Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Randy winked.

“I did notice that you inherited some of those same genes. But I think you’re wrong about Brad. And me. I’m not that shallow. There was something else going on there.”

“Your homosexual fantasy. What is this masochistic thing we gay men have for straight guys? Hey, I need to get to Union Station.”

“Any chance I could—”

“See me again?”

“Well, yeah.”

“What? To give me another shot at trying to topple my brother from that pedestal you’ve placed him on? Or is there some other reason?”

“I’ll take ‘B.’”

Randy shook his head. “Presently celibate. And planning to stay that way.”

“Since when?”

“Since I contracted AIDS. You don’t want to get mixed up with me, Ari. I wouldn’t wish this disease on my worst enemy.”

Knocked back by this admission, Ari didn’t speak for a moment. Then, softly: “Do your parents know?”

Randy shook his head. “I’ll tell them when I have to. Look, I didn’t intend to drop this bombshell on you, but given the fact that you sometimes have trouble letting go of people, I thought it best to nip this in the bud.”

“You’re being awfully presumptuous.”

“I can tell by the way you’re looking at me. I can tell that you’re looking at me and thinking of Brad. And I know that this can only lead to a bad end.”

Randy stood and held out his hand. Ari, a little dazed, shook it slowly in a loose grip. “Bye, Ari. You take care of yourself. I mean that in every possible way.”

Ari watched as Randy walked out of the cafeteria. Ari finished his second cup of coffee and then wandered through the museum, only half registering the paintings that hung all around him.

Later he returned to his hotel and cried. He cried for a very long time.

And then he went to the Air and Space Museum.

Regina appreciated the support. She really did. Because she didn’t want another child. No matter how much Guy did. The Chillwaters had four children already — all girls. A fifth kid — that much-hoped-for Chillwater boy — well, look, it just wasn’t going to happen. Not if Regina and the couple’s four daughters and Guy’s sister and her husband and Guy’s mother had anything to say about it.

Yet Guy was obdurate, immovable, infuriatingly pigheaded in refusing to give up on his dream of perpetuating the family name through a son. Even though his own mother didn’t seem all that broken up about seeing this branch of Chillwaters get an unintended pruning.

Edith Chillwater sat with her daughter-in-law, Regina, and her daughter, Amy Crew, in Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA. They had obtained three hard-to-get tickets to the women’s gymnastics competition and cheered on Mary Lou Retton while intermittently discussing Guy Chillwater’s obsessive need to have a fifth child — in other words, to get himself a son.

“I think she’s going to do it,” said Edith to Amy. Both mother and daughter wore sweatshirts emblazoned with the words “red,” “white,” and “blue,” each word displayed in the appropriate color.

“But you’re wrong. I can’t. I won’t,” said Regina, in between sucks from her McDonald’s soda cup.

“I think Mama’s talking about Mary Lou Retton,” said Amy. “Isn’t she adorable?” Mary Lou was, at present, negotiating the balance beam with pint-sized éclat. “So much spunkiness in such a tiny Italian American body.” Amy looked at her McDonald’s scratch-off game ticket. “And if she wins, I get a Big Mac.”

“We all get Big Macs, honey,” said Edith. “I think this promotion is going to put Mr. Kroc out of business.”

“Mr. Kroc is dead, Mama,” said Amy. “He died a few months ago.”

“His people , then. They must have distributed all these tickets before they learned there was going to be a Soviet-led boycott. Serves them right for betting against the U.S. in gymnastics.”

Edith glanced at her daughter-in-law. Regina wasn’t even looking at Mary Lou Retton. She was staring at the corded forearms and rippling shoulders of one of the youthful male gymnasts who had taken a seat a couple of rows down. She sighed. “Guy really wants a boy.”

“Well, my son should have learned a long time ago that he can’t always get what he wants.” Edith patted Regina on the leg. “He has four beautiful daughters and he should be pleased and proud and let it go at that.”

“He never had a son to toss a baseball with.”

“He has Janie,” interjected Amy. “Or has she grown out of her tomboy stage like my Tamara?”

“I think Janie will always be part tomboy. But she isn’t a boy .” Regina sighed again. “I’m sorry to have laid all of this on you. You and Evan and your kids have been so wonderful to us. We wouldn’t have even been able to come to the Olympics if you hadn’t offered to put us all up.”

“It’s really been no trouble at all,” said Amy. “But I could have told you that bringing Guy to a place like this — surrounded by all these strapping Free-World male athletes — was going to get him feeling bad all over again about the fact that he wasn’t able to have a son.”

Edith snorted. “My son can be a real ninny.”

Several days later, Guy Chillwater had a chance to be a ninny with his sister’s husband Evan. The two were watching the women’s 3,000-meter race at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and had just a few minutes earlier witnessed Mary Decker’s dramatic collision with the barefoot South African Zola Budd, and Mary’s collective-gasp-inducing stumble and ruinous fall. All eyes were pinned on Zola now to see if she would be able to ignore the chorus of boos that instantly rained down upon her to win the race in the absence of Decker’s competitive interference. Evan, however, was taking in the pack in the aggregate. “Do you see these incredible women?” he asked his brother-in-law. And then half under his breath: “Apparently you can become a star athlete even without having a dick between your legs.”

“I wouldn’t care if my son turned out to be an athlete or not.”

“Not buying it, Guy. You have all the makings of one of those ‘my-kid-über-alles’ Little League dads who heckle umpires.”

“Then you have me all wrong, Evan. Do you mind if I watch the rest of the race? I want to see if any more of these athletes who aren’t men fall on their female asses.”

“That was low.” This response came not from Evan, but from the woman sitting on the other side of Guy. She scowled. “I feel sorry for your wife.”

Guy sank down — thoroughly emasculated — into his seat. The woman looked Japanese. Guy later told Evan that he had spoken so freely because he thought she couldn’t understand English.

Guy Chillwater had a chance to talk the whole matter over with his two oldest daughters — his teenagers Janie and Carol Ann — as the three stood in the audience line, waiting to be seated for a taping of that night’s Tonight Show . “Your mother says it bothers you two — the fact that I want to bring another kid into this family.”

“It does a little, Dad,” said Carol Ann, who was seventeen and wise. “Because of how much you want to give us a little brother. We don’t need a little brother. Really. It’s okay.”

“How do you feel, Janie? Wouldn’t you like to have a little brother?”

Fifteen-year-old Janie contorted her lips and nose into a look of mild annoyance. “Whatever floats your boat, Dad.”

“Don’t you want someone to carry on the family name? It’s not a very common name. It deserves wider distribution.”

“It’s a strange name, Dad,” said Carol Ann. “Sometimes people think I made it up.”