The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman

by Silkstone, Barbara

  “I think a lot of people make a commitment to marriage not realizing all the implications. They begin to think there’s something better out there. The frame starts to squeeze the picture. I guess that can cramp your growth. That and a partner who’s not one-hundred percent in your corner.”

  He strokes the light blond fuzz on the baby’s head. “I think they should really make it harder to get married, as difficult as they make it to get divorced. People have been saying that since they first invented marriage, but no one’s perfected the system.”

  “Is a happy marriage the hardest thing for a man to achieve?”

  “No, the toughest challenge a man has to face is raising children and making sure they’re equipped for the world.” The baby lets out a protest. He raises her to his shoulder and rubs her back. She relaxes into a quiet sniffle.

  This tableau sets a mind-scene I will replay when I see a particularly great piece of acting. How awesome to hold so much love and yet be able to portray so much anger. Good actors are worth what they get paid. The only way I could pretend to beat the poop out of someone was if he looked like the judge who granted my ex his cushy divorce.

  A question pops into my mind and out of my lips. “Tell me about your mother and how she may have affected your relationship with women.”

  John looks down at his little artist who has nodded off. Her blond head rests on the picnic table, her small fist clutches a red crayon. The baby is asleep in his arms.

  “I was five years old when my mother was taken from me, so I never really related to a woman in that way. I knew my mom loved me, but she was someone I had to come to understand. It was hard.”

  There is a yearning in his voice. He hesitates and then decides he can trust me with what is a really painful memory. “My mother was permanently institutionalized because she was schizophrenic. Two decades she spent staring at walls and hearing the screams of the other patients. I would visit her and come away with a cold lost feeling in my heart. She would rarely recognize me. The final weeks before she died, she was the most lucid I had ever seen her in my life. I thought perhaps...”

  He pauses and looks out over the hills. “I was blown away because suddenly she was speaking with such clarity about everything that had happened. I was twenty-six when she finally came around. For twenty years of my life I had wondered when my mom was going to get out. I actually had an epiphany when she passed away. It was a spiritual thing. I was in an airplane coming back home from her funeral. I had been sitting back and quietly crying. I had my eyes closed, but I saw clouds and my mom’s face. My mother spoke to me, she said ‘Honey, don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay.’ At that moment, the burden I had carried since I was a small child left my shoulders.”

  Gently he brushes the fine golden hair from the baby’s forehead. She wrinkles her nose.

  “I accepted that my creative spark was due to all those years I spent desperately wanting to be successful for my mother. I always had this dream as a kid that I was going to become really wealthy and take her out of the hospital and buy her a home, because all she really needed was love.”

  We sit silent for a moment. I dare not speak.

  “Now I realize my mom was ill. She would never get well enough for me to rescue her. She never saw me become successful. She never saw me act, but ... whenever I fantasize about the Academy Awards I know I would thank my family, but certainly my mom because she is a big part of who I am. She was my first love and my driving force.”

  The baby whimpers in an infant dream.

  John walks me to the door and thanks me for listening. I thank him for sharing. My emotional state is one of complete exhaustion. Without laying a hand on me he has savaged me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “My mother is the center of my emotional growth.”

  ~Fred, 37, married

  Case 440 / Fred

  I’m still in L.A. and the opportunity presents itself to interview a well-known, successful film producer. Famous for shunning publicity, Fred agrees to talk to me.

  This producer’s personal office is the size of a small subdivision. A cream-colored leather sofa dominates the room. I can imagine a dozen film executives sitting around, putting together a major motion picture deal.

  Greeted with a handshake, I’m offered a beverage and accept a bottled water. Fred directs me to a seat on the monster sofa and then settles in five cushions away from me. This seating arrangement is not going to work. I need intimacy.

  I pop up all perky and lovable and plop down smack next to Fred. I put a sofa pillow on my knees and use it to support my notebook.

  Mr. Movie Mogul is thrown off for an instant by my bold move, but then he grins. “Where do we start?” He nods at my feet, “Nice boots.”

  “Tell me your vision of a woman worth your love.”

  I take a sip of water and place the bottle back on an expensive looking coaster. I feel him judging me.

  “As I experience women, I feel quite badly in many ways for them because many times this feminism or women’s movement or whatever it is that you want to declare it, did not give them the liberation one would have hoped.”

  My first impression is that perhaps this is a prepared speech as it flows so easily from his lips. But then a concerned look settles on his face as he continues, “What it’s done in some ways has been to say, that if you’re not successful in the context that men are successful, your life hasn’t been worth living.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t believe that.”

  I inhale the luxury of the room, and wonder if it’s easier to say these things once you’ve conquered the world.

  His voice is softer now, “I believe from the bottom of my heart that one of the greatest women that I’ve ever known is not an overly bright woman. In the context of success in the outer world, her success is almost nonexistent.”

  “Who is this woman?”

  “She is one of the most honest, loving, giving human beings I’ve ever met. On that basis she is a hugely successful individual – my mom.” He leans his head in a boyish manner.

  “Everybody views my dad as a hugely accomplished man in his own right. But it’s unfortunate that people slight people who have committed themselves to making other people happy.”

  A hint of a tear settles in his right eye. “If my mother were to stand up there as a contemporary woman, she doesn’t have a college degree and she’s not writing a book or she’s not a successful something or other, people would say, it’s kind of a wasted life. There are times when I want to say to people, do you not get the value of growing up with somebody there to talk to, about whatever it is you want to talk about?”

  Finally – appreciation for the stay-at-home mom.

  “If only for the reason that my mom was there for me, I never went through one of those stages where I hate my parents, I’m going to go out and get drunk, do drugs, and have sex. I lived by such a cautious measure because I never really wanted to make my parents feel as though they didn’t do the right thing.”

  He smiles. “The value of having someone there when you come home from school whether you scraped your knee or whatever... Someone to talk to. We owe this to our children.”

  Is love simply having your love appreciated?

  My one hour interview has grown to four. By the time Fred escorts me out, his arm is around me and we are both in tears. One of the things I take away from my interviews with men is that a mother’s love for her son is the groundwork on which he stands. It can make or break him if it’s too much, too little, too soon, too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I taught my sons by example that when a woman says no, she doesn’t necessarily mean no. I’ve lived to regret that.”

  ~ Will, 55, Married

  Case Clippings / Mothers, Fathers, Daughters and Sons

  A professional chef in an upscale restaurant, Paul bears a half-way resemblance to Rob Lowe. We’re sitting in corner of the kitchen during a rare lull in this culinary wond
erland. I ask him to tell me about an intimate time with a woman.

  He barely hesitates. “One moment that sticks out in my mind was when I was about twelve. I’d been running around in the woods and I got stung my many, many bees. My mom took care of me. I was in a lot of pain and feeling very sorry for myself. She sat down on the bed with a bunch of my baby albums. She just talked about how happy she was when I was born. How much I really meant to her. I needed to hear that right then. I told her I loved her. We’ve always been close, but that was a special moment.”

  Mitchell is forty-six, tall, thin and bookish. He’s recently divorced after a twenty year marriage. “I used to want my father to just smack my mother once in awhile. She hated his family. But in the end, she took care of his mother when she got sick. When his father got ill, she took care of him too. My parents loved each other. I never saw it then. There were no signs of affection in our home. When I grew up, I realized they didn’t show it in the way I needed to see it. She really loved him. My father got sick forever and my mother took care of him. I keep wondering if I will ever find someone to marry who could take care of me if I got that sick.”

  Jim is sandy haired, twenty-nine and in a serious relationship. He manages a country club in Michigan. We sit on a patio overlooking the 17th green. It’s late spring and the air is sweet with the fragrance of blooms and promise.

  He says with a catch in his voice, “I realize more and more as time goes on how good of a person my mother was. She gave me excellent guidance on things that I keep coming back to in life. My mom was a single parent but she did her best to raise her children and still pursue a career. She died of cancer – a brain tumor. The tough part was watching her die because it took away from all the life she had before. I try to think about her when I’m down. Somehow the thought of her makes me stronger. She had a lot of class. A person isn’t really dead until no one thinks about them anymore. So as long as I have memories of her, she’ll continue to live.”

  Nathan’s a corporate lawyer in Chicago. He’s thirty-four, slightly chubby and adorable. We’re in his office at twilight.

  “After college, the only thing I was really qualified to do was rule the universe. I just didn’t know where to send my resume. I was making the decision between art school and law school. I went by my mom’s for dinner. She handed me a double scotch and the next thing I knew I woke up in the middle of first year contracts. The result is I have my law degree and I no longer drink scotch.”

  Jeff’s a legal assistant for a large law firm in North Carolina. He has Hugh Grant hair and puppy dog eyes. He works out three days a week and has muscles on muscles. “There I stood with paper shoes on my feet, paper pants on my body and they ask me to carry my new daughter. They hand me this seven-thousand pound baby. I can barely hold her.”

  At twenty-five, Allen’s finishing his last year of school. He’s tall with angry eyes and a forced smile. “One of the biggest things a man has to overcome is fearing other men. My father used to beat my mother. He was a very big man – over six feet and two-hundred and thirty pounds. The police would come and all the people in my neighborhood would see him get arrested. The next day all my friends would tell me what they would have done. There I was, ten years old, thinking I’m a sissy because I can’t defend my mother.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “She is where I go in my mind, when I feel the desire to cheat on my wife.”

  ~ Phillip, 54, married

  Case 452 / Phillip

  Phillip is a serious man, modest and soft spoken. Happily married for thirty-five years, he could easily be taken for a preacher. Behind his thick glasses I detect a twinkle in his bluish eyes. His teeth and his toupee are both slightly crooked.

  I meet him in the lobby of the Hyatt in Richmond. I’m in year five of my odyssey. A light snow covers the ground. We hug our coffee cups in an effort to get warm from the chill that lingers despite our sitting in a heated building.

  “I’ve never told anyone this story before,” he says with downcast eyes.

  Goody. I love these virgin stories.

  “I love my wife, but I cheat on her in a regular, non-physical way.”

  Non-physical cheating? I imagine it’s internet related. I’m wrong.

  “I was in the Tampa airport, in the elevator. The elevator door opened, I walked in and set my bags down. A woman walked up and stood directly in front of me. Other people came in and she backed into me. I felt her fondling me. She was one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen in my life. And I let her. I was shocked, but I let her touch me.”

  I try to imagine any woman wanting to grab Phillip’s pants. He’s one of the least desirable men I’ve encountered. Maybe that’s why she did it... for shock value?

  I could tell by his breathlessness that he was back in the elevator reliving the adventure for perhaps the thousandth time. I didn’t interrupt.

  “I have her telephone number,” he said. “She’s married and she lives in Toledo. I’ve never called. She is where I go in my mind, when I feel the desire to cheat on my wife.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Women are much more focused on what they have to do than men are. Whatever it takes to get close to a man or to get rid of him.”

  ~ Dr. Bob, 49, divorced

  Case 458 / Dr. Bob

  Six foot tall, thin, with a brush of gray in his thick curly hair, tight jeans, cowboy boots, one diamond earring, a Bugs Bunny necktie and a medical degree from an Ivy League school, Dr. Bob doesn’t convey the image of a surgeon.

  “I don’t think my divorce damaged me.” He begins. “It was such a relief. Everybody said it was going to take me two or three years to recover. It took me two days to get over it. Maybe I’m kidding myself.”

  It’s after hours and we’re in his office. The setting is intimate with pharmaceutical catalogues, bone diagrams, a pop-open heart with arteries, two Sylvester Cats and one Daffy Duck, all sitting on Dr. Bob’s cluttered desk.

  I realize he’s speaking, I had gotten lost in the décor. Looney Tunes is my favorite theme.

  “Being in the marriage was very draining. I came home every night to be criticized. Everything about my being was wrong.” He pours white lotion into his palm and massages his hands carefully as if seeing them for the first time. He appears lost in his recollections.

  “I found ways not to come home. For a while I was chief of medicine at one hospital and there were all kinds of meetings I had to go to. If there was something you could volunteer for, I volunteered.”

  I try to imagine what he did that was so wrong. He seemed normal to me, but then I wear Daffy Duck pajamas and Tweedy Bird tee shirts.

  “From the outside I appeared real easy going, ‘you want to go shopping today? Fine. Take the whole day. I’ll find something else to do.’ I was never demanding of her, because I didn’t care what she did.”

  Dr. Bob withers in the manner of a marionette whose strings have been cut. “How do you take the first steps toward divorce? You marry the wrong person.”

  Here’s a guy whose career balances on the edge of the consequences of his actions and he made a major miscalculation.

  “I met my former wife when I was on the rebound. I had been left by someone I really cared about and I was hurt.”

  How often are we walking band aids for someone else?

  “There was my ex, she was fun, wasn’t bad looking and we could go places together. I was leaving my residency and I said why don’t you come with me? She said the only way she would come was if we were married. I said okay, if that’s what it takes. She fit what I needed at the time.”

  Women are guilty of inserting themselves into the man-puzzle when it suits their agenda.

  He shakes his head. “I walked into the services and I said to myself, I made a big mistake. On our honeymoon I looked at her and said, ‘you know what? I don’t really want to be married to you.’ Well, that didn’t go over too well. It was the last time I said it, but honestly I never stop
ped feeling it. You make the best of it and I did that.”

  He smiles, trying to look satisfied. “At the end of my marriage I had an affair out of desperation. I needed to somehow feel like I was normal.”

  “Did you love her ... your affair?”

  “No. I just needed somebody to look at me and say ‘you’re not crazy.’ If I made the same mistake in surgery my patient would be dead. I didn’t trust my judgment anymore.”

  We set aside another afternoon for a bit more physician soul-searching as we were getting to some good stuff. The day before, his office manager calls to cancel our appointment.

  Dr. Bob was riding his Harley into the office that morning. He zigged when he should have zagged. With his career balanced on the edge of the consequences of his actions, he made a miscalculation. A metal plate now holds his brain together. He’ll never practice medicine again.

  The following weekend my daughter has her dream wedding at the Disney resort. She looks radiant and yet slightly sad. Did I miss something?

  I watch as the groom parades into the banquet room, my daughter racing to keep up. He waves his arms as if he’s accomplished some great feat. I guess his showing up is important in his mind.

  People toast and chow down and I wonder if all this work has any meaning. The odds are against success but I pretend to believe. We blow environmentally safe bubbles on the wedding couple as they leave the reception. The iridescent globes paint a picture of what the future might hold as they rise in the air and then pop.

  I really need to quit the interviewing – I’ve lost my happy edge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Nobody owes it to anybody to get married.”

  ~ Doug, 53, divorced

  460 / Doug

  I’m in Tallahassee, a place best left to people with a thirst for humidity and politics.