The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman (12 page)

There’s a loose thread of tension just under the surface and I pull it. “Would you be willing to stay in a marriage and lead separate lives?”

He frowns and the red spots disappear. Now he is his father’s son. “You have to have your own life outside of a relationship. My wife would have to allow me to have my little quirks and interests. If I committed myself to someone I would be willing to give up everything, except myself for that person.” He studies my eyes checking to see if I got it.

“I would be willing to make a lot of concessions to maintain a relationship that is that important to me. Because we Americans pride ourselves on our individuality, we lose the ability to compromise. That does away with the meaning of family and marriage. Marriage is more than just sticking to your word. It’s total compromise.”

I’m back in Los Angeles staying at Sal’s ash tray. I reek of smoke and can’t stand myself. He’s been sweet enough to give me his bedroom while he sleeps on a tired leather sofa in his den. Sal writes for the horror industry so my investigation fits real well with his wiring. He’s filled with great curiosity about the human animal.

This morning I leave quietly not sure whether Sal’s sleeping or writing as the door to his room is closed.

I head for North Hollywood and a sprawling multilevel stucco home sitting high on a winding road. David is a film director with an Oscar, a career bachelor who at forty-six seems to have it all – good friends, a glowing future, respect and a long-term relationship.

He greets me dressed in jeans and a work shirt. He could be anybody, but he’s not. We curl up on the Stickley sofa in his huge living room. The house has a history of movie star owners. I listen, fascinated, as he fills me in. Then I steer him back on topic.

“I’m not sure marriage and having kids is the answer,” he says at last. “A lot of people do that and they’re no more contented than they were before. They’ve just got a lot more noise in the house.”

I press on. “But let’s say you’ve been married for thirty years, how did you stay together?”

He screams. “Oh no, god! I can’t imagine having been married for thirty years and having anything left to say to the person. Marriage seems to be such a contrived notion. Society always has some sort of damn reason for it. Way back when, it was a way for the Church to control people. Now it’s still a way for religious control but now the lawyers have started feeding off of it as well.”

I stir uncomfortably.

David continues. “Commitment doesn’t come from a piece of paper. It comes from your heart. If you can’t do it in your heart, you’re not going to do it in a ceremony. Getting married isn’t going to make up for any lacking that you have. And yet everyone is getting married by God and everyone is getting divorced. And the lawyers are getting richer and richer.”

“Maybe you’re just frightened by the intimacy of marriage?” A dumb response, coming from me, the skeletal remains of a pack of foraging legal jackals with a craving for lemon drops.

His brow furrows visibly searching. “No... I wouldn’t say frightened, exactly. Maybe on some level there is a little groan of concern that you show somebody everything that you’re all about and there’s nothing left. There’s no place to hide anymore. There is probably a part of me that is afraid that in the final analysis, in the long run, I will not be successful in making a relationship work. Maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy that tells you to hold back and maybe it’s the holding back that makes it, in the long run impossible to work.

“I’ve never particularly viewed life as a jigsaw puzzle with a finite number of pieces. If you get all the right little pieces and put it together and it will be a picture and then AH, you’ll be happy. I don’t think it works that way.”

I think about awful Ben, the sports team manager, and his need to fit his wife into the puzzle of his life. Two men, polar opposites. No wonder I’m struggling with the investigation.

“If you’re male or female, there’s always going to be something that is lacking. Whether real or imagined, there is some instinctive need people have to torment themselves with ‘why don’t I have this’ or ‘why don’t I have that.’ That kind of thinking ultimately affects relationships.”

His voice tightens. “If I can’t find satisfaction in all that I have achieved, then what the hell is wrong with me? I don’t know necessarily where to go from here, except to continue doing what I’ve been doing. I don’t know where else the satisfaction comes from... if I did, I’d go there.”

I can sense he’s struggling to draw it all together, not for me but for himself. As I pack up my notes and recorder, he looks down at my feet.

“Nice boots,” he says.

I laugh. What’s with these boots? I should be selling them out of the trunk of my car. If I ever see Mark again I hope that I’m wearing them.

“Right place, right time.”

~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator

Commercial real estate’s a lot like the game of life. You can work your heart out on one sale with two years worth of income riding on the outcome and just as it’s falling apart, a different deal pops up out of nowhere and closes itself in less than a month. My love investigator career was saved at the last minute when an old client stepped up to buy an apartment complex and asked me to tie up the loose ends. It was a simple, sweet deal and paid all my credit cards current. I could keep on interviewing... if I wanted to.

I looked at my boots sitting on the closet floor. “What do you think, boots? Have we got a few more rounds in us?” So much time invested – so close to answers about the existence of real love – no sign of Mark. I keep hoping I’ll bump into him. Serendipity.

“Today’s women are men, turned inside out.”

~ Devon, 46, divorced

Case 475 / Devon

Devon resembles a senior leprechaun with round cherub cheeks and a beard that comes and goes. He has a soft whispery way of speaking. The second oldest of four Irish Catholic brothers, guilt has kept him in relationships long after the passion has died. At forty-six, Devon is an expert at irony and its companion, bullshit detection. An hour spent with him is fifty-nine minutes of laughter. He’s been my good friend for a dozen years.

We’re in his office, a mini-shrine to his hobby, vintage hot rods. Photos of his personal car collection line his office walls. I begin our talk, “You’ve had a lot of experience with women. Tell me one major thing you’ve learned about females.”

He smiles, “Women process, that’s why men hesitate to speak. They know that if they say something, it goes into that processor and drops back out later. It’s that damn
Vegematic
women have in their heads.”

“Vegematic?”
I laugh remembering the funny routine from
I Love Lucy.

“They store little bits of information in this part of the brain (he points) that only the female has. And then when some occurrence – it can be as far as twenty years later – drops into that formula that makes all those little bits jell ... watch out. ‘Oh in 1996 when you said to me so and so – now I realize you meant such and such.’”

“What’s the answer to the
vegematic
problem?”

“I tell women, don’t sweat the small stuff.”

“What
is
the small stuff?”

“The women in all my offices get on the phone in the morning and check in. They gossip. Ignore it. Don’t be a part of it. The most destructive thing to relationships is other people trying to command, control, and get attention by creating
why
something happened. That’s the small stuff.”

His expression grows serious. “I’ve been a great supporter of the women’s movement. I’m one of those men out there on the front line. But I’ve found that at least in my business, I promote women up to the top levels and they spend more time jousting windmills than they do winning wars.”

“How so?”

He sighs. “Women frequently have a hard time handling authority. They’re overbearing to their female under-workers. You know what’s really funny? They get in that position and they try to be one of the boys. They’ll start going to racquet ball clubs and driving a BMW convertible. I don’t understand it. They should develop their own patterns. Not try to fit into the male mold.”

“Who would you say today’s women are?”

“Women are men turned inside out. They have the same sexual needs and the same career achievement desires. Females are stronger and smarter, but their biological function is to be nurturing. You can’t change nature. So why not just relax?”

“Tell me about success and women.”

“Women will seek you out. They’re attracted to success, power and money. I’ve known guys who have been very wealthy and kept it very low key. I get defensive immediately when I meet a woman and she looks me in the eye and says – what do you do? I think what difference does that make? Everyone’s a wannabe riding on someone else’s shoulders. I hear woman talk about men who have thirty-foot boats and Mercedes comparing them with guys who only have a twenty-eight foot boat and a BMW? Does that make a person?”

I think of my Boston friend, Christa. All her relationships have a value-added identity.

He says, “That’s one thing I learned from my divorce. I spent fifteen years working to buy
thing.
I had to have it. I’ll only be happy when I have this
thing.
And then you get it. You have this
thing.
You find that when you’re going through an emotional upheaval the
thing
doesn’t matter. When I got separated I went and lived in a beach shack for two months. It was the most peaceful time of my life. And I didn’t have the
thing
anymore. She got the
thing.
”

He chuckles. “My friends and I tried to figure out why women are the way they are. We decided that women are born with one side of their brain being the ‘Get Engaged Lobe’. The day after the wedding it turns into the ‘Shopping and Nagging Lobe.’ Women love the word ‘honesty’ – but I found that being honest gets me in more damn trouble. A lot of times when women are saying we need to communicate, what they’re really saying is, I need to tell you the way you need to be.”

“Dev, you never seem to be without companionship, except when you want to be. Why do you think people have such trouble connecting?”

He shrugs. “The bar scene. You can write a whole book about it. It’s a
Ship of Lost Souls.
Women go there dressed worse than the biggest hooker you’ve ever seen. They complain about the type of guy they meet there. It’s Joe Fungalotti with the fifteen year-old Corvette and the ten gold chains around his neck. Then what are they going to do? You can’t even talk to the guy.”

I laugh at the vision of imaginary Joe Fungalotti.

“I used to go out and party with my friends all the time. One day I just sat there and said, ‘this is absolutely asinine.’ One of the main reasons I went out was to yuk it up and have a good time. I noticed I’d go to Cadillac Jack’s and two years later I’d go there and I’d see the same people. It was like they hadn’t moved. It just amazes me. First of all, how much liquor can they consume and second what are they looking for in there? Surely Mr. or Ms. Right isn’t standing at a bar.”

“Give me some advice women can really use.”

“A lot of the women that work for me tell me, ‘I can’t find a nice guy.’ I tell them to take up tennis, take up sailing lessons, bird watching, scuba diving, do something! Everybody’s got an interest. Sometimes you don’t even know what you’re interested in until you try it. It’s a real simple formula.”

He leans forward locking me with his green eyes. “Here’s what really puzzles me. You pick up these women’s magazines that glorify how if you’re seductive and you’re good looking you’ll get whatever you want. We all know it’s surface. Sooner or later you’ve got to deal with personalities and character. People parade for themselves. My ex-wife was a mall-freak. She would run from shop to shop to shop and just blindly go through racks of clothes while I waited for her. I would sit in the middle of the mall and watch the circus.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “It amazes me. I often wonder if those women look in the mirror before they come out. Not only are they slovenly dressed, but they’re trashy. They’re wearing thong panties showing out their waist bands and exposed bras. What are they looking for? They’re desperate for attention. They don’t realize the type of person they draw. The shorter the skirt, the higher the heels, the lower class guy they’ll attract.”

“Joe Fungalotti.” We both say the name in unison.

I find myself smiling at him again. I wonder if there was ever a woman who understood him.

“I dated a girl who was very willing to try things. She was a pleasure. I’d say let’s go do something and five minutes later we were out the door. Instead of, I’ve got to go put on my makeup. What am I going to wear? Let’s just go do ... live.”

“What happened to her?”

“What
did
happen to her?” He screws up his face trying to remember.