by Hugo de Mare

I don’t call my friend Leon as often as I should, but when I do I try to make it count. “I just escorted a monkey on set to play chess with Leslie Nielson.” “I’m on my way to the Beverly Hills Public Library to find Betty White’s high school yearbook.” “I’m at the grocery store picking up avocados for Stephen Malkmus of Pavement.”  “Sorry I didn’t call you back last night, I was pit boss for the X concert.”

Most recently I tracked him down to let him know I was in the front hall bathroom of the Playboy Mansion standing in for Hugh Hefner’s reflection. Hef, performing for the cameras, was to check himself out in the bathroom mirror.  I was, as always, tucked away and out of sight, cuing him when it was time to close the door to end the scene. Here’s the twist–it being Hollywood (spoiler alert!), Old Hugh wasn’t actually looking into a mirror, as he appeared to be, but looking directly at me.  He had to look into my eyes to find his likeness.  And I’ll tell you, he’s either an underrated actor or he saw something of himself in me. I slouched to give him an accurate eyeline (money can get you laid but it can’t make you tall), he looked me right in the eyes, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t see himself!

I can’t claim to read the thoughts behind that unflagging, smarmy half smile, but it did make me wonder. Was he seeing his youthful potential, the man he could have been? Some innocent, hopeful Hugh Hefner prototype that tragically never made it past the focus groups? Uncorrupted by sex or leisure, was I Hef’s Rosebud?  Did destiny rob him of a life behind the eight ball as a struggling low level television production assistant and stick him with the burden of wealth and women?

Could he have been a better man if pussy hadn’t lorded over him? As age advanced on him, did he feel any guilt for perfecting and marketing the objectification of women? Did he fear for a slot in heaven, was there any regret for having never surpassed adolescence, for not thinking beyond his dick?

Was he soft from decades of silk pajamas and slippers, from women who never said no? Did he envy my scars, my calluses, my stubble, my stained denims, the bags under my eyes that spoke of long hours and unachieved goals, my rejectability?

Did he think, for just a moment, staring his youth in the face, that maybe there was more to life than dumb blondes and the money you could make off their desire to whore themselves out?  Did he wish there was a girl that he could talk to instead of an endless supply of ones he could fuck? Which is better, being rich and fucking chicks or wishing you were rich and fucking chicks? Once you got there, once you had it all, did you miss bagging groceries and stealing glances? The resolve you get from having to say ‘sir’ to someone you plan on being bigger and better than?  Now that he could have anything just by thinking it, did he ever miss what it felt like to earn it?

Or was it a source of great comfort for him to see me there, envious no matter how indifferent I tried to act, awed no matter how much boredom I meant to project, a limp dick jester in the presence of the king in his castle of cock? Was he the youthful one, the Dorian Gray, and I the portrait that suffered every abuse? I was the man he avoided becoming, the man he’s glad he’s not. Hungry, lonely, searching unsuccessfully for a better way to live, working instead of sleeping, saving instead of spending, driving instead of riding, masturbating instead of fucking, wanting instead of having. The kind of man that can’t get girls to do anything he says, the kind of man that can’t get girls full stop.