s obit had run by mistake. It had been a banner day for Murphy’s Law.

  Miss Trix, covered in bandages, unconscious and then unable to talk because of smoke damage to her throat and painkillers for her first-degree burns, wasn’t able to tell anyone who she was. Despite how lousy she was, what with the deafmute orphans she had employed in her drug operation, I probably would have felt a little bad for her under normal circumstances. But I just didn’t have the time.

  When I finally got home that day, Mike was waiting for me. What a sight for sore eyes he was, that complex, dark-witted, moody, and faithless Irishman.

  “Thank God, you’re okay,” he said. “Girl, I don’t know how you do it.…”

  “People who live in glass houses, Mike,” I said. “How did you know about the missing bonobos?”

  “Well, when I heard you had died from Susan Brave and Claire, I immediately hopped on a plane and came out here. By the time I got here, you’d been upgraded from dead to critical condition, Girl. So I went to the hospital.”

  He paused and bit his lip.

  “In the waiting room I struck up a conversation with another guy there, who introduced himself as your boyfriend, Gus.”

  Without revealing his own status, Mike managed to find out a little about what a hot number I was, as Lola.

  I had my head to his chest and could feel him inhale deeply.

  Gus had also related some of the “lies” I’d told about fist-fighting thugs, missing bonobo chimps, and animal rights nuts.

  “I was at a loss, Girl, didn’t know who to talk to, so I called Reb Ryan.”

  Back in Mike’s heyday as a cameraman for ANN, before he went out on his own, he’d been Reb Ryan’s cameraman. They’d covered wars and had been kidnapped together in Beirut.

  “Reb started putting the pieces together, and then he was contacted by some animal rights guy.”

  That would be Blue Baker.

  “How come you weren’t with Reb at our liberation?”

  “I have a daughter, Robin, remember? I no longer think it’s fair to her if I put myself in dangerous positions on dangerous assignments. Reb seemed to have it under control.”

  He held me for a while, quietly. He was troubled.

  “What is it, Mike? Are you mad about Gus? I’m sorry you found out that way.…”

  “Now probably isn’t the time to talk about all this, Girl.”

  “Oh hell, in my life, there may never be a good time,” I said. “Say it.”

  “I’m getting older. I need to settle down,” he said.

  “You think you can settle down with Veronkya, that crazy trapeze girl,” I said, lightly snorting her name.

  “Veronkya? She’s eighteen and makes you look like a paragon of sanity. God, no. The truth is, Girl, I hadn’t had another woman in over a month … that’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “That’s your big confession?”

  “There’s more. I got tired of unfamiliar women, of crazy, unfamiliar women and all the nutty consequences and scenes. Seemed easier just to masturbate to porn in my hotel room. And I missed you. I was going to ask you if you maybe wanted to try monogamy.”

  “Mike, I’ve been down that road with you, and with other guys like you, and that pathology never changes for too long.…”

  “I know all your logic, Robin,” he said. “You might be right. And I know my history of other women would make it hard for you to trust me. All the same, I want to try. But not with you. The Gus thing, it hurt me. I know you were hurt by the other women in my life too. I don’t know if we could ever really trust each other.”

  “So what are you telling me?”

  “I’m going back to my ex-wife.”

  “Felicia?”

  “Through all the stuff with Samantha, and through the reports of your death, the time I spent at the hospital waiting for you to recover, Felicia was there for me, and I’ve been there for her. It’s as if all the bad things between her and me have fallen away and the love we had can come thro
ugh. And we have a daughter.…”

  “You’re breaking up with me to go back to your ex? Oh damn,” I said.

  “Yes. I’m here for you today though,” he said. “I care about you, Girl.…”

  “No, don’t say any more. I’m too tired to fight. I think I’ll take a pill and hit the hay. Let’s talk next week.”

  “Hey, I didn’t let on to your friend Gus about you and me. Figured I owed you that. He seems like a nice guy.”

  We kissed, chastely, and Mike walked out of my life, temporarily at least.

  Mike, who needs you, I thought. But as soon as the door closed, I felt the absence of his warmth and started missing him. I still had some of those cheesy Mecca souvenirs he collects, each one with a story about the pal who gave it to him. There, on the wall above my computer was the Enfield rifle he had given me, with another story attached. There were the news clippings about stories we did together, the photographs of vacations we took. Oh damn.

  Surely it wouldn’t take Mike long to realize that he couldn’t settle down, I thought, even with Felicia. Every few months, he had to hit the road and go off to shoot a war, a circus, an expedition through the rain forest or some damn thing. When lusty people are apart for long periods and lonely, things happen, like affairs. Maybe he and Felicia would work out, maybe they wouldn’t. If they didn’t, maybe I’d still be here. Maybe not. In a way, I hoped it would work out for him and Felicia, if only because I didn’t think Samantha could handle her parents reuniting and then splitting up again.

  There was a game when I was a kid, by Parker Brothers, called Careers. You wagered at the beginning on how much love, money, and fame points you would get in your life. Then you went around the board, trying to match those numbers, and the person closest to his wager wins the game. Something like that. When I played, I’d always go for one thing, put all my eggs in one basket, usually for fame, but sometimes love, sometimes money, because it increased my chances of winning—in one area of my life at least. What hubris to think now that I could have it all.

  Damn damn damn. But I couldn’t deal with this right now, because if I started thinking about it I might get all sentimental and blue. What was it the Roman poet Ovid said about love? If you’re looking for a way out of it, be busy. Love yields to business. Something like that.