Mark Dunn - American Decameron

The younger men sat around the table in their Tattersall check vests and their Tattersall shirts with buttoned-down collars noosed with silk challis ties — ties that spoke in the muted earth-toned voices of the brown-beige-forest green seventies. The older men wore pinstriped and herringbone double-breasted suits and straight, uncuffed trousers that signified money and prestige (given the venerability of the patricians in the room), while respecting the fashion of the day. Almost all of the men wore tassels on their wing-tipped shoes, which were constructed of soft leather and hardly pinched at all. This being the eighth year of the “Me” decade, the men preened a little, but not too much, because, after all, they were real men, and didn’t Anita Bryant remind them every other day how much God loved men who acted like real men and not like fruits?

The conference room — a quarrel of chrome and cherry wood paneling — smelled of incinerated tobacco and Old Spice and Yardley Jaguar and Black Tie and Aramis and little of the Chicago smog which, Sandburg tells us, creeps into a room on little cat feet.

The oldest of the room’s esteemed elders sat at the head of the table. His name was Bob Grady Senior, and he opened the meeting by asking where the hell the coffee was. He was reminded that, like every other company that vigilantly attended its bottom line, Grady Enterprises was boycotting coffee until the price came down, to which Bob Grady Senior responded in wonted curmudgeon fashion, “So when the hell are the Brazilians gonna get their act together and do something about the weather down there?”

The men drank tea.

Out of oversized, masculine coffee mugs.

This being an early morning meeting, some of the men drank orange juice, just like Anita Bryant and the Florida Citrus Commission told them to.

A man who resembled a younger version of the older man and was, in fact, his son, stood to address the group gathered around the table, interrupting cluttered cross-talk pertaining to last week’s bowl games and the recent death of Mayor Daley (this, again, being Chicago), the closed-door ascension of Michael Anthony Bilandic to that same office (ditto previous parenthetical), and Farrah Fawcett (this being 1977 and Farrah being, well, Farrah).

“Good morning, gentlemen,” greeted Bob Grady Junior from his station at the other end of the table. Bob Grady Junior stood against a backdrop of easels and flip charts offering pies and bars in blazing primary and secondary colors. Then, eschewing all other preliminary pleasantries, Grady the younger called his colleagues’ attention to sales figures for the past quarter. “If you will please turn to page seventeen in the quarterly sales report, you’ll see that I’ve quantified the figures by product line. Note which of our lines have experienced a moderate decline in sales and which have lost all viability whatsoever in the marketplace.”

As Bob Grady Junior directed his colleagues to page seventeen, thirteen of the fourteen men gathered around the cherry-wood conference table sought in concert that page so designated in their own copies of the quarterly sales report, all the riffling fingers creating in the aggregate a soft, susurrant rustle. The fourteenth man — the oldest in the room, whose name you now know to be Bob Grady Senior, founder and pater-emeritus of Grady Enterprises — did not turn his pages, but looked out the window at the City of Big Shoulders and hummed.

“Gentlemen,” continued Bob Grady fils , whose voice sounded similar to that of Beatrice Arthur but with less of a sandpaper rasp, “please make note that the market share for eight of our ten best-selling products has dropped markedly in the last three quarters. I don’t have figures yet for the pre-Christmas sales, but projected earnings are far below those of the last five holiday cycles. I find it necessary at this juncture, poised as we are upon the cusp of our merger with Hawthorne-Hay Industries, to ask which of the following products we can afford to do without. Item.” The young Mr. Grady cleared his Maude-ish throat preparatory to placing several time-honored Grady Enterprises staples upon the merchandising chopping block. “Happy Tush Sanitized Rectal Wipes. Fifty-percent drop in sales over the last year. Quite dramatic. Mr. Powers, you wished to—”

“Yes. I wanted to make note of the economic downturn.”

“Actually, there was an up-tick,” said the man sitting next to Powers. This man’s name was Avernell. He was a large man, and he crowded his two neighbors.

“Whether the economy is doing well or not,” pursued Young Grady, with a soupçon of exasperation, “I would not consider sanitized rectal wipes to be a discretionary purchase for most consumers of anal cleansing products. Is there anyone here who would dispute this fact?”

A blond-haired man who looked to be in his late thirties raised his hand.

“Yes, Henderson? Are you disputing this fact?”

“No. I just wanted to say that there are at least three other products on this list whose sales have fared worse that Happy Tush Sanitized Rectal Wipes. Granted, the Rectal Appliances Division has taken a hit over the last year, but be fair, Grady. Every marketing study we’ve undertaken has demonstrated that the Stool-Eaze Anal Caliper Helpmate lawsuit was only marginally responsible for the drop in sales of our rectal wipes and pile balms. In fact, our Do-Your-Doody Extra-Strength Pile Balm and Fresh Booty Scented Sphincter Cream have actually each seen a marked increase in sales in the last two cycles.”

Bob Grady the Elder now began to hum, inexplicably, “Love for Sale” by Cole Porter.

Another man, Cass Jorgens, a balding fellow with canine-like flues, raised his hand to solicit attention. Without receiving acknowledgement by young Grady, he proceeded nonetheless to pronounce that the advertising agency recently retained by Grady Industries to sell Jorgens’ division’s products — namely Nip-It-in-the-Bud Nipple Hair Tweezers and the Umbili-lievable Belly Button Irrigation Kit — was confident that its new ad campaigns for each of these products would boost sales far beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. “I share their confidence,” said Mr. Jorgens, whose temples begat the sweat of a clearly anxious man, his division’s very reason for existence having now been placed in jeopardy.

And so the morning’s executive meeting went: each division head defending his own products against hard statistics pointing to diminished sales, the usual level of public ridicule, and several nettlesome lawsuits: the vaginal douche, Yes-M’Lady, for example, having promulgated infections when improperly applied, and the Glad Glans uncircumcised penis antiseptic scrub pad, having been the focus of both lawsuits and a boycott after numerous reported chafings from over-diligent application.

Of all the products brought to the forefront in the morning’s discussion, only the Wee Fingers therapeutic labia cuff and the Nutty Brother scrotal sling had achieved sales increases, due in both cases to subtle mentions by guests on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson , each constituting an enthusiastic endorsement.

The meeting concluded an hour later than scheduled, with drawn and wan faces accompanying plodding shuffles from the room, the only exception being the hopeful expression and near-prance of Henry Kierbaum, head of the Genitalia Accessories division, whose product line would not be put before the boards of both Grady Enterprises and its future partner Hawthorne-Hay Industries for the purpose of future assessment thanks to the aforementioned glowing Tonight Show endorsements by Sylvia Sidney and Sir John Gielgud. The room now having been emptied of everyone but father and son, Grady Junior crept up to Grady Senior, who, seemingly unaware that the meeting had been adjourned, stared wistfully out the window at the hazy Chicago skyline.