Dan Leo's Blog, page 14

“Mr. Marion Is Dining Out”

 Why did she always manage to catch him just when he was trying to slip out of the house quietly?

“Where are you going?” said Mrs. Milford.

“I am meeting,” said Milford, “a friend.”

“Is it that Shirley De LaSalle person?”

“If you must know, no.”

“Tell me who it is.”

“It’s just a friend.”

“What is it with you and all these ‘friends’ lately?”

“Am I not allowed to have friends?”

“Of course you are allowed to have friends. It’s just that until recently you never had any.”

“Oh, God.”

“Will you be home for supper?”

“No. I am dining out.”

“Dining out? Where? Not the automat again?”

“No, not the automat.”

“Then where?”

“What do you care?”

“What if you are murdered, or hit by a garbage truck? I need to be able to trace your footsteps if you go missing.”

Milford sighed.

“I’m only going up the street to the San Remo Café. If you must know.”

“Oh. At least it’s not far.”

“No. Goodbye. I may be some time.”

“Who is it you’re meeting? If it’s that Shirley girl you can tell me.”

“It’s not her, so you can relax.”

“What do you mean, I can relax.”

“I mean you disapproved of Shirley, from the very beginning!”

“You only told me about her a few days ago.”

“You despised her because she wasn’t on your precious Social Register.”

“Why do you speak in the past tense?”

“I must go. I don’t want to be late.”

“Answer me, Marion. Has something happened between you and Miss De LaSalle?”

“I’m going now.”

“Stop. What has happened? Has she thrown you over?”

Again Milford sighed.

“Shirley and I have, we have mutually agreed, we have come to the conclusion, that our union could – could never satisfactorily be consummated.”

“You were unable to perform?”

“Mother!”

“Then what do you mean? Why did she throw you over?”

“She did not throw me over!”

“Did you tell her I disapproved?”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Because I have had second thoughts.”

“What?”

“If you want to see her, I shall not stand in the way. After all, it’s not her fault if she is a common nightclub singer.”

“Forget it, Mother. It is over between me and Shirley.”

“So she threw you over. Did she say why?”

“I fail to see why this is any of your –”

“So she simply wasn’t attracted to you.”

Again Milford sighed. All he did was sigh when talking to his mother.

“Yes,” said, Milford, “she was not attracted to me.”

“Oh, Marion. You poor boy. What you need to do is go to the club and exercise with dumbbells and medicine balls. Build yourself up.”



“Right, sure, I’ll start tomorrow.”

“No woman likes a narrow-shouldered, shallow-chested weakling.”

“My being a weakling had nothing to do with my rupture with Shirley!”

“Then what was it?”

“She’s a lesbian, God damn it, a lesbian! A sister of Sappho!”

“A lesbian? She certainly doesn’t look like a lesbian?”

“What would you know about it?”

“You forget I went to Bryn Mawr, and before that to Shipley.”

“Well, regardless, she’s a lesbian, so there!”

“And when did you find this out?”

“Today.”

“She told you she was a lesbian today.”

“Yes!”

“Why did she only tell you today?”

“Because, because –”

“Because why?”

“Because I asked her to marry me! There, have you humiliated me enough?”

“You asked her to marry you, and she told you she was a lesbian.”

“Yes!”

“How very, very curious. You must be heartbroken.”

“I’m going now. Don’t wait up.”

“Who are you meeting?”

“No one you know.”

“What is his name?”

“It’s not a he.”

“I wouldn’t mind, you know.”

“Wouldn’t mind what?”

“If it were a man. As long as he made you happy.”

“It’s not a man!”

Milford put his hand on the doorknob.

“Hold on, buster,” said Mrs. Milford. “You mean to say you’re going to meet another girl?”

“Yes.”

“Extraordinary.”

“What’s so extraordinary about it?”

“The nightclub singer just threw you over, and already you’re meeting another chippy?”

“Shirley didn’t throw me over, it was only because she is a lesbian, and, yes, I am meeting another girl already and she is not a chippy!”

“What’s her name?”

The obligatory sigh, but for some reason unknown to Milford, or for a host of reasons, he answered, “Polly. Polly Powell.”

“Polly Powell.”

“Yes.”

“Well, at least that doesn’t sound Jewish or Italian. She’s not by chance a Negress, is she?”

“No!”

“Irish?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Find out.”

“And what if she is Irish?”

“It depends on what sort of Irish. Anglo-Irish would be all right.”

“Mother, you are driving me as insane as you are as well as keeping me from my appointment.”

“When are you supposed to meet her.”

“Seven-thirty.”

“It’s not even seven.”

“I don’t want to be late.”

“The San Remo is just up the block.”

“I want to get a good table.”

“The San Remo has good tables?”

“I’m going now.”

“Wait. Let me adjust your muffler.”

Milford stood there while his mother refolded his muffler.

“There,” she said. “But I do wish you would wear a proper suit and coat and hat instead of this stevedore’s costume.”

“Polly doesn’t care how I dress.”

“Women always care how you dress.”

“Not Polly. She – she is an intellectual.”

“My goodness. From a nightclub chanteuse to a bluestocking, and all in one day! You know, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but you are almost beginning to impress me, Marion. Perhaps a real man has been hiding behind that unprepossessing exterior all along. Just waiting for the ripe moment to emerge.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Do you need money?”

“No.”

Mrs. Milford made Milford wait while she got her purse, and she gave him a twenty-dollar bill.

At last he stepped out into the street. Evening had fallen, and  the snowfall had relapsed to flurries swirling in the street lights.

What would this evening bring? Would Polly be the one who would finally pull him fully out of his cocoon? Would he fly up into the sky like a butterfly?


Mrs. Milford wandered back into the front sitting room, and Maria the maid came in.

“Will Mr. Marion not be dining at home, Mrs. Milford?”

“No, Maria,” said Mrs. Milford. “Mr. Marion is dining out tonight.”

Maria said nothing in response, but her face spoke volumes.

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

"Right Here, Right Now"

All the long quarter century of his sentient existence, Milford had never been able to enjoy anything (with the noted exception of the sin of Onan) while it was actually happening; and, yes, even self-abuse was not quite all it had been cracked up to be by the other lads at Andover.

Why was he always one step away from experience? Why was he always watching himself instead of being himself? This unfortunate state of affairs was why he had become an alcoholic, not so much because he actually enjoyed drinking and getting drunk, but because getting drunk allowed him to escape, albeit briefly, the cage, the dungeon of his consciousness of his own consciousness, and in turn his consciousness of this consciousness of his consciousness, and so on ad tedium et ad nauseam.

But now, now that he had met Polly Powell the literary nickel-thrower, now he felt “in the moment”. Was this at last his breakthrough, after all the books read, all the psychoanalytic and group-therapy sessions, all the AA meetings, after the sadly-thwarted non-affair with Shirley De LaSalle, was this the moment when he would actually begin to live?

He finished his cup of coffee, his ninth or was it the tenth of the day so far, and it was not even two-thirty in the afternoon.

Over there in her booth, Polly (he felt he could address her, at least in his mind, by her given name) sat reading Felix Holt, the Radical. Milford wished he had read the book, or anything by George Eliot, but he hadn’t, and so that avenue of approach was blocked.

Damn it, stop dithering! Men his own age were leading troops in combat, so what he should do is just march over there and take the direct approach!

And after two more cups of coffee, this is exactly what Milford attempted to do.


Here came that strange young man Milford again, and Polly closed her book on the “Philpot’s Rare Books” bookmark.

“Hello, again,” she said. “Use up those last five nickels already?’

“What? No, in fact I only used three of them.”

“So you need some more? For a nice bowl of pea soup, perhaps?”

“Um, no.”

“Not a pea soup aficionado?”

“Oh, no, I mean, yes, I like pea soup I suppose –”

“The 16-Bean Soup is a good choice if you’re in a quandary about which legume to consume.”

“I, um, I don’t want a soup actually.”

“And what is it that you want?”

“I, um, oh God –”

“What’s the matter?”

“I am a coward!”

“Hm,” hummed Polly. “Tell me, Milford – it is Milford, isn’t it?“


“Yes.”

“And may I address you simply as Milford?”

“Please do,” said Milford.

“Milford,” repeated Polly, “if it’s not too personal of a question, may I ask if are you insane?”

“No,” said Milford. “And, please believe me, I have been officially tested and diagnosed by several top doctors and psychoanalysts.”

“That’s good to know.”
 
“Yes,” said Milford, “but, listen, Polly – and may I address you as Polly?”

“If it will move things along, yes.”

“Polly, I wanted to ask you if you would have a cup of coffee with me sometime, when you’re not working of course.”

“Yes, it would be awkward to have coffee together with me sitting in this booth, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, so, I don’t know, if you would like to join me for a cup sometime when you are free, that is, when you are not here –”

“All right.”

“I mean, it wouldn’t have to be a ‘date’ per se – horrible expression –”

“Per se?”

“No, ‘date’. But it doesn’t have to be one of those; just, you know, a cup of coffee in a coffee shop, or a diner, or –”

“All right.”

“Nothing too formal, but –”

“Sure.”

“Whenever it would be convenient.”

“My calendar is clear through most of the year, although I may join my parents at their shore place for a week this summer.”

“Oh, but summer is a long way off!”

“Yes, it is.”

“So, whenever then. It wouldn’t have to be today, or any day particularly, but, you know, just some afternoon when you’re free.”

“What about evenings?”

“Or evenings,” said Milford.

“When are you free?” said Polly.

“I’m always free,” said Milford.

“So you don’t have a job?”

“No. Oh, God, no.”

“Or go to school?”

“Oh, no.”

“So this is all you do, drink coffee all day?”

“Well, I write poetry.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Heh heh,” Milford said rather than laughed, mirthlessly.

“May I ask how you support yourself?” said Polly.

“I don’t,” said Milford. “Or, rather, I live at home, with my mother. But I get five hundred a month in trust, so that covers my daily expenses.”

“I get two hundred a week from my family myself.”

“And yet you work here?”

“Yes, because I like to observe the passing parade of humanity. It informs my art, you see.”

“Oh, right, the novel you’re writing.”

“I prefer the term ‘developing’, because I am still in the note-taking stage, the nascent incipient ideational stage.”

“Of course.”

“But when I am ready I shall leap right in, typing furiously.”

“That sounds like a good plan, or –”

“Or, perhaps I will find that these reams of notes I have taken are indeed the novel, in and of themselves, and I must only begin to assemble them in the proper order. Polishing them up a bit, as needs be.”

“Yes, um, well, notes, yes, notes can be quite valuable –”

“I’ll no doubt compose a note tonight about this very conversation.”

“Yes, uh, heh heh –”

“I get off at four.”

“Good, so I’ll meet you at four? Should I meet you here, or –”

“Dear God, no, I want to go home and bathe and change first.”

“Yes, of course, how importunate of me.”

“And I always like to take a short nap while listening to The News of the World.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Not at all. Do you know where the San Remo Café is?”

“Yes, I live right down the street from it in fact –”

“I’ll meet you there at seven.”

“Seven, yes, the San Remo.”

“No, make it seven-thirty.”

“Seven-thirty, yes,” said Milford.

“Perhaps we could have a bite to eat,” said Polly. “I am quite mad for the spaghetti alla marinara at the San Remo.”

“Yes, um, okay –”

“We’ll make it Dutch treat.”

“Oh, no, I quite insist –”

“Nonsense. As one person living off one’s family to another, I insist on paying my own way.”

“Well, if you insist.”

“I do.”

“Hey, I need some nickels here,” said a skinny old man.

“Seven then,” said Milford. “At the San Remo?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Yes, seven-thirty.”

“Come on, youse two,” said the skinny man.

“Sorry,” said Milford, and he stepped aside.

“Yes, sir,” said Polly to the skinny fellow. “How many nickels?”



Outside on Bedford Street the cold drizzly rain had changed to wet fat snowflakes, falling into Milford’s face, his face which still felt hot with excitement, and he forged ahead along the dreary sidewalk past people with glum faces, and he realized that for the past five minutes he had been living in the present, fully alive, and even now he felt alive and in the moment, and what would the future bring? More moments like this? On he paced, the thick snowflakes falling on his cheeks, and at the corner of MacDougal he neglected to look both ways and just barely missed being run over by a garbage truck.




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

“All the Fellows in All the World”

And now Milford was alone again, sitting here with his dregs of cold coffee in the automat, looking out the steamed window at drizzly cold Bedford Street, at the piles of dirty snow, at all the defeated people trudging back to their meaningless jobs after forcing down their dyspeptic lunches.

Shirley had gone, leaving her little round crockery plate with the remains of her slice of cheesecake and the cup from which she had drunk her cocoa, the cup with the red smudge of her lipstick on its rim.

And her stubbed-out Philip Morris Commander in the ashtray with all of Milford’s Woodbine butts…

What was the use?

Of anything?

Milford had thought he was in love, in love for the first time. And in his masturbatory fantasies he had even taken to imagining Shirley as his collaborator in ecstasy.

“Yes,” she would whisper, not unlike a modern day Molly Bloom, “yes, yes, yes…” 

 

But, no, those fantasies were not to be realized, or even approximated. Of all the girls in all the world, why did his first love have to turn out to be a lesbian?

Shirley had said he would find a nice girl. But would he? And if he found her, would she like him? And if she liked him, would he like her? These were unanswerable questions.

He looked at the leather folder lying on the table next to his cup and saucer, the folder containing his unfinished long poem (“The Dawn of a Fawn”), a poem which had been inspired by his love for Shirley De LaSalle. But what horrible direction would the poem take now?

There also on the table was the purple velvet box with his grandmother’s (or was it his great-grandmother’s) engagement ring, which Shirley had refused. He really must remember to put it back in the drawer in the foyer credenza.

Milford picked up the purple box and shoved it without ceremony into the pocket of his peacoat. And then he sighed. Alas, he knew, he was not destined to be happy ever, no, except for those all-too-brief moments approaching and including the yet briefer instant of self-induced orgasm. Should he get a refill of his coffee? Would that bring him happiness? What about another Woodbine? The first puff always, or sometimes, gave him a moment – a half-moment – of, if not quite happiness, then at least a slight mitigation of misery and boredom…


In her cashier’s booth Polly Powell closed Felix Holt, the Radical over her finger and gazed at the strange young man in the newsboy’s cap and the pea coat and white muffler with blue trim. For years she had been observing this fellow and wondering what his story was, giving him his nickels in exchange for his quarters and dimes, but never exchanging a word beyond “thank you” and “you’re welcome”. And she had not failed to notice that for the past couple of weeks he had occasionally been joined at his table by that attractive blonde girl. And Polly had also observed today’s little drama: the proffered purple ring-box, the box which had been opened but then shoved back across the table to the young fellow in the newsboy’s cap. Yes, this was it, the sort of everyday drama she needed to put into her novel-in-progress, working title: Automat Dreams…

And wouldn’t you know it, the newsboy-cap fellow approached the booth, shyly, as he always approached, and he laid a quarter on the counter.

“Five nickels, please.”

Polly took the quarter and replaced it with five nickels.

“There will be someone else,” she said.

“I’m sorry, what?” said Milford.

“Someone else. Another girl will come along.”

Milford stared at the young woman, whom he had seen pushing nickels here for years. She wasn’t bad-looking, and, anyway, even if she wasn’t the ravishing beauty that Shirley was, who was he to be critical?

“Excuse me,” he said, “but may I know your name?”

“Polly. Polly Powell.”

“My name is Milford.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“It’s actually my last name. My first name is Marion, but I prefer to be called Milford.”

“I don’t blame you, Milford.”

“I see you’re reading Felix Holt, the Radical.”

“Yes, I love George Eliot. I am in the process of developing my first novel myself.”

“Fascinating,” said Milford. “I myself am a poet.”

“I knew it,” said Polly. “I’ve often seen you writing in your notebooks, or reading a slim volume of Mallarmé or perhaps Baudelaire.”

“Hey, I’d like some nickels, if you two are done conversing,” said some big guy.

Milford scooped up his nickels.

“Thank you,” he said to Polly.

“You’re welcome,” said Polly.

Milford walked back to his table. His heart was racing, and his breath came in short quick gulps.

Should he ask Polly Powell to meet him for a cup of coffee? Would she find him annoying, unattractive? He went to his table and picked up his cup and saucer. The cup rattled on the saucer. Why was his hand trembling? Was he in love again, so soon? Or was it only too much caffeine? He went over to the coffee dispenser, breaking out in a sweat, and he fancied he could feel Polly Powell’s calm eyes on him. He laid the cup and saucer under the coffee spout and dropped a nickel into the slot, then pulled the chromium-plated arm downward to release a steaming jet of coffee into the cup. He glanced over his shoulder, at Polly Powell, shoving some nickels at a little old lady, and, yes, Polly looked up, and glanced at him, at Milford, of all the fellows in all the world…




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

“The Dawn of a Fawn”

Olaf opened the door for her and Shirley looked out on cold Bedford Street.

“Jeeze, another crappy day.”

“I find these wintry days bracing, miss.”

“Yeah, I guess where you come from this is like a balmy day in May.”

“Where I come from the days of May are as pure and fresh as the winter days are cold and icy and pure.”

“You kill me, Olaf.”

“I aim to give pleasure, miss.”

“Too bad you’re not about thirty years younger.”

“You are too kind.”

“Catch you later, big man,” said Shirley, and she went down the steps and then turned left. She had a lunch date with Milford at the automat across the alley from the hotel.

She saw him through the steamy plate glass, sitting at the little table he usually tried to get by the window. The poor sap. With his newsboy’s cap and his pea coat. And his white muffler with the blue trim.

Shirley went in and he stood up as she approached the table.

“Hello, Shirley. May I get you a cup of coffee?”

“I think I’ll take a hot cocoa today, Milfie.”

“Right away! Some cheesecake?”

“Yeah, sure, thanks, buddy.”

“May I help you with your coat?”

“I’ll keep it on till I warm up.”

“Yes, of course. It’s frightfully chilly out, isn’t it?”

It was when Milford said that kind of thing that Shirley realized they might as well be living on two different planets.

“Yeah,” she said, “it’s a cold one all right.”

He was standing there with his hands on the back of the chair, preparatory to drawing it back and shoving it forward as she tried to sit down in it. This guy was like having your own private head waiter, except he usually managed to bang the chair into the back of her knees.

“I want to show you something, Shirley,” he said a few minutes later, after she had eaten half the cheesecake and he had lighted up her first cigarette for her. “It’s this.”

He had a black leather folder on the table, and he opened it, turned it around and shoved it over to Shirley’s side. Inside the folder was a sheaf of typescript.

“A poem?”

“Yes,” said Milford. “I wonder if you would like to read it?”

Oh, Christ, thought Shirley, but she lifted up the first sheet of paper and read:

The Dawn of a Fawn

(for S.D.LaS.)


Through winter snow and April shower
have I waited for this hour.

This is the true morn –
now I am finally born!

Thrust squealing from the womb
that was like unto a tomb,
now at last I am something other
than a brat clinging to his mother.

Now in fine I can say,
“Hey, pal, get out of my way!”
For, yes, now I am a full grown man,
a man with a destiny, and a plan…

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Shirley, and she looked down at the stack of papers beneath the one she had picked up. “Is this all one poem?”

“Yes, or at least the beginnings of a poem.”

“How many pages are there?”

“Thirty-seven, so far. As I say, this is just the beginning. The introductory canto of what I envisage as a work of at least two hundred pages.”

“Okay.”

Shirley put the sheet of typescript down.

“Milford, no offense, but I just woke up. I really can’t read all this right now.”

“But I wrote it for you.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“Because of the dedication?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“But what did you think of what you read?”

Shirley sighed.

“Look, Milfie, I don’t know from poetry.”

“You didn’t like it?”

The poor sap.

“Listen, Milford, I have to tell you something.”

“You didn’t like my poem? I can rework it!”

“No, it’s not your poem, Milfie. It’s –”

“Shirley, before you say another word, I have something else to show you.”

Now what?

Milford reached into his pea coat’s pocket and brought out a little purple velvet box, pushed it across the table toward Shirley.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Open it and see.”

So this was it. The guy was actually proposing to her.

She opened the box and sure enough it was a ring, with a big fat rock of a diamond sparkling in the bright electric light of the automat.

“Wow,” she said.

“I would get on my knees,” said Milford, “but I don’t want to draw undue attention to myself.”

“Yeah, don’t get on your knees, Milfie.”

“So will you marry me, Shirley?”

The poor guy. But then he did have five hundred a month. And maybe his maniac of a mother would give him some dough after all. The broad talked a good game, but when push came to shove, maybe she’d be glad to get him out of the house, and married to an actual female. Maybe Shirley wouldn’t have to worry about her future, when she didn’t have her looks to fall back on.

But.

“Okay,” she found herself saying, and she didn’t even know what she was going to say until she said it, “here’s the thing, Milfie. You know what a lesbian is?”

“Of course. I have read The Well of Loneliness.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a novel by Radclyffe Hall, on the theme of lesbianism.”

“Oh, okay, so you know about it then.”

“Yes, I find the concept of sapphic love to be quite intriguing, simply because I could never see what women see in men.”

“Yeah, well, okay, here’s the scoop, Milfie. You’re looking at a lesbo.”

“What?”

“I’m a dyke.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“You’re so beautiful.”

“What, lesbians can’t be good-looking?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so, but, gee.”

“Anyway, there you go, Milford. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept your proposal. Because I like girls.”

“But –”

“But what?”

“But – but nothing.”

Shirley closed the velvet box and slid it back across the table. Then she closed the leather folder and slid it over to Milford’s side.

“I hope you kept the receipt for the ring, Milfie.”

“Well, I didn’t buy it, actually.”

“What?”

“I found it in a drawer. I think it was my grandmother’s.”

“Oh, well, you better put it back in the drawer then.”

“Yes, my mother would have a fit.”

Milford just sat there, staring at the table, at the velvet box, at the leather folder.



“I think my poem is going to turn out much differently than I had anticipated,” he said.

“I hope you’re not too upset, Milfie.”

Now it was Milford’s time to sigh.

“I had – hoped,” he said.

“You’ll find a nice girl someday,” said Shirley.

“I did find a nice girl,” he said.

“It’s nice of you to say so, Milfie.”

“I shall use this,” he said, after a short pause.

“What’s that?” said Shirley.

“I shall use this disappointment, for my art.”

“That’s a swell idea, Milfie.”

“All the great poets have forged their art in the crucible of sorrow. And so shall I.”

“There you go.”

“But will you perhaps meet me now and then, Shirley, for a cup of coffee or cocoa?”

“Yeah, sure, Milfie.”

“A slice of cheesecake?”
 

“Cheesecake is good, Milfie.”

Milford took a Woodbine from the pack on the table in front of him, put the cigarette between his lips, but he didn’t light it. He just sat there, staring down at the table.

Shirley reached across the table, picked up his lighter and gave him a light. 

“Thank you,” said Milford.

Perhaps after all this was for the best. Milford had been terrified at the prospect of trying to have sexual relations with Shirley. What if he had been unable to perform? How could he even use that humiliation in a poem? How potentially devastating! But now the question of sexual proficiency was moot. He could relax, and concentrate on his art, his poetry.

Yes, he would never say so to dear Shirley, but perhaps this was for the best.

“Try not to be too disappointed, Milfie,” said Shirley.

“Yes, I shall try,” said Milford, and he sighed again, as if bravely.


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

“Order Whatever You Like”

“Order whatever you like, dear,” said Mrs. Milford. “The Lobster Thermidor here is pretty good. So’s the Terrapène à la Maryland.”

“What’s that second one?”

“Turtle stew in common parlance.”

“I’ll take a pass on that one,” said Shirley.

“You’d probably like the Foie de veau Lyonnaise.”

“Which is?”

“Liver and onions.”

“Yeah, no, I wonder if I can get some breakfast here.”

“It’s one-thirty in the afternoon.”

“And I just got up an hour ago.”

“Point taken.”

“What about this creamed spinach with fried egg? At least that’s got an egg in it.”

“It most assuredly does and I highly recommend it.”

“Great, I’ll go for that.”

The waiter came over and Mrs. Milford ordered. 



“And for my main course I’ll have my usual, Pierre.”

The waiter wandered off, and Mrs. Milford lifted her martini.

“Raise your glass, dear.”

“You bet,” said Shirley, and she lifted her own martini.

“Ah, that was good,” said Mrs. Milford. “Now, to brass tacks. What are your intentions regarding my son.”

“Wow, that didn’t take long,” said Shirley.

“Why waste time?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? My dear, we only have so many hours on this earth.”

“Most of which we’ll waste in one way or another. Who’s kidding who? I wish I had a nickel for every minute I’ve wasted.”

“Wasting how?” said Mrs. Milford.

“Staring at the ceiling. Reading movie magazines. Going to dumb movies. Singing and dancing in clubs and shows. Sitting in bars listening to idiots talk about how great they are.”

“Sitting in nice restaurants lunching with middle-aged women?”

“You said it, Mrs. Milford, not me.”

“I like your style, young lady.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Mrs. M.”

“What about a thousand dollars?”

“What about it?”

“One thousand, I believe you call them smackers. To stay away from my son.”

“A thousand?”

“I’ll go no higher.”

“So you’re not only weird, you’re cheap.”

“One thousand dollars is not cheap!”

“To save your only son from a low-class nightclub canary? Come on, Mrs. Milford. I know you rich people are supposed to be tight with a buck, but you can do better than a thousand.”

Little did Shirley know that Mrs. Milford had already been prepared to go as high as one thousand five hundred, and it only took until the asparagus and the oysters arrived for her to propose that figure.

“But that is my final offer. Imagine what you could do with a fifteen hundred dollars.”

“That’s a lot of frowsy frocks, that’s for sure.”

“So is it, as your people would say, a deal?”

“Mrs. Milford, no offense, but you can take your fifteen hundred bucks and, as my people would say, shove them where the sun don’t shine.”

“I have never been spoken to thus in my life.”

“Does this mean I have to pay for my own lunch?”

“It does not, but you are very rude, young lady – as well as unreasonable.”

“Lookit, Mrs. Milford, if you’re as loaded as all that ice you’re wearing would lead me to believe you are, then your son must be pretty rich, too, right?”

“He has an income of five hundred a month from a family trust. Otherwise he is penniless. And as you are no doubt aware, he has no job.”

“He writes poems. That’s kind of a job.”

“No job for a real man. Especially when he hasn’t published a single one.”

“He’s young yet.”

“He lives at home, and he will get no more money until I die.”

“But then he’ll be fixed, right?”

“Yes, but I intend to live on for at least another fifty years.”

“You’d better be careful he doesn’t sneak up behind you at the top of the stairs.”

“He wouldn’t dare. Besides, he is quite devoted to me.”

“He tells me you’re a harpy.”

“That’s only his way.”

“You’re not going to buy me off, Mrs. Milford. How are those oysters?”

“Excellent. Try one?”

Shirley tried an oyster.

“Not bad. I could get used to places like this.”

“Two thousand, Miss De LaSalle. My final offer. And all I ask is that you stop seeing the boy.”

“Forget it, Mrs. Milford. I don’t want your money.”

“If you marry Milford you won’t get a cent.”

“We’d have his five hundred a month.”

“A pittance.”

“Not where I come from.”

“The teeming tenements, no doubt.”

“No doubt at all. But listen, I have some swell news for you. I’m not gonna marry your son.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Why not? Have you met him?”

“Of course I’ve met him. He is my son.”

“Have you ever talked to him?”

“Occasionally.”

“Then you know what I mean. The guy is a, well, how can I put this?”

“Nincompoop is the word that always springs to my mind.”

“Yeah, he’s a nincompoop. I mean, a nice kid at heart, and sort of amusing in his way, but, jeeze, I wouldn’t marry him for a million bucks.”

Which is just what he might have coming to him, in time, thought Mrs. Milford, and possibly much more.

“I have misjudged you, Miss De LaSalle,” said Mrs. Milford.

“How could you judge me when you didn’t even know me?”

“You are quite correct. I only assumed.”

“Because I was a dame who was actually willing to have a slice of cheesecake sometimes with your son at the automat?”

“But you are the first.”

“The first dame?”

“Yes. To my knowledge he has never shown interest in any female.”

“He’s shy.”

“I was afraid he might be homosexual.”

Shirley shrugged.

“Poor Milford,” she said.

“You call him Milford?”

“Yeah. He can’t stand to be called Marion.”

“It’s his name.”

“Funny name for a boy. What’s this?” The waiter had replaced their empty martini glasses with two full ones. “Did you order these like telepathically?”

“Pierre knows to keep them coming unless I tell him not to.”

“You’re gonna get me drunk, Mrs. M.”

“It’s good to get a little tipsy now and then.”

“I got to sing tonight,” said Shirley. “But what the hell, one more won’t kill me, and then I’ll take a nice long nap after lunch.”

“Don’t tell Marion about this lunch,” said Mrs. Milford.

“Mum’s the word,” said Shirley. “Why get the poor schmuck upset?”

“So you are at least somewhat fond of him?”

“He’s okay. Better than just about all the other men I meet.”

“How extraordinary.”

“You know something, Mrs. M., maybe, just maybe if you had named him Mike, or Jack, you know, maybe he wouldn’t have grown up to be such a nincompoop.”

“So it’s my fault. Well, if you must know, his father insisted on Marion, because the first Milford son has always been named Marion since at least the Revolutionary War.”

“Okay, so it wasn’t your fault.”

“No. It wasn’t the name I preferred.”

“What was that?”

“I wanted to call him Beverley, which was my mother’s maiden name.”

“Beverley.”

Shirley looked into Mrs. Milford’s bottomless blue eyes, and it occurred to her that the lady might not be just eccentric, but certifiably insane.

“You could have simply taken a check for two thousand dollars,” said Mrs. Milford, “since you had no intention of marrying my son anyway. All I was asking was that you stop seeing him.”

“Yeah,” said Shirley. “But maybe I just get a kick out of having cheesecake with him now and then at the automat. Or maybe I’m dumb.”

The main course arrived, the creamed spinach with a sunny-side up egg for Shirley, on rice pilaf, and Mrs. Milford’s “usual”, which turned out to be beans on toast.



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

“The Last of the Milford Crackstone Line”

 “Where are you going, Marion?” said Mrs. Milford.

“Out,” said Milford.

“I can see you’re going out, but I asked where are you going.”

“To lunch, if you must know.”

“And where, if I dare to ask, are you lunching?”

“At the automat.”

“The one by the St Crispian?”

“No other.”

“And, again daring to ask, with whom are you lunching?”

“Who says I’m lunching with anyone?”
 

“Are you?”

“Yes! Yes, dash it all!”

“And is your lunching companion this mysterious female person you have so grudgingly mentioned?”

“Yes! Yes! If you must know, it is she! Now will you stop interrogating me and let me go? I don’t want to be late.”

“Don’t snap at me, young fellow.”

“I wasn’t snapping.”

“You were. Like a snapping turtle. Let me fix your muffler. It’s snowing outside and bitter cold.”

Milford sighed, and allowed his mother to remove his muffler from his neck, refold it, and then carefully replace it and knot it loosely but snugly around his neck.

“There,” she said. “Don’t forget your umbrella.”

“I shan’t. Now may I go?”

“What does this female friend of yours think of your mode of dress?”

“The subject has never come up,” said Milford, although in fact Shirley had indeed once asked him why he dressed like a stevedore.

“You have such nice clothes in your closet, I don’t know why you don’t wear them.”

“For the thousandth time, Mother, I dress as I do because I am a poet.”

“What is her name.”

“Goodbye. I may be gone some time.”

“I repeat, what is her name?”

“If I tell you, will you stop grilling me and let me leave?”

“Yes.”

“Shirley.”

“Shirley?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“And what is her surname?”

“What do you care?”

“Is she Jewish?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so.”

“Yes, I don’t think so.”

“Is she Italian then? Irish? I could accept Irish, provisionally.”

“I don’t know what she is. She’s American, okay?”

“Well, that’s something. What’s her last name?”


“De LaSalle.”

“De LaSalle?”

“Yes, and goodbye, and I don’t know why I told you because I know I’ll regret it.”

“Shirley De LaSalle who sings in the Prince Hal Room at the Hotel St Crispian?”

“Yes, yes, and yes. Good day, Mother.”

“Hold on. You’re having lunch with a nightclub singer.”

“Is there a law against it?”

“Not officially.”

“I bid you good day.”

“She’s a very attractive young lady, isn’t she?”

“Who? Shirley?”

“Miss De LaSalle, yes, of whom else are we speaking?”

“Yes, I suppose one might say she is attractive.”

“In a slightly brassy way.”

“How dare you.”

“Just slightly common.”

“Again, how dare you.”

“Remember your name, Marion: Milford. And on my side: Crackstone.”

“Oh, how could I possibly forget?”

“You are the last of the line, Marion. The very last of the Milford and Crackstone bloodlines.”

“Thank God.”

“And now it is my turn to say how dare you.”

“Oh, and what are these two lines, Mother, but the descendants of semi-literate English farmers and peasants and shop keepers who came to this continent because they couldn’t make a good living on their own benighted island?”

“Point taken. I suppose I shouldn’t be too picky.”

“No, you shouldn’t be.”

“I should be glad that Miss De LaSalle is a female, tout court.”

“What do you mean by that.”

“I mean she is not a man.”

“Oh, dear God.”

“I should like to meet her.”

“Fat chance.”

“If you’re going to marry her I shall have to meet her someday.”

“Good lord, Mother, who is speaking of marriage?”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

“I don’t know!”

“Settle down, with a nice girl. You can still write your little poems. And then when I die – and, mind you, I don’t plan on dying one single day before I turn one hundred, if that – you will have all my money. The house. The securities. The Glen Cove cottage. Everything. The Milford and Crackstone lines will live on through you and your heirs, spawned with Miss What’s-her-name.”

“De LaSalle.”

“French, but she looks Jewish to me.”

“And what if she is?”

Mrs. Milford paused, then went to the door, and opened it. Outside thick fat snowflakes fell onto Bleecker Street. She turned to her son.

“New blood. Fresh blood. Perhaps not a bad thing. You’d better go, Marion. You don’t want to keep Miss De LaSalle waiting at the automat.”

Now Milford paused, but then he went past his mother, through the doorway and down the steps into the snow. Forgetting to take his umbrella.

Mrs. Milford closed the door.

She would have to meet this Shirley De LaSalle. She would meet her. Invite her to lunch, tête-à-tête, just two girls, and not at the automat either, someplace nice, the sort of place women are fond of, the Colony, or 21. Get a martini into this Shirley De LaSalle, a plate of creamed spinach with a fried egg, and in fifteen minutes, no, in five minutes it would be plain as day if she were on the up-and-up or just some gold digger.

Mrs. Milford wandered out of the foyer, down the hall and into the front sitting room. She looked out the window at the falling snow, then went to the table by her chair and took a cigarette from the box. She lighted it, with the heavy brass table lighter in the form of a smiling Buddha, then she went to the window.

Yes, it had taken several centuries of near-inbreeding to descend from the hearty bold adventurers who had braved the harsh ocean voyage to strike out in a strange new land to peter out into the morbid pallid weakling of a nincompoop that was Marion, the last remnant of the once-proud Milford and Crackstone lines.

But perhaps not the last of the line after all.

And perhaps some fresh blood – yes, even Jewish or Italian, hang it all – was just what was needed!

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

“Slaying”

The drunker they got, the more they laughed, and the more they laughed, the louder they laughed. It was always this way, working the nightclubs and lounges and the Kiwanis and Shriners conventions and the Catskills resorts and Jersey shore VFW posts, and now after all these years Waldo McGee and his wooden dummy Mickey Pumpernickel finally had a good steady gig, here in the Prince Hal Room at the Hotel St Crispian.

“Hey, McGee,” said Mickey, looking up at Waldo, “wake up, you’re dropping your cues like they’re hot potatoes!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mickey, what was you saying?”

Even this got a laugh from the people. Talk about easy crowds…

“You see what I got to deal with here?” said Mickey to the punters. “This guy. This schlimazel. You shoulda seen him a coupla hours ago, back in our trap: ‘I ain’t goin’. I ain’t goin’ in. I can’t go in there no more, Mickey. I’m through. I can’t do it.’ And ya know what I did? Ya know what I did, folks?”

“What’d ya do, Mickey?” yelled up the fat drunk guy at the table down front.

“I’ll tell ya what I did,” said Mickey, and he raised his little wooden fist. “Pow! Hard right cross!”

And Mickey punched Waldo in the jaw. The crowd burst into laughter

“Ow!” said Waldo, after the laughs had pretty much subsided. “That hurt, Mickey!”

“Ah, I pulled it, ya big baby,” said Mickey. He turned to the crowd again. “You folks shoulda seen that haymaker I gave him earlier today. Pow!” Mickey feinted another punch to Waldo’s jaw, and Waldo flinched, but the punch stopped an inch short. “I knocked him right outa the sack. Didn’t I, McGee?”

Waldo was getting that weird sensation again, like he was leaving his body, floating up above the little stage, up above all these people drinking and laughing at the tables and the bar.

“Hey, McGee,” yelled Mickey, “I said, ‘Didn’t I?’”

Mickey was way down there, six, eight feet down there, and Waldo was up here, floating up above Mickey, and floating up above his own body which was holding Mickey on his lap.

“Didn’t I, McGee? Didn’t I knock you right outa the rack and onto the floor?”

Yes, he had.

“Didn’t I, McGee?”

And the crowd down there, the people, all the drunk people...

“Hey, didn’t I, McGee? Didn’t I? Answer me, goddammit!”

“What’s that, Mickey?”

“I said, and I repeat for the twelfth time, didn’t I hit you with a Joe Louis haymaker hard right cross that knocked you right out of your cot and onto the floor?”

“Oh, yes, yes, you did, Mickey,” said Waldo.

The crowd laughed at this. Why did they laugh? It wasn’t particularly funny. It must have been Waldo’s delivery, his strange delivery on account of he was floating eight or ten feet above the stage, or maybe it was because even now when Waldo was talking in his own voice, he wasn’t moving his lips, just like when Mickey was speaking.

“Yes, you really did, Mickey,” Waldo went on. “Knocked me for a loop, sent me sprawling onto the hard wooden floor.”

“Ha ha, lookit, Mabel,” yelled the fat guy down front, “he’s not even moving his lips!”

“That’s ‘cause he’s a ventriloquist, ya fat slob!” said Mickey. “The best in the business.”

“I agree!” said the fat guy, “but ain’t he only supposed to not move his lips when you’re talking?”

Mickey just looked at the guy for a beat. Then he turned to Waldo.

“Waldo,” he said, “do this guy a favor and move your lips when you’re talking.”

“He ain’t my boss,” said Waldo, floating up there above the smoke and the people, and, sure enough, his lips didn’t move. “Fuck him.”

And the fat guy laughed and so did everybody else.

Even Mr. Bernstein, over at the bar, who literally was Waldo and Mickey’s boss, even he laughed. Sure, he would have to ask Waldo to watch the language in the future, but you had to admit the guy was an original. Him and that crazy dummy. And you know what? Even if Waldo and Mickey slipped up now and then and let a curse word out, well, you know what? If any of these people complained, let them complain. Let them take their trade somewheres else. In fact, in Waldo’s words, fuck them. 



The crowd was laughing again.

Mr. Bernstein didn’t know how Waldo and Mickey did what they did, taking it right up to the edge of outraging the audience, even going over the edge, and then, boom, it was like this, and the punters were splitting their sides. It was a mystery, but McGee and Pumpernickel were killing. They were slaughtering.

And now McGee was moving his own lips again, almost like he had just woken up from a dream.

“I’m sorry, Mickey,” he said. “What was you saying?”

And the crowd roared.

Slaying, thought Mr. Bernstein. Murdering.

{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 Show Must Go On"

“I just can’t do it no more,” said Waldo McGee. “I can’t do it, I tells ya. I just ain’t got it in me.”

“Ah, dry up,” said Waldo’s wooden dummy, Mickey Pumpernickel.

“That’s what I should do,” said Waldo. “Dry up. Then sweep me up and dump me in the ash can and put me out on the street for the garbage men to collect.”

“Don’t tempt me,” said Mickey.

“I toldja,” said Waldo. “Find yourself a new partner, a new straight man. ‘Cause I’m through, Mickey. Washed up.”

“Tell it to the marines.”

“You think I’m kiddin’, Mickey. I ain’t.”

Waldo was sitting back against the brass headrail of his bed, in his undershirt and boxer shorts. Mickey sat by his side, a lighted cigarette in his little painted mouth, the smoke trailing up to the ceiling in the light of the bedside lamp. Outside it was getting dark, the street lights coming on, snowflakes were falling and swirling through the girders of the elevated tracks, and you could just hear and feel the faint rumble of the Third Avenue train in the distance, coming downtown from uptown.

Mickey glanced at his wristwatch.

“I’m giving you five minutes to get out of this rack and get dressed.”

“I ain’t gettin’ dressed,” said Waldo.

“You gonna just not show up at the hotel? Miss a gig for the first time in our career?”

“I’ll go down the hall and phone Mr. Bernstein.”

“And tell him what? You got a tummy ache?”

“I’ll tell him I ain’t comin’ in. And I ain’t comin’ in at all no more.”

“You’re gonna quit. Like that. No notice.”

“I can’t go in there no more.”

Mickey took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped its ash into the ashtray next to him on the bed. The ashtray was made out of sturdy green glass and emblazoned with the bold legend in gold:

 



The St Crispian Hotel  “Our Service Is Swell!”


“I wisht you wouldn’t smoke in bed, Mickey. I toldja oncet I toldja a million times.”

“Whatta you care?”

“I don’t care about me, but this bed catches fire then you’d be the first thing gets burnt to a crisp.”

“Well, thank you for your solicitude,” said Mickey. “I did not know you cared.”

Mickey put the cigarette back into his eternally grinning lips.

“Of course I care,” said Waldo. “What else I got to care about?”

“How about your self respect?” said Mickey. “You ever think about that?”

Waldo said nothing.

“Well?” said Mickey. “What about it? What about your self respect?”

“Leave me alone.”

Mickey looked at the watch on his wrist again. It was a child’s watch, with an illustration of a monkey’s head on its face. Even though it was a child’s watch, it still looked enormous on his little wooden wrist.

“That’s four minutes you got to get dressed.”

“I ain’t gettin’ dressed.”

Suddenly the elevated train was roaring by outside, and the window panes rattled. And then the last car passed and the roar faded away.

Mickey took the cigarette out of his mouth again and this time he laid it in the ashtray.

“Don’t make me get rough, Waldo. Don’t make me do that.”

“I ain’t making you do nothin’, Mickey. You do what you gotta do. I gotta do what I gotta do. Which is lie right here.”

“Hey, ya know what?” said Mickey. “I am really getting tired of your shit. Now get the fuck up before I smack you in the jaw.”

“You said I still got four minutes.”

“That was then. This is now, and I am telling you to get your scrawny ass outa this bed and get dressed.”

“Or what?” said Waldo.

“Or what?” said Mickey.

“Yeah,” said Waldo. “Or what. What’re you gonna do. You’re nothing but a wooden dummy.”

“Take out them dentures,” said Mickey.

“Why?” said Waldo.

“’Cause I’m gonna smack you in the mouth and I don’t wanta break ‘em,” said Mickey.


Mrs. Morgenstern stood outside the door.

“Mr. McGee. Mr. McGee, you all right?”

“What?” came Waldo’s voice through the door.

“I said you all right?”

“Yeah, fine, Mrs. Morgenstern, fine.”

“What was all that yellin’ and thumpin’?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Morgenstern.”

“It sounded like you was gettin’ murdered.”

“We were just rehearsing, Mrs. Morgenstern,” said Mickey’s voice.”

“Rehoising?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “’Rehoising’ as you say. A new bit for our act.”

“It sounded like bloody murder.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Morgenstern,” said Mickey’s voice. “We got carried away. We promise it won’t happen again.”

“As long as you’re okay,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, and she realized suddenly that she was talking to a wooden ventriloquist’s dummy. “I mean, the both of ya.”

“We are both perfectly okay,” said Mickey. “Ain’t we, Waldo?”

“Yes, we’re both fine,” said Waldo McGee.

“Well, okay, then,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, and she went back to where she had left off sweeping the hallway.

Meshugge. They were both meshugge, Mr. McGee and his wooden dummy, Mickey Pumpernickel, the both of them…


Back in his room Waldo McGee picked himself up from the floor, and rubbed his jaw. Mickey was still sitting on the bed, with the butt of the cigarette in his mouth.

“You really hurt me, Mickey,” said Waldo.



“I meant to hurt you,” said Mickey.

“And now you got Mrs. Morgenstern upset. What if she kicks us out?”

“She ain’t gonna kick us out. That lady’s got a heart of gold.”

“Yeah, but still,” said Waldo. “You didn’t have to hit me that hard.”

“I will bear that in mind in the future. Now, you gonna get dressed?”

“Yeah,” said Waldo. “I’ll get dressed.”

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

“Recipe for Happiness”

“If there were a recipe for happiness, it would be known to all men and to all women; alas, happiness is not like an apple pie, although, perhaps, happiness is an apple pie, warm from the oven…”



Not unusually, it had taken Gerry (“the Brain”) Goldsmith an entire afternoon to compose just one sentence for his “book of philosophical musings”, now more than two decades in the making, and tentatively titled Pensées for a Rainy Day, Vol. I. 


As was Gerry’s wont, he left the sheet of paper in his old Royal portable, all the better to resume work on the morrow, and he stubbed out his latest Bull Durham in the the chipped glass ashtray emblazoned with the legend THE ST CRISPIAN HOTEL – OUR SERVICE IS SWELL.


Time for a bock!



Gerry wondered, would his young friend Araminta Sauvage care to join him and go around the corner to Bob’s Bowery Bar? He hadn’t seen her for a few days, since recovering from his rather severe bout with ‘flu, which she had so kindly nursed him through. He felt he had not properly thanked her for her ministrations – the bowls of soup, the hot and cold compresses and cups of tea, the laundering of his ancient pajamas.

He had picked up his latest remittance check today at Mr. Goldstein’s office, so he was flush. Perhaps Araminta would consent to Gerry’s treating her to an early dinner?

The Third Avenue Elevated roared by outside Gerry’s window, taking people home from their jobs. Gerry had no job, had never had a job, and was this not in itself a reason, a cause for happiness? Could it be that he was happy without quite realizing it? These were matters he might take in hand at his typewriter tomorrow, if he remembered, if he cared by then.

Gerry pulled on his old camel’s hair chesterfield, draped his even older Andover rowing-team muffler dashingly around his neck, popped his twenty-eight-years-old fedora on his head and went out, leaving the door unlocked as usual, because he had lost his last key over a year ago, and was too shy to ask Mrs. Morgenstern for yet another replacement.


Down Gerry went from the sixth floor to the second-floor landing, and then down the hall to Araminta’s door.

He raised his closed right hand to knock but was stopped by a horrifying sound.

“Oh! Oh! Oh my God!”

It was Araminta’s voice! Was she in distress?

“Oh dear God in heaven!”

What could be the matter? Was she in some sort of existential crisis?

“Dear God, oh my God!”

It must be a severe crisis indeed for her to be crying out thus.

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Oh! Please don’t stop!”

But if it were a crisis, why would she not want it to stop?

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, give it to me!”

Why should she want God, or the universe, to give her such agony? Was it some deep-seated guilt, but if so, guilt for what? For the crime of being young, and beautiful, and sensitive?



“Give it to me!”

No, she did not deserve to flagellate herself this way! He must knock, and talk to her, and tell her she was a beautiful and innocent and wonderful person.

Gerry pulled his hand into a tight fist and drew it back, preparatory to pounding it on the door.

“Oh, Terry! Yes, yes, yes!”

And just in time Gerry opened his fist and lowered his arm, as the veil fell.

So, Araminta was back with young Terry Foley.

This was, if not exactly to be expected, then neither was it to be unexpected. Terry was an oaf, but a genial oaf, and, more important, Terry was young, as was Araminta, and youth was drawn to youth.

“Yes, Terry! Oh, yes! Give it to me!”

Gerry turned, and almost on tiptoe, walked back to the staircase.

Outside it was starting to snow again, wet cold flakes tumbling down out of a sky the color of the circus tents of Gerry’s youth, when he would sit on the wooden benches watching the elephants dancing and the acrobats flying up above.

Across the street was Ma’s Diner, looking warm and inviting, and through the steamed glass of the window he could see Ma behind the counter – warm, friendly Ma.

Perhaps it would be wise to stop in at the diner and have a bite to eat before heading over to Bob’s? Yes, that would be a good idea. A hearty plate of Ma’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes, with fresh peas glistening with butter. And a smile from dear Ma. And for the first time Gerry wondered, was there a husband in the picture for Ma? Was she even really a “Ma”, or was that only her nickname, her professional sobriquet? And what was her age? Surely she was no older than Gerry.

Yes, a good meal at Ma’s Diner was just the thing, and then he could head over to Bob’s. If not the meatloaf, perhaps Ma’s signature “Fatback ‘n’ Beans Stew”? Or – especially considering that all Gerry had eaten today was one chocolate Danish –  what about Ma’s “All Day Breakfast Special”, only a dollar for two eggs, home fries, and “your choice” of bacon, ham, or homemade sausage, washed down of course with lashings of Ma’s “bottomless” cups of strong hot chicory coffee? And then – why not? – a slice of Ma’s apple pie, the only question being with vanilla ice cream or cheddar…

Out into the heavier falling snow Gerry stepped, and, yes, it occurred to him that he was happy, or at least on the verge of happiness…




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

“Gilbey and God and the Devil”

How long had it been since Gilbey had seen God? Two years? Three? 

Time meant little to Gilbey. The days blended together, the days and the nights, but still he knew he had seen God that one time, lying in the dark in his little room at the Sunshine Hotel. It was like this big bright light. It stayed there for like a minute that seemed like forever, and it didn’t say nothing, but it didn’t have to. And then it went away. But it was God all right.

Then a year or so later Gilbey had seen the Devil, and again it was in the middle of the night, in his room, and this time it was like a blackness in the darkness, a hole through the night that opened up and went on forever and ever into darkness and blackness. It hadn’t said it was the Devil, but Gilbey knew.

So that was it, God the one time, and the Devil another time, and Gilbey stuck here in the world between the two, with the days and the nights blending together and falling away, all of them alike, all of them a little different.


They hadn’t had any work today down at the job center and so Gilbey walked around in the cold. This was one of the days when he didn’t have a dime in his pocket, not even a nickel for an automat coffee, but that was okay, that was what the soup kitchens were for, for days like this one, and at lunch time Gilbey went in to Brother Lou’s Friendly Mission and had some potato soup and bread and a cup of joe. Then he went out onto the Bowery again to walk around some more.

“Gilbey!”

It was that guy Smiling Jack, with his leather satchel of books hanging from a strap across his chest.

“Oh, hiya, Smiling Jack.”

“Whatcha doing, Gilbey?”

“Just walking around, Smiling Jack.”

“No work today?”

“No, they wasn’t hiring. Or at least they wasn’t hiring me.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I haven’t seen you at the meetings, Gilbey.”

“I don’t like them meetings.”

“But they’re good for you, Gilbey.”

“I get antsy at them meetings. All them guys talking.”

“Talking helps, Gilbey.”

“It don’t help me.”

“Why don’t you come with me now? I was just heading down to Old St. Pat’s for a two o’clock meeting.”

“I don’t know, Smiling Jack.”

“You just gonna walk around all day in the cold? Come on over, warm up with some nice hot coffee.”

Gilbey hesitated.

“They got doughnuts?’

“There will be doughnuts, yes.”

It was cold, bitter cold, so Gilbey said okay.


In the church basement Gilbey drank the coffee from a Dixie cup and ate a doughnut, and a guy next to him gave him a cigarette.

After a while, Smiling Jack asked Gilbey if he would like to say something. Gilbey said he would and he went up to the podium.

“My name is Gilbey,” he said. “And I don’t want to talk about being an alcoholic. What I want to talk about is this one time I seen God and this other time I seen the Devil. What I don’t understand is everything. How come I seen God but that once and the Devil but that one other time? How come I am in this body and my name is Gilbey? How come I am here today and not somewheres else? How come everybody is where they is? How come the world is here? How many more days I’m gonna walk around before I’m dead, and then will I see God or the Devil? Or nobody? That’s what I want to know, but ain’t nobody telling me. Ain’t nobody telling me nothing.”

There was silence in the smoky room, two dozen men and women smoking cigarettes and holding Dixie cups.

“Is that all, Gilbey?” said Smiling Jack, while Gilbey still stood there.

“Yeah, I guess that’s all,” said Gilbey.

“Thank you, Gilbey,” said Smiling Jack.

“Can I sit down now?”

“Yes, of course, my friend.”

Gilbey went back to his folding chair and sat down.

The young guy next to him leaned close to him and said, “That was brilliant.”

“Thanks,” said Gilbey.

“You’re lucky,” said the young guy. “At least you saw God once.”

“Yeah,” said Gilbey. “But I seen the Devil too.”

“Cigarette?”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Gilbey.

The guy had a pack of cigarettes that Gilbey hadn’t ever seen before, called Woodbines, and he shook out one for Gilbey, and gave him a light with a paper match.

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