I almost gave up the project after the first four or five called. I had clearly stated what I wanted:
ESTABLISHED NONFICTION WRITER wants to document intimacy in mature domestic settings. Strictly professional and confidential. Nothing lurid. Contact William, 842-7000, suite 623, early evenings.
The very first one wanted something different:
"Man, that's cool. I can't believe the neighborhood papers printed what you said! You're clever. Can you handle a video camera? I want to do this chick on my dining room table. I've drilled a hole in one of the add-on leaves. I've cut a matching hole in the floor-length table cloth I inherited from my grandmama. This chick will never see you."
He hung up when I explained that I was looking for couples in committed relationships, that both people had to want me there, that I would just watch, not participate.
The second one said:
"My boyfriend likes an audience for everything else. You could stir his competition, especially if you stroke yourself."
"But I only sit in a corner, fully dressed, with my clipboard, taking notes," I said. "I'm a writer, not a tease."
"I don't think Philip would like that. I have had to work hard enough to get him to admit that he has a problem. He hated school. A guy with a clipboard would slacken him. He's not too confident. You would be like some teacher spying to embarrass him later before an entire class."
When the third one called, I thought, at last maybe I'm getting somewhere:
"Bob and I have been married for twenty years," he said. "Are you willing to look at gay couples?"
"Sure. I don't discriminate. I just want to observe people who've lived together for some time, and I want to watch them at home on an average evening. Nothing special."
"But Bob and I have never actually lived together. We wouldn't dare. He's a school teacher and tends his widowed mother in the southern part of the state. I'm a civil servant in the suburbs, but cannot risk coming out. We meet somewhere else about once a month. Sometimes we sneak into the gay bathhouse here, but usually we go to a Holiday Inn in Minneapolis. We'd pay your air fare if that's why you hesitate."
"Will he object?"
"Object? He won't have to know. I'll tell him you are a new trick. You'll get to see what you want to see, and we'll have some fresh excitement. He and I haven't made out alone since the third year."
I could swear the next caller was a setup. Perhaps some teenagers read the ad and tried to have some fun at my expense.
"William?"
The voice rasped, softly and so slowly that it sounded like an imitation of Mr. Magoo, or Ms. Magoo in low pitch:
"William, so you want to watch, do you? Shame on you. What would your mother think!"
"Hello, who's calling?" I asked, hoping my professionalism would discourage the pranksters.
"Are you the same William that put the ad in the papers?" Her voice sounded like sandpaper scraped on a bedroom window.
"Do you want me to watch YOU?"
"No, but Tommy thinks you should. I told him I would call to prove that you prefer some young things. I imagine you would be bored watching an 84-year-old woman."
"Age is not a factor, Mrs... ."
"Sally. Call me Sally. But I'm no Mrs. Not a Ms. either. I'm Miss Sally Gorell."
"You and Tommy never married?"
"Of course not. He's my great-great-nephew and only fifteen. Since he reads everything in the papers, he spotted your ad. He rushed over to tell me to get you to watch."
"You're having sex with your 15-year-old nephew?"
"Of course not, you ninny!" Miss Sally Gorell sounded like Mr. Magoo in a traffic jam. "I warned Tommy that you wouldn't understand!"
"What do you want me to watch?"
"Me. Who else?"
"Just you? Doing what?"
"Creative love-making. What did you think I meant? Don't you have any kind of imagination?"
"You want me to sit alone with you and watch you play with yourself?"
"Tommy would watch with you. He says he's learned from my techniques and wants to compare notes with you."
"Thank you, but no. I'm looking for the Average American Family on an Average Amorous Night in an Av... ."
"How dull!" she interrupted and slammed down the receiver. I thought I heard giggles in the background. Yet would adolescents concoct a story like that? Maybe a canasta club decided to get a sense of humor?
"Do you like motorcycles?" the next caller interrupted with a voice so deep that maybe he too faked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm calling Peeping William. Will you ride in my sidecar and watch me do it?"
"You're going to make love to a woman speeding down the highway on a motorcycle?"
"To a woman? Of course not. That's too dangerous, and so is speeding."
"And to a man would be less dangerous, even at slow speed?" I almost lost my cool.
"Man, you're a fraud! I thought you meant what you said in the paper."
"I do. But riding down the highway in a side car watching you make out with your boyfriend isn't what I had in mind when I said that I wanted 'to document intimacy in mature domestic settings.' "
"Who said anything about my boyfriend? So that's it. I was afraid that you are some kind of fag!"
"You said a woman is too dangerous."
"Yes, she is. I make love to my teddy bear. How much more domestic can you get than that? How much more American? A young dude rides down the American road on his restored Harley 600 making out with his childhood teddy bear. And you're gonna turn down an opportunity to watch? What kind of a writer are you, anyway?"
Not one of the next four callers was any more or any less average.
Number seven, a prostitute, said she wanted me to watch her only real act, with her girlfriend on her night off.
Number eight, a TV evangelist, said he wanted me to watch him reading smut interleaved in the Bible at his pulpit while he beamed salvation round the world via satellite.
Number nine, a presidential candidate, said he could set up a double date for us.
The closest I came to what I advertised for was when number 10, a 12-year-old, begged me to hide in her closet with her and watch through a crack in the wall while her parents do it. "Mother has to work fast," she said, "or Daddy will pig out on the popcorn and go to sleep."
I've disconnected my phone and canceled the ad, even though I had to forfeit the 15 bucks I'd paid in advance.
I've decided I can describe the scene I had wanted to observe more accurately if I
don't peek. And since I can, most other people can too. We all know it well. That's why we
prefer to embellish.
Crew has edited special issues of College English and Margins. He has written three poetry volumes: Sunspots (Lotus Press, Detroit, 1976) Midnight Lessons (Samisdat, 1987), and Lutibelle's Pew (Dragon Disks, 1990).The University of Michigan collects his papers. From 1983-87 Crew lived in exile in Asia. He has read at more than three score venues in Britain, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and the USA. He teaches at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
For more stories by Louie Crew, click here.
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