Red Meat Cures Cancer by Starbuck O'Dwyer Page B

the middle of my efforts, the Link reentered my office and laid himself out on my couch. With his wife of thirty-five years, Wilhemina, gone, he often told me how lonely he’d gotten. Lately, the loneliness seemed to intensify. This proposition was hard for me to believe, considering the stable of prostitutes he kept busy. Put three shots of bourbon down his gullet and the Link would fuck a door handle if you put it in front of him. Nevertheless, he’d always insist, “Willy was my everything, Sky,” whenever the topic came up. “Ned, Ted and Fred have their own families now. All I’ve got is the business.” Sadly, I was starting to feel the same way.
    “God, I miss her, Thorne.”
    “I know, Frank. I’m sure it’s very hard.”
    “Hard isn’t the word.”
    The Link was crying now, sobbing into the sleeve of his red sweatsuit. I comforted him the best I could until noon, when I gingerly excused myself and left him supine.
    Wednesdays meant lunch with Cal Perkins, my best friend from childhood and a walking contradiction. By all outward appearances, this father of three was an upstanding member of the community. Dark-haired and trim, he served as a deacon at Pittsford’s First Presbyterian Church, was a fixture at Little League games and ran a successful telemarketing business. Cal had married later than most of the guys in our circle of friends, a move that appeared Solomon-like in retrospect. While the rest of us were getting divorced or, at a minimum, bitter and disillusioned about love, he was still dating twenty-two-year-olds who were impressed by any man who ate with a fork. He finally chose Jenny, a beautiful and saccharine-sweet person whom he met, aptly, in the fresh produce section of the local Wegman’s supermarket. They married (I was the best man), started a family—one boy and two girls—and settled comfortably into the American dream.
    Cal had a secret, however, that even among those close to him, only I knew. The basis of his business success was an endless series of adult telephone and Internet sex services bringing in $4.99 to $29.99 a minute, day after day, night after night, as millions of men pleasured themselves and Cal got filthy rich. Oh sure, he had tried in the early days to sell other items via 1-800 numbers such as gift baskets, furniture and mattresses, but what really sold, when he looked at the various industries, was sex.
    Cal got into the business early, and spent the first year reserving numbers like 1-800-BLOWJOB and 1-800-BIGTITS, to name a few. His cover was jellies and jams sold from 1-800-SPREDEM. The revenue from these breakfast spreads couldn’t pay for his Direct TV, let alone make him wealthy, but the sex lines and sex products offered via mail-order catalog sold from day one. And they sold huge—especially the sex products. Multispeed, two-pronged vibrators, clit-pleasing tendril root rings, anal-probing Venus flytrap stimulators, flavored lubes, purple butterfly orgasmatron eggs, silicone masturbation sleeves. I don’t know who used these things, but there were plenty of people buying them. Cal’s family remained blissfully unaware of his dual identity, but from time to time, all the covering got to him. If he couldn’t have confided in me, I think he would have gone crazy.
    We always met at Pappy’s Den of Kielbasa, an old rehabbed restaurant painted red and known, ironically, for its gut-busting pasta. The restaurant, previously called Smolenski’s Den of Kielbasa, didn’t even serve kielbasa anymore, but since the name brought in famished Poles in busloads from Buffalo, it stuck. Pappy, the proprietor and resident bookmaker, led us to our usual table by a big bay window. Pappy leaned in and talked to us under his breath.
    “You two want action on the Barcelona game?”
    “Barcelona?”
    “World Football League. They play Frankfurt Thursday night. How about the over under? You want to play that?”
    “Pappy, do you ever bet on these games yourself?” I