Fifty yards down the path Tommy De Coco sat restlessly, wishing his wife would hurry the fuck up.

***

Sunday afternoon sunlight splashed the walls and furniture as Chubby De Coco lay on his back like a beached whale in his blue-striped boxer shorts on the sheetless king-size bed. He was wearing enormous headphones, listening to the best of Henry Mancini. His eyes were closed and he was smiling. A frosty mug of beer sat on the night table within easy reach. Phyllis was at her mother's and would be gone until dinner. He was happy.

He took off the headphones after a while and pivoting himself on his ass swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached for the mug, finished the beer, yawned and made his way to the bathroom. The bagginess of the boxer shorts made his legs look even thinner than they really were but the elastic waistband was taut.

He stood over the toilet and pissed, holding his dick with both hands. He hated the way Phyllis decorated the john with gold Florentine wallpaper, gold ceiling paper, a gold furry toilet cover, a fake brown wood sink, a shower curtain with brown, gold and crystal beads like a Chink whorehouse. The whole house looked like a whorehouse as far as he was concerned. Like his brother, Tommy, they lived in Co-op City so he only paid $200 rent including utilities for a four-and-a-half-room apartment with air conditioning in every room. He figured for that price he could afford to let Phyllis splurge on furniture and wallpaper and crap. He himself could give a shit what the place looked like as long as he had that air conditioning but she liked what Marie called "Jewish Renaissance." She couldn't buy goddamn lamps—she had to have chandeliers. Jungle-thick rugs all over the house so you couldn't touch anything without getting twenty-five volts up your ass. Plus you had to take your goddamn shoes off like you were entering a Dutch church. And the stuff he liked, like the purple velour couch and the red leather Barcalounger, she had wrapped in what looked like big Glad Bags—giant plastic slipcovers—so that he couldn't even relax and watch TV in the living room without leaving half the skin on his back stuck to the plastic every time he wanted to get up to make a sandwich or go to the bathroom. He was surprised she didn't put a slipcover over the color TV.

Chubby wandered into the kitchen for some eats. He peered into the refrigerator, took out a bowl of tuna salad, two Schaefers and a hard-boiled egg. He hummed the theme from "Peter Gunn" that was on the Henry Mancini album. That was the other thing he liked in the apartment besides the air conditioning. That stereo with the headphones he got himself. He could spend all day with those headphones on listening to Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. He was fixing himself a tuna sandwich and wondering what the hell ever happened to Perry Como when the phone rang.