Michael Simon | Is One of You Eddie? / 2006

the master of sex

by Douglas Messerli

 

Michael Simon (screenwriter and director) Is One of You Eddie? / 2006 [8 minutes]

 

The four gay neighbors in their 30s or early 40s, Alex, Josh, Mick, and Phillip (Robert Laughlin, Craig Olsen, Leif Lillehaugen, and Felix Montano) have gathered as they probably do every Saturday or Sunday afternoon for a brunch. Alex has once again put together the perfect mix of meats, cheeses, and desserts, beautifully displayed and served on his outdoor table to the gathering of his attractive friends. They speak the language of a gay coterie, almost as if they had never left the closet,  one of them telling of his most recent gay encounter at the upscale clothing store Barneys, where the boy measuring his inseam was interested in exploring other parts of his body—a tale interrupted when the neighbor who lives upstairs in their West Hollywood apartment complex drops by on his way back for his day job, clearly not wanted, particularly since it has interrupted the salacious tale that would surely end as everyone hoped and expected.

      Eddie (Bill Jacobson) is clearly not attractive, a bruiser of a guy, with a head almost smaller than his thick arms and hands, trying to be friendly as he pulls off his clip-on tie, tired from an unexpected shift of his job but on his way to perform his part off-hours work as a masseur. As if they were all back in high school, they make it clear that Eddie is not one of their “group,” definitely not their equal, and he feels it, expressing in his apologetic explanation that he was just trying to be friendly.

      The moment he climbs the stairs to his own apartment, they quickly dish him like the gossipy and snippy gay boys they are.    

       Yet a moment later a man shows up, a true beauty in a leather jacket and sunglasses, someone almost out of a gay porn movie, an idol in the old-fashioned gay sense. They are as stunned by his beauty as if an angel had just dropped from the sky, but even more startled when he calls out, “Is one of you Eddie?”

 

       The spell is almost broken, as they point upstairs, giggling a bit in their imagining of the meet up between a gay god and their neighborhood thug. But they can’t help but watch the newcomer strip off his shirt through the window, trying imagine what he must think of his new masseur.

       Soon they turn back to their tarts.

 

       A short while later Chad (Jared Edwards), the leather god, staggers out of the room, seeming still in a kind of daze. He describes in detail from his position above how sublime his erotic rub was, how with his tender fingers Eddie had gone over this entire body, almost oblivious to his growing erection but increasing the pleasure with his sensuous fingers until finally...yet another sexual story that doesn’t need completion for us to better imagine its result. 

       His description appears to send the diners into a tizzy as the three of them, once Chad finishes his story and leaves, rush towards the stairs after overhearing that Eddie’s following appointment has cancelled, their host reminding them that he has slaved all day to prepare their lunch.       

     Michael Simon’s 8-minute fable reminds us that when it comes to love-making one cannot always to trust one’s eyes, and that we certainly cannot define friends by appearances. The four are true to stereotype, not Eddie. If nothing else, this cute if trivial short redefines what it is to be a neighbor.

 

Los Angeles, March 20, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2022).