Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Speaking of monkeys, or rather monkey suits, Starkman works in the men’s store on street level. He’s been in men’s furnishings since he came here in the early fifties. He was a different sort of man back then. He kept things to himself. Now he tells me everything, and I’m not even — what’s the word the homosexuals are using now? — “gay.” I’m not gay, but I listen to the details of all of his little adventures — the quickies in the men’s washroom and the changing rooms and all his assignations with those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed hill-Billys and hill-Bobbys who come to the big city looking for Mr. Right. Why do I do this? I told you already: because he listens to me . (Let alone the fact that you’d have an easier time finding a John Bircher on college campuses these days than a heterosexual male in the retail clothing line. I’m one for Ripley’s.)

Starkman and I have lunch together two, three times a week — sometimes at Blossom Dairy over on Quarrier, sometimes in the Diamond’s cafeteria up on the fifth floor. Some days we even get a cheese ball and a box of crackers from the Hickory Farms Daisy Mays down in the basement and go alfresco.

We like the cafeteria, though. One of the assistant managers is a past boyfriend of Starkman’s (whom Starkman likes to keep close tabs on). And, on my side, there’s a cashier there that I’ve had my eye on for a few weeks now. I think she’s ready to move beyond the flirting stage, and I’m giving the prospect some consideration, but there’s the whole matter of Jillian. What to do about Jillian.

Jillian also works on the fashion floor. She’s in Bridal and Maternity, which I always thought was funny and Starkman thought was a royal hoot. “I hope she spends the first half of her day in Bridal and the second in Maternity. The other way around would be downright illegitimate, don’t you think?”

He’s a funny old fruit, and I love him.

Jillian is twenty-two. She’s married to, but presently separated from, a mountain galoot, who she says has the looks and muscular build of Willy Armitage on Mission Impossible , but the intellectual capacity of Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes .

Jillian has said she likes my looks. She says I remind her of Darrin Stephens on Bewitched . Not the one who’s on now — the first Dick. But I wonder about this, because when we’re going at it like rabbits in the mannequin storage room on the sixth floor, she’s hardly ever looking at me. Apparently her Hoot ’n’ Holler backwoods husband never takes her from behind and that’s what she likes. That’s what she craves.

“Here’s what I need, Starkman,” I said to my friend in the cafeteria yesterday. “I need management to come to their senses about this whole midi thing.”

Starkman set down his coffee cup so he could gesticulate with more freedom. “Isn’t it awful? It’s like those Seventh Avenue Hebrews in New York have lost their ever-lovin’ minds! I’ve never seen anything so hideous in all my life. Now I was never a big fan of the micro-mini like you , Tommy—”

“You bet I was. The thought of getting my daily peeks of panty put a smile on my mug each and every workday morning.”

“You don’t have to be delicate on my account, love. Peeks of panty? Peeks of pussy is more like it. You’re thirty years old and you’ve still got the sex drive of a horny college freshman. Why else do you steal away with Jillian two, three, four times a week to make-the-beast-with-two-backs right there in front of poor Marsha and all her friends?”

“Marsha. You’re talking about that what — that Twilight Zone episode where Anne Francis finds out she’s a mannequin?”

“Beauty mark and all.”

“How do you—” I lowered my voice and leaned in. We were off by ourselves at a secluded table in the cafeteria, but I was taking no chances. “How do you know where Jillian and I tryst?”

“Oh, honey, just call it by its real name. You fornicate . Don’t you just love that word? It’s so Biblical. I absolutely adore the Bible — Leviticus, especially. It’s like reading pornography.”

“There’s a problem here, Starkman, that you probably aren’t aware of.”

“And that is…?”

“The midi. The midi! Granted, it’s a stupid concept — taking hems down below the knee. Only a few women can pull it off. Doris Day . Doris Day can pull it off, because she looks good in boots. The leg is gone. I happen to be a leg man, Starkman. I miss calves. Shapely thighs? Gone with the wind, baby. Midis aren’t groovy. They’re the anti-groovy.”

“Is there supposed to be a Jillian connection here?”

I nodded. “A big one. Management has issued its decree. You haven’t seen the memo? Well, of course you haven’t. You work in the men’s store. You’re a world unto yourself down there — like the Foreign Legion or something.”

Starkman squirmed. “Oh, the French Foreign Legion. Yum. Cute Frenchmen in white kepis!”

“Listen to me. I’m attempting serious discourse here.”

“What’s the decree, Tommy?”

“The same as what’s being dictated in every other department store around the country: salesgirls have to wear the midi. It’s become a condition for employment. The Diamond, just like every other department store in America, bought too damn many. And women aren’t having them. We pulled our entire inventory of minis, and as a result, our customers are either buying pants and pantsuits in protest or just staying the hell home. The customers aren’t cooperating , Starkman. Doris Day or no Doris Day. Do you blame them? Put a midi skirt on most women and what’s your pleasure: Mennonite housewife or female spy in a bad Russian movie?”

“I’m still waiting for the part where you and Jillian and your frequent appointments with carnality come in.”

“I get turned off. I see her walking into that room looking like Natasha Fatale, and suddenly I lose my — lose my—”

“Do you lose your erection, honey? You can say it. You lose your erection. Let’s say it together.”

I sighed. I try not to lose my patience with Starkman when he gets flip. Because he always gets flip. He thinks he’s one of those bitchy characters in The Boys in the Band .

“All right. I can’t get it up when she wears one of those godawful skirts.”

“But doesn’t she take it all off once the two of you get down to business?”

“Yeah, but it’s still there. She drapes it over the chair and it mocks me. It’s like one of those body-smothering pelts I sell in the fur department. People are going to look back on this period and wonder how we ever survived. The Kremlin should just drop the bomb already and put us out of our misery.”

“She must know that you don’t care a fig for what’s she’s been made to wear, may our beloved management rot in fashion hell.”

“Maybe she knows how I feel, maybe she doesn’t. I just get the strong sense that it isn’t an issue for her . In fact, I think she might even like the look. A few women do. She does, after all, have slightly larger thighs than most girls her age, and midis are pretty good at masking that. I don’t know; I’ve tried to analyze it. When I think about it too much it becomes self-defeating in its own way.”

“You mean you get flaccid at the mere thought?”

“Starkman, to be honest, I spend the whole day deflated. I used to love my job. I used to love to watch the women who come to our store — one of the fringe benefits of working in women’s clothing. You probably don’t notice such things, but we’ve got some gorgeous women here in Charleston. But the fashion poobahs have issued their edict, and Women’s Wear Daily has endorsed it, and all women who want their couture sprinkled with a little hip haute must take heed. I’m thinking of changing professions, my friend. But in the short term, I’m thinking of cutting it off with Jillian. It wasn’t going anywhere anyway. And as of late, she’s making noises like she might want to get back together with her husband.”