Free A Complicated Marriage by Janice Van Horne Page A

city. An elegant Greco-Roman octagonal structure, it could easily have passed for a monument to the heroes of a forgotten war. I never saw anyone, living or dead, enter. Directly across from us was a storage facility with blind windows, and to our north, a massive GE warehouse. All of which provided us absolute privacy; no shades ever need shroud our windows. A block north, Abingdon Square, established in 1836, sat as a gateway to the smooth macadam of Eighth Avenue. For all its high-tone name, it was in fact a small woebegone triangle with a few splintery benches and a forbidding statue of a war-weary soldier dedicated to the neighborhood casualties of the Great War. No one, except an insouciant pigeon or two, ever sat or played inside the park’s iron fence. A pall lay over it, and I fantasized about what dreadful thing might have once happened there.
    Of course, on the ground floor of our five-story building was the Imperial Liquor Store with its neon sign, which on warm spring nights hummed and sizzled. Al, its owner, was like family, except better. He cashed checks and stocked Tanqueray for Clem, an exotic brand of gin in 1956, and a big step up from the $2-a-quart Mr. Boston’s from my college days. Also under us on the corner was an appliance store with air conditioners and television sets that sang siren songs to me as I walked by. Within the year, I would talk Clem into buying both. The TV in time
for the World Series. The air conditioner was a harder sell to someone who had lived his whole life in New York without one. But like so much that I introduced Clem to—like having a Christmas tree—he took to it. Especially the TV.
    Unlike me, Clem never watched indiscriminately; it had to be funny or real. In particular, Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, and the fights. We would each score rounds to see who made the best call. He was chagrined that I usually had him beat. On Sunday afternoons the set would be on to whatever game was on, with Clem wandering between his desk and the bedroom, a drink in one hand, a book in the other. Somehow, he never missed a big play. But the best was when we curled up for late nights with Jack Paar. He was right up our psychological alley. For five years, from eleven thirty to one fifteen, it was like watching a striptease of the man’s id, ego, and superego. It was such a New York show, so hometown.
    I may have assumed a new role, but I didn’t have the props. A cook with no pots, a housekeeper with no vacuum. One Saturday afternoon, on the way to a movie at the Greenwich, we went to a hardware store and bought two Revere Ware pots and a frying pan. I foresaw that this might well be a one-time shot at domestic togetherness. And I was right. But that day Clem was as exacting as if he were looking at paintings. The pots must be the precise size to suit our needs, and they should last for millenniums. To me, a pot was a pot. Then, as if on cue, a salesman arrived at our door, selling vacuums. I wasn’t home, but to my amazement, Clem bought one. He was very proud of that major purchase. To me, it was better than diamonds. I was now a bona fide housewife, and as such, I began to gussy up the bare bones of my domain.
    At a fabric store on West Fourteenth Street I bought a nubby, mold-green remnant of mysterious origin for a dollar to re-cover our upholstered chair. Also a curved needle, edging, and fabric glue, all recommended by a motherly saleslady. On the chair’s weary frame I cut and draped and sewed and pasted, then stood back to admire my handiwork. If I squinted it looked fine, except for the bilious color and the springs poking up that hardly showed at all. Next, with a scrap of shiny white cloth with large gold dots, a piece of string as a curtain rod, and thumbtacks, I fashioned a curtain for the tiny window in the bathroom. For my finale, I painted
the bedroom a dark rose, with grim results. Terrified ever after of wall color, I would never again venture