It could be my year, Bill thinks, paging the mag while tenth in line for self checkout at Kroger, the weary customers stacked up deep into periodical aisle while three of four checkout lights blink red for managerial assistance, providing Bill ample time to peruse the grocery’s latest magazine offerings. Bill does some quick, Wikipedia-sourced calculations on his calculator app and determines that since 2015 the average age of People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” has been 42.125 years old, which skews 3.892 years older than the average age (38.233) of award winners from the previous 30 years—a stat that gives him hope.
For Bill is only 72.695 years old—a mere 33.643 years off of the average awarded age (39.052 years old). And given the obvious relationship between sexiness and beauty, to better assess his chances, Bill figures People Magazine’s #1 selections for their annual list of “100 Most Beautiful People” might be worth investigating—for, aside from Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, and Mel Gibson (three fellas Bill knows he surpasses in physical beauty), the #1 selection has always been a woman, and in lieu of People Magazine starting a regularly awarded “Sexiest Woman Alive,” which only Kate Upton has won (at age 22.542), Bill figures this list provides an opportunity to assess People Magazine’s award patterns across gender.
Bill does his math even more quickly, and finds that since 2015, the “Most Beautiful” award winner (when dropping from calculation the baby who co-won in 2020) has been 50.666 years old, compared to the pre-2015 average age of 33.120. Bill certainly finds hope in this pattern, for both Goldie Hawn and Helen Mirren—respectively, ages 74.449 and 76.753 when they won—were, respectively, 1.754 and 4.058 years older than Bill’s current age, and Bill assumes that if those two septuagenarians won, it gives him the distinct possibility of being named the oldest ever “Sexiest Man Alive.” For Sean Connery holds the record for oldest-male-win at the grizzled age of 59.690, and Sean didn’t voice Baloo in 2016’s live action Jungle Book—a character Bill has to imagine ranks among Disney’s sexiest, all snout and furry girth.
Finally the Kroger manager appears and begins voiding and approving items, leaving all four registers lit green for customer use. Bill estimates that if he wins the award this year, it gives him an opportunity to win a second time before surpassing Mirren’s oldest ever People Magazine award win—for Bill doesn’t imagine he’d win at an age beyond Mirren’s. Bill feels the next 4.058 years provides ample time to join Richerd Gere, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp as two time winners. And most other male celebs, Bill guesses, haven’t been working on their calves anywhere near as much as he has of late.
More likely that they’ve focused on sculpting their torsos, if Bill had to venture yet another guess, for that’s the bodily area so often touted by womankind as “the sexiest part of a man’s body,” not that Bill has been paying all that much attention or anything across the years when magazines found in the grocery periodical aisle poll their female readers concerning “the sexiest part of a man’s body.” Despite his personal confidence, Bill figures most folks view him as a dark horse award candidate, and if the calves are a dark horse for “the sexiest part of a man’s body,” he figures he might as well double down. So it’s been nothing but calf raises these last few years.
But two People Mag wins in the next 4.058 years? Bill knows it can happen. While standing here in Kroger’s periodical aisle, Bill figures he can do some meager research to better calculate his odds. And so, Bill taps the shoulder of the woman in front of him—age 27.347, if he were estimating—and asks “Excuse me. Who do you think is sexier: Brad Pitt or—” But she interrupts, saying “Brad Pitt!” before Bill can finish the sentence with his own name.
Bill finds himself unsurprised. He knew there would be work to do. So Bill rolls up his pant legs and flexes his calves, the skin taut beneath bulging muscles (as much as muscles can bulge at 72.695 years old), and Bill asks the woman behind him—likely 46.275 years old—“What do you think of these babies?” She glances quickly at his calves, but doesn’t say a word and turns her back on Bill, focusing even harder on her Instagram scroll so as to ignore him. Bill feels a bit bad for tempting another human to lust, but honestly, he finds her measured chastity admirable. Bill calculates that it took this other customer less than 1.074 seconds to pivot away, and if that’s the effect his calves have on people, that bodes well for award season.
And yet, Bill recognizes that People Magazine awards their award without publishing selection criteria, which makes it a bit tougher to pin down his chances. It’s safe to assume, Bill thinks, that “sexiness” is at least one criterion for “Sexiest Man Alive,” which surely increases Bill’s odds, for Bill knows he’s aged like the finest wheel of parmesan: all sour tang and sharp nuttiness.
Bill knows, too, that women like a man who can make them laugh—he’s played that advantage for years—but even more, women cherish a man whose appearance captivates everyone when he enters the room, which Bill has noticed happens more and more the older he gets, largely due to the fact, Bill assumes, that he has hit his beautiful years a smidge later than the average man and people don’t know what to make of such striking geriatricism. And sure, the fame could have something to do with how rooms pivot toward him the second Bill enters, but this has been part of his career calculus: Bill recognizes that beauty is a social construct, and wouldn’t the construct construct toward the faces folks most view on screen?
It’s for this reason alone that Bill regrets voicing Garfield in Garfield—that lazy cat did little to get Bill’s face in front of the masses, and it certainly did nothing for his societal sex appeal, an appeal which Bill has worked hard to cultivate across the rest of his vast filmography. Plus, Garfield-orange, Bill learned from that film, is basically the least sexy color, which is why he’s never worn the color since—a choice that only helps his People Magazine chances.
As the line shifts forward and Bill steps from the periodical aisle into the corridor between the registers and the shelves—that sensual no-man’s-land framed by endcaps—Bill solves the equation that’s puzzled him since he first picked up the magazine at the tail end of the line. He realizes that sexiness is a trait built upon common mathematics. For does not sex itself require both giving and taking? Bill knows this to be true from several of his lived experiences.
Bill smiles shyly, then pulls himself back from his reveries as he takes a step closer to self-checkout. Therefore, Bill rationalizes, “sex-iness” must be the state of equilibrium between those poles—not quite giving, and not quite taking. The stasis. The pause. The not-yet-having. The place where hope resides.
And doesn’t this mirror the experience of a quality word problem? The moment between having read the problem, and having ciphered the solution? When the mind is most at work? Neurons firing across synapses? Dendrites and axons functioning maximally before the mathematics shake out? And if he’s right, and sexiness embodies this interstitial mode of being, Bill senses his chances of winning People Mag’s award grow very high.
Bill often finds examples helpful, so he offers himself one: “1.735 + 1.266 =” exemplifies sexiness. There’s not yet a 3.001 to complete the equation. Anticipation before payoff. Arousal sans consummation. Sexiness incarnate. Here Bill finds comfort in the mathematics of it all.
Even at age 72.695 Bill realizes that he will be People Magazine’s next “Sexiest Man Alive.” The conclusion is foregone. His chances: 100%. But why stop here? Bill thinks. Why not win them all until he’s dead and gone, decomposed? It’d be a statement certainly. And one for which he’s well prepared given those endless sets of calf raises.
For if sexiness is indeed the unsolved, the moment before, the betwixt, the yet-to-be-realized, Bill realizes he himself is the personification thereof. Because nobody can quite figure him out. He’s the celebrity society yearns to comprehend. To pin down. But it’s impossible. Bill has made sure of that. He appears when least expected. To keep the populace guessing. To provide glimpses of those calves where no paparazzi imagined they’d show up and show out. Bill doesn’t drip sex like Bradley Pitt. No. Bill is more complicated. Bill’s sexiness runs deeper. Unexpectedness. Intrigue. Mystique. Bill looks to inform the woman in front of him of her earlier mistake, but she’s left the line, likely forgotten to grab an item from her grocery list. Perhaps an onion or a bag of thin pretzel rods. Bill’s now next for checkout. And look: an empty self-register! Bill steps up, sets his 2.000 items down, and punches in the produce code for mangos. 7405. How fitting, Bill thinks. Numbers. The foundation of mathematics. How perfect. How sexy.
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Robbie Maakestad is Senior Editor for The Rumpus and writes from San Diego where he directs an M.A. in Writing program. He’s writing two books: nonfiction, about Jerusalem’s City of David archaeological site, and fiction, about Bill Murray. He’s been published in Gulf Coast, Boulevard, and The San Diego Union-Tribune, among others. Follow him @RobbieMaakestad.
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image: Ashley Beresch. Check out more of her work on Instagram @ashleyberesch
Rejection Letters 