The Real Thing

by J. J. Murray

  We get out and cross the road to an antique store full of homemade furniture and art. I marvel at all the handmade you-name-it—chests, chairs, shelving, mirrors, walking sticks, clocks, and assorted yard art. African masks fill the walls, and carved wooden giraffes cavort with lions, tigers, and bears among the end tables. I see a stuffed moose—so cute!—that I just have to have, and Dante buys it for me.

  “An early Christmas present,” he says.

  I immediately name the moose Dante. He’ll keep me company in bed tonight if the real Dante doesn’t. I compare Dante the Moose’s nose with Dante’s nose.

  Dante the Moose wins.

  But not by much.

  We continue along the sidewalk and pass a bank and the post office.

  “We will stop there last,” he says.

  “To collect all your fan mail?”

  He smiles. “Yes.”

  “Do you ever get any, oh, naughty pictures?”

  He nods. “All the time.”

  I take his arm. “Are any of them…pericoloso?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I squeeze that rock-hard bicep. “As dangerous as me?”

  He looks straight ahead. “No. But I have yet to get the mail today.”

  I punch his arm.

  Ow.

  He doesn’t even flinch.

  We cross the street at the stop sign and go into Yakabuski’s Home Hardware to look at fishing supplies. Though Dante has enough lures to last him and his great-grandchildren for a hundred years, he buys several more.

  “I do not have this color,” he says, pointing at a shade of yellow green I can best describe as “phlegm.”

  A few doors down is Steadman’s, where he purchases several packs of playing cards.

  “The cards have been cruel to me since you have arrived,” he tells me. “DJ was on a hot streak after the Boston.”

  “So…you’re superstitious?”

  “Not really. I spilled soda on the cards, too.”

  “Oh.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe you can play with us sometime.”

  That is the best kind of tug on a girl’s heart. “I’d like that.”

  Back across the street, we go to Lorraine’s Pharmacy for vitamins. I show him the over-fifty version of some brand.

  “Very funny,” he says.

  “Just looking out for you,” I say.

  He takes them from me. “I will get them for Red.” He pulls some children’s chewable vitamins from the shelf. “These are for Lelani.”

  I think he’s joking, but he adds them to our handbasket.

  “Um, Lelani is forty, right?” I ask.

  “Yes, but she looks like a child.” He shakes the children’s vitamins. “And she likes the taste of these.”

  He stops in front of a massive candy display. He looks at me. “Choose.”

  I do the only reasonable thing. I take one of every candy bar on that display and put it in the handbasket. “I have a sweet tooth.”

  We carry our bags and Dante the Moose to Palubiskie Variety, a typical package store to me, where Dante buys more leeches, several packs of hooks, at least fifty sinkers of all sizes and shapes, and another filet knife.

  “Pretty confident, aren’t you?” I say.

  “You can never be prepared enough,” he says.

  “Ooh,” I say. “The fish are scared, Dante. I can feel them trembling at the lake from here.”

  “We might go out later, and I will show you,” he says, leaving the store and crossing the street again.

  “What will you show me?” I ask, but I don’t think he heard me. He is way too intent on making these errands.

  I feel like Billy from Family Circus. We’ve been going up the street, crossing back, backtracking, crossing the street again—there seems to be no plan.

  Oh yeah. We’re turisti.

  Back across the street, we go to a trendy little place called Steve’s Sports. Inside, I browse some expensive outdoor clothes that I know I couldn’t find in Red Hook. I find a fur-lined dark brown leather jacket I really like. I try it on in front of a mirror, and the jacket makes me look as if I have triple Ds. I see Dante watching behind me, so I do a little modeling.

  “Pericoloso,” he says.

  I must have this jacket. I check the tag…ouch. “Expensive,” I tell him, and I hang it back up. I browse some more and find a red, white, and green—how Italian!—flannel shirt. It’s extra large, but it is so soft! I take it to the front and see the chest-increasing leather jacket on the counter in front of Dante.

  Dante pulls out some of that funny Canadian money.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I don’t really need the jacket.”

  He slides over the flannel shirt and pays the clerk. “A gift. I missed your birthday, didn’t I?”

  That’s so sweet. And thoughtful. And…Damn. It’s just plain nice. I don’t get “nice” like this on any basis.

  Let’s see…We’re now carrying a stuffed moose, lures, playing cards, leeches, sinkers, hooks, a filet knife, a flannel shirt, and a fur-lined leather jacket.

  I am in danger of becoming a Canadian.

  We cross a street and go into Greenfield’s ValuMart. We push two carts through the store and fill them with fresh meats, cheeses, four kinds of pasta, ten pounds of tomatoes, bottled water, fresh fruit, and some microwave popcorn.

  As Dante pays, I look at all the bags. “Um, Dante?”

  “Yes?”

  “The truck is a long way away.”

  “Yes.”

  We push the carts outside. “I can wait here while you bring the truck down.”

  He shakes his head. “Load me up.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Load me up. I must still train.”

  I start handing him bags, and in three minutes, he looks like a white plastic Christmas tree, his arms and hands laden with every bag we have.

  I pull out my camera and take several pictures before he notices.

  “Hey!” he says, smiling.

  “This isn’t for the story,” I say. “It’s for me.”

  I let him take the lead so I can see his butt working, and I snap shot after shot of his struggles through Barry’s Bay. He smiles at or says “scusi” to every person who crosses his path.

  He stops behind the Land Cruiser, not a single bead of sweat on his forehead. Doesn’t this man sweat? “In my back pocket,” he says, “are the keys.”

  I step closer to him. “You want me to put my hands down your pants?”

  “Yes,” he says. “To get the keys.”

  I…take…my…time getting those keys.

  He puts our booty into the back while the warmth of his booty fades from my hand. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  Very. But not for food.

  We stroll arm-in-arm to the Barry’s Bay Dairy, an old-fashioned diner with low prices and far too many choices. I get a plate of fries, Dante an ice water with lemon.

  “That’s all you’re having?” I ask him, munching on my fries.

  “I could say the same to you,” he says.

  I look down at the button on my jeans. The button is eyeing me warily. Don’t worry, little buddy, I won’t have any ice cream.

  “I have a problem I must tell you about,” Dante says. He pulls out a Sweet Marie candy bar and breaks it in half, handing half of it to me. “I am addicted to these. You will not tell Red?”

  “Never.”

  He peels back the foil and takes a bite. “Mmm. I like cioccolata.”

  And I like that he likes cioccolata. “How much?”

  “Che?”

  “How much do you like cioccolata?”

  He licks his lips. “I could eat it every day.”

  I smile. “They say dark chocolate is good for you.”

  He shrugs. “It is too bitter for me. I prefer sweet cioccolata.”

  “So if you only had one food on earth to eat for every meal, you’d pick…”

  “Fish,” he says.

 
; I nearly fall out of my chair. “Fish?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Like the fish you caught.”

  After our little snack, we enter the early September sunshine. “Two more stops,” he says.

  We go back to the place where I got my moose, this time browsing necklaces. He picks out a simple gold cross.

  “That’s nice,” I say.

  He puts it around my neck before I can protest, not that I would have.

  “I’m not very religious,” I say.

  “But you are spiritual,” he says. “This is an empty cross. Jesus is in heaven. It will remind you of those who are in heaven. This is a symbol of hope.”

  Hope. I don’t mind having hope hanging around my neck. Such a simple purchase, maybe thirty dollars Canadian, but—and I’m not just saying this because I want to get with this man—it’s probably the nicest gift I’ve ever gotten.

  “Grazie,” I say.

  I like that word.

  At the post office, he gets a box full of letters from all over the world. He lets me carry the box to the Land Cruiser, and I see quite a few letters that say, “Photos: Do Not Bend.”

  I get in the Land Cruiser. “I’ll bet these have nasty pictures in them.”

  “I am sure they do,” he says. “You should not open them.”

  I hold the box as far away from me as I can. “Yeah.” They might need to be sprayed with Lysol first.

  He points to a letter marked “Photos” on top of the pile. “Open that one.”

  I carefully open the letter and see pictures of a naked white woman with an Italian flag tattooed way up her thigh. I’ve always wanted some kind of tattoo, but that one is only a half inch from her vulva. I hope she and the tattoo artist were friends.

  “Not my type,” he says, making a U-turn and heading back through town and out onto Highway 60. “It is why I throw out letters with photos without looking. Evelyn did not like me getting this mail.”

  I can see why! The lengths these women go to get Dante’s attention.

  Okay, I’ve come pretty far, too, but I would never do anything like this. I mean, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but no picture has any heart behind it. You can’t feel heart—or love—from a picture.

  “Did you ever get anything like that in your mail?” he asks as we eventually turn down the dirt road.

  “No, and I’ve never sent anything like them either.” I know how these kinds of pictures can just “show up” whenever, say, a woman wins the Miss America pageant.

  “I am glad,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “I believe beauty…and you are beautiful,” he says with a wink. “I believe beauty should only reveal herself to one whom she loves, not share it with a world that does not love her or know her. That is why I am glad.”

  “Do you ever get any, um, fan mail from men?”

  “Yes. Most want tickets. Some want to be sparring partners. A few have wanted to just be partners.” He shrugs. “I have sex appeal. What am I to do?”

  Only in America.

  We cross the bridge over a dam, where he slows to a stop and rolls down the window. “I use mail for kindling in the fireplace. I started last night’s fire with yesterday’s mail.”

  Interesting use of one’s fan mail.

  He breathes deeply and smiles. “This is the place DJ caught his first fish, a little perch.” He shakes his head. “He thought he had caught a whale. Nothing but little fish there now.” He squints up at the sun. “The weather this year is crazy. It should be colder this time of year. It is almost warm enough for swimming.”

  “Swimming, as in swimming, not racing to the island.”

  “Yes,” he says. “Soaking. Letting the water soothe our cares away.”

  I sigh. “It sounds like a plan.”

  My plan, of course, is to put on my sheer white underwear, no shorts, no bra, and only an Evelyn-sized T-shirt. Once in the water, I will complain vociferously about the cold. Dante is a reasonable man. He won’t want me to get hypothermia. He’ll swim over to me, hold me, and warm the very cockles of my heart—whatever cockles are.

  Once I wade in up to my knees, however, I realize that no amount of cockle warming is going to restart my heart if I submerge my body in this ice bath. “It’s as cold as it was yesterday!” I shout.

  Dante, who has already dived off the dock, only smiles and splashes water at me. “It is warmer today than yesterday.” He swims toward me. “If you stay near the surface, you will be warmer.”

  I look and check my nipples, comparing them to the goose bumps on my arms. The goose bumps are bigger.

  He floats on his back a few yards away. “See? I am in a warm spot.”

  I try to block his view of my nipply breasts. “No, I don’t see.”

  He reaches a hand to me. “Come. You will get used to it.”

  Though I am already hypothermic below the knees, I take his hand…oh shit, it’s freakin’ cold!

  “Float on your back,” he says.

  I have never been able to do this. “I’m not built to do that, Dante,” I say, teeth chattering. “My booty weighs me down.”

  He dives under me, and in a moment I am in his arms, my legs and arms stretched out, just my booty in the water supported by one of his knees.

  “Is this better?”

  I put my arms around his solid neck. “Yeah. A lot better.”

  “I love this water,” he says.

  I can tell.

  “It is so clear,” he says. “I can see so much.”

  He’s checking me out. It warms me up, but just a little. “What can you see?”

  His eyes drift to the T-shirt clinging to my stomach. “I have never seen so many goose bumps on a stomach before. I see them everywhere through your shirt. Are you that cold?”

  I don’t want to leave his arms. “I’ll be okay.”

  His eyes drift to my legs. “They are everywhere.” He looks directly at my breasts. “So many.” He looks into my eyes. “What will happen if I try to warm up your legs?”

  I’ll probably have an orgasm. Either that or I’ll get even more goose bumps. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try?”

  I watch his hand moving along my leg and nearly jerk out of his arms.

  “My hand is cold, yes?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hmm. We must keep swimming to stay warm then.” He turns me toward the rocks. “We will swim around to the other side. There is a rock in the sunlight we can rest on.”

  He releases me into the water, and I swear my nipples are audibly tearing the fabric of the T-shirt. Instead of swimming alongside him, I latch onto his back, and he swims us around the corner from the dock and to the rocks. As soon as I step out of the water, my booty hits that warm rock, and it says, “Grazie.”

  “This is much better,” I say. “The rocks are warm.”

  He scoots next to me, his legs touching mine. “Much better. I may have a tan for my fight, yes?”

  I laugh. “I doubt it.” I put my arm next to his. “You’ll have to use a tanning bed to catch up.”

  He shrugs. “I do not tan very well, so I do not worry about it.” He picks up my hand and compares it to his. “You have big hands.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean that in a good way,” he says. “You see, my mama, she had big hands. They helped her make bread. They also helped her keep me in line.”

  “She spanked you?”

  He nods. “Why my sedere is so rough today.” He smiles. “I deserved every one of them.”

  I can’t believe this choirboy was ever a bad boy. “You were bad?”

  “I was a boy,” he says. “I did boy things my mama did not like. I only do them once and…” He pantomimes a swat. “I learned very quickly.”

  I let my shoulder touch his. “What lessons did you learn?”

  “So many! In the playground, I was very small, maybe three or four, and I hit a little girl in the back. I don’t know why I did it, but…Mama did not move from he
r bench. She said, ‘Vieni qui.’ I knew I was in trouble. She only said ‘come here’ when I was bad. She spanked me in front of everybody.”

  How cute!

  “I have not hit a girl since.” He grabs my hand. “Oh, but I hit you.”

  He should be spanked, but if I did spank him, I’d probably break my hand in six places.

  He touches my cheek. “How is it?”

  “It hurts,” I pout.

  He winces. “I am still so sorry.”

  I look at him with what I hope are puppy eyes. “And it still hurts so badly.”

  He looks down. “I wish I could take it back. It was instinct.”

  Instinctively, I lift his chin with my hand. “You could…maybe, you know, kiss it, make it feel better.”

  When he raises his head to kiss my cheek, I turn and kiss him softly on the lips.

  Then, for whatever reason, I start to shiver. I mean, I’m out of the water. I’m warming up in the sun. I kiss him once on the lips, and my legs start quivering.

  “You are shivering,” he says.

  “I’m…I’m not cold,” I say. “I’m excited.” And I want to kiss him again.

  “Oh,” he says. “Oh.” He leans forward and holds his legs. “Another reason I like it up here. Cold water keeps me from thinking about…”

  “About what?”

  “About sex. I do not have sex in training. It will weaken my knees. My knees are old. All that running around the streets in Brooklyn, all the jumping, all those fights. I must protect my knees.”

  And I thought I jumped to conclusions easily. “It was just a kiss, Dante.”

  He drops his eyes. “I have not had a kiss like that in over ten years. It was not just a kiss, Christiana.” He slips into the water, sighing heavily. “It meant something.”

  Did he just…? No. Not from a single kiss. No man…well, maybe a man who hasn’t had sex or a nice soft kiss in ten years…

  I think I’ve just kissed a man who’s harder up for sex than I am!

  I slide into the water and shiver for real, again draping my arms over his shoulders and leaning on his back. “Take me back.”

  He swims us to the dock, turns, and lifts me onto the dock with ease. I take a towel and begin drying my hair and covering up my rock-hard nipples, but Dante stays in the water.