Man of the Year

by Lou Cove

  “Like the caped crusader?” Uli and I say almost simultaneously.

  “Like stick to the comic books and the munchies and find your titty mags somewhere else.”

  We settle for new issues of the Defenders, Champions, and Ghost Rider and head home.

  Life has become predictable again without Howie and Carly to surprise us. The only magic now comes when Uli and I lock my door and light the match. It’s too cold to smoke on the roof so we stoke the fireplace until the cover is blistering to the touch, then open the windows and put spark to bowl. Like Penny’s cats, this miracle marijuana doesn’t trigger my asthma. I’m free.

  Time shifts with the weed, dragging and accelerating simultaneously, and before we know what’s happened we’ve lost all restraint, laughing out of control, pouring milk directly into our cereal boxes, burying faces in pillows to stifle the ecstatic hysteria that flows from a wicked high with a wicked good friend.

  We wrestle, land splat on the Fruit Pies, and unleash a Count Chocula milk tsunami across the solid green paint of the floor and debate endlessly about whether or not it’s safe to leave the room.

  “It’s safe.”

  “Nuh uh.”

  “They’re asleep.”

  “No they’re not.”

  “I heard them.”

  “Fuck it.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait. See?”

  “OK. I’m going crazy in here! Aghhhh!”

  Uli suddenly gets serious. “When’s Howie coming back?” he asks, slumping to the floor in front of the fireplace. “Your house is totally more boss with him.”

  “I know. This sucks.”

  “No, it’s already awesome. I mean, this is the only house I even want to sleep over at.” He picks his nose, flicks the booger into the snapping blaze of logs, and chews his lower lip, squinting at the heat like there’s something hiding from him there. “Seriously. Nobody else has parents like yours. They’re cool and let you talk about stuff. And smoke pot.”

  “It’s not as cool as you think. And they don’t really let me smoke pot. They just don’t … bring it up. There’s a difference.”

  “You just don’t know because you live here. Does my house seem cool to you?”

  Those tiny rooms. The anxious mood. The soundless, stiff-postured, folded napkins, forks-on-the-right-side (left side?) mealtimes. “No.”

  “Exactly.” He slides to the floor, looks to the ceiling, and slowly shakes his head side to side. “And I hate it. I want to move out. I want to live someplace where people don’t tell you what to do all the time.”

  “My mom keeps telling me I have to study Hebrew. To have a Bar Mitzvah.” Uli frowns at the Jewish gibberish. “A thing you have to do when you turn thirteen. You have to read in Hebrew and everyone comes and then you become a man. Supposedly.”

  “You become a man? Right then?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Thirteen. See? That is so cool. I want to be Jewish so bad.”

  “Well, then there’d be two of us in this town,” I say. “You sure you want to be the weirdo?”

  “I am the weirdo.”

  “True. Well, talk to my dad. Maybe he’ll adopt you.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m not shitting you.” Uli tosses a HoHo my way. “Rem, tongani!”

  Mangani. Tarzan’s ape language. Rem means catch. Tongani is baboon.

  I stand up and position myself in front of the door, arms akimbo. “This is my domain, and I protect all who come here, for I—”

  “—am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle!” we call in unison. The warbling brings Amanda knocking.

  “GO AWAY!” we shout together, then laugh maniacally.

  *

  There are no words to describe what my mouth tastes like when I wake the next morning. Downstairs I find Uli, true to his word, deep in conversation with Papa about converting to Judaism.

  “Not because I’m some big Jew,” Papa clarifies. “But you should be free to explore any belief system you want. Not beholden to some mythology you can’t get behind.”

  “So you have a Christmas tree because…”

  “Because I like the way it makes my house smell.”

  “It’s true,” Uli says. “You don’t notice the bunny poop as much.”

  “He’s potty trained,” Papa says in all seriousness. “But also because I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do. What? I can’t have a tree because I was born to a Jewish woman and a man with a circumcised penis? I’m not worshipping Jesus here. I’m putting up lights and garland and popcorn and cranberries. I’m not really a Jew or a Christian. I’m an American.”

  “I’m going to do it,” Uli says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Become Jewish.”

  “You’re too old for a bar mitzvah,” I say. “You just missed it.”

  “So I don’t have to study Hebrew!”

  “Upside to everything,” Papa says. “By the way … did someone get into my stash yesterday?”

  In the Running

  I keep shoving ice cubes in my underwear while we play Monopoly, trying to stay awake until 1979 arrives. Mama and Papa are ringing it in somewhere else. Howie and Carly have us in mind—they call to send New Year’s hugs, but the phone is a poor substitute for the real thing. “We wish we could be with you instead of homebound here. Back soon.” Blah Blah.

  “We’ll do our own version when we’re back, OK?” Howie says over the line from Pittsburgh. “Tonight’s just another night, that’s all it is.”

  “Can we have fireworks? They’re shooting off fireworks in Times Square on TV.”

  “I’ll bring the dynamite, pal.”

  Uli’s parents make him go home at ten. Amanda falls asleep by ten thirty. Atjeh nods off at eleven. So it’s just me and Dick Clark, who finally says, “OK, we’re gettin’ there!” He doesn’t look cold at all, trench coat half buttoned, standing in front of a big vertical sign that says QUASIMODO. “Just a few more minutes and it will be 1979! People all over the world watch that giant, six-foot ball that stands atop One Times Square. It’ll be a little hard to know exactly when it lands so you keep your eye on the digital clock.”

  The faint honk of cardboard horns rattles the tiny TV speaker as one year ends and another begins. Dick Clark kicks it over to Erik Estrada and Julie from The Love Boat in LA, where everything seems much more colorful. They introduce Barry Manilow, clad entirely in sparkly white, standing alone at a piano. He starts to play and it’s so melancholy.

  “Don’t look so sad. It’s not that bad. It’s just another night. That’s all it is.”

  I shut off the TV and take Atjeh upstairs.

  *

  By mid-February I’ve given up believing they are ever coming back. How long does a broken ankle take to heal? But there’s a lot of shuffling and noise coming from upstairs when I come down for breakfast. I look around the table, count heads. Everyone’s present except Papa, who went to the gym. My pulse quickens, and I feel like I’ve just surfaced from the water after holding my breath for a long time. Every fiber in my being twitches with excitement.

  Howie Gordon—actor, artist, lover, friend—is at the bottom of the stairs now, decked out in a new velvet purple pair of drawstring pants, scratching his head with one hand, his butt with the other. I jump up and hug him before he can make it to the table.

  “When did you get here? Are you staying for good? You grew a beard!” Amanda squeaks in quick succession.

  Howie strokes his thick new facial hair, considers for a moment: “Last night. Who knows? And yes, I did,” and he hugs my sister tight.

  “Breakfast!” Mama’s baked muffins and is bringing them to the table along with granola and yogurt. “Hello, Howie Gordon.” She smiles broadly and walks around the table to give him a kiss on the cheek. “That was quite a night last night, wasn’t it?”

  “What did I miss?” I ask.

 
“Your Mama made the mightiest of midnight meals. The Hunan Princess prevails!” He grabs the newspaper Papa left behind, then calls to her: “Now, how can we serve you, your highness?”

  Mama chuckles as she spreads our lunch around and drags David out from under the table. “Serve me? That’s a new one.”

  “Well, until your husband gets his grant money and gives me a damn job I am going to work for you,” Howie says, riffling through the Arts section of the Globe. “And we have to schedule some date nights, don’t we, children of the princess? What’s a prince of a princess, anyway? A princelette? Ha! Come, Princelette, what is your pleasure? I see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is coming back around to the Salem Theater as part of a double feature with Midnight Express. Good time for the guys.”

  I step away from my place at the table and peer around Howie’s shoulder at the mini movie ads scattered around the pages laid out in his lap.

  “How about this one?” I point to a photo of a shirtless, long-haired, bearded man holding a woman with curly hair who seems equally (if more discreetly) naked.

  “Huh. A Star Is Born?” His surprise catches me off guard, makes me question my choice. “I suppose there is a rock ’n’ roll component there. But look at him,” he says, pointing to a man balancing one foot on the handle of a gun so big it seems more like a cannon, the cigarette in his hand issuing smoke that rises above his head to frame his name—CLINT EASTWOOD. HE HAS EXACTLY SEVEN MINUTES TO GET RICH QUICK!

  I nod, trying to get excited about the action instead of the romance. “Hey, I love Barbra Streisand,” he says, changing tone. “So we’ll go. But I do need a little help with something special.” We all look at him, but he pauses to sip his coffee and build to the moment. “Today,” he says dramatically, “is the day I begin my campaign.”

  “What campaign?” Mama asks.

  “To win Man of the Year. To be … oh! Baby! Come on over here and join the family powwow.” Carly appears at the door, a love mirage. I sigh reflexively with relief.

  As she approaches the table I forget all about Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand, and my soggy cereal because her silk robe, which matches Howie’s flowered pants, hangs open enough to reveal just how full and round her breasts are. The robe ends midway down her thigh so when she pulls out the chair next to me and sits down I can’t help but stare.

  “What are you talking about?” Mama says, finally sitting down and tuning in.

  “I’m in the running, one of twelve, to be Man of the Year.” Howie slaps a copy of Playgirl on the table—this one different from the November issue we’ve become so familiar with.

  “Not again,” Mama says.

  “Picked this up in the airport on the way back. Right off the news rack. I didn’t even know this was part of the deal! If you’re one of the twelve men of 1978, twelve centerfolds, you’re eligible to be Man of the Year for ’79. Like Playmate of the Year. It’s a contest. Write-in. And look how they advertised it…”

  Of twelve contestants, only one is pictured in the contest announcement. Howie, boxed in at the bottom of page eighty-two, penis sticking straight out at these words:

  VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE CENTERFOLD OF THE YEAR

  To cast your ballot for Man of the Year, just send a postcard to: Man of the Year, Playgirl, Incorporated, 3420 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 3000, Santa Monica, CA 90405. Results will be published in the May issue.

  There’s no denying that November ’78 centerfold, Howie Gordon, below and far right, is irresistible. So what’s new? The article says he was recently in Hong Kong filming a Brittania Jeans commercial set to air on Japanese TV.

  “Too bad, you cry, that we can’t see more of Howie in the States.”

  But then it offers comfort for Playgirl readers by announcing that Howie has a role in George Lucas’ next film, Purple Haze, starring Ron Howard and Cindy Williams.

  “When did you go to Hong Kong?”

  Howie laughs. “Picture me. I’m in the airport in Kansas City and I read that! And there’s me, and my Magnificent Seven incher, all famous. Sure, I was in a Brittania Jeans commercial, but it was shot in San Francisco for the Hong Kong market. They’re spinning a little exotic PR fairy tale on my behalf, I guess.”

  “And the movie?”

  “A sequel to American Graffiti.”

  I’m exasperated. Elated. In awe. “Who do you play???”

  “Guy running.”

  “Who’s Guy Running?”

  “No, I mean, I play a guy. Running. They did this kind of comical reenactment of a ’60s college campus protest run amok. And I’m in there, somewhere, running amok. Finding me would be like trying to pick out a buffalo in a stampeding herd. ‘Look! See! There! The brown one!’”

  “Oh.”

  “But it sure sounds good on paper. I’m not especially talented when it comes to self-promotion. But I’m learning.”

  The horizon suddenly expands before me: California, movie cameras, flashbulbs, Hong Kong … a King Kong sequel! “Let me help!”

  “Help? I need more than help. I need a partner. If I’m going to be Starsky, then you’re going to have to be my Hutch.”

  Your Hutch. I picture us in the opening montage as the credits roll. We’re racing in the cherry-red Ford Gran Torino with its white vector stripes, Starsky navigating the gritty city. He hop-slides the hood for a bust while I wrestle the wheelman. We take in a strip club. I’m distracted by the woman in the bikini, and he blows in my ear to remind me that we have a job to do. Friends and partners. The credits end with us in a half man-hug.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

  “Right on. And we’ve got a good head start with this bit of propaganda. Those Playgirl geniuses make me sound like the next fucking James Dean. Should win me a few votes…”

  “That, and being the first guy with a boner,” Carly chimes in.

  “Hey, it was already a competitive advantage. And now they’re using it to advertise the contest? I’d say I have a fighting chance!”

  “Even if it looks extra small in that shot?” Carly chuckles beside me.

  “Thank you, my love,” Howie blows her a kiss. “I guess that’s payback. You eating this, Princelette?” he asks as he grabs the uneaten muffin half still on my plate.

  His Business

  I use the dead time before the movies to dig into the Playboy archive I pilfered from Gramps. Unlike most days, this exploration is solely focused on strategy. I want to see what I can learn from the best in the business.

  This obviously has to include Debra Jo Fondren, Miss November, 1977, and 1978 Playmate of the Year. She won a Datsun 280Z and was then featured on Fantasy Island and Mork & Mindy. But most impressive of all is her hair. Spilling well past her knees, Debra Jo is Eve if she just had a hair dryer in Eden. That’s her trademark, and Howie’s, while not exactly going past his knees, is his, too.

  Who helped Debra Jo win her campaign?

  Last year’s winner, Patti McGuire, is wearing nothing but a Coppertone tan and see-through panties, standing next to a neon jukebox. Patti McGuire should be the Playmate of the Decade as far I’m concerned. I scan her winnings, see that she scored a Dodge Midnight Charger and got a part as Pussycat on … Starsky and Hutch!? A Midnight Charger is no Gran Torino, but it’s in the ballpark.

  The potential for greatness is sinking in.

  *

  Howie, as accommodating as he is indulgent, crafts a movie orgy for us. We see A Star Is Born first, though it is actually the second film in a matinee double feature with Coming Home. It is, as the poster suggests, a film about a woman with a perm and a guy with long hair and a beard. I wait patiently for nudity that never comes. In the end, I ignore the soap suds, devour the behind-the-scenes look at sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, and imagine Howie’s ascent, conveniently overlooking the fact that this is actually intended to be a modern tragedy.

  “That movie had to be written by a Jewish American princess,” Howie says as we race out of the theater to grab cheesesteak subs before th
e next show. “‘John Norman Howard was once the best, but he was burning out. Until he met … Esther Hoffman.’ Hee hee. Esther Hoffman! God love her.”

  We make it back just as Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the first film in the evening’s testosterone triple-play, is starting. The tagline is “Thunderbolt … the man with the reputation. Lightfoot … the kid who’s about to make one!” Jeff Bridges plays the young sidekick to Eastwood’s grizzled, legendary bank robber. This could easily be Howie once we win.

  *

  We end up staying for only half of Midnight Express because the beating scene in the Turkish prison is more than I can take. Howie and I walk home and he sends me off to bed. I wake with a movie hangover—my mind reeling from so many stories—but A Star Is Born stays with me the most. Carly and Streisand look nothing alike, but Barbra Streisand’s character is all Carly. They’re both confident, soothing presences tempering a fervid, burning star. Esther Hoffman endures her share of indignities and the pain in her eyes … I’ve seen that before. Carly’s red eyes have become a common enough occurrence at the breakfast table that my family has named the condition puffy eyes. “Carly has puffy eyes again,” Amanda will say, ever noteful. And Carly will nod and sniffle and say, “Yup. Just one of those mornings, little one.”

  Why Howie lets it happen so often, how he could fail to appreciate just what he has waiting for him at home, is a mystery to me.

  My mother cries sometimes, but it’s always over domestic frustrations: Papa slipped back to bed and left her alone to clean the kitchen, or surprised her with the news that he’s not going to be home all day Saturday.

  More than the conflicts or their frequency, though, it is the depth of passion and its naked expression that sets the couples apart. Howie may hurt Carly’s feelings this way from time to time, but more often than not he is praising her as a goddess the universe revealed to him. The One True Love. “We’re into some eternal love shit,” he tells me.

  When Papa uses the word love it’s generally reserved for a new album or an exotic recipe he stumbled upon.

  “Lou!” he shouts as I enter the dining room. “Goddammit this drip method is the ONLY way to brew coffee. Taste this. Taste it!” He pushes his tall ceramic mug toward me but I shake my head sleepily.