Falling Back to One

by Randy Mason

  And cops knew rapists lived and breathed this kind of crap, so it came as no surprise when some particularly perverted assault was copied from some photo or “story.” Baker thought about the look he’d just seen on Micki’s face. He didn’t care what anyone said; this shit did damage. He couldn’t believe there were liberal assholes who actually supported the smut peddlers hiding behind the first amendment.

  “So what about the magazine in your bedroom?” she asked.

  “Huh?” His mind snapped back. “That’s just a copy of Playboy.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s just a copy of Playboy. Didn’t you look at it?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you—” He paused, a knowing look coming over him. “You’ve never actually seen Playboy, have you.”

  “So what.”

  After a brief hesitation, he left the room and returned with the magazine, tossing it onto the desk in front of her. “This is what I read. Take a look at it if you want. What can I say? Men like looking at pictures of naked women.” He snorted. “Well, I guess some women like looking at pictures of naked men, too; the women’s libbers finally got Playgirl for themselves.”

  “I take it you don’t go for women’s lib.”

  “Hey, that’s not true.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Look, I believe women should get equal pay for equal work. And women should be able to have any job they want so long as they’re capable of doing it. But, see, that’s the thing: they have to be capable of doing it. Like, I really don’t give a shit if a fireman’s a man or a woman so long as they’re strong enough to get me the hell out of a burning building. What pisses me off is when they start talking about lowering strength requirements just so women can qualify. We’re talking about saving people’s lives, here. If a woman isn’t strong enough, she’s got no business doing a job like that.”

  “Yeah? So what about women cops?”

  “First of all, being a cop doesn’t require a lot of physical strength—though it certainly doesn’t hurt. And I have to say, I’ve known women who were good at working undercover. But until now, most lady cops haven’t been much more than glorified jail matrons; most of them haven’t been doing the same things as men. The department only got serious about putting women on regular street patrol last year. I’m not really sure if the ladies’ve got what it takes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.” Seeing the shocked expression on Micki’s face, he gave her a wry smile. “I admit I was pretty skeptical at first: female rookies’ll have a tough enough time dealing with a lot of the male cops, never mind the demands of the job. But so far, from what I’ve heard, most of them have been making the grade. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

  “See, the thing is, Micki, even if men and women are equals, it doesn’t mean we’re the same. Some of these feminists say we are, and that’s just bullshit.” His eyes fell on the magazine. “Take sex, for example. You think I ever worry about getting raped? Or wake up in the morning, wondering if I’m pregnant? Right there it’s pretty obvious we’re on two different playing fields. Just the fact that our bodies are different means the experience can’t be exactly the same. It’s not better for one than the other; it’s just different. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I’m not stupid, y’know.”

  His voice quiet, he said, “No, you’re not stupid.” He finished emptying the wastepaper basket, then picked up the bulging plastic bag. “I’m going to throw this out. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  After she heard the front door close behind him, she looked at the copy of Playboy. On the cover, the same nude woman was reclining in four different poses, though nothing was actually revealed because of the way she was positioned and how the sheet was placed around her. Micki began turning pages. High-class liquor, cigarette, and clothing ads were interspersed with several pages of letters to the editor, most of them addressing previous articles on political issues, public policy … An ad for Sheaffer pens said: “Tell her you love her. Everyday.” She came across “Playboy after Hours,” which, after remarking on several bizarre items in the news, went on to review restaurants, records, movies … There was an ad for Bulova watches showing male and female executives sitting around a conference table.

  When she reached “The Playboy Advisor,” the first feature focusing mostly on sex, she scanned the magazine’s responses to the readers’ questions, the editors actually providing one man with tips on how to give good oral sex to a woman. Overall, there was little of that leering obnoxiousness she’d gotten used to seeing. In fact, in some ways the magazine seemed sort of pro-women. Even the readers’ queries and letters in “The Playboy Forum” were different in tone than those of the other magazines. That the letters appeared to be genuine was something in and of itself. She was also amazed that, in fifty pages-worth of material, she’d hardly seen more than two or three bared chests. She looked at the cover again. It said “Entertainment for Men.” She returned to where she’d left off.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  PURPOSELY TAKING HIS TIME, Baker stuffed the bag into the garbage chute. Why did things always have a knack for working out like this? Falrone sends him a smut rag just once, and the kid’s there to find it. He closed the door to the closet-sized room, started back, and almost laughed: what would some parenting expert have to say about his decision to let her see Playboy? At her age, if she were male, he wouldn’t be thinking twice, but he had no idea what was appropriate for a girl. Of course, after everything she’d already seen, the issue was moot. At least this way she’d know that there were all kinds of magazines just like there were all kinds of men.

  Besides, Playboy was a quality publication. The articles were good, the interviews excellent—even renowned. He stopped in the middle of the hallway. The interview in this month’s issue was with the editor of Screw. Not only was the man despicable, but somewhere during the piece, he mentioned an encounter with Linda Lovelace, describing how she’d gone down on him in a “69.” He’d said that when her chemise, as he’d called it, had blown away from her body, he’d looked up to see scar tissue running down her chest. Baker remembered the guy stating what a turn-off that had been. Given all the scars Micki had …

  Baker ran the rest of the way back, tore into the apartment, and came to an abrupt halt in the doorway of the study—not exactly subtle. And he couldn’t stop himself from flicking a glance at the magazine to see what she was looking at.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Something in here you don’t want me to see?”

  A thin, almost sick-looking smile forced its way to the surface of his face. “No, no—not at all.” And he leaned on the doorframe, casually folding his arms over his chest.

  “You’re a lousy liar.”

  He straightened up. “Look, Micki, this month’s interview is with the editor of Screw, which, by the guy’s own admission, is a really filthy magazine.”

  “I know what it is.”

  There was a long pause. “Yeah … well … then you know the guy’s scum. Anyway, I think it’s obvious from the way the piece is written that Playboy thinks so, too. But I’d just rather you didn’t read it, okay?”

  “If Playboy thinks the guy’s so gross, then why did they interview him in the first place?”

  Baker paused again. “I don’t know.”

  She went back to the magazine, turned the page, and there it was: “Playboy Interview: Al Goldstein, a candid (ugh!) conversation with the outrageous editor of ‘screw.’ ” There were three photos of Goldstein with the caption under the middle one quoting him: “Screw leads the league in tastelessness. Our photos are filthier, our articles more disgusting. Our stock in trade is raw, flailing sex. The word love is alien to us. Who needs love? Yuch!” This last declaration touched a nerve, for Micki already had her doubts about men and love. She ski
mmed through the introductory text preceding the interview itself, and, at one point, it stated how, at seventeen, Goldstein hadn’t known if he should kiss his dates goodnight or take them behind the bushes and rape them. Micki’s jaw tightened. She turned the page and scanned some more.

  Absently tapping his foot on the floor, Baker was unable to recall exactly where the encounter with Linda Lovelace was mentioned. The bit about the scars couldn’t be more than a few lines buried in the numerous pages of the interview. Unfortunately, right now, all he could do was stand by and watch. So when Micki rapidly turned past the end of the first segment—apparently she’d had enough—he exhaled. With any luck, she wouldn’t bother reading the rest if she came across it later.

  Micki picked the magazine up from the desk and started flipping through till she came across the first pictorial. Airbrushed into an ethereal glow, the naked woman in the photos looked beautiful, though the romantic mood in many of them seemed ridiculous given that she was basically saying, “Fuck me.”

  Suddenly very aware that Baker was watching her examine pictures of naked women, she glanced up. He broke eye contact.

  A few pages more and she found a report on men’s fashions, accompanied by several photos where the man was fully clothed; the woman, not at all or with her breasts exposed. Micki’s body tensed, fresh anger welling up. Though the storyline seemed innocent enough—the woman getting dressed while the man waited so they could go out on a date—it was really nothing more than a nicer version of similar photos in raunchier magazines. Usually shot in some group setting, like a party, all of the women would be topless or naked while the men had all their clothes on. It was a power thing. It was disgusting. And yet the women in the photos (and the cartoons, of course), with their breasts and/or crotches hanging out for all to see, were always smiling like they enjoyed being treated like things, like toys for men to play with: just “tits and ass”—or like they were too dumb to even care.

  Micki hated it: the porn; the strip clubs; the way men had to put women down just to get a quick, easy fix for their egos. She remembered how Speed had once come back to the hangout, cursing his head off about the “motherfuckin’ meter maid” who’d ticketed him for leaving his motorcycle at a bus stop while he ran into a store to get some gin. “I come out,” he said, “and the fuckin’ bitch is writin’ a fuckin’ ticket. So I try to reason with the stupid cunt, but she keeps writin’. She goes”—he made his voice high and snippy—“ ‘Sir, if you disagree with this ticket, you can always contest it.’ So I goes, ‘Listen, bitch, just show me your tits, and I’ll pay the fuckin’ thing right now.’ ” Looking extremely proud of his quick comeback, Speed started laughing.

  “Hey, man,” Tim said, “not in front of the kid, okay?”

  Speed looked straight at Micki and said, “You shoulda seen that bitch’s face. Thinkin’ she’s so fuckin’ high and mighty in her fuckin’ little uniform. That bitch needed to be taught a lesson, and I shoulda been the one to teach it to her.” Tim had said something else, but Speed had already started toward the door. But then he’d looked back over his shoulder at Micki and said, “I think I’ll go to the titty bar now for a few laughs.”

  You didn’t have to be a fucking genius to connect the dots.

  Returning to the magazine, Micki paged through some more. Why were women always supposed to laugh everything off: the photos, the jokes …? Black people certainly weren’t expected to accept being the butt of racist jokes anymore, and guys sure as hell didn’t like it when the situation was reversed: Speed had a shit fit when Tim’s girlfriend had brought in her copy of Playgirl’s very first issue. She’d bought it the year before just to find out what it was like. And from what Micki had seen, the men posing in it weren’t even fully naked, their penises always covered by something or other, men—unlike women—apparently deserving to keep some shred of dignity.

  Then there were the stupid girls at school who went along with the sexist jokes, trying to be cool or “one of the guys,” as if the jokes and stuff weren’t about them, that they were somehow excluded—special. But all it did was make it look like girls agreed they deserved to be treated like that. When the guys eventually turned on them—they almost always did—the girls’ outrage was kind of satisfying.

  But as for the girls who sold their bodies in one way or another—smiling and acting like it was all a huge laugh for them, too—well, that was an entirely different matter. After all, who would want to admit that what they were doing—or being forced to do—was degrading? It made it all that much more humiliating. “I don’t care; it’s no big deal; it doesn’t bother me …” What bullshit. That’s why they had to keep frying their brains on drugs and alcohol.

  Once, when Micki had been bold enough to confront a few of them, one of the streetwalkers had called her a “silly little girl” that needed to “grow up.” But by some bizarre coincidence, only a few days later, that very same hooker had ended up huddled with Micki in a doorway, both of them taking refuge from a sudden summer shower. During those few minutes when they were alone—the hot, sticky air momentarily cooling in the dark shade of the storming thunderclouds—the girl’s tough, hard-as-nails pretense fell away, her raw pain pouring out with the rain. Through tears, she started laughing, remembering how—at eight years old, pretending to be a beautiful ballerina with a sparkly tiara and pink satin toe shoes—she’d broken her ankle by jumping barefoot onto the very tips of her toes in the middle of the room. Her mother had been furious. Yet, after her ankle had healed, she was allowed to go for lessons at the local dance school.

  But not long after that, her stepfather, who’d always given her the creeps, started visiting her bed in the middle of the night, saying if she ever told anyone, he wouldn’t pay for the classes anymore. He said it was her own fault anyway—for being such a tease. So after her fifteenth birthday, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she ran away. Dance bag stuffed with leotards, tights, some underwear, and little else, she took a bus to New York City. The entire ride in, she pictured herself dancing on stage at the famed Lincoln Center. Her plan was to get a job giving manicures—she was good at that—and take real ballet lessons. But when she got off at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, she had no idea where she was. She must’ve looked as lost as she felt because a well-dressed man approached and offered to buy her a cup of coffee. He told her he could help her. He told her he could make her a star.

  “God,” she said to Micki, “I was so stupid.”

  The downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started, the sun bursting through the clouds. A small, faded rainbow struggled to climb above the steeple of the church across the street. Without so much as a goodbye, the hooker hurried away. And only one week later, Micki found out she’d jumped off the roof of a fleabag hotel. And broken her neck.

  Micki closed her eyes. That could’ve been her. There were times after Tim had died when she’d felt so unwanted, hated herself so much, that she’d considered turning herself out—as though selling her body was some kind of punishment she deserved. Those were moments of near madness when she would hear a little voice saying, “You know that’s what you really are; give it up already. Who do you think you’re kidding? You’re garbage, just like the rest of them.” And part of her, in imagining herself giving in, would feel this strange—and disturbing—sense of relief. Ironically, by cutting her up the way he had, the Knife had spared her: with all of her scars, even the pimps hadn’t bothered with her.

  Opening her eyes, Micki turned back to the Playboy and quickly glanced through two other photo spreads. In general, the pictures were tastefully done and, for the most part, respectful. They were certainly very tame—not even a single beaver shot. She closed the magazine and dropped it back on the desk. But she wouldn’t look at Baker.

  He, however, was looking at her. The changing pattern of emotions that had washed over her face had left him with a queasy feeling. What the hell had she been
thinking about? For several minutes she hadn’t even been looking at the magazine.

  The silence grew, making it all the more awkward.

  “So what’s the verdict?” he finally asked.

  Mouth set in a hard, bitter line, she shrugged.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Micki, there’s still a lot of male-chauvinist pig in me. I grew up in a different time with different rules. But I try to change when I can.”

  She faced him.

  “I suppose if I were perfect,” he went on, “I wouldn’t even buy this magazine because I’m supporting an organization that has clubs with grown women running around in little bunny costumes to wait on men. But I—I have my weaknesses.”

  She had the impression he was waiting for her to respond. What was he expecting her to say? In a small, cautious voice she finally offered, “You smoke a lot.”

  It took him a second to process this seeming non sequitur. But then he threw his head back and laughed while she looked on in confusion. Still smiling, he said, “I smoke too much.” And he felt the impulse to tousle her hair. Instead he asked, “So, you’re finished for today?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Well then, let’s take a look.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  And his eyes were almost kind.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  AFTER A QUICK CHECK around the study, he moved on to the living room, followed by the kitchen, and then the bathroom—where his shirt was still hanging from the shower-curtain rod.