Mark Leyner - Et Tu, Babe

My Secret Garden

Friday had assured all contributors that their submissions would be kept absolutely confidential. How did “Nightstick” find out about this fantasy and what is my legal recourse vis-à-vis Nancy Friday and her publishing company?

Yours truly, Francine Masiello

I was scheduled to meet the manager of the Global Entertainment — Book, Record, & Video Annex at 11 A.M. the next morning. As I entered the store, I was pleased to see an elaborate window display of the book of photographs, which Rizzoli had entitled The Celestial Voyeur: Heavenly Views of an Earthly Body . The manager, a knowledgeable-looking, earnest young man in sweater and tie, was assisting a customer.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “There’s a new album out, I’m not sure what the name of it is … but it’s the sound of two men lifting tremendous weights. I wish I could remember the name of it … oh shit, I was just talking about it to someone and now I can’t think of it. Goddamn it!”

“Well, there are two new albums out — one is the sound of the weights themselves — the clanking of the iron plates on the barbells and the thud of dumbbells being dropped. And the other is the sounds, the vocalizations, of the men themselves.”

“Is the first one just the sounds of free weights — you said barbells and dumbbells — that made it sound like only free weights? Or does it have sounds from a Universal or Nautilus? Like I wonder if it’s got the sound of the metal pin going into the right weight slot on the rack?”

“I think it’s free weights, Universal, Nautilus, stationary bike, and Stairmaster all mixed together — sampled. But just the sounds of the equipment, not people.”

“No, I think it’s the other one — the men. I think it’s called something like Smell My Thick Leather Belt After I Power-Lift … or maybe Hymns to a Hernia, Huge Weights and Sweaty Straining Men … or something like Colossal Men Suckle Methyltestosterone from the Hairy Nipples of the Men Who Spot for Them or something like that.”

“Let me see here … OK, we have something called Getting Huge — The Incredible Sounds of Hairy Men in Thick Leather Belts Lifting Tremendous Weights: A Sonic Mosaic of Pain, Nipples, Armpit Hair, Sweat, and Protein Powder.”

“Is it a Nonesuch album?”

“Yes. Nonesuch.”

“That’s it! That I remember, Nonesuch is the label. You have the CD, right?”

“We sure do.”

“Good, because I think they said on the radio that the CD has two cuts that the cassette doesn’t have.”

“That’s right, the CD includes one cut with the sounds of the two men doing rear-delt cable laterals and another cut with them doing crossover flys with extremely heavy weights.”

“Is that the one where you hear one guy saying, ‘C’mon, let’s get big, let’s get big,’ and the other starts his reps and you hear him moan and then the other guy starts screaming at him, ‘Move the weight! You’re a fuckin’ strong man, you’re an animal! Burn it, burn it!’ and then the other guy growls as he completes his set and then at the end you hear them give each other high-fives?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I definitely think that’s the one I heard on Public Radio. Do you carry video equipment and computer equipment?”

“Yes, we do.”

“OK, there’s something, I’m not exactly sure what it is — some kind of interactive computerized laser video player or interactive digital video software or something — but it enables you to take any movie and insert Arnold Schwarzenegger as the actor in the lead role …”

“Yes, we have what you’re talking about, but you’re a little confused about it. We have the equipment here: the computer, the digital video image synthesizing unit, the software — all that — we have that in the store. You tell us what you want — which films you want Schwarzenegger inserted into and we do it right here for you.”

“So you do it — I don’t need to buy the equipment?”

“Oh no no no, we do it right here. As a matter of fact, you can even fax your order in and we’ll deliver the Schwarzeneggerized videos to your home.”

“Oh cool! Can I order some now?”

“Sure.”

“OK. I’d like My Fair Lady with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Professor Henry Higgins, Amadeus with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Salieri instead of F. Murray Abraham, The Diary of Anne Frank with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Anne Frank, West Side Story with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Tony, It’s a Wonderful Life with Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of Jimmy Stewart, Gandhi with Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of Ben Kingsley, Bird with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Charlie Parker instead of Forest Whitaker … can you do documentaries?”

“Sure.”

“There’s a documentary called Imagine about John Lennon. Could you fix it so that it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of Lennon?”

“No problem.”

“So it’ll be Schwarzenegger playing with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and Schwarzenegger doing those peace things in bed with Yoko Ono and everything?”

“Yes, ma’am. Our equipment is state of the art.”

“OK, and one last one … how about Rain Man?”

“Would you like Arnold Schwarzenegger as the autistic brother or the Tom Cruise character?”

“Could you do it so he’s both, sort of like Patty Duke did as Patty/Cathy in ‘The Patty Duke Show’?”

“We can, yes … that may be a little more expensive, though.”

“Well, I’ll take it. And I think that’s it, and thank you very much for all your help.”

“It’s been my pleasure,” said the earnest young man.

Occasionally, I’ll conduct a writing workshop. I’m accompanied by my phalanx of bionic elderly bodyguards, some of whom are heavily armed and stationed at predetermined strategic positions within the room and building, and some of whom work undercover, posing as workshop participants. I’m also armed. Since I don’t like to carry a firearm when I conduct a writing workshop — I’ve found that it tends to inhibit people who haven’t yet developed a confident style of their own — I’ll come with an icepick in my sock. I openly brandish a cargo hook, but I figure that in the event that somehow someone is able to wrest the cargo hook from me, I’ll have recourse to the hidden icepick.

I usually start the workshop by showing slides in response to questions. Thanks to the media attention that’s been focused on my car collection, someone inevitably asks about my most recent automotive acquisition. So, for instance, at the last workshop I taught, I showed slides of my newest car, which is made by Visigoth Motor Works (VMW), a survivalist automobile manufacturer located in northern Idaho. I’ve got their sports coupe, the Piranha 793 (commemorating the year that Viking raiders sacked the English monastery of Lindisfarne). It features state-of-the-art technology that not only protects its passengers in the event of a collision, but ensures the death of the passengers in the other car. The Piranha 793 is the perfect automotive statement for the “I’m OK, You’re Lunch” generation. It incorporates computerized infrared homing systems that guide the vehicle toward the heat generated by the engine of an oncoming car, ensuring head-on collisions with “optimized lethality.”

Climaxing my slide presentation, I showed a photograph that I thought perfectly captured the glamour and éclat of Visigoth Motor Works: it’s me arriving at the People’s Choice Awards in my Piranha 793 convertible, almost anonymous in my Kevlar driving mask, were it not for the bare-midriff football jersey revealing my inimitably rippled abdominals.