Dan Leo's Blog, page 11

"True Love"

 “Look at those two,” said Bubbles, swiveled around on her bar stool and pointing across the crowded café. “True love.”

“Oh, yes, so it would seem,” said Addison. “If one can speak of the concept of ‘true love’, without first defining what one actually means by the term ‘love’, not to mention that oh so slippery adjective ‘true’ –”

“What’s up with this Gilford pal of yours? He on the level or what?”

“I think it’s Milford, actually.”

“You what?”

“His name, our youthful friend, it’s Milford actually –”

“I knew it was something swishy like that. Like your name, Atcheson.”

“Addison.”

“Oh, right. Why can’t I remember that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Although, as I think I’ve mentioned to you once or twice, Addison is not my real name either, but, rather, a nickname or sobriquet given to me by the wags at my local, Bob’s Bowery Bar, which you really must visit with me sometime, I’m sure they’ll all love you there, but, one night these poets who habituate the pub started calling me Addison after the character played by George Sanders in the film All About Eve, and I admit that at first I was ever so slightly abashed, but now I have come to look on the name not as an insult, but rather as a nom de guerre if you will –”

“Hey, whatever your name is, you know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Talking at too great length?”

“Yeah, Jesus Christ, Hatcherman, I told you once, I told you a million times, stick a sock in it once in a while, will ya?”

“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry, Bubbles. You see, the last thing I should want to do, the absolute last thing, would be to displease you in any way, or –”

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Okay.”

“Is that clear enough for you?”

“Yes, I think so –”

“When I’m in the mood to hear some of your bullshit, I’ll give you the high sign. But until then do me a favor and just keep a lid on it.”

“Certainly.”

“Look at them,” she said.

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Your buddy Gayford, and that little frail from the automat.”

“Yes, Polly, a quite intelligent and well-read girl in point of fact. She simply adores the work of George Eliot. Also George Sand –”

“I don’t get it.”

“George Sand? Or George Eliot.”

“I don’t get your pal, Gaylord.”

“In what sense, dear Bubbles? Because I confess I do find him a somewhat trying young fellow –”

“When you and that mouse were jabbering he told me he wanted to have a date with me tonight, but now he’s like dime store perfume all over her.”

“Oh. Well, you see, I believe they are in point of fact here tonight on a ‘date’ themselves.”

“Then why’d he try to make a date with me?”

“I can only speculate, but I daresay he was stricken by your ineffable beauty, your air of haughty insouciance, your what the French call je ne sais quoi –”

“What’s je ne sais quoi?”

“It means I don’t know what.”



“Then why didn’t you just say that instead of dragging the French language into it?”

“Heh heh.”

Suddenly Addison remembered the twenty-dollar bill in his old Cub Scout wallet. The twenty dollars Milford himself had given him earlier this evening, with the express admonition that he should use ten dollars of it to divest himself finally of his virginity.

Did he dare ask Bubbles? What if she said no. She might be tired from her day’s exertions. Or, indeed, she might find the prospect of making one-half the beast with two backs with him to be abhorrent. And, really, Addison could not blame her if she did, in truth he found himself abhorrent, and only put up with himself because he was sentenced for life to this particular corporeal host and the personality that inhabited it.   

Another consideration was that ten dollars was a lot of money. Think of all the beers, shots, cocktails he could buy with ten dollars!

What a quandary: on the one side the loss of his virginity, on the other the loss of ten dollars. A quandary for the ages!

Across the room, Milford and Polly stood up from their table.

“Oh, do you want to say goodnight to your friends?” said Polly.

“My what?”

As far as Milford knew he had never had any friends.

“Your friend Addison,” said Polly. “And that stunningly beautiful creature Bubbles!”

“Oh,” said Milford. “Them. No, I think it might be better if we just slip away quietly.”

“But they’re looking directly at us!”

“Oh.”

“We must bid them good night.”

“Yes, well –”



And Polly forged forth through the drinking and laughing people, through the noise and the jukebox music and the thick swirling smoke, while Milford paused for a second, a second in which he thought a thousand thoughts, including one in which he ran desperately for the door to escape into the snowy night, and then he followed her.

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“And Now What?”

The waiter brought the cheesecakes, and the expressos.

“Oh, lovely!” said Polly, expanding her arms and her open hands, and then closing her fingers into fists, and shaking them. “This is going to be so good!”

Milford sighed. And then he picked up his fork. He must get a grip on himself. He must eat cheesecake, with cherry sauce, like a normal person, and this he attempted to do.

“Oh, my goodness!” said Polly, swallowing, “Isn’t it delicious?”

Milford in his turn swallowed.

“Yes,” he said, and, yes, it was, but did it matter?

“Try the expresso now!” instructed Polly.

Obediently Milford lifted the tiny cup and took a sip.

“It’s the almost viscous bitterness and richness of the expresso immediately following that oh so exquisite sweetness of the cheesecake and cherries,” said Polly. “It’s heaven, don’t you think?”

Milford wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but he thought it best not to contradict Polly, and so he said anyway, “Oh, yes.”

“It’s these little things,” said Polly, lifting another forkful, “that give life meaning, don’t you think?”

She was still speaking in that odd voice, the Tallulah Bankhead, Katharine Cornell, Hyacinth Wilde voice. Could it possibly be her real voice? And what did Milford sound like? Did he sound like Alfred Lunt?

“Or do you disagree?” she said.

“Oh, no, I agree,” he said, taking another bite of cheesecake.

“These moments,” she said. “Brief, transitory moments. And then? Then what?”

“Then comes the night, lying in one’s bed, staring at the ceiling, and into the abyss,” said Milford. “Into the void of the universe. That nothingness from which we came and to which we will return.”

“Yes, there is that,” said Polly.

Soon enough, perhaps too soon, the cheesecake was all eaten, the expresso drunk. And now what?

Polly picked up the folded papers containing Milford’s poem.

“So you really don’t want me to read your poem?”

“Only if you want to read the drivelings of an untalented fool.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Very well, then, I shan’t read it! Such a pity though. At last a chap writes a poem for me, and it turns out to be a bad poem! Here, do you want it back?”

“No,” said Milford.

“May I keep it then, if only for a keepsake?”

“I don’t mind,” said Milford.

“I shall then!”

Rather unceremoniously she stuffed the pages back into her purse, and clicked it shut.

“And now comes the moment of truth,” she said. “When we must decide the next move in our little mating dance. Should we go to my place?”

“Well, uh –”

“Or would you prefer yours?”

“I live with my mother.”

“Oh, that might be awkward then, mightn’t it?”

“I’m sure it would be,” said Milford. “But only if you consider an encounter with a certifiable madwoman to be potentially awkward.”

“My place it is then! I live quite nearby, actually. I must say I am rather excited. Are you?”

“I wouldn’t say excited,” said Milford.

“What would you say?”

“Afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Maybe terrified is the better word.”

“Oh, don’t be terrified! It will be fun!”

“Somehow I doubt that, Polly.”

“Oh, Mr. Gloom and Doom! Milford, we are young, and alive!”

Milford sighed, again.

“You do sigh a lot, don’t you?” said Polly.

“Yes, quite frequently,” said Milford.

“You’re a gloom-laden poet, that’s what you are!”

“Well, I’m gloom-laden, but I’m not so sure about being a poet.”

“Oh, but you simply must be a poet!” said Polly.

“No,” said Milford. “I don’t think I must be anything, except perhaps a failed poet.”

“But you won’t know for sure unless you try! You do want to be a poet, don’t you?”

“Yes,” admitted Milford.

“Just as I want to be a novelist! We must stick to our guns, dear Milford, and not be discouraged.”

“I am incapable of not being discouraged, Polly. I was born discouraged.”

“See, there you are! Spoken like a true poet!”

It occurred to Milford that Polly used lots of exclamation points in her speech. She was enthusiastic. The opposite of him.

He sighed, for the twelfth thousandth time that day.

“Promise me you won’t give up!” exclaimed Polly.

“All right,” he said. “I promise.”

“You must write your poetry. Keep at it, and, just you wait, someday you will write something good.” Milford began to sigh again, but Polly said, “And please don’t sigh!”

“Sorry,” he said.

“So, do we go to my place now?”

With a great effort Milford stifled another sigh.

“All right,” he said.

“Oh, splendid!” she said, with an exclamation point. 

 

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq...} 

"The Question"

Milford swallowed the last remaining mouthful of spaghetti and meatball and suddenly realized that he was oozing sweat from every pore, and simultaneously realized that he was still wearing his peacoat and his woolen newsboy’s cap.

He stood up, almost knocking his chair over.

“Where are you going?” said Polly, sopping up the remaining spaghetti sauce on her plate with a piece of bread.

“Nowhere, it’s just that I’ve suddenly gotten very hot.”

He fumbled with the top button of his peacoat. Why were his fingers like fat Italian sausages?

“Do you need some assistance with that?” said Polly.

“No, I think I’ve got it. I think. Oh, damn. Pardon my language.”

“Oh, you’re just like my father,” said Polly. “Unable to admit that you’re unable to do anything.”

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to unbutton these.”

“Perhaps you are intoxicated, old boy.”

She was speaking in an upper-crust English accent again, or was it rather the accent that Hyacinth Wilde used in her popular comedies and dramas, despite her being born in Kansas?

Milford paused in his attempted unbuttoning.

“Polly, I have a confession to make.”

“Oh, good! I’ve never heard a chap confess before!”

“I, uh, smoked marijuana with T.S. Eliot just now, outside.”

“Oh my goodness! So that explains your lack of dexterity!”

“Yes, that and the fact that I have just drunk a couple of glasses of wine.”

“The French and Italians drink loads of wine and they can still unbutton their coats.”

“Yes, but do they smoke marijuana and then drink wine?”

“Oh you poor boy, let me help you.”

Polly dropped her napkin on the table, got up, came around, and turning Milford to face her, she began to unbutton his peacoat. She was still wearing her own coat (to Milford’s mind of a tasteful and chic design, ivory colored with red piping) although it was open, revealing a gentle grey dress with a high white collar. She gave off a pleasant odor of perfume, somehow reaching his olfactory sense through the surrounding miasma of smoke and beer and whiskey and wine.

“Now turn around,” she said.

Obediently he turned around, his legs bumping into his chair, and she deftly lifted his coat by its shoulders and slipped it off of his torso.

“My goodness, this thing weighs a ton!” she said.

“Yes, it’s meant to be worn by sailors on the high seas.”

She draped the peacoat over the back of his chair.

“Okay, you can sit down now,” she said.

Milford sat, and Polly pushed the chair in under him, like a head waiter in one of the nice restaurants that Milford’s mother forced him to accompany her to, despite or because of his protestations that he preferred automats and workingmen’s diners.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Sitting comfortably now?”

“Yes, I’m all right now, Polly,” said Milford, although he wasn’t.

She came around and stood by his side, and she patted his shoulder in a maternal way, not that his own mother had ever done any such thing.



“Would you like to remove your cap, Milford?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I should.”

Before he could do so she had lifted the cap from his head and placed it on the table. For just a moment Milford felt as if his entire inner being – call it his soul, his spirit, his consciousness, the essence of him – was rising up out of the sweaty gauzy skin stretched over his cranium and through the matting of his sweat-soaked hair to escape into the thick smoky atmosphere of the bar, leaving his body a senseless and immobile life-sized mannequin sitting at this table, but by a desperate and panicked effort of will he sucked his spirit back down into his skull, and when finally the last iota of it was within him he heaved a great sigh.

“Are you really quite all right, Milford?”

She patted the top of his wet head, which was good. Tamp it down, he thought, tamp it back into me where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere…

“Ommm,” was all he was able to say.

“I say, Milford, do you feel faint?”

Milford breathed deeply, in, then out, and then he looked up at her.

“I think I’m better now,” were the words that came out of his mouth.

“You must have been dreadfully overheated!”

“Yes,” said Milford, as if that explained everything, but let it go, let it go.

“Feel better now?” she said. “Not so hot?”

“Yes,” said Milford. “Thank you, Polly. For your concern.”

She put the back of her fingers to his forehead. Her fingers were cool.

“You feel almost feverish,” she said.

“It will pass, I think,” he said, just as my life will pass, he thought, but did not say.

She let her fingers drift down the side of his face, and for a moment Milford felt he might indeed swoon, and crumble and tumble off the chair to the litter of sawdust and cigarette butts on the floor. He put the palms of both his hands on the edge of the table and held on.

Polly went back to her side of the table and resumed her seat.

For the first time Milford now became aware that Polly was herself wearing a hat, a small thing like a hard-shell clam on the top of her head that matched her dress. It was adorned with a small stone of red, shaped like a drop of blood. Why was he so unobservant? This was yet another reason why he would never be a good poet!

“Do you know what I think?” she said.

Milford had no idea what she thought. He didn’t even know what he thought. He could still feel the touch of her fingers on his forehead and cheek.

“Um, uh,” he said.

“You might think me terribly decadent,” she said.

Was she going to propose that they pay the bill and leave at once, and go to her place and make intense, perhaps savage love?

“Ommm?” he said.

“I think,” said Polly, “we should order cheesecake, with cherry sauce!”

“Oh,” said Milford. “Yes, that would be good.”

The waiter came over, a middle-aged Italian man. He picked up the empty spaghetti bowls, and Milford wondered what his life was like, picking up people’s empty bowls and plates.

“Youse wanta sumpin else?”

Milford thought, Yes, I want to be someone else, I want to be someone capable of enjoying life, but he said nothing, and so Polly ordered two slices of cheesecake with cherry sauce.

“Oh!” she said. “And an expresso! Would you like an expresso, Milford? It will perk you right up!”

“Yes, please,” his voice said.

The waiter went away, and Milford remembered that he had never gotten cigarettes. But what would happen if he tried to go to the cigarette machine again? He might never get back alive…

“Oh! Look what I have,” said Polly, and she opened her purse, a leather purse of a twilight color, another thing about her he had not noticed before. She took out a folded-up rectangular sheaf of papers. “It’s your poem!”

“Oh,” he said. He had forgotten the poem. It seemed like a century ago that he had written it, and yet it had only been this afternoon. “That old thing.”

“Shall I read it now?” said Polly.

“No,” said Milford.

“Why not?”

“Because it is rubbish,” he said.

“Oh my!” she said. “That’s a harsh assessment!”

“But it’s true,” he said.

“But, and pardon me for asking, if you think the poem is rubbish, why did you give it to me to read?”

“Because,” said Milford, “I was a different person then.”

“But it was only an hour or two ago.”

“Yes. But I was young then, and saw myself and the world through a filter of egotism. But now the filter has been dissolved, and I see myself and the world clearly.”

“Oh dear. And what do you see?”

Milford was unable to answer that question, and after a pause, a pause filled with the laughter and shouting of drunken people and of loud music from the jukebox, he answered Polly’s question by saying he could not answer the question.

{Please go here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“The Great Leap”

“Pleased to meet you by the way, Mr. Slick,” said Mr. Eliot. “Put ‘er there, pal.”

The two thin men shook hands.

“Just make it ‘Slick’, daddy,” said Detroit Slick. “And what’s your moniker?”

“Eliot’s the name, T.S. Eliot, perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

“Heard of you? Why, buddy, I wrote a term paper when I was at Michigan on Murder in the Cathedral!”



“Oh, that old thing –”

“No, my man, it’s a banger, and I don’t care what nobody says!”

“Ah, you are too kind, Slick.”



“Still, I gotta say,” said Detroit Slick, “The Waste Land? That poem is the bomb, man. First time I read that I says to myself, fucking hell, I don’t know what this poem is about, but I dig it!”

“Why, thank you, buddy,” said Mr. Eliot.

Milford was standing there, or, rather, floating there, gently rising and falling between a height of approximately two feet  and eighteen inches above the snow-covered pavement of the entrance area, and he still held in his fingers the inch that was left of the reefer.

Mr. Eliot and Detroit Slick were saying words on the white puffs of breath that escaped from their mouths, the puffs that turned pink in the neon light of the San Remo Café sign and then disappeared, and now Detroit Slick held his lighter up to Milford, clicking a blue and orange flame from it, and Milford realized he was expected to put the stub of the reefer in his lips, and he did so, and as the fire ignited the weed and he breathed in the sacred smoke he suddenly remembered Polly Powell sitting in there in the San Remo, at the little table, waiting for him to return with cigarettes.

By force of new habit he drew upon the truncated reefer deeply, once, twice, three times, and held the smoke in as his consciousness now floated out and away from the entrance area, into that heavily falling snow which somehow fell all around him but not onto him and he was one with all and all was one with him.

“The hollow men,” said Detroit Slick, “J. Alfred Prufrock, the goddam four quartets,” and other words followed, drifting away into the snow falling in the neon light.

I am free at last, thought Milford, free of my pathetic corporeal host, and now I will exist beyond time and place, floating through the falling snowflakes through the universe as the universe flows through me, but then Mr. Eliot was taking the stub of a reefer from his hand and Milford felt his feet in their sturdy work shoes standing on the surface of the earth again, in the glowing pinkish snow drifted into the entrance area of the San Remo.

“I have to go inside now,” his voice said, echoing through the obscure back alleys of his brain, “Now, now, now…”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get cold,” said Mr. Eliot, sticking the the butt of reefer into the side pocket of his tweed suit coat.

“You got any more muggles?” said Detroit Slick.

“No,” said Mr. Eliot, “but I think I know where we can get some.”

“I could go for a nickel bag,” said Detroit Slick.

“Bag that nickel bag shit, my chums will hook us up.”

“Swell, daddy-o,” said Detroit Slick.

“Come on back inside with us, buddy.”

“I was gonna hit another bar,” said Detroit Slick, “but sure. I am like a leaf, man, tumbling down the dark city streets, from gutter to gutter. Where the wind blows me, I go, and if it don’t blow me, that’s where I stay, just digging everything.”



“Spoken like a true poet, my man,” said Mr. Eliot, and he went to the door and opened it, waving to Detroit Slick to go on in, which he did, and Mr. Eliot turned to Milford.

“You coming, Melvoin?”

“Ommm,” said Milford.

“Is that a yes?”

“Ommm.”

A slender bony hand reached out and grabbed Milford’s arm, and he found his corporeal host, with him in it, pulled through the doorway.

The music, the smoke, the noise, the shouting and laughing people, the rich smells of burning tobacco and of whiskey and beer and wine, the warmth of human bodies, and Mr. Eliot and Detroit Slick forging away through the crowd. To the right at the bar sat the lovely Bubbles, with Addison leaning in close to her, his lips moving, like an actor in a silent movie. And turning to the left Milford saw Polly Powell sitting at the little table, facing toward the rear, and he sighed and made his way to her. On the table were two bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, a carafe of something red, two water glasses with something red in them.

“Hello,” he said.

“Milford!” said Polly, looking up, slurping strands of spaghetti into her lips. 

At last someone who knew his name.

“Sit down,” she said. “I do hope you don’t mind, but I started without you because I was so absolutely starving.”

Milford floated down into his seat.

“Did you get the cigarettes?” said Polly.

“Oh no,” said Milford.

“You didn’t?” said Polly.

“I forgot. You see, I ran into T.S. Eliot.”

“The poet?”

“Yes.”

“That’s that old man I saw you with?”

“Yes.”

“You’re friends with T.S. Eliot?”

“Well –”

“That’s so exciting! I don’t know anybody famous, although sometimes I see famous people come into the automat. Do you know the actress Hyacinth Wilde?”

“Um, well, I’ve seen her –”

“Did you see her in the The Speckled Honeybee?”

“Yes, my mother took me to that one –”

“What about The Travails of Harold and Sylvia?”

“Yes, my mother took me to a matinée of that one.”

“I think my favorite was The Songbird Does Not Sing, did you see that one?”

“Yes, my mother takes me to all the shows.”

“She’s so beautiful.”

“My mother?”

“No, Hyacinth Wilde. She comes into the automat all the time. She always gets the lemon meringue.”

”Uh –”

“Eat your spaghetti, Milford!”

“Oh, yes, of course,” and Milford soon found himself shoveling spaghetti and meatballs into his mouth. He had never in his life before been so hungry. Polly was shoveling, too, breaking pieces of bread from a wicker basket and dabbing it into the sauce, and at intervals picking up her glass and drinking the red liquid in it. And all the while she was talking about plays she had seen, about how Hyacinth Wilde was even more beautiful in person than on stage, and as he ate Milford suddenly remembered he was an alcoholic when he realized he had just drunk a small tumblerful of red wine.

Oh well.

Tonight was the first night of the rest of his life, and even though he felt quite deranged at the moment, tomorrow he could resume his sobriety, start counting the days once again. He would go to a meeting first thing, he would confess his slip…

Polly refilled his glass.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No more for me.”

“But you’ve only had one glass!” cried Polly. “Listen, Milford, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever had sexual intercourse?”

Fortunately Milford’s mouth was full of spaghetti and meatballs, and so he had an excuse not to say anything straight away. He chewed, thoroughly, more thoroughly than necessary if truth be told, and then at last swallowed the mouthful, with his pride, and said: 



“No.”

“I knew it!” said Polly. “And guess what? Neither have I!”

“Um, uh,” said Milford.

“What do you say?” said Polly. “I mean, if I’m not being terribly forward, but, do you know, I consider myself a modern woman, unconstrained by outmoded social mores.”

“Oh, uh,” Milford gripped his fork and his spaghetti-twirling soup spoon tightly, as if they were weapons he might need quite soon.

“So, how about it, Milford, shall we? Shall we take a great Kierkegaardian leap into the vast unknown together?”

She seemed quite sincere. Milford picked up his wine glass and drank half its contents, forgetting again for the moment his alcoholism.

“Um,” he said.

“It’s okay if you say no,” said Polly.

“No,” said Milford, after gulping and swallowing nothing, “I mean, yes. Yes I mean. I mean yes. Yes.”

“Oh, good,” said Polly.

She resumed eating her spaghetti and meatballs, and, after a moment, so did Milford.

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq...}

“M.F.K. Montaine”

They stood together outside the door of the café, protected from the falling snow by the overhang of the entranceway. 

Mr. Eliot reached into a side pocket of his suit and brought out a thick hand-rolled cigarette.

“Here ya go, in your parlance, ‘daddy-o’. You like the wacky backy?”

“Well, I only smoked it once.”

“And?”

“Yes, I confess I found it somehow – exhilarating. But –”

“But?”

“You see, it was with a young lady, and I think that perhaps she had a lot to do with the feeling approaching ecstasy I felt.”

“The feeling approaching ecstasy you felt.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Only approaching?”

“Mr. Eliot, approaching ecstasy means a lot when you’ve never before in your life been within a million miles of it.”

“Good point, but, please, call me Tom.”

“Tom,” said Milford.

Mr. Eliot had a slim silvery cigarette lighter in his hand, and he lighted up the weed, inhaling deeply several times, and holding in the smoke for a full minute, after which he exhaled, breathing an enormous cloud of marijuana smoke in Milford’s face.

“Wow,” he said. “Good shit. Take a hit, Melvoin.”

He proffered the “reefer”.

“I really shouldn’t,” said Milford.

“Why the fuck not?”

“I am an alcoholic. I should avoid any mind-or-mood altering substances.”

“Bullshit. I’ll bet you drink coffee, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And I’ll bet you smoke cigarettes like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Yes,” admitted Milford.

“Then take a hit, for Christ’s sake. Jesus Christ, kid. How often do you think you get a chance to burn a J with the world’s foremost living poet?”

“Well –”

“Dig it, Melvoin, I’m thinking about you, in your old age, suffused with regrets and bitterness. Is that what you want to be? One of my hollow men, bemoaning his wasted dull and miserable boring life?”

“No.”

“Then take a fucking toke.”

Milford took the “J”, put it in his lips, and Mr. Eliot fired him up with the slim handsome lighter.

Milford inhaled deeply, and then again, and again, and, following Mr. Eliot’s example, he held the smoke in for a full minute, then finally exhaled, and with the smoke all the tedium of his existence seemed to flow from his mouth and into the cold night air and the living curtain of snow falling upon the intersection of Bleecker and MacDougal, upon Greenwich Village and all its living and dead and those who were dead but still walked or stumbled about almost as if they were alive.

“Wow,” said Milford.

“Good, huh?” said Mr. Eliot.

“Yes,” said Milford.

“I’ll bet you feel like you could write a pretty darned good epic poem right about now.”

“I do, actually, but I’ll probably wait until the morning.”

“Sure,” said Mr. Eliot. “Now slide me that dooby, wouldja?”

“Oh, sorry,” said Milford.

They repeated the smoking ritual, once, twice, and then three times, barely saying a word, and any words that were said were not important, and quickly forgotten except by the Lord Almighty, looking down from the heavens and shaking his head at his bizarre handiwork.

“You do still got that pen I gave you by the way, right?” said Mr. Eliot.

“The pen?” said Milford’s voice, from somewhere deep in the lost echoing corridors of his being.

“Yes, the pen I gave you, that I wrote The Waste Land and all my other masterpieces with. You still got it?”

“Oh, the pen, yes,” said Milford. And after no more than a minute he found it in the inside breast pocket of his peacoat, and showed it to Mr. Eliot. It shone magically, gleaming black and gold in the neon glow of the San Remo Café sign and the snow-filtered light of the corner streetlamp. “See?” said Milford. “I didn’t lose it.”

“Good,” said Mr. Eliot. “May you write as many chefs-d'œuvre with it as I did. You know what A.E. Housman told me one time when I was about your age?”

“No?”

“He told me, ‘Tommy,’ he says – he always called me ‘Tommy’, or ‘Tommy Boy’ – ‘Tommy Boy,’ he says, ‘you wanta make it big in the poetry game I got only one piece of advice for you, and that is to find a comfortable pen.’ And so he gave me a pen.”

“Was it this pen?”

“Fuck no. It was a worn-out old quill pen, but I didn’t really like using it, on accounta you had to keep dipping it into the ink jar all the time. Which is why I bought that Montblanc there, much better pen to write with you ask me.”

“It seems like a very good pen, sir.”

“’Tom.’ I have to tell you again I’m gonna take that pen back off you.”

“Sorry, I meant to say Tom.”

“I still got the quill pen Housman gave me. Maybe now that I’m old and all written out I’ll drag it out and try to write something with it.”

“You can have this one back if you think you need it.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to be an Indian giver. And besides, it don’t really matter what pen you use. All the pens in the world are not going to give you the one sine qua non of being a great poet.”

“Which is?”

“Talent.”

“Oh.”

Milford for the millionth time in his life felt a falling-away feeling, deep in his soul, as if anything that could possibly matter or give meaning to his life was slipping off into oblivion. He put the pen back in his peacoat pocket.

“You think you got that sine qua non, kid?”

Milford sighed.

“I very much doubt it, sir. I mean Tom.”

Mr. Eliot was lighting himself up again, while Milford’s words faded away into the snow-swirling night. The old poet drew upon the reefer deeply, once, twice, thrice, and again held the smoke in a for full minute before releasing it in a great cloud that dissolved like the hopes and dreams of youth into the snowy night air.

“Y’know who gave that quill pen to A.E. Housman?” said Mr. Eliot, passing the reefer to Milford.

“Walt Whitman?”

“No. Robert Browning.”

Mr. Eliot gave Milford a light with his lighter, the silver gleaming lighter with its blue and gold flame.

Milford inhaled deeply, three times, and when after a minute he exhaled he said, “Who gave the pen to Robert Browning?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Mr. Eliot.

“Yes, I will,” said Milford, because he knew he would believe anything at this point.

“William Wordsworth.”

“William Wordsworth?” said Milford.

“Himself,” said Mr. Eliot. “And so, you see, my son, that the poetic torch is passed down through the generations, Wordsworth to Browning to Housman to Eliot to Melvoin.”

“To who?”

“To you – Melvoin.”

“Oh, it’s Milford, actually.”

“Is that what you told me before?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Why would I tell you a name other than my own?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you wished to remain incognito.”

“Well, anyway, my name is Milford, and before you ask, my first name is Marion, but I hate that name, and so I prefer just to be called Milford.”

“Your name is Marion?”

Milford sighed.

“Yes.”

“You poor misbegotten son of a bitch. No wonder you appear so downtrodden and ill-favored. Marion? What were your parents thinking?”

“I don’t think they gave it too much thought at all, to be honest.”

“And yet to cripple a lad emotionally and psychologically for life, when they just could have called you Jack, or Mike, or Spike, or Buck, or –”

“Okay, I get it, Tom. I’ve been living with this curse my whole life, so, believe me, I get it.”

“You need to change your name, Marion.”

“I don’t know –”

“No, you must. Look, go ahead and be Marion Milvoin in your private life if you want to –”

“I don’t want to –”

“Whatever, but for your poetry you need a new name.”

“Like a pen name?”

“Exactly. Here’s a good one: M.F.K. Montaine.”

“M.F.K. Montaine?”

“Yeah, got a ring to it, doncha think?”

“What’s the M.F.K. stand for?”

“Who gives a shit? All’s that matters is that it’s a cool-sounding name. That’s what you young guys say, isn’t it, ‘cool’?”

“Well, I don’t, but I’ve heard other people say it.”

“Look, it’s only a suggestion. Pick whatever name you fucking like, just as long as it’s not Marion whoever.”

“Okay.”

“Why do you think I chose T.S. Eliot over Thomas Stearns Eliot?”

“Because it sounded cooler?”

“Yeah, precisely. Of course if I was coming up nowadays I might’ve gone with Tom Eliot, maybe even Tommy Boy Eliot.”

“What about if I call myself Buck Baxter?” said Milford.

“Don’t push it, Marion.”

“Too much?”

“Look in a mirror, kid. I don’t think you’ll see a Buck Baxter there.”

“What about Mike Molloy?”

“No.”

A guy came out of the bar and stopped there, looking at them.

“How about Chuck Calhoun?” said Milford.

“No,” said Mr. Eliot.

“Mike Ryan?”

“No.”

“What are you cats talking about?” said the new guy, who looked vaguely familiar to Milford.

“We’re trying to come up with a new nom de plume for my young buddy here,” said Mr. Eliot, on accounta his name is Marion Melvoin.”

“Yeah, that name’s no good,” said the guy, a slender man with a thin moustache, a snap-brim hat, and a worn brown leather workman’s jacket. “I had to change my name when I became a poet.”

“What was your name?” said Mr. Eliot.

“Marvin S. Fogelberg.”

“I don’t blame you for changing it. So what did you change it to?”

“This guy knows,” said the guy, pointing to Milford, and suddenly Milford remembered where he knew the guy from, accosted by him outside the men’s room of the San Remo not an hour ago.

“Detroit Slick,” said Milford.

“That’s my name,” said Detroit Slick. “Don’t wear it out. Say, could I have a hit of what I think is that muggles you’re holding?”

Milford glanced at Mr. Eliot, who said, “Sure, give old Detroit Slick a hit, Melvoin.”

Milford handed the reefer to the fellow.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Detroit Slick, and he took a lighter out of his jacket pocket. “By the way, I thought your moniker was Bradford.”

“No,” said Milford.

“It’s Murvoin,” said Mr. Eliot.

Milford sighed. What did it matter what anyone called him? Soon enough, an infinitesimal blink in the beginningless and endless history of the universe, he would be dead, and forgotten.

Detroit Slick lighted up the reefer and drew deeply, once, twice, three times, and Milford and Mr. Eliot watched as the man held the smoke in for a full minute and then at last exhaled a huge fragrant cumulonimbus cloud of smoke into the cold nighttime air.

“Good shit,” he said.

Milford felt as if he were floating a foot above the pavement. He must be careful not to bump his head against the low ceiling of the entrance area. What if he floated away, into the falling snow and up into the enormous nighttime sky? Would he ever be able to come back down again?



Detroit Slick was holding what was left of the reefer out to Milford.

“Thanks, Murvoin,” he said.





{Please go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}


“Insistent Old Poets”

“Hey, yo! Magwitch!”

Someone grabbed Milford’s arm. It was T.S. Eliot, and even amidst the thick swirling effluvia of the bar, he reeked of gin.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Eliot.”

“Tom! I thought I told you to call me Tom, man!”

“Sorry. ‘Tom’.”

Mr. Eliot gripped Milford’s arm tightly, as if he wanted him not to escape before some important business was taken care of, and he stepped closer.

“Where the hell you going, kid?”

“I’m, uh, just going to the cigarette machine to buy some, uh –”

“What happened with Stevens?”

“Wallace Stevens?”

“Who else? What happened? Did you kick his ass or what?”

“Um, not exactly –”

“Look, don’t fuck with me, Magwitch. I saw you go outside with the big goon. Did you do what I said? Give him the old one-two combo in the breadbasket?”

“No –”

“But you took care of him.”

“Well, I don’t know if I ‘took care of him”, but –”

“Look, all I want to know, is he gonna come back in here and try to make trouble for me?”

“I, uh, don’t think so.”

“I’m too old for the bar-brawling, Magwitch. I don’t got time for that shit no more.”

Milford noticed that Mr. Eliot’s English accent had completely disappeared and been replaced by a demotic American one, perhaps that of his Gay Nineties boyhood on the mean streets of St. Louis.

“Well, anyway, Tom,” said Milford, “I don’t think you have to worry about him.”

“Wait, just what do you mean by that, exactly?”

“I mean, I think you can just relax –”

“How bad did you fuck him up? For Christ’s sake, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“No, not at all, sir.”

“Tom. Or Tommy. Or Tommy Boy.”

“I didn’t kill him, Tom.”

“But still you fucked him up pretty bad, huh?”

“Look, it really wasn’t like that, uh, Tom. To be honest, he took a swing at me, stumbled and lost his footing, and slammed his face into that entrance column outside.”

“So he went down for the count, huh? Good. Great. But, hey, jeeze, he ain’t still lying out there in that blizzard, is he?”

“No, he was unconscious briefly, but then he woke up and insisted that we go somewhere and have a drink together, because he didn’t want to come back in here with a big bruise on his face.”

“So you went and had a drink with him?”

“Well, I had a ginger ale.”

“Whatever. Where’d you go?”

“The Kettle of Fish, right up the block on MacDougal.”

“So he’s still there?”

“I suppose so. He seemed pretty comfortable on his barstool when I left.”

“I owe you, man. Seriously.”

“I didn’t really do anything, Mr. Eliot.”

“Tom. Or Tommy.”

“I didn’t do anything, Tommy.”

“Don’t be modest, Magwitch. You put down the big man of American poesy. And the only other guy was ever able to do that was Hemingway.”

“Well, as I say, I didn’t –”

“You got balls, my boy. Big ones. And I am gonna publish your fucking début book of poems.”

“Well, thank you, Tommy.”

“When can you get me the manuscript?”

“I don’t have one.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re a poet, ain’t you? You tellin’ me you ain’t got a couple-three dresser drawers filled with your shit?”

“I do, but that’s what it all is: shit. I realize now I have never written a decent line of poetry in my life.”

“Wow. Those are some pretty strong words, Magwitch.”

“My name is Milford, actually.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“No, you called me Magwitch, like the escaped convict in Great Expectations.”

“So it’s Milburg?”

“Milford.”

“Say it again. It’s so fucking noisy in this joint with this ragtime jazz music on the jukebox and all these drunkards yelling and laughing.”

“Milford,” said Milford.

“Milberg?”

“Milford!” shouted Milford.

“Mimford?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Milford, sighing. “Mimford.”

“Anyway, I want to see your book of poems, Mimford. A spot of editorial work, perhaps a trim here and there, a spelling correction or two, we’ll have it out with our spring releases.”

“Tommy, I just told you that everything I have written thus far is no good. It’s all shit.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“No, it really is bad, and I’ve only just realized it tonight.”

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. It’s all shit.”

“Well, I still want to publish you. How long will it take you to write some good stuff?”

“I don’t know. Maybe never.”

“Bullcrap. I see that fire in your eyes, burning through the half-inch thick lenses of your glasses. Here’s what I want you to do. Get up early tomorrow, perc a big pot of strong black coffee, break open a fresh pack of smokes, and write something good.”

“Okay.”

“Something epic. Would you like that?”

“I confess I would.”

“A great epic American poem.”

“That’s something I would actually –”

“I’m talking maybe a hundred fifty pages, maybe two hundred. Or more!”

“Okay –”

“You want a tip?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t overthink it. Just sit down and start writing. You still got that pen I gave you, the Montblanc?”

“Yes.”

“Use that. Just start writing. Keep at it, and when you get a good chunk finished – fifty, a hundred pages, get it to me straight away.”

“Well, if you say so –”

“I do say so. You did me a solid by knocking down that gorilla Stevens, and now I’m gonna do you a solid.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“I’m stopping at the Hotel St Crispian, you know where that is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good, bring me something tomorrow. Meet me in the Prince Hal Room, say one o’clock.”

“One o’clock?”

“No, better make it two o’clock. We’ll have a nice brunch, a Bloody Mary or two, and we’ll look through your manuscript.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Why not? You got something better to do? Bring me some pages. Twenty, thirty, whatever.”

“I’m not sure I can write that much in one morning.”

“Look, I knocked out the first draft of The Waste Land in one day, high as a kite on cocaine and Tanqueray, so don’t give me that shit. Just do it.”

“Okay.”

“My man. Now bring it in, buddy.”

“What?”

“Give me a hug, daddy-o.”

“I don’t hug, Tommy.”

“Come on, Mimford. Nobody’s gonna think you’re gay. We’re all poets and artists in this joint. Now give me a big bear hug.”

Mr. Eliot pulled Milford close to him, and hugged him to his skeletal old body reeking of gin, tobacco, tweed and pomade. Milford had not been hugged since he was thirteen when his Aunt Adela had had too much eggnog one snowy Christmas Eve.

At last, after what seemed like a half hour, while the jukebox music played and the drunken people laughed and shouted, while the tobacco smoke swirled, Mr. Eliot drew away, although he kept his hands on Milford’s boyish upper arms.

“That settles it then, Mimford,” he said. “You and me, buddies for life. You want to go outside and blow a doobie now?”

“A what?”

“A reefer. My boys back at the table hooked me up. Come on. We’ll get a little crazy, just you and me.”

“Mr. Eliot –”



“Tommy – don’t make me tell you again, tough guy.”

“Tommy, I’m sitting at a table with a young lady, and I was really just on my way to the cigarette machine, and I’m sure she’s wondering what’s taking me so long.”

“Oh, I get it. A young lady.”

“Yes.”

“You might not believe me, but I was young once, too, y’know.”

“Uh –”

“Is she good-looking? Where is she?”

“She’s over there.” 



Milford pointed through the throng to where Polly sat at the small table by the wall. She was just lifting a glass of something red to her lips.



“Oh, okay,” said Mr. Eliot. “She’s all right, I guess. You like that type? Small, mousy, probably likes to read George Eliot?”

“I, uh –”

“Look, don’t get me wrong, she’s fine.”

“Well, I, um –”

“Once the lights are out they’re all pretty much the same anyway.”


“Yes, well, anyway, Tommy, I really should just buy some cigarettes and get back to her –”

“Fuck that noise. Women like to wait. Come on, let’s go outside and burn this muggles, man. Five minutes.”

Mr. Eliot let go of Milford’s right arm, but he pulled on his left arm, with surprising strength leading him through the crowd and toward the entrance of the bar.

Is this my fate? wondered Milford. To be dragged in and out of bars by insistent old poets? But was this not preferable to not being dragged anywhere by anyone? 



He caught Polly’s eye, and she waved, smiling, apparently seeing nothing strange or out of the ordinary, but maybe that was just because she was drunk, that blessed timeless state Milford remembered all too well, when everything seemed just as it should be, if only for the moment…

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“King Size”

Through the thickly falling snow Milford trudged, wondering what was now in store for him. Was his pathetic life perhaps about to blossom into something worth living? Or would he continue with his customary tedious gloom and ennui?

He came to the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker, to the entrance of the San Remo Café, and he hesitated. Should he just go home after all? What was he doing, anyway, “hanging out” in bars – breaking one of the chief tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, the one about “people, places, and things”? Yes, what he should do is just go home, go home and maybe try to write a poem with the Montblanc fountain pen that T.S. Eliot had given him, his first good poem, his first “true” poem. But what would he write about? About how he had not lost his virginity, due to his cowardice? No, that wouldn’t do, that wouldn’t do at all…

He opened the door, and all the smoky loud chaos of the bar burst upon him. He stepped inside, took out his glasses and put them on, and, yes, thank God, in whom he did not believe, but thank whomever or whatever – mere chance, the idle whims of an uncaring universe – Bubbles was still seated at the bar, and standing to her left was Addison, and seated to his left was Polly Powell. The door closed itself behind him, and Milford took off his newsboy’s cap and brushed the snow from the shoulders and breast of his peacoat, breathing in that all-too-familiar warm bar miasma of tobacco smoke, beer and alcoholic spirits – yes, this was indeed a “place”, filled with “people” and “things”, but, may the devil take the hindmost, he would plunge in regardless! Had not Milfords (and on his mother’s side, Crackstones) fought in nearly every war since the Revolution? 4-F as he was (poor vision, flat feet, a slight heart murmur) he would never fight in an actual war, but perhaps his war would be a different one, and, in its way, a more profound one.

In a trice he was with his friends (if friends they were, and at any rate they were the closest thing to friends he had), standing awkwardly in the narrow space between Bubbles and Addison. Bubbles still stared at or in the direction of the bottles ranged glittering opposite, a cigarette in her slender but somehow strong-seeming hand. Addison was bent over toward Polly, and she to him, and they both also held cigarettes.

“Hi,” said Milford to Bubbles, “I’m back.”

After a few seconds she turned and looked at him.

“What?”

“I said I’m back.”

“Oh. Where were you?”

“I, uh, went to the, uh, you know, to the, uh –”

Now Addison turned to Milford.

“Ah, the prodigal has returned,” he said.

“Uh, yes,” said Milford.

“Did you fall in?”

“What? Fall in where?”

“Into the bowl, old chap.”

“What? Oh, no. But I, uh, got to talking to some people, and, well –”

Now Polly leaned forward, her small face pointed at Milford.

“Addison has been telling me all about his novel!”

“Oh,” said Milford, “that’s, uh, swell –”

“It sounds so utterly fascinating.”

“Oh.”

“Hey,” she said, “aren’t we going to have dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“Yes! I thought we were meant to have some spaghetti! I am absolutely famished, aren’t you?”

“Um, well, I suppose I could eat, yes.”

“Then let’s get a table!”

“I, uh –”

Dash it all, how could he lose his virginity with Bubbles if he got stuck having dinner with Polly?

“Addison,” said Polly, “would you and Miss Bubbles care to join Milford and me for some spaghetti and meatballs?”

“I should love to join you,” said Addison, that past master at dodging tabs, and connoisseur of the free things of life. “Bubbles, what say you to joining our friends for some spaghetti?”

“What?” she said.

“Would you like to dine with Milford and Polly?”

“Hell no,” said Bubbles. “I never eat after lunch.”

“Oh, but you have to join us.”

“I don’t ‘have to’ do anything, pal.”

“Heh heh,” said Addison. Unknown to Milford, Addison was also thinking of losing his virginity this night, and if Polly was insistent upon eating spaghetti with young Milford, perhaps it would behoove him to forgo the opportunity of a free meal, and take his chances on the good humor and possible beneficence of Bubbles. “Well, on second thought,” he said, “maybe I’ll pass on the spaghetti, too.”

Damn it all, and damn it again, thought Milford. Why had he given that twenty-dollar bill to Addison? This was what generosity got you.

Polly had climbed down from her stool, and she came over and put her arm in Milford’s.

“Come on, Milford, I see an empty table! Let’s grab it before someone else does!”

“Um, uh,” said Milford. He turned to Bubbles. “Um, I guess we’re going to get a table then –”

“What?”

“Polly and I are going to get a table and have some spaghetti.”

“Great. Maybe I’ll see you around, Wilbur.”

“Um, uh –”

“Come on, Milford,” said Polly, and she tugged on his arm.

“Bon appétit,” said Addison. “You young people enjoy your simple but hearty meal all’italiana, and I shall attempt in my humble way to entertain the lovely Bubbles.”   

The bastard, thought Milford, ready to move right in on Bubbles, and with that twenty dollars he had given him! Oh, well. Polly was still tugging on his arm, and he allowed her to pull him away, into the throng, and soon enough they were sat at a small table by the wall. Through the crowd, Milford could see Addison, sidled up to Bubbles, with that twenty-dollar bill burning a hole in his pocket…

“I’m going to go with the spaghetti and meatballs,” said Polly, putting down the card. “What are you going to have, Milford?”

“I suppose I’ll have that too,” he said, with a sigh.

“Oh, the spaghetti and meatballs are so divine here. So authentic! Do you want some wine?”

Yes, he wanted wine, and lots of it, but he told her he would just have mineral water.

“I really shouldn’t, but I think I shall have a nice glass of Chianti,” said Polly. “I have to tell you, Milford, I think I am ever so slightly drunk, so it’s a good thing I’m going to be eating something.”

“Yes,” said Milford. He patted his pockets for cigarettes, and realized he didn’t have any. “Look, I’m going to buy a pack of cigarettes, so if the waiter comes, just go ahead and order, okay?”

“Splendid! Would you be a darling, Milford, and purchase me a packet of Chesterfields?” She was speaking in an English accent now, or at least in an American “stage” accent, reminiscent of Tallulah Bankhead or Katharine Cornell in one of those dreary “sophisticated” comedies Milford’s mother would sometimes drag him to. “I shall pay you back!”

“No need,” said Milford, and he got up, in search of a cigarette machine. If he couldn’t drink wine, if he couldn’t lose his virginity with Bubbles, at least he could smoke. He spied a machine to the rear of the bar, between the jukebox and the hallway to the rest rooms, and he set forth, once again, unto the breach between boredom and madness.

However, as he made his awkward way through the churning sea of drunkenness, it occurred to him that perhaps after all he might this night lose his virginity with Polly. She certainly seemed drunk enough that sex might be a reasonable possibility. However, would it be moral of him to have sexual relations with her while she was intoxicated, especially since she was most probably as virginal as he was? But, then, didn’t 99% of humanity lose its virginity while intoxicated? Perhaps she was getting drunk because she wanted to lose her virginity?

He halted in the crowd of laughing and shouting drinkers, turned and looked back at Polly. She saw him and waved, with what looked like enthusiasm. Yes, it was true that she lacked the round and lush womanly curves of Bubbles, that indefinable thing so regrettably called “sex appeal”, but nonetheless she might reasonably be called, “pretty”, in her bookish and earnest way, and she was indisputably female, for whatever that was worth. Who was Milford to be picky anyway?

He looked over to the bar, and now Addison was leaning in closer to Bubbles, no doubt jabbering about his novel or “the novel of today”, while Bubbles regally ignored him and smoked her cigarette.

Perhaps another night for Bubbles. Another night, when he, Milford, would actually have some experience of what Shakespeare’s Edgar had termed “the act of darkness”. Perhaps he might then have something of his own to bring to the party…

Someone bumped into him, almost knocking him over, and Milford forged on again towards the cigarette machine. 



He would buy some Philip Morrises for a change, the King Size.

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“The Hope of Our Nation”

Milford became aware that his cigarette had burned down to its last half-inch, and he stubbed it out in their shared tin ashtray.

“Have another one,” said Mr. Stevens, and he offered his Philip Morrises, giving the pack a shake so that exactly two cigarettes protruded.

“No thanks,” said Milford, although he did want one.

“Suit yourself,” said Mr. Stevens, and he stuck one in his pendulous lips, the only kind of lips he had, and lighted himself up with his golden lighter. “God, I love cigarettes,” he said. “Not as much as I love Scotch, but pretty damn close to it. Sure you don’t want one?”

“No, I’m okay,” said Milford.

“Just help yourself if you change your mind.”

“Okay, but, um, uh –”

“What?”

“Look, Mr. Stevens, I appreciate everything, but –”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I appreciate the good, uh, advice, and, um –”

“What did you call me?”

“Oh. I meant to say Wally.”

“That’s better.”

“So, anyway, Wally, I appreciate everything, but I really should be getting back to the San Remo –”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You know, it’s just that, well –”

“I said okay. I get it, Wilford.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. You’re young. You want to get your ashes hauled.”

“Heh heh, well, uh, it’s not just that –”

“Oh, isn’t it? Could it be that I bore you?”

“No, not at all,” lied Milford, “but, really, I was sitting with my, you know, my friends, and, uh –”

“Your friends.”

“Yes.”

“Young people.”

“Well, yes –”

“The hope of our nation.”

“Uh –"

“Whereas I, I am old. One foot in the grave. Who gives a shit if I have written some of the most original poetry of the century?”

“It’s not that –”

“Sure, you’d just really rather be with your ‘friends’. And quite rightly so. Please, go, don’t let me keep you.”

“But –”

“I’ll just sit here and drink my Rob Roys.”

“Well –”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Um, thanks for the ginger ale.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Okay, then –”

Milford made as if to get off his bar stool, but Mr. Stevens said, “Wait.”

“Yes?” said Milford.

“I’m going to give you my card.” Mr. Stevens was digging under his topcoat, and he came out with a wallet, an old and very thick one. He opened it, riffled through it, brought out a card, and handed it to Milford. “This is my business card, so you’ll get my secretary, but just ask her to put you through. Tell her it’s Wilford, and that it’s a personal call.”

Milford looked at the card, identifying Mr. Stevens as Vice President of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.

“Okay, thanks, Mr. Stevens, I mean, Wally, but, listen, my name isn’t actually Wilford.”

“It isn’t? Then why did you tell me it was?”

“I didn’t. My name is Milford, but you must have misheard me.”

“Milford? Why did you allow me to continue calling you Wilford?”

“I tried to correct you, but I guess you kept forgetting, so, after a while I just gave up.”

“Oh. Well, I apologize, Wilford, I mean Milford.”

“It’s okay,” said Milford.

“Anyway, look,” said Mr. Stevens, “I said I’d give your book a good review, and I will, so when it comes out, just give me a buzz at the office.”

“Okay, thanks, Wally.”

“No skin off my nose. Just please don’t tell anybody you gave me this.”

He pointed to the ever-growing and glowing bright purplish bruise on his jaw.

“I won’t tell anyone,” said Milford.

“And, look, maybe next time I’m in town we can ‘hang out’ again.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”

“Nothing. I suppose I’m just a little surprised, or, uh, flattered –”

“Flattered that the great poet would want to hoist a few with a young buck like yourself?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so –”

“Do you have a telephone?”

“What, yes, I mean, my mother has a telephone.”

“Give me your number. You got something to write on?”

“I have a card actually.”

“Now I’m surprised.”

“It’s my mother. She insists on having calling cards printed up for me.”

“Old school dame, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Give me a second.”

Milford put Mr. Stevens’s business card on the bar, then dug his old Boy Scout wallet out of his dungarees, opened it, took out a card, gave it to Mr. Stevens.

Mr. Stevens looked at the card.

“Marion Milford?”

“Yes.”

“Your first name is Marion?”

“Yes.”

“Your mother must really be a piece of work.”

“Well, Marion is an old traditional name in our family, so –”

“I don’t give a shit. It’s just a terrible thing to do to a boy.”

“Yes, I suppose it was. Anyway, I prefer just to be called Milford.”

“I don’t blame you.” He looked at the card again. “Milford. Not Wilford.”

“Yes, sir, I mean Wally.”

“I’m not sure I can get used to calling you Milford now.”

“You can call me Wilford if you like.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not really.”

“Then I’ll call you Wilford. But only if you call me Wally.”

“Okay, Wally.”

Mr. Stevens put Milford’s calling card in his wallet, closed it up, put it back into the depths of his topcoat and suit, and Milford in his turn put his Boy Scout wallet away in his dungarees.

“Slide me five,” said Mr. Stevens. “Isn’t that what you young people say?”

“Well, I suppose some of us do.”

“Then gimme some skin, daddy-o.”

Milford gave the great poet his hand, and the hand was swallowed up by the older man’s enormous hand, and squeezed, but not quite to a pulp. At last Mr. Stevens released Milford’s throbbing appendage, and the young poet climbed down from his stool.

“Don’t forget,” said Mr. Stevens, “call me. Even if you just want to get together sometime.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll get a nice load on.”

“But, Wally, as I told you, I don’t drink.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I mean, I’d like to be able to drink, I do sort of miss it, but it’s just that I –”

“Okay.”

“I’m an alcoholic.”

“Right.”

“I’m just not able to, you know –”

“Sure.”

“So, uh, I can’t, um, each day I have to, well, walk the straight and narrow, and take it one day at a time, and –”

“Listen.”

“Yes?”

“What you’re talking about. All this straight and narrow stuff, all this one-day-at-a-time bullshit. This is no way to live, Wilford. No way for a man. So just call me. One beer won’t kill you. And neither will two. For Christ’s fucking sake, kid.”

“But –”

“Look, you told me you were going to stop being a cunt, didn’t you?”

“Um, yes –”

“Well, it’s no use not being a cunt if you’re just gonna turn around and be a pussy all your life.”

“Wow.”

“So give me a ring when you’re ready to go out and behave like a man, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now go, Wilford. I hate long goodbyes.”

“All right. Goodbye, Wally.”

“Oh, but wait.”

Mr. Stevens put his great hand on Milford’s arm.

“Yes?”

“You do hope to get your weezer wozzled tonight, right?”

“Um, uh, if that means –”

“You know what it means.”

“Yes, sir, I mean Wally.”

“Good, very good. Well, there’s just one thing I want you to do, Wilford. One small favor.”

“Okay.”

“It won’t cost you anything, but it would mean a lot to me. Will you do it?”

“Sure, I guess –”

“Don’t guess, just say you will.”

“All right, I will.”

“Good. Here’s what I want you to do for me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Put it in once for me.”

Mr. Stevens’s bleary eyes looked into Milford’s eyes, through the thick lenses of the younger man’s round glasses.

“Okay,” said Milford.

“Put it in just one time for me, Wilford. Will you do that?”

“Yes, sir, I mean, Wally.”

“You promise now?’

“I promise.”

“Thank you. Now go. Go and fuck well, my lad. Fuck as if your very life depended on it. Or at least try. Now go. Go now.”

Milford was about to say something, but he could think of nothing to say, so he nodded, turned and headed for the door, through the noise of the laughing and shouting people, the thick swirling smoke, the cacophonous wailing and crashing of the jazz combo.

He opened the door and the cold night air assaulted him on thick falling curtains of snow. The headlights of an automobile approached, and then the huge car drove past, almost silently. The world was white and cold, beautiful, and alive. Across the street the neon word Rheingold glowed blurrily red and gold, beneath it in blue the words Extra Dry. Snowflakes plopped on and smeared Milford’s glasses, turning the world into a vague and cold wet living cloud. He removed the glasses, folded them and put them away in his peacoat. Snowflakes flopped against his face, and he breathed deeply, breathing in the icy air, then he shoved his hands in his peacoat pockets, and headed down MacDougal Street. 



It suddenly occurred to Milford that he had left Mr. Stevens’s business card on the bar at the Kettle of Fish, but he decided against going back for it.

(Please go here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“A Night in Tunisia”

Mr. Stevens took a good drag on his Philip Morris and then stared down at Milford from under his fedora. The bruise on the great man’s face had grown in size and deepened in color to a rich purplish ruby, glowing somehow nobly in the dim and dappled lights of the bar. Even sitting on a barstool he towered like a great living mountain over the younger man, and Milford knew that even the old poet’s most casual nudge would probably send him sprawling to the sawdust on the floor.

“Okay,” said Mr. Stevens, “first thing you’ve got to do. Are you listening? Because this one is important.”

“Yes, sir, I mean Wally.”

“Good.”

“Stop trying to write like anyone else.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You say okay, but are you going to do it?”

“Yes.”

“There already is a Dylan fucking Thomas, and he’s bad enough. So cut it out. Same thing with Auden, with Robinson Jeffers, and especially with that prig Eliot.”

“Okay.”

“Just stop copying other people. Nobody wants to read imitations, especially imitations of crap.”

“Okay,” said Milford, knowing now that he had to throw out every page he had ever written.

Mr. Stevens picked up his Rob Roy, took a good drink, sighed, as if appreciatively, and laid his glass back down on the bartop.

A few seconds ticked by, amidst the noise of laughing and shouting people, and the clamor of the jazz combo in the back of the bar.

“So, uh,” said Milford, “is that all?”

Quickly Mr. Stevens turned his head, glowering.

“No, that’s not fucking all. Jesus Christ, kid, can’t a man take a dramatic pause?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just keep your shirt on.”

“Okay.”

“Where was I?” 


“You said I shouldn’t imitate anybody else.”

“Oh, right. That’s important. Second thing you gotta do. You know what that is?”

“No.”
 

“Write like yourself.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I know, I know, you’re thinking you’re not not much, and you’re probably right, but still you’re the only self you have, so write like yourself and not like somebody you wish you were.”

“Um –”

“You think you can handle that, Wilford?”

“I don’t know.”

“May I ask why?”

“I just don’t know if I’m able, I mean, wow –”

“Look, Wilford. I know you’re a punk. A weakling. A spoiled brat. And probably by nature completely devoid of originality, without a spark of creativity anywhere in your being. In fact you are very likely mediocre to your mushy core.”

“Oh boy.”

“And one thing’s for damn sure, and that is there is no cure for a lack of talent, son.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And, if I may speak frankly, you don’t exactly exude an aura of genius. More a faint odor of day-old sliced white bread.”

“That’s very harsh, Mr. Stevens.”

“Wally.”

“That’s very harsh, Wally.”

“Life is harsh. And then you grow old and die. Unless you die young.”

“Wow.”

“I don’t make the rules, kid.”

“Okay,” said Milford. “So, what you’re really saying is there’s no hope for me to ever, you know, be a great poet?”

“There probably is no hope, kid, I’m sorry to tell you.”

“Gee.”

“You can spend all the hours you want scribbling, go to all the writer’s retreats in the world, none of that matters.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No.”

“But I thought you were going to give me advice.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“But advice on how to become a good poet.”

“Yes, and your point is?”

“Well, how can I become a good poet if I am mediocre, and without originality, or –”

“Or genius.”

“Yes, or genius.”

“Because nobody wants to read poetry written by some ham-and-egger, Wilford. They only want the genius stuff. Shakespeare knew that. Even in his day he knew the people in the back rows wanted genius, and that’s what he gave them, in spades.”

“Okay, so I’m probably not a genius –”

“Probably?”

“Most likely?”

“Yeah, that’s more like it. Most likely – almost certainly – you are not a genius, or anything close to it. Pretty far fucking from it, if we’re being honest.”

“Mr. Stevens –”

“Wally.”

“Wally, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I don’t see how anything you’re saying is any sort of encouragement to me –”

“I’m not here to encourage you, kid. I’m here to tell you to cut the shit.”

“You mean I should stop trying?”

“I don’t give a shit what you do. If you want to waste your life trying to write poetry that doesn’t suck donkey dick, then be my guest.”

“Wow.”

“Go ahead. Write crap. Who cares?”

“Gee.”

“Let me ask you a question, Wilford. Have you ever written a single line that’s any good?”

Now it was Milford who paused. But then he spoke.

“No,” he said. “I’ve never written a single good line.”

“Good,” said Mr. Stevens.

“Good? What’s good about it?”

“What’s good about it is you’re not kidding yourself anymore.”

“So I should give up?”

“That’s up to you.”

Milford felt a great depression settling over him, over the depression that he already felt, the depression that was always there. He took a drink of his ginger ale. It had grown flat.

“But don’t be depressed,” said Mr. Stevens.

“No?” said Milford. “And how do I manage that?”

“I’ll tell you how. Because there’s still a chance you might write something good.”

“There is?”

“A small chance.”

“Really?”

“A tiny, almost infinitesimal chance. Are you willing to take that chance?”

“Yes, sir, I mean Wally.”

“Because it is your only chance.”

“Okay.”

“All right, then, I’m gonna tell you what you need to do.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. Listen up, and listen tight, because I’m not going to repeat myself. What I am about to tell you is the most invaluable advice you will ever receive. And it’s up to you what you do with it. Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“I mean, yes, Wally.”

“All right, then.”

Mr. Stevens picked up his Rob Roy, took another drink, sighed, laid the glass down. The combo was playing very loud now. What was the song? It was “A Night in Tunisia”. There was a saxophone player, and his long screaming notes seemed to wash through Milford’s tender brain, exploding like a succession of deafening crashing waves over Mr. Stevens’s great face, with its moving lips out of which presumably came words, and then with one last sad descending cry the saxophone subsided and the drums rattled and pounded and the cymbals shimmered and the pianist took over.

Mr. Stevens took a drag on his Philip Morris, exhaled the smoke in Milford’s face. What had he been saying? He stubbed out the cigarette.

“So that’s it,” he said. “That’s the secret. Do you understand now?”

Milford considered asking the great poet to repeat himself, because he hadn’t heard a word of what the man had said, but on second thought he decided not to.

“Yes,” said Milford. “I understand now.”

He understood nothing, and he understood that it didn’t matter.

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

“To Walk Among the Giants”

“Just one or two pieces of wisdom I want to impart to you that might – maybe – perhaps prove invaluable in your proposed career as a poet.”

“Thanks,” said Milford.

“Because,” continued Mr. Stevens, “what’s the point really of being a poet unless one cannot at least strive for immortality?”

“Yes,” said Milford.

“To walk among the giants.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Homer. Shakespeare. Milton. Byron. Browning.” Milford wished Mr. Stevens would get to the point if he had one, but the old man went on with his litany. “Gerard Manley Hopkins. Our own burly countryman Walt Whitman.”

“Right,” said Milford.

“Not forgetting our sterling contemporaries.”

“Sure.”

“My good friends William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, e.e. cummings. Oh, the parties we used to have once upon a time, and I’ll tell you, Wilford, you haven’t lived till you’ve seen Marianne Moore dancing the Black Bottom at one of the jazz boîtes up on 52nd Street!”

“Um, uh –”

“And poor Hart Crane! Shame he jumped off that boat. Might have had a few more good poems in him, you never know.”

“Sure.”

“Who else. Auden.”

“Okay.”

“Eddie Guest.”

“What?”

“Ha ha, just kidding, wanted to make sure you were paying attention.”

“Oh,” said Milford. “Heh heh.”

“Point being, the world doesn’t need another half-assed poet, Wilford, and that’s why I’m gonna give you a tip or two which I wish somebody had given me when I was your age, full of piss and vinegar but as ignorant as a rock.”

Mr. Stevens put his cocktail glass down on the bar, empty but for its twist of lemon peel. He signaled to the bartender for another.

“Sure you won’t have just one Rob Roy, Wilford?”

“No, sir, I mean Wally, I’d really better not. To tell the truth I drank a shot of brandy by mistake an hour or so ago, and now I’m going to have to start counting my days of sobriety all over again.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how does one drink a shot of brandy by mistake?”

“Well – I was distracted.”

“By what?”



“By a woman,” said Milford, after a slight pause.

“Ah ha.”

“Yes, you see, she bought me the shot, and she’s very beautiful, extremely, um, alluring, and so, without thinking about it, I drank it, thus destroying months of sobriety.”

“Cherchez la femme,” said Mr. Stevens.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good-looking babe, hey?”

“Yes, very much so. But even more than that, she has a certain, uh, disdainful, distant, um, regal -”

“Je ne sais quoi. You should pardon my French.”

“Yes, uh –”

“So you’re not a poofter after all?”

“Yes, I suppose not.”

“She must like you if she bought you a brandy.”

“I’m not so sure of that, but –”

“But what?”

“Well, she agreed, provisionally, to have sexual relations with me later tonight.”

“No kidding! No wonder you wanted to get back to the San Remo.”

“Yes. She didn’t seem to care too much either way, but, well –”

“She just might take off before you get back.”

“Yes.”

“Or maybe hook up with some other fella.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s a possibility.”

“With women anything is a possibility. Let me tell you something about women, Wilford.”

Milford said nothing.

“Well, don’t you want to hear it?” said Mr. Stevens.

“Oh, sorry, sir, Wally, yes.”

The bartender laid a fresh Rob Roy in front of Mr. Stevens.

“Thanks, pal. On my tab,” said the great poet. He picked up the glass and took a sip, sighed, put the glass down. “I don’t know why it is,” he said, “but the seventh one is always so much better than the first one. What was I talking about?”

“Um, women?”

“Oh, right.”

Mr. Stevens took a drag on his Philip Morris, and then stared at Milford out of his glassy and bloodshot blue eyes.

“I’ll tell you all you need to know about women, Wilford, all you need to understand.”

He stubbed out his cigarette.

God, thought Milford, will I be this tedious when I am old? Am I this tedious now? But maybe after all he will tell me something valuable, if and when he ever gets to it.

“What is that, sir, I mean Wally?”

“What is what?” said Mr. Stevens. He was shaking his pack of Philip Morris Commanders.

“What was it you were going to tell me about women, sir?”

“Sir?”

“I mean Wally.”

“That’s better,” said Mr. Stevens. He offered the pack to Milford, and, since Mr. Stevens had crumpled up and tossed to the floor Milford’s pack of Woodbines, the young tyro poet took a Philip Morris and accepted a light from Mr. Stevens’s gold lighter. When at last both poets, one young, one old, had ignited cigarettes in progress, the older man exhaled an enormous cloud of smoke in the younger fellow’s face, and then spoke:



“The only thing you need to understand about women is that you will never understand a damn thing about women.”

Well, thought Milford, if true, then that was one less thing to worry about. And, indeed, why should he understand women when he understood nothing else about life?

“Y’know, Wally, I really should be getting back there,” said Milford. “So, uh –”

“So getting laid tonight is that important to you, is it, Wilford?”

“Well, it’s just that I was sitting there, with this young lady and a couple of other friends, and I was supposed to be just going to the men’s room, and that must have been forty-five minutes ago now –”

“God damn it to hell, boy, do you know how many aspiring poets would kill to be sitting with me here, now, and me about to spill the beans on how to be a great poet?”

“Um, quite few, I suppose –”

“Thousands, tens of thousands. And all you can think about is getting your end wet.”

“But –”

“Just hold your horses. If this chick takes off there will be loads of other ones down the pike, even for a lad as unprepossessing as you. Especially if you become a famous poet. Trust me, I know. I’ve been fighting off lust-crazed bluestockings ever since my first book came out. Beating them off with a stick. So just cool your brogans for a little while and let this dolly wait. Don’t you realize what an enormous favor I’m doing for you?”

“Okay,” said Milford. “Um, uh, but –”

“What? What is it now, lad?”

“May I ask why you are doing me this favor?” said Milford.

“Why?”

“Yes,” said Milford. “Why do you want to impart this wisdom to me?”

The large old poet paused.

“That’s a surprisingly good question, Wilford.”

Mr. Stevens picked up his Rob Roy. He sipped the golden liquid, sighed as if appreciatively and put the cocktail glass back down on the bar.

“Damn, that’s good. What was the question again, Wilford?”

“I asked why you want to impart your wisdom to me,” said Milford.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Stevens. “All right – call it altruism, or the desire to do good, by sharing this wisdom it took me many years to acquire the hard way. Or maybe it’s just because, for some unknown reason, or reasons, maybe I admire you just a little bit, despite your blandness and dull manner. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, I see a spark of life behind those thick glasses of yours. Or, maybe – perhaps – there’s another, a deeper reason, which supersedes all of the above.”

Mr. Stevens paused here, and Milford felt it incumbent upon himself to give the old poet a suitable cue.

“What is that, sir, I mean Wally?”

“What is what?”

Milford sighed, but then spoke:

“What is this reason that you’re sharing your wisdom with me, which supersedes all the other reasons –”

“Oh,” said Mr. Stevens. “Maybe, Wilford, it’s because I just like to hear myself talk.”

Or, in other words, thought Milford, you’re just a tedious old self-involved blowhard.

“Shall I continue?” said Mr. Stevens.

“Of course,” said Milford.

He would give the huge windbag five more minutes, and then it was back to the San Remo. Would Bubbles still be there? He could only hope.

“And now,” said Mr. Stevens, “if I may slightly misquote the bawdy Bard, I shall unmuzzle my wisdom.”

Great, thought, Milford, and please just be quick about it.

Mr. Stevens lifted his Rob Roy and took another sip, a large one. He appeared to be gathering his thoughts, but maybe he was just drunkenly taking his time, in that timeless world of drunkenness that Milford knew all too well.



It occurred to Milford that if Bubbles had gotten bored or sleepy and gone home, that maybe Polly Powell was still at the San Remo. Polly had her own modest charms after all, and it was not completely fantastic to imagine a turn of events in which she relieved him of the burden of his virginity (possibly hers too), and, a bonus, without even charging him money for it. And, let’s face it, the company of any reasonably attractive woman had to be preferable to that of this pompous old sot, even if he was one of the foremost living poets. Yes, perhaps he, Milford, despite his own mother’s innumerable hints and downright accusations, perhaps he really wasn’t a poofter after all. Either that or he simply had personal limits to boredom which even he – a veteran of hundreds of deadly dull AA meetings – yes, which even he would not willingly go beyond…

“So,” said Mr. Stevens, suddenly roused from his revery, or his nap, “are you ready for it, Wilford?”

“Yes,” said Milford. 

As ready as he would ever be, which wasn’t saying much, but it would have to do.

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}