Mark Leyner - Et Tu, Babe

“Korngold, what can I do for you?” asked the headman.

“Chief, I don’t know how familiar you are with the Genitotech Company and its flagship product, Phallotropin …”

“Phallotropin — if I’m not mistaken — is a patented form of synthetic penile growth hormone (PGH). The drug was originally developed as an otological drop to facilitate ear wax removal. Then, a number of men who inadvertently ingested the solution orally began to notice significant penile growth. In subsequent FDA trials, synthetic PGH was credited with adding up to six inches of penile length to men who produced insufficient quantities of the hormone on their own. Phallotropin, along with Upjohn’s Rogaine and Johnson and Johnson’s Retin-A, is a golden product of pharmaceutical serendipity, a drug that was originally developed for one very specific usage and which later manifested a quite unexpected and much more lucrative indication. Researchers at Genitotech have ‘fine-tuned’ the drug to work gradually so there’s no sudden bulge, an important benefit emphasized in Genitotech’s new television commercials (“People at the office noticed that I was looking younger, more virile — but they couldn’t quite put their finger on exactly what it was”). I also know that the writer Mark Leyner has supposedly signed a multimillion-dollar contract to be the spokesperson for Phallotropin.”

“That’s amazing! How is it that you’re so well versed in the developmental history of Phallotropin?”

“Look, just because we’re an extremely isolated, hallucinogen-snorting tribe of headhunters doesn’t mean that we don’t read the trade journals … Urology Today, Annals of Endocrinology , etc. Granted, we get them pretty late — the November issue of Urology Today , for instance, didn’t get here until May — but we read them. But anyway, Korngold, why’d you come all the way down here to talk to me about Phallotropin? At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, our men are more than adequately endowed.”

“Chief, I don’t know how closely you follow American pop culture.…”

The headman shrugged. “I know Sting, ’cause he’s down here a lot. But otherwise, by the time we get People or Entertainment Weekly , whoever they’re talking about is usually dead and buried.”

“Well, let me fill you in. Leyner was originally going to be the Phallotropin Man. He was perfect — a huge reputation for his books and hyper-macho image, especially with our targeted consumer sector, the adolescent male. He’d even experimented with some amateur genital enhancement as a youngster. But the guy’s run into some major problems lately.”

“The Lincoln’s morning breath thing … with the punitive confiscation?”

“That and an ugly divorce and defections that have decimated almost the entirety of his upper-echelon staff, and there are rumors of bizarre behavior — episodes of extreme delusional megalomania alternating with bouts of hysterical paranoia and deep depression, alcohol and Percodan abuse, etc. etc. And we just couldn’t take the risk with a product like this — Genitotech expects to sell over $650 million of Phallotropin in its first year on the market.”

“Mamma mia!” exclaimed the headman.

“The long and the short of it, Chief, is that we’ve dropped Leyner and we’d like you to be the Phallotropin Man.”

The headman cupped a hand over his mouth and cogitated for a long while.

“What about side effects …?” he asked finally. “I don’t want to bring ignominy upon my tribe by endorsing a product that’s unsafe.”

“Not to worry, Chief. So far as we’ve been able to determine, Phallotropin’s only side effects are hirsutism, priapism, and Holmes-Berle disease — a rare form of dementia caused by burrowing microworms that live in the brain.”

“And I’d get the same seven-figure deal that Leyner got?”

“Same cash deal, incredible media exposure for you and your tribe, and enough free Phallotropin to make you guys the preeminent studs of the Amazon. What do you say?”

“Korngold, I’m going to go snort some ebene, stagger around wild-eyed for a while with green mucus streaming from my nostrils, leave my body, descend to the subterranean world, evaluate your proposal with my dead ancestors, and then get back to you.”

“What sort of time frame are we talking about here?” Korngold asked, checking his appointment book.

“We’re talking a day or two, three tops.”

The headman stood, bowed, and grunted.

Korngold did likewise. “Chief, I’m looking forward to your decision and hopefully to a long and prosperous partnership with the Genitotech Company.”

The young acolytes reappeared, rooting their molars with long toothpicks, and escorted the stocky biotech exec into the rain forest.

The headman flicked a pebble at his administrative assistant, who’d been staring off into space, scratching his crotch. The round stone glanced sharply off his forehead.

“Who’s next, babaçú heto-hokã [worthless one]?”

“Chief, a Mr. Geoffrey Hoag and a Ms. Pamela van Zandt of Pretty Polly Inc., a British hosiery producer, were supposed to have been here half an hour ago. Maybe they’re lost.”

“Maybe …” echoed the headman bemusedly, gazing out toward a clearing in the jungle where a jaguar, who’d eaten the 50 pounds of rugelach that Korngold had brought for the chief, lay sprawled among white bakery boxes and string, immobile, his belly extremely fat, panting in the heat.

Ashley had just eaten the last chocolate egg.

“Mama, whatever possessed Mia Farrow to marry Frank Sinatra?” she asked, her words slurred somewhat by the thick volume of confection filling her little mouth and encumbering the agility of that trilling little tongue.

“Dear, not another word until you swallow what’s in your mouth. You’re a very naughty, very gluttonous little sugar addict.”

Ashley, with visible effort, swallowed the large sweet bolus, quite prematurely, especially as she was accustomed to savoring her chocolate upon her palate until it had seemed to melt away.

“That’s better. Now, what makes you ask why Mia Farrow would marry Frank Sinatra?”

“Well, Mama, when I look at the other men in Mia’s life — sensitive, artistic men like Andre Previn and Woody Allen — I just can’t understand what she saw in such a coarse, vulgar man who flaunted his Mafia connections and referred to women as ‘broads’ and ‘cunts.’ ”

Ashley reached into a crystal wassail bowl filled with jellybeans and candy corn and conveyed a fistful to her mouth.

“Ashley!”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she mumbled. “These are my last ones, I promise.”

“They most certainly are, young lady. Why, if you keep this up, you’ll be the only little girl in Gregory Day School wearing dentures.”

“Last ones, promise.”

“Ashley, what I don’t think you understand quite yet is that in their heart of hearts, women don’t lust after men who are merely sensitive and artistic. Men like that are ultimately quite boring. On the other hand, women can’t truly be loved and nurtured by men who are brutes and nothing more. And often in the course of a woman’s life, she vacillates back and forth from one extreme to the other in an effort to satisfy the spectrum of her needs. How rare it is that a single man can embody both of these seemingly antipodal profiles. Your grandfather, Ashley, was such a man.”

“Grandpa Mark?”

“Yes, Grandpa Mark — may his soul rest in peace.”

“Mama, what sort of man was Grandpa Mark?” Ashley asked, stealthily plucking several caramels from a jar across the table, as her mother took a tissue and dabbed her eyes, which had moistened at this recollection of her late, illustrious father.