When The Man Who Fell to Earth finally airs on TV, I watch with an uncanny feeling of recognition. “You’re really a freak,” Mary-Lou tells an alien Bowie. “I don’t mean that unkindly. I like freaks.” It sounds promising, but in the end the alien’s family dies on his home planet. He’s left behind in a world he doesn’t belong to. I know the feeling, Mr. Bowie. It may be the most depressing film I’ve ever seen. More importantly, it’s a message from the universe. The question is, is it the universe that will break me or is the universe yet to be conquered?
The answer comes as the Man Who Fell credits fade, in the form of a commercial for a new movie. It’s Hooper, starring a bubble-blowing Burt Reynolds as an aging stuntman and Jan-Michael Vincent as his youthful, rugged protégé Ski. “Hooper’s in a dangerous business, but his reward is excitement, adventure, and a fortune … If he lives to collect it!”
“Burt Reynolds did it!” Howie’s mom had said. “And look at his career!”
Hooper and Ski race chariots, flip cars, and explode fuel trucks. They’re on movie sets, in helicopters, popping dirt bike wheelies, and outrunning falling buildings. There may be danger, but there’s no sign of alienation. No one’s ever had so much fun in a bar fight as Burt and Jan. Excitement and adventure, a fortune to collect—and most importantly, friendship and loyalty that transcends all the risks.
In an alien land where everyone wants me to be something I am not, Howie and I can be something out of this world. If Papa only understood. School? The North Shore Sunday? These will break me. If he wants a son who follows in his footsteps, who chooses conquest over being conquered, then he should know: nothing will come between me and this campaign.
I spend the next few weeks keeping a low profile, giving every appearance of being the hardworking student but mostly using my time in the library to slip copies of the promotional flier into the New Arrivals titles and all the magazines for girls, and my time at school to lobby the undecideds and the uninitiated.
I try my hand at the bathroom postings, as Pretty Unpretty had done at the high school, but they get pulled down by day’s end and I am called into the front office to explain, since everyone seems to know that I live with a centerfold. While their MO is to pass no judgment—true to the spirit of the Alternative School—they can’t help but deem the behavior “inappropriate for school.”
Martha, one of the substitute teachers, is more understanding when I return to class. “Give me the rest,” she smiles conspiratorially. “I think my sister and her girlfriends at Salem State might be able to help.”
“I can arrange an in-person signing if you think they’d be interested,” I offer.
“Let’s start simple.”
“Do they have a speaker series? We could do a slide show.”
“Math,” Martha puts the fliers in her backpack. “Let’s do some math.”
* * *
The conversation gives me an idea. Howie has drawn a clear policy line: sixth grade isn’t a place to campaign, but when I tell him that Laurie Cabot is scheduled to teach us something witchy today, he eagerly accepts an invitation to visit.
His lunchtime appearance on the playground is a breath of fresh air. Red and white silk baseball jacket, hair golden and greasy, Howie is the imaginary me I want them all to see when they look my way. Uli, Penny, and Gretchen circle us while the others edge closer.
“Is that the guy from Playboy?” Scotty, not the brightest crayon in the box, asks.
“Playgirl.”
Howie sits beside me and unwraps a tuna sandwich, twin to mine. “Just joining you guys for a little lunch and witchcraft,” he says. “Best school ever!”
I surge with pride. “How come you’re in magazines?” Scotty, the resident class knucklehead, asks. “Are you a movie star?”
Penny and Uli crack up. Howie clears his throat, puts down the sandwich. “Well,” he begins, “I’m an actor and an artist…”
“And a lovah!” Gretchen blurts.
Howie actually turns red—a first. “I’m all those things,” he admits. “And most recently I posed for a magazine … called Playgirl … a magazine that has pictures of men without clothes on.”
Surrounded by twenty-three twelve-year-olds he is suddenly reserved, thinking far more carefully about his answers.
“Ugh! Why?” Katrin, who somehow missed the news, stares openmouthed, tails and faces of the sardines her father had packed in her lunch all mushed in a slurry on her tongue.
“Listen,” Howie continues, “the human body is beautiful. The female and the male body. Who here has gone to the big art museum in Boston?” A flurry of hands. “And did you see any Greek statues?” Nods. “And were they naked?” Giggles. “Same thing. But in the museums they call it art and in the magazines people call it … something else.”
“Porno?” says Scotty.
“My dad gets Playboy,” Uli pipes up.
“My Grandpa Al does, too,” says another girl.
“My father doesn’t. My father would never. It’s disgusting,” says Katrin. What a little prude.
“The Greeks believed the human body is a work of art,” I say, echoing Howie. “Getting all uptight about nudity is so”—I search for the word, find it—“puritanical! Salem was filled with Puritans and look what happened. They ended up burning innocent people at the stake.”
“Wow,” Howie says. “You’ve really been paying attention, hombre. I better be careful what I say.”
“Do you get fan mail?” Scotty asks.
“A lot. Most of the people who write to me are girl-in-dormitory types who say things like ‘I love you Howie Wowie.’” We all laugh. “There were some letters from men, too. I don’t play that way, but I certainly appreciate being appreciated.”
I look around, predicting who will get it and who won’t. Katrin’s all sardines again.
Penny raises her hand. “How’d you get so Man of Steel?”
“A lot of fucking work,” Howie laughs, shaking his head then catching himself. “I mean, sorry … I mean, a lot of hard work. When I was your age I was the fattest kid in my class.”
“No, suh,” Gretchen shoots back.
“Yes, sir,” Howie repeats. “Biggest tits in the eighth grade.”
My classmates howl. Katrin puts her face in her hands, turning from the group.
“I looked a lot like this guy, here.” Howie points at Scotty, who gasps at being singled out. “It’s OK,” Howie offers gently. “I look at you and I see me. So you can look at me and see you. You’re the yesterday me. And if you want, I can be the tomorrow you. Not that you have to be. But it’s possible. You can be whatever you want to be. I’m the experiment that proves the theory.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to wear pajamas around town every day,” Scotty splutters.
“They’re drawstring pants!” Gretchen, Uli, Penny, and I all say together. Gretchen sticks her tongue out at me when we make eye contact. I grimace back, still furious about her betrayal at my house. And then she just smiles and blinks, innocently, like we’re in love.
“I saw the pictures,” Penny reveals to a round of gasps. “Louis gave me my own copy.” Her confession exposes our closeness. We are meant to be. She goes on: “And you’ve got those six-pack abs. A kid like Scotty’s never going to look like that,” she says, apologetically.
“Hey!” Scotty cries, miserable.
“Sorry, but you’re wrong,” Howie says, rising to stand by Scotty, hand on his shoulder. “This little shlub has every chance that I did. It may not look it now, but it didn’t look that way for me, either.” Heat ripples in waves around Scotty’s tomato face. “Before,” Howie points at Scotty. “After.” He points back at himself. “Before. After. I’ll take you on if you want, little guy. You can be Grasshopper Number Two to my Master Po.” I hope the offer is nothing more than flattery.
“No, thanks,” Scotty pulls away.
“Invitation stands,” Howie says happily. Penny can’t take her eyes off him, and I realize she’s not seeing the imaginary me. She’s only seeing him.
“I hope you’ll all vote for me in the Man of the Year contest. Will you? Can I count on your vote?”
The group cheers its support, as we head back to the school.
“You’re the best. Lou has the fliers with all the info. Now where’s the witch?”
“Present and accounted for,” Laurie Cabot says, standing in the doorway, flanked by Penny’s older sister Jody. Both are dressed entirely in black: Laurie in her black robes, Jody in black jeans, a button-down black shirt, and a matching pentacle necklace.
Howie joins the group and stares at Jody, who sniffs lightly, eyeing Howie’s pants with knowing amusement.
“Let’s get started,” Laurie says.
“Is it true you’re helping an oil company search for oil in Iowa, Laurie?” Becky asks. “I saw it in the Washington Post!”
Laurie sighs. “Ah, yes, well, they said they’d give me two hundred thousand dollars if I’m successful. It shouldn’t be too hard. It’s just a question of energy, connecting with it, revealing it. But I’m afraid the stakes are high this time. You know, the house we live in is for sale and if we can’t buy it ourselves we might have to move altogether.”
“Move out of Salem?” Katrin asks hopefully.
“I’m afraid so. Unless the community can find a way to help us raise the 43,000 dollars we still need to buy the house. It’s the oil company or the citizens of Salem. Otherwise, we’re off to who knows where. It would be a terrible loss for all concerned, I think. Don’t you?”
Everyone nods.
“Ever been to Berkeley?” Howie asks Jody, who shakes her head silently, eyes locking with his.
“Oh, Jesus,” Penny whispers. “She always does this.”
“Does what?” I ask.
“Makes eyes at guys that I … that I know.”
“Oh,” I look at her quizzically, see her beautiful face darkening.
“I’d like to make a request,” Howie says to Laurie. “Do you take requests?”
She looks curiously at him and he flinches away from Jody as if he touched an electrified cow fence. “Say more,” Laurie offers.
“Well, I’ve been entered into a contest. It’s a beauty contest, kind of…” The whole class bursts out laughing. “Well, it is.”
“Ah, you’re the Playgirl Man of the Month?”
“Mr. November,” Howie bows.
“I sense your intentions are good in this pursuit?” Laurie asks, her words careful.
“The purest,” he promises.
“Then I can assure you every success,” Laurie Cabot vows, “as long as they remain so.” Her eyes widen and fix on his, as if to ensure that the message she is sending has indeed been received.
“Understood. Loud and clear. Pure as the driven snow, that’s me.” Howie searches the room, spots the big clock above the door. “So, I’m going to have to miss the class guys. Big campaign meeting back at Mr. November HQ.” My face scrunches, perplexed. “Thanks for having me. And Lou, I’ll see you back home, OK?” I shake my head but he nods definitively and gives me the bug-eyed, getting-whacked expression I’ve come to know well. “Bye guys. Bye!”
Laurie exhales peacefully. Jody glowers at her mother, Penny glowers at her sister, and I just look at Uli who rolls his eyes and mouths, “Freak show.”
* * *
Laurie’s lesson is held on the stage in the auditorium and it takes up the rest of the afternoon.
“We have to begin with what I call the Crystal Countdown to go alpha,” she explains, hands smoothing the air in front of her like she’s wiping away the wrinkles of a tablecloth. I look at Uli suspiciously but he just shrugs. Ladies from the school office look on, whispering to one another from shadows at the back of the hall.
All the kids follow her instructions, practicing a magical version of meditation. Then, trying to “stay in alpha,” we surround a table in the middle of the stage, lay our fingertips gently along its edge, and try to make it levitate with our collective energy. I feel it rise, and I’m not alone. We all question one another furiously afterward, trying to determine who, if anyone, did anything more than rest their fingers on the heavy wooden surface. Everyone denies playing a larger role, though Scotty is convinced that Penny conspired with certain kids in advance to lift from underneath.
“He’s a skidmark,” I assure her. “Don’t listen to him. We all know it happened.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” she mumbles, distant. Then who? Me? Howie? Wait. Jody? Because Jody makes eyes at guys that …
“Want to hang out?” I urge. “We haven’t hung out in a long time. I swiped some pot from my dad. Uli made a pipe out of a potato…”
Penny shakes her head. “I gotta do homework, Cheech and Chong.”
“Hey! Come on. I was just…”
“I know what you were doing.”
“If you don’t like it…”
“A girl doesn’t like a boy to worry about what a girl doesn’t like.”
I stare, dumbfounded.
“A girl wants a boy to want to be a man, not a boy.” I try to quickly parse her word puzzle, wanting very much to be a man right now. “But even if he wants to be a boy she doesn’t want him to worry about the fact that she doesn’t like it because that’s even more boyish. You know?”
“Oh yeah, no, I know. I’m not worried about if you like it.” Wait, that sounds totally wrong. “I mean, I want you to like it. Me. What I want.” This is going badly. Hindenburg bad. “And I want to be a man,” I say, my voice rising like a girl’s. “I do.” She frowns, shaking her head. I try one more option: “I want to be what you want me to be.”
“You should want to be yourself, Spike.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to be,” I reach tentatively for her.
“I know.” She sighs, stepping back. “That’s the problem.”