Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Eventually Benny and his customers wended their way over to the dormant Magnavox American Traditional. “Wish you could see the picture on this new 2-MV357 model,” said Benny. “I’m thinking of trading in my very own RCA for this technological marvel.”

“What kind of wood is this?” asked the woman, reaching over Angela, who politely scooted out of her way. The woman ran her hand over the grain of the cabinet top.

“Hold on to your hat, madam — it’s mahogany! And even though we don’t have one in stock yet, Magnavox also puts out a Far Eastern Contemporary model similar to this one in ebony .”

“I like ebony,” said the woman, who was holding an all-black clutch. Addressing Adrian, who was still sitting Indian-style on the floor, she said, “Are these your children? They’re quite well behaved. My grandchildren would be running all over the store, sword-fighting with the rabbit ears.”

“No, these aren’t mine,” said Adrian, smiling politely.

After Benny and his customers had sauntered off, Adrian looked at both Kirk and Angela and said, “Whose little ones are you?”

“We live with our mother,” answered Angela.

“No father?”

Angela shook her head.

“We don’t have a daddy, but we’ve got a bunch of uncles,” offered Kirk.

“Not really uncles,” corrected Angela. “Mama has a lot of boyfriends.” This last statement came out as simple fact — neither brag nor censure.

Adrian wasn’t sure if he should ask the question that next begged to be asked. But the kids had been forthcoming up to this point, and it was about time, he thought, to get a better sense as to why Kirk and Angela spent ten hours a week being babysat at Landis Avenue Appliances by Adrian and Benny, Sally, and Popeye the Sailor Man. “Is this when your mother’s boyfriends come to see her?”

Angela nodded. It wasn’t an eager admission, and yet something in her look told Adrian that she might be willing to elaborate. Unfortunately, the conversation was cut short by the return of an electrical current to Landis Avenue Appliances. Kirk jumped up and turned the television back on.

“You’re in good shape, kids. Probably just missed some cartoon you’d already seen.” Adrian pulled himself up from the floor. He was still a youthful thirty-four, but his legs protested. Restored to his feet, he tousled Kirk’s short-cropped brown hair. “Say hello to Sally for me,” he said, walking away. Kirk and Angela both nodded, their eyes fixed on the screen, waiting for the cathode ray tube of the Magnavox American Traditional console to charge back up and Sally to miraculously appear out of the ether.

The next day, Adrian’s day off, was devoted to errands: the bank, the post office, a visit with an old high school buddy turned insurance agent who had been after Adrian for months to buy a term life insurance policy, even though Adrian wasn’t married and had no other beneficiary to speak of, except for a mother in Red Bank whom he would no doubt outlive.

The highlight of the day was to be lunch with a woman he’d met at a party thrown by a friend of a friend in Bridgeton. Adrian recalled the woman as having been funny and smolderingly beautiful — a hot fudge sundae cross between the cool of Jackie Kennedy and the heat of Mamie Van Dorn. Adrian and his impromptu date for the evening had spent very little time talking about themselves, the preferred topic of their increasingly intoxicated, flirtation-larded colloquy being the differences between the primetime intern Dr. Kildare and the primetime surgeon Ben Casey, though Adrian never once mentioned that he might know a little something about television programming since he sold TVs for a living. Like Adrian, the woman lived in Vineland — only a couple of blocks from the appliance store, actually — and after Adrian offered to drive her home that night, she had been all over him with her Yellow Page — walking, bright-red-polished talons while he labored heroically to keep the car on the road. (“Why,” he wondered to himself in the midst of her hungry advances, “couldn’t women be just as deliciously horny sober as they are when they get tight?”)

She didn’t invite him in. “Complications,” was her explanation.

Now Adrian was curious to know if the woman, whose name was Claire, would be in an equally libidinous mood over club sandwiches and glasses of alcohol-free lemonade.

She was. Which was not exactly what Adrian had been expecting, though he couldn’t say he was disappointed. He knew she wasn’t married — at least that is what she had told him. And he wasn’t married. And this was his day off. And after all, he hadn’t — he would be ashamed to admit — been with a woman in almost four months: a record dry spell that he was eager to break without having to resort to paid companionship.

“There’s a nice motel over by the Delsea Drive-in,” said Adrian, “if you don’t find that kind of thing, you know—”

Adrian fumbled for the word, but Claire found it: “Tawdry. But you see, I like tawdry. I like to be bad . And I like to be with men who want me to be bad.”

“But we hardly know a thing about each other,” he teased.

“Like that matters,” she said with a wink, and then pinched Adrian’s nose. “And that’s the way I like it. Two ships, you know, fucking in the night. Except in our case, it’s the afternoon. Buy me a drink, Adrian. After that — well, forget the motel. Let’s us drive right on over to my place.”

“How’s about we drive on over to your place right now?” asked Adrian, who suddenly could think of nothing he’d rather do than hop into the sack with this sultry woman of mystery.

Claire shook her head. Her whole torso seemed to wriggle, her faux pearl necklace whipping against her heaving, taunting chest. “No can do, Adrian. The kiddies come home from school at three-thirty and they’re not out of the house until close to four. From four to six you can have me all to yourself.”

Adrian sat forward in his seat. “Where do they go?”

“ Who , sweetie?”

“The kids. Where do they go at four?”

“I really don’t know. Our neighborhood is lousy with kids for them to play with. Some days I think they walk over to the appliance store and watch Captain Kangaroo.”

Adrian didn’t respond. Not right away. Then he said in a voice modulated by the sudden deflation of his libido, “Captain Kangaroo comes on in the morning. More than likely they’d be watching Sally Starr.”

“Sally who?”

“Sally Starr. She wears six-shooters and is on a first-name basis with each of the Three Stooges.”

“What difference does it make?”

Adrian shrugged. He shook his head. He dreaded asking the question that logically came next, but he had to know the answer for sure. “Your kids — how old are they?”

Claire exhaled. Angrily. “What’s with the third degree? Hey, wait a minute— I get it; you don’t get yourself involved with women with kids, is that it? Look, buster, I’m not asking you to take me down the aisle. I’m only talking about a fucking four o’clock roll in the hay. Look. Forget it.” She stood.

“I didn’t ask about them because—”

Adrian was stopped short by Claire’s suddenly piercing glower. She gave her dress an upward yank, covering up a few inches of her munificent décolletage. The show was over — or, rather, the coming attraction for a show that just got cancelled. “My kids are my own business. And none of yours. And if you have a problem with that, which it looks like you do, then let’s just nip this thing in the bud. I’ve got somebody else I was hoping to see this afternoon anyway.”

There was nothing else to be said, but Claire said something all the same: “I got a girl, Angela — she’s nine and a half. I got a boy, Kirk — he just turned seven. They’re good kids, but I got no desire to play June Cleaver every fucking minute of every fucking day. I thought you were bright enough to see that.”