Dan Leo

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 153: blue on blue

2009-07-18T00:23:00.003-04:00

Previously in this Gold View Award©-winning memoir our author Arnold Schnabel found himself standing at the bar of the Pilot House (“Cape May’s ‘in-spot’ for the ‘in crowd’, featuring ‘The Sophisticated Seaside Airs of Freddy Ayres and Ursula’ seven nights a week!”) with two of his nemeses, the seemingly indefatigable senior citizens the Messrs Jones and Arbuthnot, on this very long Saturday night in August of 1963...

As I put the glass down I thought, Now why am I drinking this again? I still had half a mug of beer in front of me. Another beer would have been bad enough, but a Manhattan, and a rather large one at that? Oh, well, nothing to do but chalk it up to yet another of those occasional attacks of complete insanity that all too frequently break up the monotony of my usual semi-insanity.

“Wait a minute,” I suddenly said. “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you two gentlemen know each other?”

“Mr. Jones and I have known each other for many years, Mr. Schnabel,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“Why shouldn’t we know each other?” said Mr. Jones.

“No reason,” I said, backed into a conversational and moral corner.

“Do you suspect us of some nefarious plot?” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“No,” I said, picking up my beer mug. “Not at all.”

“Is it outside the realm of your imagination that two of your acquaintances might be separately acquainted?” he asked.

“No, no,” I said.

“Jonesie here simply stopped by my rooms, in search of a sympathetic drinking companion.”

“Sure,” I said.

“And it was simply by chance that together we would find you here.”

“Just as we were talking about you,” said Mr. Jones.

“Recounting our separate acquaintances with you,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“Although it may surprise you to learn that there is a whole universe out there that is quite oblivious of your very existence,” said Mr. Jones.

“Well,” I said, “I, uh --”

“Don’t think the world revolves around you, Arnold,” said Mr. Jones. “Believe me, it doesn’t.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Oh. Did you know then,” said Mr. Jones, “that this majestic orb in fact revolves around no other than me?”

I didn’t dignify this remark with a response. Instead I took a drink of beer, finishing the mug.

“Are you here alone then, Mr. Schnabel?” asked Mr. Arbuthnot, with a detective’s glance at Josh’s only partially-drunk mug of beer and half-empty whiskey glass.

“No,” I said. “I’m here with a, uh, friend. He’s in the men’s room.”

I pushed my empty mug away. To my dismay the bartender suddenly materialized from nowhere, scooping the mug away with one hand and with his other hand immediately replacing it with a fresh chilled one brimful with foamy beer. And I still had most of my Manhattan left.

“What’d he do, your friend, get lost?” asked Mr. Jones. “Fall in the toilet?”

It was true, Josh had been gone for some little while.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” I said. “I have to go to the men’s room myself.”

“Let us know how it all comes out,” said Mr. Jones.

“We’ll order another round of Manhattans,” said Mr. Arbuthnot. “One for your mysterious friend, too.”

“No, no more for my friend and me, please,” I said.

“Just go pee, Arnold,” said Arbuthnot.

“All right, but really, don’t order me or my friend any more drinks.”

“Sure,” he said. “Go. Go.”

So I left them, and went down to the turn of the bar. Freddy was singing “Blue on Blue” now, while Ursula held off on the saxophone, running her fingers idly on the keys and looking down, nodding her head to the beat. Normally I might have put a dollar or so in Freddy’s tip jar, but since Josh had given him a twenty I figured that was plenty from the both of us.

I went past the stage and down the little hall to the men’s room on the right.

As soon as I entered I heard the unmistakable sound of a man retching, horribly.

Fortunately no one else was in there right now.

There are only two urinals in the Pilot House men’s room, and two stalls. I walked over, and there was Josh, kneeling in one stall, the door not even closed all the way, his head over the toilet.

“Josh?” I said, pushing the door open as far as I could against the soles of his sandals.

“Oh, Christ, Arnold,” he said. “I’ve never been so sick.”

He threw up again. I waited.

“Why did you let me drink so much?” he asked, without turning.

“I thought you could handle it,” I said.

“Well, I can’t.”

“Also I didn’t think I’d be able to stop you.”

He threw up again, but just a little bit. His shirt was soaked with sweat, sticking to his skin. I could see his back muscles, contorting.

“You’re probably right,” he said, still leaning over the toilet. “Nobody to blame but myself.”

“Did you eat tonight?” I asked.

“Eat? No. I don’t have to eat.”

“You should always eat before you drink,” I said.

He spat into the toilet.

“Yeah, I’ll remember that,” he said.

“Well, can I -- uh -- help you, Josh?”

“How could you possibly help me, Arnold? Oh, Christ --”

He gagged, dry-heaving.

I waited a minute, then said, “Well, do you, uh, want me to wait in here, or --”

“No, please, Arnold. I’ll be fine. Just wait at the bar, okay? I think I’m almost finished. Oh, fuck --”

He gagged again.

I went over to the urinals. I figured as long as I was here, I might as well void my bladder. I unzipped.

“Arnold,” called Josh, from in the stall, “just go, okay? Wait out in the bar. Seriously.”

“Well, all right,” I said.

I zipped up again, even though I actually did have to go again.

I left the men’s room to Josh, and went out into that little corridor, which is made up to look like a passageway in some fancy yacht. I wondered if passageways in fancy yachts were made up to look like the hallways of bars?

And then I stopped for just a moment before going out into the bar again, because I just then realized that the men’s room had not smelled badly, even right outside the stall that Josh had been vomiting in. If anything the odor in there had been pleasant, like the smell of my aunts’ garden on a fine morning.

But then I continued on my way.

Nothing surprised me any more.

(To be continued even up to the point of exhaustion and then one step beyond. Please look to the right hand side of this page for a conceivably up-to-date listing of links to all other available chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Billy Zane from Buddy Best Productions.)

“Uncle Buddy’s House”, Chapter 2: Deirdre

2009-07-16T15:41:00.010-04:00

In our previous episode we left our hero Buddy Best (director of Smith & Wesson & Me, Blunt Force Trauma, and Escape From Death Island among other classics) bonding in Anchor Steam beer and Puccini with his son Philip in Buddy’s only slightly decrepit house on Ivar Avenue, Hollywood, California...

Enter Buddy's fifteen-year-old (or is she sixteen, Buddy's not quite sure) stepdaughter...

“Hi, drunks.”

It was Deirdre, in her St. Vlad’s uniform.

“Hey, Deird,” said Philip.

“Hi, jerk,” said Deirdre in her faux-perky teen-movie way.

“Give me a kiss.”

“No, you’re gross. Did you guys save me any pizza?”

“I got some warming in the oven,” said Buddy.

“You guys are such alcys. It’s what, seven-thirty? And you’re trashed.”

“Getting there,” said Buddy. “Not there yet."

“Long way from there,” said Philip.

Deirdre came back in from the kitchen with a slice of pizza on a plate, a folded paper towel, and a glass of what could only be Diet Coke. They were into Act IV of Bohème by now. She plunked down on the couch and took a big bite of pizza.

“So,” she said, to Philip, “come to visit Bleak House?”

“Come to live here, baby.”

She halted her chewing. Explanations forthcame.

****

A little later they were watching American Movie on DVD when Deirdre said, “Oh, Uncle Buddy -- {Joan had introduced him to the three-year-old Deirdre as “Uncle Buddy”, and Uncle Buddy he had remained ever since} -- now that you’re I hope sufficiently wasted --”

She reached down, got her backpack off the floor and rummaged in it. She’d changed into shorts and a t-shirt, she was all thin arms and legs. She got out an envelope, and flipped it to Philip, who was sitting at the other end of the sofa.

“What am I, your butler?” said Philip.

“You’re closer, dude.”

“Bitch,” said Philip, but he got up and handed the note to Buddy.

“What is this?” said Buddy.

“Note from Mother Mathilde,” said Deirdre. “Since Mom’s not around I guess you get to deal with it.”

She had pulled Ming on to her lap and she waggled her tongue at the cat.

Buddy switched on the lamp, took off his glasses, which he had put on to watch the movie, and read the note. Then he put his glasses back on again and looked at Deirdre.

“So what’d you do anyway?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on, give me a break, don’t make me go in there cold.”

“I got caught making out.”

“Making out? With another girl?”

“It’s an all-girls school, Uncle Buddy.”

“Stupid question, okay.”

“Our little dyke,” said Philip.

“Faggot. Freeloader.”

“All right,” said Buddy, “let’s watch the damn movie.”

They watched the movie for a while.

“So how far did this making out go?” said Philip.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, queer-bait.”

A little bit later Buddy said, “So who was it you made out with?”

“Trish Alvarado.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Buddy was pretty sure he knew which one Trish was, and if she was the one he thought she was then Trish was a hottie all right.

“Is she hot?” asked Philip.

Deirdre got up and grabbed her Diet Coke and her backpack and went off up the stairs. Ming jumped off the sofa and followed her.

“She’s gotten kinda hot,” said Philip. “Except for her braces. Or maybe especially because of her braces.”

“All right, asshole, she’s your fucking sister practically, so don’t be so fucking --” they heard her bedroom door slam shut -- “fucking --”

"Hey, Dad, give me some credit, dude. Anyway, she’s a dyke.”

“Ah, I don’t know about that, Phil.”

“Dad, has she ever had a boyfriend?”

“Well, no -- not that I know of --”

“I rest my case.”

“She’s only fucking fifteen, sixteen --”

“Dad, kids today have boyfriends and girlfriends at fucking twelve. You know how old I was when I lost my virginity? Or, no, hey, ya know how old Liz was?”

Liz was Buddy’s other offspring, aged what, twenty-four?

“No,” said Buddy, “and no, and, no, I don’t fucking want to know.”

“She’s a dyke.”

“Who, Liz?”

“No, not fucking Liz: Deirdre.”

“Oh. Well, fuck it, maybe she is. Who gives a shit?”

“Not me.”

“Okay then. She’s probably better off anyway. I mean when you look at the nincompoops Liz has hooked up with --”

“Word up,” said Philip. “You talk to her lately?” Adding helpfully, “Liz.”

“Um, uh, two weeks ago? Three?”

“How’d she sound?”

“She sounded --”

“She still in school?”

“Oh yeah. But --”

“What?”

“She wanted to borrow some money to take this weekend retreat with this Deep -- Deepok -- Chopchop -- Deepsix --”

“What?”

“Chokra? Fucking Indian --”

“Deepak Chopra?”

“That’s him.”

“Oh, fuck that.”

“Right,” said Buddy. “I mean, first it’s your mother with the fucking Buddhism; then it’s fucking Joan with this Tony Roberts guy’s Personal Bullshit seminar --”

“Tony Robbins, he’s cool, love his tan.”

“Right -- now it’s Elizabeth with this Tupac Shakur --”

“Deepak Chopra.”

“Whatever.”

“So you send her the dough?”

“Fuck no. I told her she should be concentrating on her goddam course work and not taking some jive-ass mystico-spiritual self-help load of --”

“Yeah, fuck that shit.”

“All the fucking dough I laid out for that Betty Ford clipjoint? And now she’s living with this fucking Keith guy --”

“You mean the Craig guy --”

“Right -- another fucking drug addict, alcoholic, loser --”

“What else is new? Chicks dig losers. She does, anyway --”

“Yeah, but that’s the trouble, with these rehab joints and these meetings,” said Buddy, getting up -- “you want another beer by the way?”

“Yo,” said Philip. “You want me to pause the movie?”

“Don’t bother.”

Buddy headed off into the kitchen and Philip called after him:

“What’s the trouble?”

“What?” yelled Buddy.

“What’s the trouble with the rehabs and meetings,” yelled Philip.

Buddy yelled out, louder, “All they meet are other fucking junkies and alcoholics.”

“Look who’s talking,” said Philip.

“Hey, I bring home the bacon, pal.”

“You guys are the alcoholics!” This was Deirdre, yelling down from upstairs, going to or from the bathroom or to or from Buddy’s room in search of his pot stash.

Buddy came back in with two more Anchors and gave one to Philip.

“Al-co-hol-ics!” Deirdre again.

“Thanks, Dad. So -- I guess Liz doesn’t know about you and --”

“Uh, no, I guess not. I should call her.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Philip. “What about Mom. You talk to her lately?”

“Nah, it’s too hard to get through to her up there.” This was the vegan ashram up in the High Sierras where Philip’s and Liz’s mom Madge, now known as Shakira, lived with her husband, Om, and their son, Mukund. “And she hasn’t called me,” said Buddy. “What about you?”

“Nah, not lately. I should call her.”

“Yeah. Tell her I say hi,” said Buddy.

“Okay. So she doesn’t know about Joan either.”

“Nah. Fuck it. That’s just, that’s just -- look, look at these fucking idiots --”

Buddy was referring to the movie they had on. Being good Americans they were watching and following the movie as they talked.

“Yeah. What nimrods,” said Philip. “So what is it that’s just something?”

“What?”

“What you were going to say, before the nimrods.”

“Oh, right. That’s just -- one of the toughest things about this whole load of shit is just -- just having to tell everyone about it. It’s very fucking --”

“Tedious?”

“Yes. Oh. Shit.”

“What.”

“I just remembered that you’re about to go through the same shit.”

“Thanks for reminding me, Dad.”

“You’re welcome. You want my advice?”

“Sure.”

“If people ask how things are going, just say, ‘Fine.’”

“Okay.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

“Okay. So -- how are things going, Dad?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, really.”

“Ah, shut the fuck up, Phil. Watch the movie.”

“Okay.”

They watched the movie. And then Philip said, “I really hate Cynthia.”

A couple of minutes later Buddy spoke up.

“That’s the fucked-up thing --”

“What?”

“You go to all the trouble of marrying a chick and then you just wind up hating them.” Three seconds later he added: “And vice versa.”

“Uh huh. Um --”

Instead of completing a sentence Philip stared at the TV.

“Philip, let me tell you about love, okay?”

“Oh, great.”

“Okay. Now, I made the same exact mistake you did with, uh, whosis --”

“Cynthia.”

“Right. Same mistake I made with Joan, that you did. Not so much your mom --”

Buddy paused, musing on his profundity while watching the movie. He was a little fucked up on the beer. Plus he hadn’t been sleeping well at all. And he’d been working hard. And he had been drinking too much and smoking too much pot for eight or ten days now. And his wife had left him for one of the biggest assholes he had ever met.

“What’s your point, Dad?”

“My point --”

“Something about a mistake. Handed down through generations.”

“Ah, yes. Mistake being I married someone while I was hot ‘n’ heavy with ‘em. Big mistake, and only afterwards did I realize what a fuckin’, fuckin’ --”

“Uh-huh --”

“Okay, you wanta hear Buddy Best’s Rule #1 of Marriage?”

“I think I’m going to.”

“Never marry someone you’re sexually attracted to.”

“O-kay --”

“I mean, you probably wouldn’t even think about marrying someone you were never attracted to, but the thing is, wait -- wait until you’re not attracted any more -- and that day will come, brother --”

“Tell me about it --”

“It will come. And then, if you still want to marry them, knock yourself the fuck out.”

“Good rule, Dad.”

A minute later:

“Um, you and Joan, Dad -- I guess I can say it now --”

“Phil --”

“Yo.”

“Do me a favor.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t say it.”

“Okay.”

They watched the movie. It was a good movie about some idiot in Wisconsin trying to make a bad movie. Except he thought he was trying to make a good movie.

“But, Dad, can I just say something about Cynthia?”

Bud picked up the remote and pressed pause.

“Phil, can I be absolutely honest with you?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Right. I mean, okay. Some time. But -- not now. All right?”

“Okay. Cool.”

“Good.”

“But one little question,” said Philip.

“Fire away.”

“You got any pot?”

“Later, after Deirdre crashes.”

“She’s probably up there smoking weed herself right now.”

“Later.”

“We could go out by the pool.”

“All right.”

Buddy had the better part of a nice fat one in his shirt pocket. They left the movie on pause and went out back and sat in the deck chairs by the pool in the dark.

Philip flicked his Zippo, and the twinkling hills looked down upon them as father and son passed the joint back and forth. The air hummed softly with the sound or the sounds of the freeway, and the water in the pool looked like chocolate Jell-O, chocolate Jell-O sprinkled with leaves that had fallen in from the backyard flora -- the bougainvillea hedge, the eucalyptus, the palm tree, Joan’s roses and snapdragons, her mums and tiger lilies, her fucking veggie garden.

Upstairs in her darkened room Deirdre leaned on her window sill, smoking a joint she’d rolled from Buddy’s stash and spying down on Philip and Buddy. She could hear them clearly when they started talking again.

“What was this dude’s name?” said Philip.

“What dude?”

“The dude that Joan ran off with.”

“Oh, him. The Mariner.”

“The Mariner?”

“The Ancient Mariner.”

****

(Who is the Ancient Mariner? Why is Buddy so ill-disposed toward him? Keep your shirt on. To be continued.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 152: oh, no...

2009-07-15T00:10:00.010-04:00

Our previous episode found our hero-memoirist Arnold Schnabel and his friend and alleged savior “Josh” in yet another bar, Cape May’s sophisticated Pilot House (“Featuring ‘A Stroll Down Tin Pan Alley with Feddy Ayres and Ursula’, seven nights a week!”).

But even the great men have to go sometimes, and so Josh has gone off to the men’s room, leaving Arnold standing alone at the crowded bar on this warm night in August of 1963...

(Newcomers may click here to go to the beginning of this Gold View™ Award-winning masterpiece.)

I turned towards the bar and lifted my beer. I had thought yesterday was a long day, but this one was really starting to take the cake. I gulped some beer, put the mug down. When it was empty I would go home, no matter what Josh said. I had to meet Larry again tomorrow morning around 10:30, to work on our screenplay, but since tomorrow was Sunday I would have to get up even earlier than otherwise in order to go to the nine o’clock mass first.

But then I thought, Wait, I’m standing here in a bar with Jesus himself, why am I worrying about going to Sunday mass? Not to mention that since my last encounter with Elektra I was technically in a state of mortal sin anyway. But it’s hard to break these habits of a lifetime, no matter now absurd they may be. Hard but not impossible. Had I not successfully and at long last broken the habit of celibacy?

When Josh got back from the men’s room I would ask him about this Sunday mass business. If it turned out that I really was under no obligation to go to mass, then that would mean I could sleep an extra hour. In fact I might even just have another beer after my current one, because now I felt wide awake anyway.

Suddenly I became aware that two beings were standing right behind me; however, when I looked into the mirror in front of me across the bar I could see no one there.

Great, I thought, was I now to be hounded by invisible creatures, as if visible ones didn’t give me enough grief already? I took a breath, squared my shoulders and told myself that I would brook no nonsense from these ghosts or spirits, whatever they were, be they from heaven or hell or elsewhere. And if it turned out I couldn’t handle them by myself, well, then I would just have to hope that Josh made it back from the men’s room in time to rescue me.

I turned around, and discovered that the reason I hadn’t seen anyone in the mirror was that no one was standing behind me but Mr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Jones, neither of whom was barely more than five feet tall.

“Fancy finding you here, Mr. Schnabel,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“My very good friend,” said Mr. Jones, his trim little body swaying in a gentle circular movement, while his right hand, holding a lit cigarette, traced circles in the opposite direction.

“So you have a taste for the tipple,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“Speaking of which, I’ll have a Manhattan,” said Mr. Jones.

“Mr. Jones,” I said. “Do you really think you should be drinking any more tonight?”

“It’s either that or writhe miserably on my narrow bed all night, wrestling with the demons of a misspent life.”

“Oh,” I said. When you looked at it that way, he did have a point.

“Summon that barman’s attention, will you, Mr. Schnabel?” said Mr. Arbuthnot. “He acts as if we don’t exist. Tell him we want Manhattans here.”

I turned, and, miraculously, the bartender was right there. Apparently even being merely Josh’s companion held a certain credence in the bars of the world.

“May I help you, sir?”

“Two Manhattans, please,” I said.

“Right away, sir,” he said and off he went towards the drink-making station, but then Mr. Jones shouted out in his piping little voice, “Make that three Manhattans!”

“Yes, sir,” said the bartender and he continued on his way before I could tell him No, please, just two Manhattans.

The two small old men squeezed in next to me on either side. They had both been wearing straw hats, and now they doffed them, laying them down on the bar. Without their hats they looked even smaller, with their shiny little bald heads barely above the level of the bar top.

“So where’s your lady friend, Arnold?” said Mr. Arbuthnot, taking out his little Meerschaum. “If I may call you Arnold.”

“She’s asleep,” I said.

“He’s got a lady friend?” said Mr. Jones.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Arbuthnot. “A charming young lady of the Israelite tribe.”

He produced a leather pouch and began filling his pipe.

“Some of the best lays I ever had were Jewish dolls,” said Mr. Jones.

“And when was the last time you had a lay, Mr. Jones?” asked Mr. Arbuthnot. “Nineteen twenty-two?”

“In point of fact it was as recent as nineteen hundred and forty-five,” said Mr. Jones. “I’ll tell you, the war years were good ones for getting laid, what with all the young men overseas.”

“I well remember,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, his watery eyes gleaming behind his spectacles. ”Those were good times.” Then his face grew sad. “However, the war ended, the men came back.”

He grabbed a book of Pilot House matches from a little bowl, and tore off a match.

“It was all downhill from then on,” said Mr. Jones.

“Old age,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, lighting his pipe with tiny little puffs, “wrapping itself round the walking carcass like an insatiable python.”

“What a revolting image,” said Mr. Jones.

“No more so than the reality it illustrates,” said Mr. Arbuthnot. He tossed his match to the floor.

“True enough, sir!” said Mr. Jones.

“Would you gentlemen prefer to stand next to each other?” I said, stepping back from the bar.

“Of course not, my friend,” said Mr. Jones, and his little hand reached up and grabbed my polo shirt sleeve. “Belly up to the bar, Arnold! That is your name, isn’t it?”

“Three Manhattans,” said the bartender, laying three chilled empty cocktail glasses on the bar with one hand and raising high in the other a large shiny metal cocktail shaker.

“Oh, no, just two please,” I said.

“He’s already made three,” said Mr. Jones. “Pour away, barkeep, don’t listen to this whippersnapper.”

“Yes, sir,” said the bartender, and he poured out three large Manhattans. “Cherries, gentlemen?”

“No cherries,” said Mr. Jones. “They take up precious space in the glass.”

“No cherries,” said the bartender, placing a drink before each of us in succession.

“How much?” I said, sighing deeply for the nine-hundredth time that day.

“I’ll put it on your tab, sir,” he said, smiling as if knowingly.

“Ah,” said Mr. Jones, taking up his cocktail. “It’s past midnight, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, glancing at my watch. “In fact it’s --”

“First drink of the day then!” said Mr. Jones, raising his glass high -- well, high for him. “First one of the day,” he repeated, “and I hope to goddam hell it’s not the last!”

“You’d better hope that the day is not your last,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, also raising his glass.

“Oh would that this day were my last,” said Mr. Jones. “I should like nothing better than to drop dead, preferably whilst doing exactly what I’m doing now.”

“Talking twaddle?” asked Mr. Arbuthnot.

“No,” said Mr. Jones. “This.”

And he put the glass to his ancient lips and drank.

“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Arbuthnot, and he drank from his glass as well.

Then he looked up at me and gave me an elbow in the side.

“Drink, Arnold!”

I raised up my Manhattan and drank.

(Continued here, and until we drop. Kindly go to the right hand side of this page to find what might on certain days be a complete listing of links to all other available chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “There’s nothing I like better than to get really stoned and then try to read some Schnabel.” -- Harold Bloom)

“Uncle Buddy’s House”, Chapter 1: father and son

2009-07-13T13:34:00.006-04:00

Today we are proud to present for your delectation our new serial, a scathing exposé of the dank underbelly of Hollywood as well as a charming tale of romantic and familial love. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the cautionary tale of one Mr. Buddy Best: Hollywood film-maker, husband, father, ladies’ man, opera enthusiast and connoisseur of fine beverages...

“Hey, what up, Dad.”

“Hey, what up.”

This was Buddy’s son, Philip. What was up was Buddy was drinking a beer and thinking pizza and listening to La Bohème.

“Dad, I’m leaving Cynthia.”

What Buddy was thinking was “About fucking time,” but what he said was:

“Oh?”

“Just ‘oh’?”

“Okay,‘Oh, that’s too bad, Phil.’”

“No it’s not. It’s good.”

Buddy picked up the remote and lowered the volume on the CD player.

“She’s a C-U-Next-Tuesday, Dad.”

“A what?”

“A c-word.”

“Oh, a c-word.”

“Royal. A royal c-word,” said Philip.

“Uh-huh.”

“Just uh-huh?”

“Well, all right, so I agree with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“How come the hell you never told me this?”

Buddy took a beat here.

“Philip.”

“Yo.”

“Someday maybe you’ll have a son.”

“God forbid.”

“Yeah, God forbid, but you know, someday you might knock some trollop up and have a son, and if you do, then some day this son may have a wife who is a total, uh, c-word. And then you will find out how easy it is to tell your son his wife is a c-word.”

“You said she was a total c-word, Dad.”

“I stand by that.”

“Speaking of, you heard from Joan?”

“Well, couple days ago she called to say she was going to Brittany with this dude --”

”Brittany?”

“Yeah,” said Buddy. “They’re off on a romantic interlude.”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Joan was Buddy’s wife, but not Philip’s mother; Joan had left Buddy about a week-and-a-half ago, for another man, a boring man, an asshole -- “Where is Brittany anyway?” asked Philip.

“France,” said Buddy. “It’s like the New Jersey of France.”

“She take Deirdre?”

“No, Deirdre’s still here.”

“Oh. That’s weird,” said Philip. “But cool.”

“Yeah.”

Deirdre was Joan’s daughter, Buddy’s stepdaughter, she was fourteen, or was it fifteen --

“So, but, like, is Joan gonna take her when she gets back,
or --”

“Oh, I’m sure she will.”

“Oh,” said Philip.

“Yeah.”

“That’s --”

“Yeah,” said Buddy.

Philip was -- how the fuck old was he now? Buddy started to do the math. Okay, he -- Buddy -- was (fuck) fifty-two; he had knocked up Madge (his first wife) when he was twenty-four, so that made Phil about --

“Um, listen, Dad, I don’t want to impose, but --”

“What?”

“Um, I was wondering if I could, like, uh --”

“Yeah?”

“-- um, be like a real loser and ask you if I could, uh --”

“Move back in?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, come on over. Glad to have you.”

“For real? I wouldn’t be like imposing?”

“Not like imposing at all. Where are you?”

“Hollywood and Vine, daddy-o. Just passed the lovely and historic Pantages Theatre, dude, and I can almost smell the familial manse.”*

(Buddy’s house was on North Ivar above Yucca. It was a Mission/Tudor in Belgian brick, and had been built for the comedian Joe E. Brown in 1931. Right down the block was the Parva Sed Apta, where Nathanael West supposedly had written The Day of the Locust, which Buddy intended someday to get around to reading.)

“Yeah, right,” said Buddy. “Listen, pick up some beer on the way. Good beer.”

Buddy sat there and considered tidying up a bit, but fuck it. Philip was a world-class slob from way back. He wouldn’t even notice.

****

“Hey, turns out I wasn’t kidding about smelling the familial manse. What the fuck, Dad, you hitting the skids or what?”

Okay, so he noticed.

“Well, y’know, Phil, it’s not so much the place is messy, it’s just that Joan kept it so clean. You know.”

“I know you’re hitting the fucking skids. She’s only been gone, what, a week?”

“It’s been more than a week. I think.”

“Fuck it,” said Philip, “let’s have a beer. Oh, you’ve got one. I’ll have a beer.”

“I’ll have another one.”

“Fucking drunk. What you got to eat?”

“My good friend Mama Maria is making us a pizza for delivery as we speak.”

“You my dog, dad.”

They settled down with their fresh Anchor Steams in the living room, Buddy in his rocker, Philip on the sofa, Rodolfo singing to Mimì, “E como vivo? Vivo --”

Philip lit up a cigarette, he had a nice little Zippo and he had that clicking thing down cold.

“So where’s Deirdre?”

“I don’t know. Ballet class? Violin lesson?”

“Cool.” Ming the cat came into the room, jumped on the coffee table and stared at Philip. He patted her head. “Hi, Ming. Hi, Ming. Hi, Mingle. And how’s she taking this, uh, you know --”

“How is Ming taking it?”

“No, Dad, not the cat. I meant Deirdre. How’s she --”

“Okay, I guess. I mean she hasn’t slit her wrists or anything.”

"That's a good sign,” said Philip. He started batting at Ming’s head with his hand and Ming batted back with her paw.

“So -- does Deirdre, I mean, does she --”

“Does she want to stay here?”

“Yeah.”

“I think so. I don’t think she wants to give up her room. Y’know?”

“Dig it. I can dig that. I’ve been there.”

Ming got tired of batting and curled up on the coffee table.

The music played, and then Philip said:

“So, ya getting any work done with all this shit?”

“Ah, yeah -- I’m finishing up a rewrite on this one script, and we’re in post on this last thing --”

“Any good?”

“This last one?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I think it might be.”

“What’s it called?”

“Triggerwoman III. No, what am I saying, Triggerwoman II. Two two two.”

“Triggerwoman, that was like Selma Blair and Billy Zane, right?"

“Yeah, except we couldn’t get them for the sequel, so we went with Sally Fenster and Milt Dickens.”

“They’re good.”

“Yeah, and a hell of a lot cheaper than Selma and Billy would’ve been, that’s for sure.”

“You direct it?”

“Nah, Iggy did.”

“When you gonna direct again, mofo?”

“Hey, it’s already so much work writing the shit and producing -- why not let a young guy like Iggy learn the trade?”

“In other words you’re too lazy, dude.”

“Well, I’m definitely lazy, but then again, the kind of pictures we do, I mean, you don’t exactly have to be Ingmar Bergman, y’know?”

“Right.”

Buddy almost said that he would direct again one of these days, maybe, but he paused and then he didn’t, and then he couldn’t think of anything else to say, or at least anything he wanted to say.

“Cool,” said Philip.

More music. Waiting for Mama Maria’s.

“Also, Dad?”

“Yo.”

“I got fired. From my job.”

Buddy nodded. He wasn’t quite sure what it was that Philip had been doing for a living, except that it had something to do with computers, he thought.

“So?” said Philip.

“So great.”

“Great?”

“I don’t know how you could do it, that nine-to-five shit.”

“But I got no money.”

“Oh, well, I guess that’s a problem.”

“Yeah.”

“So -- fuck it, find something, something, you know, you like to do --”

“Yeah, but the other problem is the market is saturated with like ten million fucking art school majors --”

“Yeah, right.”

“And I don’t know how to do anything else except that computer shit and I hate it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Buddy was getting bored with this; he had his own problems.

“Yo, Dad, let me work for you.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Y’know, I never wanted to take advantage of nepotism, but after five or six years out there in the work force I’m ready to.”

“I don’t blame you. I’ll see what I can do. Only thing is we’re not going into production again until -- August? I can probably get you something to do then, but --”

(The current date was April 2, 2003. There was a war going on in Iraq, but Buddy and Philip were both wrapped up in their own personal difficulties.)

“Cool,” said Philip. “What’s this next one gonna be.”

“Return to Death Island, Part III.”

“Solid.”

“Yeah, but like I say, that’s not for a while, so -- ah, fuck it, listen, listen to this --”

It was Kiri te Kanawa, singing, “Si. Mi chiamano Mimì.”

And the both of them shut up for a while.

****

(Is Buddy depressed because his wife left him, or is he merely humiliated because of who she left him for? Where is Deirdre? Where is the pizza? All these questions will perhaps be answered in our next installment, unless our outraged sponsors pull the plug.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 151: Heaven Hill

2009-07-11T01:33:00.010-04:00

Return with us now to that nearly-forgotten year of 1963 (to the warm Saturday night of August 10/11 to be exact, in the scenic old seaport of Cape May, NJ) and to the ever-hospitable Pilot House (“Featuring the happy airs of Mr Freddy Aires on the accordion and vocals, with Ursula on the sax”) into which now enter our hero Arnold Schnabel and his raffish but divine friend “Josh...

(Scroll down or click here to see our previous episode, or click here to be whisked back to the very first installment of this Gold View Award™-winning memoir, all contents approved by the Review Board of the Catholic Standard & Times.)

The Pilot House is one of those places you walk into and it’s a big room with tables, and the bar is over on the far side. Up on the little stage over to the right of the bar sat Freddy Ayres, as usual, playing his accordion and singing. His wife was sitting out this bit, sitting at a small table near the stage with her saxophone on the table, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee.

“Let’s go to the bar,” said Josh.

We went through the tables. The place was packed, all the tables full, the bar full.

Josh stopped right before we got to the bar and did that little waving thing with his hand. Sure enough two guys near the middle of the bar started shuffling their stools away from each other, and soon there was plenty of standing space for me and Josh between them.

The bartender came right up to us and asked Josh what he would like.

“Do you have Old Forester?” Josh asked.

“No, but I have Heaven Hill.”

“That sounds great. I’ll have a double. Arnold, shot?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “Just a beer.”

“Great,” said Josh. And, to the bartender, “Two beers, also, please.”

“What kind, sir?”

“The cold kind.”

“Right away, sir.”

And off the bartender went.

Josh took out his cigarettes and leaned his side against the bar, facing me. Behind me Freddy sang, “On the way to Cape May…”

Josh lit up a Pall Mall and dropped his lighter and cigarettes on the bar top.

“I’m really stoned from that pot,” he said. “Another thing I’m not really used to. Oh, thanks.”

I couldn’t believe it but the bartender was already there with our two mugs of beer. He immediately placed a big round glass on the bar and began filling it with Heaven Hill bourbon.

I asked myself why it was that Josh got such great service from bartenders. I was so used to having to do everything short of pounding my shoe on the bar to get a bartender’s attentions, and here was Josh, easily the scruffiest looking guy in here, and the bartender treated him as if he were the son of God. Oh. Well, I suppose I’ve answered my own question, then.

“Cheers,” said Josh, raising his whiskey glass, which held at the very least a quadruple of bourbon.

I raised my beer mug.

“To our friendship, Arnold.”

We touched glasses, I took a drink of beer, Josh drank down half his whiskey in one go.

“Wow, do you believe this guy,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, “Whatsisname, Freddy.”

I turned and looked at Freddy, up there playing his accordion, slightly hunched over on his stool, singing into the microphone.

“I was taken by your smile,” he sang, “as we drifted by Sea Isle, and my heart was real gone when we reached Avalon.”

Freddy must be seventy-five years old if he’s a day, with a maroon toupée and a gold tuxedo jacket.

His wife Ursula is a bit younger I think, maybe only sixty-eight or so. Her hair is bright yellow, and shaped like a large light bulb. She wore a gown like the ones ladies wear in movies about ancient Rome. She smoked her cigarette with a long black holder. Suddenly she put it down in her ashtray, stood up, grabbed her saxophone, tossed its strap over her shoulder, walked the couple of feet over to the stage, went up its two steps, turned, and began playing. She didn’t need a microphone.

“What do you think, Arnold?” said Josh, nodding toward Freddy and Ursula.

“They’re okay,” I said.

And it was true, I didn’t hate them. I’d been listening to them for years. What did I care? They were something to fill those vast empty spaces of dread peculiar to all bars. Their music may well have been frightening, but at least it tended to keep the demons outside.

“I’ll tell you what they’re not like,” said Josh.

“What’s that?”

“They’re not like sitting in the same room with Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the clavichord knocking out a concerto or two. That’s what they’re not like.”

“Well, they’re doing their best I suppose,” I opined.

Josh just looked at me, blinking, but he let that piece of boredom slip by unchallenged.

“Tell me something, how’s it going with Elektra? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“It’s going okay,” I said.

“Nice, huh?”

“Yes,” I said. I think I knew what he meant.

“It’s okay she’s Jewish?”

“Oh, sure.”

Ursula finished her solo and Freddy started playing a solo on his accordion.

“So, Arnold,” said Josh, “you’ve probably been wondering, about me appearing to you.”

“Well, yes,” I admitted.

“The thing is, we’ve -- my father and I, and the, uh, the --”

“The Holy Ghost?”

“Spirit, yeah -- anyway, we’ve decided to help you. After your breakdown and all.”

“Help me.”

“Yes, help you,” he said. I must have made some slight change in my usual dispassionate demeanor, because he then said, “What?”

“Well --”

“Spit it out, Arnold. We’re buddies.”

“You know, I appreciate it,” I said. “Your help. And I don’t want you to take what I’m going to say personally --”

“No, of course not --”

“But,” I said, “I’m really not so sure how great it is for my mental recovery for me to be speaking with the son of God on a regular basis.”

“Oh,” said Josh. “I never looked at it that way.”

“I’m only saying,” I said.

“Would you rather I go away? And not come back?” 

I thought about this for a second, as Ursula and Freddy traded some hot licks.

“No, Josh,” I said. “I don’t want you to go away. The thing is, I prefer my life this way. I suppose I am insane.”

“Oh, but you’re not insane, Arnold.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” I said.

“Oh, my God, those two are killing me,” he said, meaning Freddy and Ursula. “Okay, look, I need to go to the men’s room.”

“You’re okay?”

“Oh yeah. Just have to pee. Which way is it?”

“Go over toward the stage, then make a left.”

“Right.”

He set off around the bar. He was definitely staggering now.

Freddy had a tip jar set up on a little table next to his stool. There was also what looked like a glass of water on the table, and an ashtray.

Josh stopped in front of the stage, stuck his hand in his khakis pocket, brought out what looked like a twenty, and stuck it in the tip jar.

Freddy nodded to him as he played his accordion, smiling, but then Freddy is always smiling.

Josh went around the corner toward the rest rooms.

Freddy was singing a new song now:

“Life is a book that we study. Some of its leaves bring a sigh.”

(Continued here, and for approximately 14,789 more installments. Kindly refer to the right hand column of this page to find what is quite often an up-to-date listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, all of it absolutely free, gratis and for nothing, although donations will be accepted in aid of the Arnold Schnabel Society’s Annual Schnabel Festival, details forthcoming.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 150: paradise

2009-07-08T04:36:00.014-04:00

Let’s rejoin our hero Arnold Schnabel and his friend and personal savior “Josh”, on the seaside promenade of Cape May, New Jersey, on this fateful night in August of 1963...

(Scroll down or go here to read our previous chapter, or click here to be magically transported back to the beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning masterpiece, which the noted critic Harold Bloom has called “perhaps the greatest American memoir, at least until Sarah Palin's comes out”.)

Up on the promenade we both took a look back, but no one was following us.

“We’re probably okay,” said Josh. “That was pretty strong weed I gave them.”

“Let’s keep moving though,” I said.

“Right.”

We went over to the steps to the street. The two kids were down there, waiting for the light to change. They glanced up at us, and I looked away, I think Josh did also; neither of us wanted to embarrass them further.

Josh took out his cigarettes and offered me the pack.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said at once. “I forgot, you’re trying to quit.

I had actually raised my hand to take one, because I had once again forgotten all about quitting, but now I lowered my hand, reluctantly I admit. I was only human, which was more (or less) than Josh could say, who shook one up and put it in his mouth.

“So, what do you think?” he said. “One more drink for the road?”

“I thought you said that last one was going to be the last one,” I said.

“That’s true,” he said, lighting up. “But I wasn’t counting on being hijacked by a pack of lunatics before we could enjoy a drink together.”

I sighed.

“Do you know you sigh a lot?” said Josh.

“Yes,” I said. “I was born sighing.”

The light changed. The guilty young couple hurried across the Beach Drive.

“So odd,” said Josh, obviously enjoying his smoke. “This concept of shame. They were only doing what comes natural after all.”

“Maybe shame is natural,” I said.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go, before the lunatics realize we’ve flown the coop.”

We went down the steps and across the road.

“Well, I understand if you just want to turn in,” said Josh.

“It’s just it’s been a really long day,” I said.

“No, I understand, really, Arnold. I’m being selfish.”

We headed up Perry Street, we were only a few blocks from my aunts’ house.

But then I suddenly realized what a stick-in-the-mud I was being. Here I was being invited for a nightcap by the son of God, and I was playing hard to get. What was my problem? It wasn’t as if one more drink was going to kill me.

“Okay,” I said. “One more.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Great. The bars are going to close soon anyway, right?”

To tell the truth, most of the Cape May joints stayed open till three, but I didn’t mention that.

“Where should we go?” asked Josh. “Back to the Mug?”

“No,” I said. “Steve and Miss Rathbone might still be there. And Larry.”

“Oh, right. It wouldn’t exactly be a quiet drink then, would it?”

“No,” I said.

“What about that Negro bar? Pete’s?”

“I think I might have some friends there, too.”

“You and your friends.”

“A week or so ago I had no friends.”

“So where should we go?”

“Let’s try the Pilot House,” I said.

We turned up Carpenter’s Lane. I realized then that Josh was swaying and staggering slightly.

“Josh, are you okay?”

“Sure,” he said, although he continued to walk in anything but a straight line. “Oh, how’s your leg by the way?”

My leg would have been a lot better if people wouldn’t keep reminding me of it.

“Not so bad,” I said, although as soon as I said this of course a shot of pain ran up from my ankle to my knee and then remained there.

“Hold on a second,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just stand still.”

I stood still.

“Okay,” he said. He looked all around. No one was nearby.

“All right, I really shouldn’t do this, but I do have certain privileges.”

He hunkered down in a squatting position before me.

“Josh --”

“Just hold still. Get your mind out of the gutter, Arnold.”

He put his cigarette in his mouth, and then placed both his hands on my sore leg, running them lightly down from my knee to the top of my Keds. Then he removed his hands and looked up.

“All right,” he said. “Take a couple of steps.”

I stepped around him, walked a few paces and then back to where he still squatted there, smoking his cigarette.

“How’s it feel?” he asked.

“Feels good,” I said. “A little numb.”

“But it doesn’t hurt.”

“No. Just a little numb, like a shot of Novocain, I guess.”

“The numbness should wear off.”

“Great, thanks, Josh.”

“My pleasure.”

He started to rise up, but he lost his balance and fell back, landing on his backside.

“Ow,” he said.

I went over, extended a hand, helped him up.

“Okay, I guess I am a little drunk,” he said. “I’m not really used to alcohol.”

“Maybe we should skip the drink, Josh.”

“Oh, no, just one beer.”

“Well --”

“One beer. I promise.”

“All right. One beer.”

He brushed off the seat of his khakis and we continued on our way.

It was true, my leg didn’t hurt any more, although I had to be careful of my step because of the numbness.

“Oh, wait, you know what we should do?” he said.

“No.”

“Re-light one of these babies.”

And he took his stubbed-out reefer out of his shirt pocket.

“Josh,” I said. “We can’t do that.”

“There’s nobody around.”

Actually a quick glance around confirmed that there were indeed a few pedestrians coming now from both directions on the block.

“What if a cop drives by?” I said.

“He won’t know what it is.”

He tossed his cigarette away, put the reefer between his lips, took out his lighter and lit it up.

We continued our walk.

 “You want some?” he asked.

“No thanks,” I said.

“No one’s going to know, Arnold.”

He held it right out in front of me. It did smell enticing.

“Well -- all right.”

I took it and had a few drags. Not that I was any expert, but it seemed like good stuff.

“The thing is,” said Josh. “It gets a little boring up in my father’s house. I like it down here. What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About the world.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Just okay?”

He took the reefer from my fingers.

“It’s okay as long as you’re not sick, or in pain,” I said.

“But you’re not in pain now, right?”

“Not currently, no. But --”

“But what?”

“A lot of other people are,” I said. “At any given moment.”

“Well, that’s true,” he said, puffing away. “That is a basic flaw in the set-up I suppose.”

He took one more good drag, then handed the reefer back to me.

He let out the smoke in a great redolent cloud.

“This is why all these religions believe in heaven, in paradise,” he said. “People really want to believe they’ll wind up in a place where they’ll be happy and not ever be in pain.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

I took a drag.

It occurred to me that even if we did get stopped by a cop, that Josh would probably be able to get us out of it.

But then it also occurred to me that he hadn’t been able to get himself out of the jam when the police came to arrest him in Gethsemane.

“If only they knew,” he said, holding out his hand for the reefer, which I passed to him.

“Knew what?” I said.

“Just what it’s really like, up there.”

“Yeah,” I said, remembering all those empty hallways and empty rooms in his father’s house. The waxed floors, the empty vases.

“Oh, good, the Pilot House,” he said, because suddenly we were now outside it. He started up the steps to the entrance.

“Wait, Josh,” I said.

“What?”

“You’d better put that out.”

“Oh, right.”

He put out what was left of it on the railing, then dropped the stub back into his shirt pocket.

“Okay, let’s go have a beer.”

“Just one,” I said.

“Just one, buddy.”

(Continued here, unless we are legally enjoined to cease and desist. Please look to the right hand column of this page to find what purports to be an up-to-date listing of links to all other available chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. Soon to be adapted as a 120-part “telenovela” on Telemundo, Tren De Ferrocarril Al Cielo, starring Antonio Banderas as Arnold and Javier Bardem as “Josh”; produced and directed by Larry Winchester.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 149: miracle

2009-07-03T13:43:00.011-04:00

Cape May, New Jersey. (Frank's Playland to the right.)

Let us return to Sid’s Tavern (“Why sit and suffer on the beach when you can come right across the street and enjoy our frosty refreshing quart-size mugs of frothy cold Ortlieb’s beer?”), in the seaport and resort of Cape May, NJ, a town which at the time of our story (August of 1963) could still reasonably be described as “quaint”.

(Scroll down or click here to go to our previous episode. Go here to see the first chapter of this Gold View Award™-winning memoir from the exalted hand of Arnold Schnabel.)

“To be honest,” I said, “I’m improvising here.”

“Did you really want to smoke pot with these maniacs?”

“Oh, no," I said. "But look, we’d better go.”

I could see the group of them standing just outside the open doorway, looking in at us, ready to give chase should we try to escape through a back exit.

Slowly Josh and I walked together through the mob.

“All I wanted was to tie a quiet load on in peace,” said Josh.

“I know,” I said. “The only safe way to do that is just to stay home, I’ve found.”

“Kind of depressing, that.”

“Yes, there is a trade-off.”

We got to the doorway.

“Great,” said Jack Scratch, “all assembled. Let’s go across.”

Without bothering to go down to the corner, and pulling Miss Evans along, he started jaywalking across Beach Drive, and the rest of us followed. Traffic was light, and none of us was run over. Josh and I went last. We all walked along the other side to the steps that led up to the promenade near Frank’s Playland, which had closed for the night.

“Come on,” said Jack, “we’ll go down and around Frank’s. No one will see us there.”

Looking profoundly suspect, the seven of us went across the promenade and down the wooden steps to the beach side.

“Why are we going to the beach?” said Mrs. DeVore, not for the first time.

“We’re gonna get high, baby,” said Jack, over his shoulder.

“Get high?”

She started to drag her feet but St. Thomas pulled her along.

“Don’t worry, milady,” he said. “You’re in good hands.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, honey,” said Bob DeVore, and then he fell down in the sand on all fours. “I’m all right!” he said, although no one had asked.

Finally we were all standing in the shadows of the seaward side of Frank’s, by those enormous wooden pilings sunk in concrete on which it rests. The arcade had been hit hard by the northeaster of the year before, and this side of Frank’s had been rebuilt, but it was still the same old Frank’s, sticking out grimly and implacably over the beach.

Up above, the great sky had clouded over, and about fifty yards away the ocean did what the ocean does, splashing around either side of the rock jetty there. The beach smelled of dead seaweed and damp sand.

Jack knocked his pipe empty against a piling, stuck the pipe in a jacket pocket, then reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a thin tightly-rolled reefer.

”Who’s got a light?” he said.

“I do,” said DeVore, and he brought out a lighter.

“Bob --” said Mrs. DeVore.

“Relax, love,” said Thomas, taking out another reefer from his own shirt pocket.

“Wait, what’s that?” she said.

“What?” said Thomas.

Devore had lighted Jack’s reefer and was now lighting Thomas’s.

“There’s someone in there,” she whispered, pointing into that stygian gloom beneath Frank’s.

Everyone held still and silent, even Jack.

Sure enough there emerged from out of the blackness among those pilings the sounds of a pair of grunting and panting human beings, a male and a female.

“Someone’s being murdered,” hissed Mrs. DeVore.

“Far from it,” said Jack, quietly, drawing in the smoke from his reefer and holding it in. “Here,” he said to Miss Evans, “take a hit.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said.

Thomas had also taken in a lungful, and he offered his reefer to Mrs. DeVore.

“What is it?” she said.

“Ganja. Bhang. Muggles. Weed.”

“What?”

“Marijuana,” said her husband.

“Oh no I couldn’t.”

“I’ll try some,” said DeVore, and he took the reefer from Thomas’s fingers.

Meanwhile the groaning and the yelping beneath Frank’s approached a crescendo.

“Listen to those two go at it,” said Thomas.

“There are indeed certain advantages to being human,” said Jack. “Hey, Gerty, don’t bogart the joint, babe.”

Miss Evans had been puffing steadily away on the reefer.

“What?” she said.

“Pass the doobie. We’ve only got these two left.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. I wish we had more. This makes me feel --”

She stared at the reefer’s glowing end. The sea crashed, the lovers moaned and groaned and yelped.

“Like what?” said Jack.

“Like the queen of the world,” she said.

“I told you it was good stuff,” said Jack. “Pass it to Josh.”

“Oh. Yes,” she said. “Joshua.” She looked at him, and she took another puff. “You handsome devil.”

“Far from it, Miss Evans,” said Thomas. “At least the devil part.”

“Oh, really,” she said.

“Gertrude, pass the joint,” said Jack.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, and she offered the reefer to Josh. He shrugged slightly, dropped the cigarette he’d been smoking to the sand, and took the reefer.

 “Wow,” said Bob DeVore meanwhile, puffing away, “I feel, I feel -- I feel --”

“Pass it to Arnold, Bob,” said Thomas.

“What?” said DeVore.

“Pass the joint, old man.”

“Oh, okay.”

He passed it to me, what was left of it. It was wet with his slobber.

“I’ll pass,” I said. I handed the reefer delicately over to Thomas.

“Christ, Bob,” said Thomas, looking at the soggy little stick in his fingers.

“I feel holy,” said Bob.

Meanwhile the groaning and yelping under Frank’s had ceased, replaced now by heavy breathing, a few soft unintelligible words, sweet nothings I suppose.

“What we should do,” said Jack, taking the reefer back from Josh, “is go back to Pete’s before they close, and score some more.”

I had been waiting for another one of my brainwaves and now I finally got one. I leaned close to Josh and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, looking very bored. He had been holding in smoke, and now he slowly let it out.

I mouthed the words, “Loaves and fishes.”

He cocked his head, looking puzzled.

I nodded toward the reefer that Thomas was trying to smoke, keeping the wet end separate from his puckered lips and sucking deeply.

Fortunately Bob DeVore had resumed talking, loudly, about how holy he felt, and Miss Evans was simultaneously expanding on the theme of her queenliness.

“Loaves, and fishes,” I whispered.

“Oh,” said Josh. “Right.”

“What are you two rascals whispering about?” said Jack, smiling, but looking suspicious.

“I completely forgot,” said Josh. “I have some on me. Here.”

He reached into his khakis pocket and brought out a handful of reefers, and not like the skinny ones that were already being smoked, but big fat ones.

“Wow,” said Bob DeVore.

“Here ya go, everybody,” said Josh, and he handed everyone a reefer, even Mrs. DeVore. “Good stuff, Jamaican.”

“Oh, good,” said Miss Evans. “Now we don’t have to go through this tedious passing ritual.”

“That’s right,” said Josh.

Jack and Thomas put out what was left of the two thin reefers with their fingertips and dropped them back into their pockets, and in a matter of seconds everyone was individually smoking one of Josh’s fat reefers, even Mrs. DeVore. I had lit one to be polite and not to draw attention to myself, but I only took a couple of small puffs.

“I want you to tell me,” Jack Scratch said to Miss Evans, “why has none of your books ever been made into a motion picture?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” said Miss Evans.

“Oh, but this latest one is so cinematic in its possibilities. I have good friends in Hollywood. Perhaps I could help you.”

“Really? Do you think so?”

“Oh yes indeed.”

“How do you like it, Mrs. DeVore?” said Thomas, running his finger along her bare plump arm.

“Like what?” she said.

Josh tugged on my shirt. I looked at him. He nodded.

“I have to take a pee,” he said.

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

“I would love to have Rock Hudson play the part of Julian,” said Miss Evans. “In fact I wrote it picturing Rock Hudson.”

“Brilliant,” said Jack. “I know Rock’s agent. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Josh and I started quietly sidling away.

“Where are you two going?” said Miss Evans.

“We have to pee,” repeated Josh. “We’re just going round the corner.”

“You only just took a pee, Arnold,” said Miss Evans. But then she seemed not so sure of it. “Didn’t you?”

“I drank a lot of beer,” I said, shrugging.

“I really feel like God,” said Bob DeVore.

“I feel like I can see the air,” said Mrs. DeVore.

"You have such a charming way about you, Mrs. DeVore," said Thomas.

“And who do you see for the female lead?” Jack said to Miss Evans.

“Oh. Natalie Wood?”

“Natalie, great. I’m friends with her agent too.”

Without another word Josh and I turned around the corner of Frank’s and back the way we had come.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said in a low voice.

“So you don’t really have to pee?”

“Oh, I have to pee all right, but it can wait.”

"We'd better put these out," I said, meaning the reefers.

We stopped just long enough to stub them out on one of the pilings, and we pocketed the extinguished remains.

Just then two young people came out from under Frank’s ahead of us, a teenaged boy and girl. They looked at us, and then ran for the steps up to the promenade.

We followed right behind them.

(Continued here, and until the seas are all dried up. Kindly turn to the right hand column of this page for what might well be a complete listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “The literary equivalent of really good sinsemilla.” -- Harold Bloom)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 148: be cool!

2009-06-30T03:30:00.022-04:00

The time: a sultry Saturday night in August of 1963.

The place: Sid’s Tavern (“Had enough of the hot crowded beach? Come across the street and enjoy one of our quart-size frosted mugs of ice-cold Ortlieb’s beer!”), in the quaint seaside resort of Cape May, New Jersey.

Dramatis Personae:

Bob DeVore: an average clod.

Mrs. (unknown first name) DeVore: Bob’s wife.

Gertrude Evans: author of the bestseller (“Shocking.” -- J.J. Hunsecker) Ye Cannot Quench.

Jack Scratch: second-tier demon.

St. Thomas Becket: martyr.

“Josh”: son of God.

Arnold Schnabel: son of man

(Kindly scroll down or click here for our previous chapter; go here for the beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning memoir. ”The one book I’ll be sure to bring with me to the federal pen.” -- Bernie Madoff)

We headed back down through the crowd. The “Sugar Shack” song was playing now, and Thomas and Jack forged ahead of us, both of them staggering a bit, bumping into other people and each other.

Josh put his hand on my shoulder and leaned close in as we walked.

“Arnold, have you really finally taken complete leave of your senses?”

“Possibly.”

“Oh. Great. And what do we do about these other nitwits?”

He meant of course Miss Evans and the DeVores, whom we were quickly approaching.

“Just follow my lead,” I said.

In a matter of seconds our little group met up with the above-mentioned three, who once again formed a defensive wedge in our path, with Miss Evans on point.

“Well, Arnold,” she said, holding up in a somewhat martial fashion what looked like a brand-new martini, “and who are your friends, pray tell.”

“Oh, Miss Evans,” I said, “this is, uh, Tom, and this is Jack.”

“Very pleased to meet you, lovely lady,” said Jack.

She had not offered her hand, but he grabbed it up anyway and planted a kiss on her knuckles. She quickly pulled her hand away and rubbed the area he had kissed on the shiny material covering her thigh.

“And Mr. and Mrs. DeVore,” I said. “Meet Jack and Tom.”

“Call me Bob,” said DeVore, and he thrust out his hand toward Jack, who paid no mind to it but took a step toward Mrs. DeVore.

“And what is your Christian name, Mrs. DeVore?” said Jack, taking a puff on his pipe. “Provided you are a member of that proud spiritual tradition.”

“Pardon me?” she said.

“He wants to know your first name,” said Thomas. DeVore had shifted his outstretched hand over toward him, but Thomas ignored it just as Jack had done. “I wouldn’t tell him it if I were you.”

“Why not?” she asked, seeming frightened, as well she should have been.

“Pish, posh and paddle,” said Jack. “Loved your last book by the way,” he said, turning to Miss Evans.

“Oh, did you? So you know who I am?”

“But yes, of course, although I must say your dust-jacket photo does you a grave injustice, Miss Evans.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do indeed.”

So far so good.

“We were just going to step outside for a minute,” I said.

“Oh, really,” said Miss Evans. “Why?”

Jack performed an exaggerated dumbshow of pretending to smoke a cigarette and holding in the smoke.

“You’re already smoking a pipe,” said Miss Evans. “Why do you need to go outside to smoke.”

Jack stepped even closer to her, he was so much shorter than her that his nose was almost between her breasts. Looking up, he whispered, smiling, “Gage, sweetheart. Wacky tobaccy. The good stuff. Spade tea, baby.”

“Oh, dear.”

She turned to me.

“You never fail to surprise me, Arnold.”

I shrugged.

“What are they talking about, honey?” said Mrs. DeVore to Mr. DeVore.

“Wow,” he said, in a loud voice. “You guys are really gonna smoke mari--?”

“Shhh,” went Thomas. “Discretion, old man.”

“Oh, sorry,” said DeVore.

Josh had kept quiet through all this. He lifted his great mug, polished it off and put it down on the bar. Like magic the bartender was there again.

“Another one, sir?”

“No thanks. What do I owe you? For my friend Arnold, too, and, uh, for this lady.”

“Oh, on the house!”

“Thanks.”

Josh reached into his pocket, came out with a twenty-dollar bill that looked like it had come fresh from the mint, tossed it on the bar.

“Oh, thank you, sir!”

“They do like you here, Joshua,” said Miss Evans.

“Yeah, well --”

“I wonder,” she said, “if I may join you gentlemen outside.”

“Can we come too, fellas?” said DeVore. “I’ve always wanted to try mari-”

“Shhh!” said Thomas. “Be cool, man.”

“Oh! Sorry!”

“Wait, go where?” said Mrs. DeVore.

“You don’t have to come, Gladys,” said Miss Evans.

“My name’s not --”

“Oh, but we want to come!” said Bob DeVore.

“The more the merrier,” said Jack. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” said Mrs. DeVore.

“Just across the street,” said Jack. “To the beach.”

“To the beach? At night? Why?”

“Shhh,” said DeVore, “be cool, honey.”

“Let’s split,” said Jack. “Finish your drink, Miss Evans.”

She lifted her martini and polished it off in two gulps. Jack took the glass out of her hand and put it on the bar.

“Great,” he said. “Allons-y!” He took Miss Evans’s arm. “Brains and beauty! My kind of gal!”

She picked her shiny black purse up off of the bar top.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.

“Oh no, of course not!”

“I still don’t know why we’re going to the beach,” said Mrs. DeVore.

“All will be revealed,” said Thomas. “May I take your lovely wife’s arm, Bob?”

“Uh, yeah, sure, Tom,” said DeVore.

“Cheers,” said Thomas, and putting his arm in Mrs. DeVore’s he started pulling her toward the door.

Jack was yanking on Miss Evans’s arm, but she held her ground and addressed me.

“You are coming, aren’t you, Arnold?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. I took one last drink from my mug and then put it down even though it wasn’t empty.

Jack pulled Miss Evans along after Thomas and Mrs. DeVore.

“Hey, wait up,” said DeVore, and he followed.

Josh turned to me.

“I hope you know what the hell you’re doing, pal,” he said.

(Continued here, and until someone or some thing stops us. Please go to the right hand side of this page to find a possibly up-to-date listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. A J. Arthur Rank Production.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 147: masterplan

2009-06-25T02:04:00.004-04:00

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, to Sid’s Tavern (“Let our cold beer and bracing cocktails assuage the trauma of yet another day spent senselessly broiling on the hot blistering beach.”), in the then-still somewhat quaint seaside resort of Cape May, NJ, as our hero Arnold Schnabel chooses songs on the jukebox while his friend “Josh” feeds the machine with his inexhaustible supply of dimes.

(Go here to see our previous episode, or here to return to the first chapter of of this Gold View Award©-winning memoir by the man Harold Bloom has called “the working-stiff’s Proust”.)

In the meantime some other song had been playing, the one about does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight.

“What about ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down’?” I asked.

“You know what?” said Josh. “Let’s just blow.”

He dropped the rest of his dimes into his trousers pocket.

“But we’ve still got some songs to play,” I said, always the cheeseparing German.

“Leave them for someone else, Arnold. Come on, let’s make like a breeze.”

“Well, look who it is,” said someone behind us.

We both turned, and who did we see but Jack Scratch and Thomas Becket. It was Jack who had spoken.

“Walking the earth, I see,” said Jack, to Josh. “Walking among men. With your good friend Arnold here.”

Josh took his eternal cigarette from his mouth, dropped it to the floor, and stubbed it out with his sandal.

“We were just leaving, Jack,” he said. “We left some songs on the jukebox if you want to play them.” 

“Yeah? Any good teenage devil music in this box?”

“Lord,” said Thomas Becket, “don’t listen to him. He’s high.”

“We’re both high, you mean,” said Jack.

“Well, that’s true,” said Becket.

They both looked considerably more rumpled than they had when I’d last seen them, as they were leaving the Ugly Mug. St. Thomas had what looked like a ketchup stain on his white shirt, and the top of his head was askew again.

“Okay, great,” said Josh. “See you later, fellas.”

“Wait, dear Lord,” said Becket.

“Just call me Josh, Thomas.”

“Josh -- I was wondering, now that I have you here. I was wondering, is there any chance, that your father, and you of course, and the Holy Ghost --”

“We don’t really call him the Holy Ghost any more, Thomas.”

“The Holy Spirit?”

“Yes, what is it.”

Even though Josh had just put out a cigarette he took out his pack of Pall Malls from his shirt pocket. I suppose he really didn’t have to worry about cancer or emphysema.

“I was just wondering --” said Thomas.

“Yes?” said Josh. He shook up a cigarette, put it between his lips.

In a flash Becket had a lighter out and was giving Josh a light, although it took him about four tries to get the flame going.

He spoke very quickly now:

“I was just wondering if there was any chance at all that the, uh, the ban on martyrs might be lifted, that we, or at least some of us, might be allowed into your father’s house --”

“Forget it, Tom,” said Jack.

“I didn’t ask you, Jack Scratch,” said Becket.

“Excuse me,” said Jack.

He pulled his pipe out of his seersucker jacket, dropped it. I bent down to pick it up for him, and I did, but he bent over also, and our heads bumped. He staggered backwards and I grabbed his arm.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ve taken worse knocks he said,” rubbing his bald pate. I noticed that the horn bumps on either side of his upper forehead were visible again.

I handed him his pipe.

“Thank you, my good man.”

He reached into one of his jacket pockets again and brought out a faded leather tobacco pouch.

St. Thomas was still standing there holding his lighter.

“Are you two quite finished with the music-hall act?”

“The music-hall act is never finished,” said Jack Scratch, and he proceeded to load his pipe, spilling handfuls of tobacco onto the floor.

“So, Lord --” said Thomas, to Josh.

“Josh, Thomas,” said Josh.

“Josh, what do you think? Any chance at all of me getting into your father’s house? Just on a provisional basis perhaps? Perhaps I could be a sort of, I don’t know, a doorman?”

“We already have a doorman. Named Peter.”

“Or I could take people’s coats, and hats, or --”

“Look, I don’t make the rules, Thomas,” said Josh.

“But, Lord --”

“Josh.”

“Josh -- for almost seven hundred and ninety-three years I’ve been down here, wandering, wandering --”

“Ha!” said Jack. He thrust his tobacco pouch back into his pocket and grabbed Thomas’s lighter out of his hand. “Ha!”

“What?” said Becket.

“Seven hundred and ninety-three years.” Jack clicked the lighter but it wouldn’t light. “Kid stuff. I could do seven hundred and ninety-three years standing on my fucking head.”

“Well, fuck you, Jack.”

“What’s the matter with this lighter.”

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“Piece of shit thing.”

He kept clicking it, but it wouldn’t light.

“That’s a Ronson,” said Thomas. “Finest lighter money can buy.”

“Piece of shit.”

Josh had his own lighter out now, and he gave Jack a light.

“Well, thank you, sir.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Josh.

“Here, take your lighter back that doesn’t work,” said Jack to Thomas.

“Nothing wrong with this lighter,” mumbled Saint Thomas, taking the lighter. He clicked it, but it didn’t light.

“Ha,” said Jack, puffing great clouds of sulfurous smoke from his pipe.

“It must need fuel,” said St. Thomas.

“All right, see you later, fellas,” said Josh.

“Wait,” said Thomas, “Lord, Josh -- can you at least talk to your father?”

“Okay, sure.”

Josh tried to get past, but Thomas put his hand on his arm.

“And the Holy Ghost? I mean the Holy Spirit?”

“Next time I see him,” said Josh.

“I mean,” Thomas said, “Arnold here got into your father’s house, right?”

“True,” said Josh. He pulled Thomas's hand off of his arm.

“Well --” said Thomas.

“Well what?”

“Well, I’m sure Arnold’s a nice chap and everything, but look at me, I went up against King Henry, I -- I may have been misguided in my zeal, but I -- I stood for something --”

“Look, I’ll talk to the other two, okay?”

“Oh, splendid. Splendid. That’s all I ask.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“No, no, of course not. Of course not --”

“You’re doomed, Tom, face it,” said Jack, smiling, puffing on his pipe.

“Oh, bugger you, Jack,” said Thomas.

At the other end of the bar I saw Miss Evans, standing now. The DeVores were still with her, and they were all looking at us.

I began to have the faint glimmering of an idea. Yes, I have ideas.

“Hey, wait,” said Jack. “Listen, you boys want to get high?”

“What do you mean?” said Josh. 

“Tea. Muggles. Mary Jane. We picked up some dynamite stuff at that Negro bar.”

“I don’t think so,” said Josh.

“Come on, don’t be a square. How about it, Arnold? We can go across to the beach.”

I didn’t quite know what my plan was yet, and yet I felt it beginning to take form.

“Okay,” I said. “What the heck.”

“Are you serious, Arnold?” said Josh.

“Sure,” I said. “If I drink any more I’m just going to get hungover.”

“Well, if you want to --”

“There you go,” said Jack. “Arnold’s no square.”

“No square indeed,” said St. Thomas.

(Continued here. Kindly see the right hand column of this page for an up-to-date listing of links to all other published episodes of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. This project made more possible than it would otherwise be by a generous grant of Betty Crocker Savings Coupons from the Arnold Schnabel Society of Philadelphia, PA.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 146: huge

2009-06-19T04:12:00.010-04:00

Welcome back to Sid’s Tavern (“A refreshingly cool and dark oasis right across the street from the sun-blasted purgatory of the beach.” -- J.J. Hunsecker), in the quaint seaside resort of Cape May, New Jersey, where our memoirist Arnold Schnabel stands awkwardly at the bar between the stools occupied by his friend “Josh” and the implacable authoress Gertrude Evans, on this long Saturday night in August of 1963...

(Scroll down a post or click here to see our previous episode; go here to see the first chapter of of this Gold View Award©-winning memoir.)

Miss Evans said nothing but stared intently into my eyes.

I looked away. Some rock and roll song with no words had been playing, and now there was one of those pauses that happens in the universe of a bar, when one song goes off the jukebox but another one hasn’t come on yet, and all you hear is people shouting and laughing into the void.

“I’ll tell you why, Arnold,” she said.

I had already forgotten what it was she was talking about, and what she now proceeded to say did nothing to enlighten me, because just as she began to speak -- leaning slightly toward me, but speaking not in the somewhat high and trilling tones she had been using but in a low and more serious-sounding voice -- unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, all I could hear was this new song that had come on the jukebox, Lesley Gore singing about how it was some other girl named Judy’s turn to cry. I could see Miss Evans’s lips moving, and I heard some sort of vocal noise coming out from between them, but I hadn’t the faintest notion what she was saying. I suppose I could have leaned forward, or asked her to speak up, or both, but instead I just nodded my head in time to the music.

Finally the song faded away. My head was still nodding I think.

“So you agree?” she said.

“Oh. Yes. Absolutely,” I said.

“This is why I like you, Arnold. You’re very astute.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Isn’t he astute, Joshua?” asked Miss Evans.

“Pardon me?” said Josh. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t been paying attention either.

“Isn’t Arnold astute?”

“Oh, sure,” said Josh.

I was thinking that I could make it through this as long as songs kept coming on the jukebox. Another one about a guy with two faces came on, and I lifted my great mug to take another drink of beer when someone clapped me on the back, causing me almost to chip a tooth on the glass.

“Arnie, baby!”

It was DeVore, and with him of course was his wife. He held a partially consumed manhattan in one hand, she held both a manhattan and a martini.

“I thought you were gonna come join us at our table,” he said.

I would rather die, I thought, but all I said was, “Um.”

DeVore thrust his free hand past me toward Josh.

“Bob’s the name, fella, Bob DeVore.”

Josh rose from his seat again and shook DeVore’s hand.

“My name’s Josh.”

“Pleased to meet you, Josh. And this is my little lady --”

He said her name I think, but don’t ask me what it was. It sounded like Radish, but that couldn’t be it.

“Hello,” said Josh.

Mrs. DeVore made some chirping noises, and I noticed Miss Evans lowering her eyebrows at her. She spoke, and now I could hear her clearly over the music.

“Listen, we’ll be over in a little while.”

“Why not come over now?” said Mr. DeVore.

“Arnold and Joshua and I are having a private conversation.”

“What are you talking about, Arnold?” asked DeVore.

He had me stumped.

“Uh,” I said. “Um.”

“Look, we ordered you a martini, Gertrude,” said Mrs. DeVore. She raised up the pristine martini. “Very dry, just the way you wanted it.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Miss Evans polished off the martini she was already holding, put it down, then took the fresh one off of Mrs. DeVore. “We’ll be along in a minute.”

“You promised,” said Mrs. DeVore.

“In a minute,” said Miss Evans brightly, but firmly.

“But --” said Mrs. Devore.

“Perhaps two minutes,” said Miss Evans

Mrs. DeVore started to cry.

“Oh, please don’t start blubbering, Gladys. It’s silly cows like you who give our gender a bad name.”

This didn’t help. Mrs. DeVore began to emit a sound like a police car siren drawing closer and closer.

“Frank,” said Miss Evans, “you’re her husband. Make her stop this hideous keening.”

“My name’s Bob.”

“Bob. Make her stop. Stop it, Gladys.”

“My name’s not Gladys,” sobbed Mrs. DeVore.

Josh, who had halfway re-seated himself, now got up again with his beer mug.

“Where are you going, Josh?” said Miss Evans, putting a hand on his arm.

“Just going to play the juke box,” said Josh.

“Hurry back.”

“Oh, I will,” he said. He pulled his arm free, tapped me on the shoulder.

“Come on, Arnold, help me choose some tunes.”

“Oh, I really don’t know much about music,” I said.

“Sure you do. Come on.”

Now he grabbed my arm, firmly, and pulled.

“Okay,” I said.

“Play something lively,” said Miss Evans.

“Play some Kingston Trio!” said DeVore.

“Play some more Lesley Gore!” said Mrs. DeVore, snuffling.

“Sure,” said Josh, and he pulled me along and down through the throng to the other end of the bar where the jukebox was.

When we got there he said, “Don’t look back.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of dimes, and began dropping them into the slot.

“Punch some songs in, Arnold.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“It doesn’t matter. Anything.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Arnold,” he said, dropping in his dimes from his seemingly inexhaustible supply, “I’ve spent forty days and forty nights in the desert, surviving off the flesh of insects. As you well know I was brutally scourged, and then nailed to a cross. I spent three days in a tomb.”

“Yes, I know.”

I saw a Kingston Trio song, “Tom Dooley”, so I punched in the numbers and letters for that one.

“I’ve been through battles, Arnold. I’ve stood toe to toe with Beelzebub himself on a crag in the Atlas Mountains, fencing with thunderbolts. For thirty-six hours we dueled in a blinding tempest.”

“Did you win?”

“I didn’t win exactly but I fought him to a draw. Play another song.”

I saw a Lesley Gore, so I played that one.

“I don’t scare easily,” said Josh. “But that woman scares the hell out of me. How do you deal with her?”

“I try to avoid her.”

“Why didn’t you run away just now?”

“To be honest I was planning to do that after I finished my beer.”

“And leave me alone with her?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Well, I guess I can’t blame you. Look, let’s both make a run for it.”

“She’ll only follow us if we leave together,” I said. “And so will the DeVores.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Damn. Oh, wait. Play that one. ‘Please Please Me’.”

“The Beatles? Never heard of them.”

“Trust me, they’re going to be huge.”

I punched in the song.

(Continued here, and indefinitely if not infinitely. Please refer to the right hand column of this page to find a listing of links to all other extant episodes of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, as serialized on the Chock Full O’Nuts Dramatic Showcase Hour, hosted by Oscar Levant, on the DuMont Television Network.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 145: intrigued

2009-06-15T21:15:00.006-04:00

In our previous episode of this Gold View Award©-winning masterpiece our memoirist Arnold Schnabel introduced the hot-blooded novelist Gertrude Evans to his friend “Josh” at Sid’s Tavern (“Right across from the beach and within staggering distance of your hotel”), in the quaint port of Cape May NJ on this strange hot night in August, 1963...

“So,” she said, “Joshua, what is it exactly that you do?”

“Do?”

He had drunk half of his triple whiskey in one go. I hoped he could handle it.

“Yes. What do you do. For a living. If anything.”

The bartender appeared with Josh’s fresh quart of beer.

“Ah, thank you,” said Josh. “Here, wait --”

He placed his cigarette in an ashtray, then lifted his half-drunk quart mug to his mouth, and, leaning progressively backward, drank its contents in four continuous gulps.

Then he leaned forward, smiling, and handed it to the bartender.

“Take it away, my good man.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Miss Evans.

Josh wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What was the question again?”

“What, if anything, is it that you do for a living?”

“For a living?” he said. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

He picked up his cigarette, and tapped its ash into the tray.

“Now I am intrigued,” said Miss Evans. “And where if I may be so bold as to ask do you get the shiny shekels to pay for your drinks and your cigarettes?”

Josh seemed to consider the question for a moment. Or maybe he really couldn’t handle his booze and he was just being slow on the uptake.

“I suppose you could say I get my shiny shekels from my father.”

“Oh, and is he very rich?”

“Oh, yes.” He drew his fresh quart mug closer. “That guy has all the shiny shekels in the world.”

“And are you your father’s son and heir?” asked Miss Evans.

“His only son,” said Josh.

“Oh really.” said Miss Evans. “Now I am very much intrigued. So tell me, Joshua, what do you do with yourself all day since you don’t have a job.”

Josh drew on his cigarette before answering.

“I watch things,” he said.

“You watch things.”

“Yes, and I listen.”

“You watch and listen.”

“That’s about it.”

Josh lifted his mug, one hand on its handle, his other hand cradling its bottom.

“But you don’t do anything,” said Miss Evans.

He smiled.

“Watching and listening is what I do, Gertrude.”

He took a small drink, nodded approvingly, as if to say the first quart is always good, but the second one is even better.

I don’t know about those two, but I felt that this conversation was very likely and very soon about to drive me to the point of climbing up a wall, or, more probably, to throwing down my own quart-size mug and running screaming out of there.

I decided to finish my beer as quickly as possible, make my excuses, and take my leave, come hell or high water (and the way this night was going I wasn’t about to discount the possibility of either).

Miss Evans had been regarding Josh from under her lowered dark eyelashes. She picked up her martini and took another drink.

“How did you know who I was, Joshua?” she asked. “Have you read my books?”

“Oh, sure,” said Josh.

“I am more and more impressed. Not too many men read my books.”

“I read everything,” said Josh.

“Oh do you,” she said.

Finally Josh’s face seemed to betray boredom, as if he had suddenly realized just then that not only was this as good as this conversation was going to get, but that from here on out it was only going to get worse, and very probably much worse.

“Which of my books is your favorite?” Miss Evans asked him.

And it occurred to me right then that as boring as all this was at least I had been excluded so far from active participation. So I had that to be thankful for.

“My favorite of your books,” Josh said, after seeming to ponder the question a moment. “Well, I guess I like the most recent one best --”

“Ye Cannot Quench.”

“Yeah.”

“Arnold’s reading it now.”

“Right,” said Josh. “What do you think of it, Arnold?”

So much for me being thankfully excluded.

“It’s uh, really -- really incredible,” I said.

“Oh, thank you, Arnold,” said Miss Evans.

“You’re welcome.”

“And how far along are you?” she asked.

“Well, um, I’m a very slow reader.”

“I’m happy you’re reading it at all. As I say, usually men don't appreciate my work. And do you know why? Do you, Arnold? Yes, I can see by your expression you do know. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know, or you don’t know that you know?”

I took a deep drink of beer before answering.

“I don’t know,” I said. “And I also don’t know if I know.”

(Continued here, and until Josh only knows when. Kindly go to the right hand column of this site to find a listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “Schnabel makes Proust seem terse.” -- Harold Bloom.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 144: “Guess there's no use in hangin' 'round. Guess I'll get dressed and do the town...”

2009-06-11T05:25:00.011-04:00

Previously in this Gold View Award©-winning memoir our hero Arnold Schnabel was headed for the men’s room at Sid’s Tavern (“Why sit on the hot nasty beach when you can sit in here and drink an ice-cold beer?”), in the quaint seaside town of Cape May NJ on this momentous night in August, 1963...

I waded through the crowd and no one else tried to stop me. I pushed the men’s room door open; fortunately one urinal was unoccupied, although guys were using the other two urinals and both stalls, while another two fellows were at the sinks, running water over their combs and combing their hair.

I did what I had to do, sighing with relief, and then I zipped up and flushed.

I’ll admit I did look to see what avenues of escape this men’s room might afford, and there was indeed a double louvered window, but it was about eight feet above the floor, and I couldn’t see myself trying to climb through it in front of all these men. I do have some standards. I walked over, waited patiently for one fellow to put the finishing touches to his hairstyle, then I stepped up, rinsed and dried my hands. I had no comb, but I gave my hair a couple of pats. I felt that I looked no more insane than the average man.

But they were waiting out there for me.

I needed to take a firm hand.

These people didn’t want just me, no, they wanted my last few shreds of sanity, soaked in my life’s blood...

But, I attempted to reason, hadn’t I fought off the blandishments of Jack Scratch? Hadn’t I -- with Dick Ridpath’s stout help -- saved the world from destruction at the claws of Mr. Arbuthnot’s cat Shnooby? Had I not successfully resolved the thorny problem of Clarissa?

Very well, if I had done all of the above, and I was pretty sure I had, then surely I could extricate myself from the clutches of three mere humans like Miss Evans and the DeVores…

“Hey, pal, you finished with the sink?”

This was a fellow standing beside and just a little to the back of me.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, and I stepped aside.

“Lost in thought, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.”

It seemed to me that he was showing signs of wanting to continue the conversation, so I hurried to the door, and out.

Sure enough they were still there, standing midway between me and Josh. They formed a wedge-shaped phalanx, Miss Evans in her shiny dress a couple of paces closer to me than her minions, with Mr. DeVore to the right and Mrs. Devore to the left. As I walked slowly but purposefully through the crowd and down the bar the three of them held their ground, not advancing, but obviously poised and ready to wheel around the split second I might try to outflank them, or to give rapid pursuit should I turn tail and try to escape through the kitchen.

The surfing song had gone off and now it was a song about wishing to have a hammer.

“Hello, Miss Evans,” I said, as I came up to her.

I attempted to go to her right but Mrs. DeVore slipped directly into my path.

“What’s the big hurry, Arnold?” said Miss Evans. “Have a drink with me.”

“Yeah, have a drink with us, Arnie,” said Mr. DeVore.

Miss Evans stepped between Mrs. DeVore and me. She mouthed the words, “With me.”

“My friend is waiting,” I said.

“That beach bum.”

“He’s my friend.”

“Introduce me.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Miss Evans.”

“Gertrude,” she said.

“Gertrude,” I said.

“Introduce us to your buddy,” said Mr. DeVore.

“I think he’s cute,” said Mrs. DeVore.

Miss Evans pressed herself against me, again.

She mouthed the words, “Introduce me, not these idiots.”

“Miss Evans --”

“Gertrude.”

“Gertrude,” I said.

I was on the verge, the very verge of telling her to leave me the hell alone, that she was driving me crazy, or crazier, and so were the DeVores.

But I lost my nerve.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll introduce you.”

“Us too?” said Mr. DeVore.

“Yes,” I said. “Everyone.”

“Oh, but we’ll frighten him if we all descend upon him at once,” said Miss Evans. “Frank, why don’t you and Gladys --”

“My name’s not Frank,” said Mr. DeVore.

“And my name’s not Gladys,” said Mrs. DeVore.

“Oh yes of course I know that, I call everyone Frank and Gladys, ha ha, listen, you two go back to our booth, I’ll go over to the bar with Arnold and see if I can convince him and his raffish friend to come join us.”

“Are you sure?” said Mr. DeVore.

“Quite sure. Order me another martini. Tell the waitress to make it drier next time. Very dry.”

“Dry,” said Mr. DeVore.

“Just a kiss of vermouth.”

“Right,” he said.

“Please come right back, Gertrude,” said Mrs. DeVore.

“In a jiffy,” said Miss Evans, and putting her arm in mine she pulled me away.

She put her lips near my ear.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll ditch those two.”

We came to where Josh sat. His quart mug of beer was half-empty, and his whiskey glass was completely empty.

A new song had come on the jukebox, “Can’t Get Used to Losing You”, and Josh was nodding his head to the music, staring at nothing in particular. As usual, he was smoking a Pall Mall.

“Hello, you,” said Miss Evans.

Josh turned and looked at her.

“Hello,” he said, getting up off his stool.

“So you’re the famous friend of Arnold,” she said.

“I have that privilege.”

“I’m Gertrude,” she said, offering her hand.

“Gertrude,” he said, taking her fingers in his. “Don’t tell me. Evans. Novelist. Age --”

“That will do, thank you,” she said. “But it is so nice to be recognized. And your name is?”

“Jesus,” he said, and he kissed her hand.

“What?”

She drew her hand away.

“Josh,” I said, quickly. “Josh, Miss Evans. I mean Gertrude.”

“Why did you say Jesus?” she said to him.

“Oh, I meant, uh, ‘Jesus, you’re a very attractive woman.’”

“Oh. Well thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Josh is it?”

“Joshua. Josh. Whatever.”

“I’ll call you Josh.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Evans.”

“Gertrude, please, Joshua. Any friend of Arnold’s.”

“Gertrude, then; may I offer you a drink?”

“Perhaps a martini.”

She slipped onto the empty stool next to Josh’s, the one that was supposed to be mine, with my untouched quart mug of beer in front of it on the bar.

Jesus raised his finger and hey presto the bartender was there.

“A martini for the lady, please,” said Josh.

“Thank you,” said Miss Evans to Josh, and to the bartender she said, “Tanquerary, very cold and very, very dry.” She touched the bartender’s hand. “Like a bone in the desert.”

“Very dry,” said the bartender.

“And another Old Forester for me,” said Josh. “I suppose you may as well make it another double. Oh, and bring me another one of these big boys,” he said, pointing to his quart-size mug, “thank you. Here, sit down, Arnold.”

“No, you sit, Josh,” I said. “I prefer to stand.”

Actually I figured it would be easier for me to make my getaway if I stayed standing.

“Okay,” said Josh, and he sat back down on his stool. “Drink up, Arnold, I’m way ahead of you.”

Using both hands he passed me my full mug of beer, then picked up his own mug again and took a good drink.

“So you like your beer, do you, Josh?” said Miss Evans, standing her purse on the bar top.

“Oh, yes,” said Josh. “Beer, grog, mead...”

“Ha ha.”

She opened the purse, it was hard-looking, shiny and black. She took out a cigarette case, clicked it open, extricated a cigarette and waited for one of us to be a gentleman. I had no lighter but Josh quickly grabbed up his and gave her a light.

The bartender laid a martini down before her and another triple shot of whiskey for Josh. In all my years as a barfly I had never seen a bartender perform his job so quickly.

“I’ll be right back with the beer, sir,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Josh.

Miss Evans raised her glass. Josh put down his beer mug and lifted his whiskey glass.

“To new friends,” said Miss Evans.

They both touched their glasses to my beer mug, and then they touched theirs.

We all drank.

“Oh, good,” said Miss Evans. “Finally a perfect martini. You must have pull around here, Joshua.”

“You might say that,” said Josh.

(Continued here, and ad infinitum if not ad nauseam. Please refer to the right hand column of this site to find a listing of links to many other fine chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “Not just a book but a way of life.” -- Harold Bloom.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 138: dawn

2009-06-08T23:29:00.010-04:00

And so we come at last to the close of Larry Winchester’s sprawling masterwork. (“I finished it wishing for at least another thousand pages.” -- Harold Bloom)

(Go here to review our previous chapter. Newcomers, or old-timers who simply want to re-live the glory, may go here for the first chapter.)

Finally Dick and Daphne and Rafael walked us back, through the old streets, the old buildings leaning in toward us. The Ridpaths’ apartment was right down the street from our hotel, on Claude Bernard. Everyone kissed and hugged and shook hands goodnight, then they walked off and we went into the hotel.

Heather and I went up to the third floor in the grill-work elevator.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“They are so cool,” she said. “I wish you had friends like them back in L.A.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

We didn’t say anything specifically about Rafael. I didn’t want to torture her.

We had adjoining rooms. I kissed her good night.

I lay in bed but now I couldn’t sleep. And I didn’t mind not sleeping.

There was a wrought-iron and glass door that opened out onto a very small iron balcony overlooking the street below, the rue Broca. I went out onto the balcony, just wearing my boxer shorts, and I put my hands on the railing. I looked out at what I could see of that bunched-up, crammed-up old neighborhood, and I looked up at the sky. It was a pale bluish grey. A few tiny stars. I breathed it all in. There was a bakery on the corner and I could smell bread baking.

I had one of those moments where you become aware of your solitude in life and in the universe. Then I thought of my daughter in there sleeping in the next room. Occasionally a car drove by. Above me the sky was lightening, morning was coming on. The earth turned beneath my feet.

I heard a knocking from inside my room, and I went back in. Was Heather up too? Did she want to talk? She probably wanted to talk about Rafael.

“Be right there,” I said to the door. I hadn’t turned a light on, but I could see around the room well enough. I went to the door, opened it.

Mr. MacNamara was standing there, smoking a cigarette. To his right was Buddy Reilly, to his left was Brad. They all looked a little older, but not nineteen years older.

“How ya doin’ Harvey?”

“Okay, sir,” I said.

“Call me Mac, kid.”

“Mac,” I said.

“Gonna invite us in?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Come on in.”

I stepped back, they all came in. I shook hands with them in turn, Mac, Buddy, Brad.

“Good to see ya, pal,” said Buddy.

“How’s it hangin’, soldier?” said Brad.

Brad closed the door. I went over and sat down on the bed.

There was a sort of easy chair by a small table, and Mac sat down in that. There was one other chair, but Buddy and Brad both chose to stand.

“You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” said Mr. MacNamara, holding up his cigarette.

“No, not at all,” I said. “Oh, let me put a light on --”

I started to reach for the lamp on the bed table.

“You don’t have to,” said Mr. MacNamara. “It’s nice like this.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Sorry for showing up out of the blue like this, Harvey,” said Mr. MacNamara.

“That’s okay, sir, I mean, Mac,” I said.

“Do you mind if I light a cigar?” said Brad, and he pulled a leather cigar case out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I could stand by the window.”

“No, not at all,” I said. “I’m a cigar smoker too.”

“Oh, take a few of mine, then,” he said, and, coming over, he clicked the case open.

“Cubans,” he said. “Can’t get these back in the States. Not legally, anyways.”

There were four cigars in the case. Cohibas.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll just take one for later.”

“Take three, just leave me one. I got a whole box.”

“Well, okay.” I took three from the case, and laid them on the night table.

Brad went over by the balcony.

“Me, I gave up smoking,” said Buddy.

“Good for you, Buddy,” I said.

He stood there with his hands in his pockets. Mr. MacNamara and Brad were both wearing suits, but Buddy wore a grey windbreaker and a pair of khakis, a madras shirt.

“Harvey,” said Mr. MacNamara; there was an ashtray on the little table next to his chair, he reached over, slid it closer, tapped his cigarette into it; “the reason we’re here is we have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “That is, if you would like to hear it.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”

The End

(Thank you to everyone who has read this far, and much thanks for the many kind comments and e-mails. Kindly look to the right hand side of this page to find a complete listing of links to all other chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, soon to be a major motion picture provided the financing doesn’t fall through again.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 143: the weight

2009-06-04T02:24:00.014-04:00

Let’s rejoin our hero Arnold Schnabel, as he enters Cape May’s historic Sid’s Tavern* with his personal lord and savior, Josh, on this momentous night in August, 1963...

*“Slake your thirst after a broiling hot day at the beach with Sid’s famous ‘Quart of Ort’ -- a 24oz frosty mug of Ortlieb’s premium pilsner -- and assuage your pangs of hunger with Sid’s equally renowned quarter-pound pretzels.” -- Walter Winchell

(Click here for the previous episode of this Gold View Award©-winning memoir, or here for the first chapter.)

The place was packed. It was Saturday night, past midnight, the height of the season.

I leaned close and put my hand near Josh’s ear.

“I really don’t see a spot for us, Josh. Maybe we should just --”

“O ye of little faith,” said Josh. “I do have certain powers you know, Arnold.”

Facing the bar, he raised one finger and gently waved it back and forth. Two men who had been sitting near each other rose up in their seats and slid their stools away from each other, leaving a gap of about two-and-half feet near the street end of the bar.

“Let’s go, pal,” said Josh, and we squeezed in at the bar.

A bartender stopped washing some glasses and came right over to us.

“How may I serve you, O Lord?” he asked, looking somewhat frightened, and shooting a nervous glance at me.

“What are you drinking, Arnold?” asked Josh.

“Oh, just a beer, I guess --”

“How about a shot, too?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d better.”

“Well, suit yourself.” He turned to the bartender, who was still standing there, leaning forward. “Two of those famous quart mugs of yours, uh, Ortlieb’s I guess --”

“Oh, Josh --” I said.

“Yeah? Change your mind about a shot?”

“Well, no --”

I was trying to get the word in edgewise that I only wanted a normal-size mug of beer, but Josh turned back to the bartender.

“And just one shot please.” He turned to me again. “What’s a good whiskey, Arnold?”

“Uh, I don’t know, Old Forester?”

“A shot of Old Forester,” said Josh to the bartender. “Better make it a double, thanks.”

The bartender hurried off down to the beer taps.

“I don’t know, buddy,” said Josh. “I know I told you not to drink too much tonight, but -- don’t you ever just feel like getting plastered sometimes?”

“Sure,” I said. To be honest I felt like getting plastered practically every day. “But, um --”

“What?”

“Well, never mind --”

“No, tell me.”

“Well, it’s just that I would have thought that you, um --”

“That I would be above such urges?”

“Well --”

“Son of God and all that?”

“Well, yeah --”

“So, I suppose I'm meant to be -- what -- without pain? Above pain?”

“Well, no, of course not,” I said.

“And I’m not talking about the pain of being scourged and crucified.”

“Oh,” I said.

“It’s not all fun and games for me, Arnold. Imagine just for a moment having the whole weight of the world on your shoulders. Literally.”

A new song had come on the jukebox. “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

“I’m not whining, mind you,” he said. “It’s just sometimes it all gets to be a bit -- much. And that, my friend is why I’m looking forward to this.”

He smiled as the bartender laid down two enormous foaming frosty mugs of beer.

But right now a new problem presented itself. Just the sight of these two huge flagons of beer had suddenly made me realize that my bladder felt likely to burst at any moment, or at the very least to produce an embarrassing stain in my bermudas.

“Um, Josh,” I said.

“What?” He pulled his great mug closer with both hands, and smiled as the bartender filled a rocks glass with about six fingers of Old Forester.

“I have to, uh -- you know --”

“What, Arnold?"

"I have to go to -- um -- I have to --"

"Oh," he said. "Hit the head?”

“Yes.”

“Go in peace.”

He lifted his right hand from his mug to give me his blessing.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” he said and he turned back to his beer and his whiskey.

I headed back towards the men's room through the crowd. “Surfin’ USA” was still on the jukebox. How odd, I thought, that there should be songs about riding a plank of wood on a wave. But why not? Certainly people never seemed to grow tired of singing about romantic love, or about the love of God. Why not the love of a sport? Why not ski ball, for instance? And why were there so few if any songs about darts, or snooker --

“Arnold!”

A man gripped my arm. It was Mr. DeVore.

“Where you been, pal? We’ve been looking for you all night?”

His wife bobbed up next to him, ducked under his arm and put her own arm around my waist.

“Arnie!” she cried. Even in this crowded and smoky place the two of them reeked of the unmistakable smell of Manhattans, Four Roses Manhattans if I had to make a guess, and quite few of them.

Suddenly two slender but strong bare arms separated the two DeVores, wrenching the couple free of me, and Miss Evans pushed herself up against my body.

“I knew you would find me,” she said.

Her smell was of Martinis, not Fleischmann’s or Banker’s Club but the good stuff, Tanqueray at least.

“I was just going to the men’s room,” I said.

“You and the toilet. You love to go to the toilet, don’t you?”

“I don’t dislike it,” I said.

“I suppose you’ve been drinking like a fish.”

“No.”

“At that Pete’s place you said you were going to fetch the waitress. But you disappeared. Where did you go?”

“I, uh, had an attack. Of insanity. So I ran out.”

“Oh you and your vaunted insanity. And are you sane now?”

“Um, partially --”

And getting less so by the second I could have added.

“You naughty man,” she said.

“Excuse me, Miss Evans --” I said.

“Gertrude.”

“Gertrude -- I really have to go to the men’s room.”

“Oh, very well, then. We’ll talk when you emerge. I’ve been waiting to catch you alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Who are you with? That, that Greek girl?”

“She’s not Greek --”

“Italian, whatever. I can see you’re drawn to hotblooded Mediterranean females. But what of the austere poetic passion of the northern woman. I wonder if you’ve read Jane Eyre? Or the Nibelungenlied.”

“No,” I said.

“Where is she? Your dusky Gypsy?”

Miss Evans turned away to scan the bar in the direction from which I had come.

“I’m not with, uh, her,” I said. “I’m with a friend.”

“A friend? Who? Where?”

I pointed over her shoulder, down the bar at Josh, who was lifting his titanic frosted mug of beer to his lips with both hands; Miss Evans and both the DeVores turned to stare at him.

“That bearded fellow?” said Miss Evans.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hmmm,” said Miss Evans, turning back to me, “he seems a rather louche character. You do intrigue me, Arnold.”

“I really have to go,” I begged.

“I’m not keeping you," she said, although she was gripping both my arms tightly.

Without another word I pried her hands away from my arms, turned, and continued on my way to the men’s room.

By this time I had to go so badly that I decided that if there was a line I would just run madly out, duck across the street and the boardwalk, and go down among the dark pilings underneath Frank’s Playland.

(Continued here, and at this rate, well into the latter half of this century. Kindly go to the right hand side of this page to find a listing of links to other chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “I always take Schnabel with me to the beach.” -- Harold Bloom.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 137: the movie

2009-06-02T17:35:00.007-04:00

What’s better than being in a smoky jazz club in the Latin Quarter of Paris, in the company of old friends you haven’t seen in nineteen years? Nothing, that’s what...

(Go here to read our previous chapter, or here to return to the beginning of this Gold View Award©-winning epic from the 1950 Royal portable of Larry Winchester, “Perhaps the only novelist working today who can be mentioned in the same breath with giants such as Tolstoy, Dickens, Balzac, or Schnabel.” -- Harold Bloom.)

After a while Dick asked me what I knew about the old Disdain gang, and I filled him in, what I knew. They were pretty much all still alive, even Paco and Doc Goldwasser, except for the English dude, Derek, who had OD’d on alcohol way back in the early 70s...

Dick kept saying, “Do you ever see…” or “Do you ever hear from…” and I had to keep saying no, no, sorry, no.

“Even your friend, what was his name, Skip?”

“Tip.”

“Tip --”

I told him no, you know how it is.

“Yeah. Yeah, people wander --”

“Or they don’t wander,” I said.

“Yes, there are those,” said Dick.

“Yeah.”

“We meet people sheerly at random,” said Dick. “Circumstances throw you together for a while. But then the circumstances change.”

“And we change.”

“Yeah, we change,” he said. “We get older, anyway."

I suddenly realized that he wasn’t smoking; so, yeah, things change.

“What about Hope?” I said. This was the first time that I had asked about someone.

Dick said, “Oh, Hope,” and I suddenly remembered what I had not thought of when I asked the question, namely that she was Rafael’s actual mother. And I had no idea what, if anything, Rafael knew about her. I leaned closer to Dick.

“Am I being indiscreet?” I said, low.

“Not at all,” said Dick, also speaking low. “But may I ask you another question?”

“Consider me an open book.”

“Do you still get high?”

“Are you holding?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Darling,” said Dick, to Daphne, who was still deeply in conversation with Heather and Rafael. “Harvey and I are going to step out for some air.”

She waved at us, and went back to her conversation with the kids.

Dick and I went out, he suggested we go down to the bridge that was right down the street, the Petit Pont, and we did.

We stood in the middle of the bridge and leaned against the rail on our elbows, looking down at the river and at the cathedral of Notre Dame off there to the left, beyond the Pont au Double. Dick pulled out a joint out of his shirt pocket, we lit it up.

We had chatted about the neighborhood ever since we left the club, nothing heavy, but now, after four or five tokes of this extremely powerful weed -- and really, would Dick have any other kind -- he said, “So, you were asking about Hope?”

I was so stoned already I said, “I was?”

“Yeah,” said Dick.

“Oh, right, now I remember,” I said. “Hope. The dope on Hope.”

“Right,” said Dick. “I suppose you didn’t hear about her?”

“What?”

I was expecting him to say she had died. Overdose? Suicide? But no --

“She went insane.”

“Really?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Wow.”

To tell the truth I wasn’t surprised.

“How did she go insane?” I asked.

“How?”

“Stupid question,” I said.

“No,” said Dick, “not really.” He toked, held it in, then he let it out slowly, the smoke drifting off upriver. “She went insane kind of slowly and sporadically at first, and then all at once.”

“When was this?”

“I guess it was about five years ago that she went totally cuckoo. We hadn’t heard from her for a year or so, and then one day I got a call from Big Jake. He wanted me to find her, because she had been calling him at all hours, raving, apparently, about, uh, beings. From the, uh, sky. From the heavens.”

“Beings.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe she wasn’t raving,” I said.

Dick sighed.

“Jake wired me some money, and I went looking for her. I found her on Mount Olympus, in Greece.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I was.”

“What was she doing on Mount Olympus?”

“Waiting for the gods to come down.”

“Oh. So she really was, uh --”

“Yeah,” said Dick.

“So what did you do?”

“I called Jake. He came out to Greece. We managed to get her into a hospital in Athens. Jake stayed, I went back to Paris. After a while he he got her transferred to a sanitarium in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She’s been there ever since.”

“Damn,” I said. “Even my mother didn’t know about this.”

“That’s because Jake keeps it all on the QT. But it’s a very nice place she’s in. We go to visit her there every year. Daphne and Rafael and I.”

“And what is she like? I mean --”

“She seems happy enough. She’s in her own world. Spends a lot of time working in the garden.”

“Damn. So -- Rafael -- he knows that she’s his, uh --”

“Oh, yes. He’s always known she was his real mother, since he was old enough to understand, anyway. And she would come to visit us every once in a while, before she went completely wacko.”

“And how does he -- how does Rafael --”

“Deal with it all?”

Dick had been bogarting the joint for a while, and I took it out of his fingers.

“Oh, sorry,” he said.

I toked.

“What did you just ask me?” said Dick.

“I was wondering about Rafael,” I said, holding in the smoke.

“Oh, right. Well, I guess he just accepts the situation. What else can you do?”

I let out the smoke.

“You can piss and moan,” I said.

“Oh, that’s not Rafael,” said Dick.

“Good,” I said. "Nobody likes a pisser and moaner.”

“No, not unless you can be funny about it,” said Dick. “Entertaining.”

“Right,” I said, staring up along the gleaming river, past the bridge up ahead, staring at the electric-lit spires of the cathedral. “Um --”

“What?” said Dick.

“I just had a really disturbing flash.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Remember how that Frank dude said that the human race was just like this big entertainment industry for those outer space guys? Well, what if everything that happened to us back then, including the whole business with Frank, those motorcycle guys, all that shit, what if the whole thing was, was just a big movie for those outer-space people. I mean, it might not have been completely scripted, but, who knows, maybe Frank and those guys were like actors, improvving, playing off what we did, while the whole thing was being broadcast back home, like a movie, or a mini-series --”

“Wow,” said Dick. “That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah.”

It was me who was bogarting the joint now. Dick took the joint gently from my fingers, took a small toke, held it in, let it out.

“Here’s a thought,” he said. “What if the movie’s still going on? What if this is part of the movie?”

He waved his open hand. The bridge we stood on, the river, the church, the city, the stars, the world, and us.

We said nothing for a while, then Dick put out the roach, put it into his shirt pocket, and we headed back to the club.

(Conluded here. Kindly go to the right hand side of this page to find what might well be an up-to-date listing of links to all other possible chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™. “One of those books you want never to end, and it almost doesn’t.” -- W.H. Auden.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 142: just one

2009-05-29T00:24:00.011-04:00

Previously in this Gold View Award©-winning memoir, our hero Arnold Schnabel (having freed himself of that capricious and larcenous doll Clarissa) paused, cigarette packet in hand, at the head of some steps leading down from the boardwalk in Cape May, NJ, on this warm night in August, 1963...

“Are you going to smoke one of those, or are you just torturing yourself?”

It was him. Josh. He was still in his beach-bum attire, the wrinkled khakis, the faded Oxford shirt with tails untucked, the sandals, with his stubbly growth of sandy beard, his longish sun-streaked hair, and his eternal Pall Mall between two fingers.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he said.

“Oh, sorry -- it’s just -- it’s hard to get used to. You turning up.”

“I understand. What you been doing?”

It had only been a half hour or so since I had left him at the Ugly Mug, but a lot had happened; I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into it, though.

“So you really don’t know?” I asked.

“No, I told you before, even I am not quite omniscient. Why? Did you have some new adventure?”

On second thought I was sure I didn’t want to go into it.

“No, not really,” I said.

“Which means, ‘Yes, really’,” he said. “But, look, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s all right. What happened to that weird doll by the way?”

“Oh. Well, if you must know, she turned into a living girl.”

“What?”

“She had made a deal with this Jack Scratch guy --”

“Jack Scratch?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a guy that’ll never quit.”

“Oh, you know him,” I said.

“Oh, sure. I knew him even before he went over to the other side. He’s in town here now, y’know.”

“I know, I met him tonight.”

“You did? And did he try to get you to sign one of his contracts?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you didn’t.”

“No,” I said.

“Unlike this doll, or girl, what was her name?”

“Clarissa.”

“So what was her deal?”

“Well, she wanted eternal youth -- this was back in 1910 --”

“1910?”

“Right, she signed a contract for eternal youth, and he gave it to her, but the twist was she had to spend eternity as a doll.”

“Typical. So how did she turn into a real girl?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It must have been you, Arnold. Your special powers. I mean, you know you have them, right?”

“I suppose so. Unless I’m just insane.”

“Which is always a possibility of course,” he said. “Where are you headed?”

“Home,” I said.

“Come on, I’ll walk you. The light’s green.”

We went down the steps.

“Oh, you never did light one up,” he said, gesturing toward the pack of Pall Malls I still held in my left hand.

“Oh, I guess I’ll hold off a while longer,” I said, and I put the cigarettes and the matches back in my pocket.

It was then that I realized that I still had that fountain pen that Mr. Arbuthnot had given me, for services rendered. It and its case were still in my left pocket, the little bag that held the jar of ink was in my right pocket. It occurred to me that I might do well to divest myself of these things at the first opportunity.

“So where’s the girl?” asked Josh. “Your friend Clarissa.”

We were walking by the movie theatre. A crowd of people were leaving it, and its showing of A Gathering of Eagles, with Rock Hudson.

“Well, she seemed to be having trouble adjusting, so --”

“Why don’t you get a haircut and a shave, buddy,” said some big guy who apparently had come out of the theatre with what I suppose must have been his wife.

“What?” said Josh.

“I said why don’t you get a shave and a haircut?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business, pal?”

“What are you, a beatnik?”

“I’m your personal lord and savior, although believe me, right now I almost wish I weren’t.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“You trying to get wise?”

“I don’t have to try. Everything I say is automatically wise.”

“Punch him, Henry,” said the man’s wife, she must have been that. “He’s being blasphemous.”

“I assure you, madam, that I am constitutionally incapable of blasphemy,” said Josh.

“Why don’t we just step over to the beach and I’ll teach you a lesson,” said the man.

“No, thanks,” said Josh. “I’ll take a pass.”

“Coward.”

“Coward? Have you ever been scourged, my friend?”

“Scourged?”

“Whipped. Brutally. Here, look.”

Josh put his cigarette in his mouth and quickly unbuttoned the top three or four of the buttons he had buttoned on his shirt, and, shrugging it off of his shoulders, he turned his back to the man.

Josh’s back was horribly scarred.

“Oh my God,” said the woman, her hand over her mouth.

“Yes?” said Josh, turning to face the two again.

He pulled the shirt up to his shoulders and began to rebutton it.

“Hey, I’m sorry, buddy,” said the man.

Some people had stopped to look at Josh, but now they moved on, if reluctantly.

“You’re a -- veteran?” said the man.

“Well, let’s say I didn’t get those scars playing a rough game of badminton,” said Josh.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it to the pavement.

For the first time I noticed the stigmata scars on his hands.

“Look, I’m sorry, pal,” said the man.

“Apology accepted,” said Josh.

He stubbed out the butt with the sole of his sandal.

“I’ve often wondered,” said the big man, “if I were ever captured. Would I break.”

“Everybody breaks, my friend. It’s just a question of time.”

“Did you?”

“Oh yes. By the end I was pleading with my father in heaven. Why me?”

“We should go, Henry,” said the woman.

“Okay,” said the man. “See ya, buddy. Sorry.”

He nodded to me also, took his wife’s arm, and went walking away along the sidewalk.

“This is awkward,” said Josh, “they’re heading in the same direction we are. Let’s give them a little time to get away.”

“Sure,” I said. We walked over and looked at the movie posters.

“The Great Escape,” said Josh. “This looks good. So, getting back to your girlfriend -- Clarissa?”

“Yes,” I said. “Well, to cut a long story short, I took her back to her own time.” 

“You took her back to 1910.”

“Yeah, 1910.”

Josh had been studying the poster, but now he turned his head to look at me.

“You’re getting good, Arnold. Very good. Even I can’t travel back and forth in time.”

“No?”

He turned back to the poster.

“No. I told you, my powers are vastly over-estimated. Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, James Garner, this one looks really good.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“All men, too, that’s good. Is it just me, or is it boring when they have these love stories in the middle of war movies?”

“It is, kind of,” I said. “But I think they want to give women something to watch.”

“I guess you’re right. Men like the war stories, women like the love stories. Well, I suppose it’s safe for us to move along now.” We started along the sidewalk. “How about a night-cap?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Well --”

“What?”

“A couple of hours ago you told me not to drink too much tonight.”

“You seem okay, though. One drink.”

“I really just want to hit the hay.”

“It’s early.”

“It’s past midnight.”

“It’s Saturday night. One beer.”

“I’m tired, Josh.”

“You can call me Jesus, if you want. Josh was for your friends’ benefit.”

“I think I prefer Josh,” I said.

“Cool.”

We walked by the miniature golf course. People were still playing under the bright floodlights.

“Look,” said Josh, “these people are still out enjoying themselves.”

I didn’t say anything. We walked along. Josh hummed what I think might have been a Gregorian chant.

Finally we approached Perry Street. Only a few more blocks to my aunts’ house. We came abreast of Sid’s Tavern. Its door was open. Inside revelers drank and laughed, and a jukebox played “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.

“Ah, yes,” said Josh. “The sight and sound of people having fun. But it’s okay, you can, you know, go home and lie in your bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling.”

He stopped. I stopped. He had lit another cigarette, and he stood there holding it.

“All right,” I said. “One beer.”

He broke into a smile.

“Just one, on my sacred word, Arnold.”

We went on in.

(Continued here, and, Josh willing, into the distant reaches of that unknown universe we call the future. Please go to the right hand side of this page to find a listing of links to all other extant chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “That saintly madman, that mad saint.” -- Harold Bloom.)

The Small Faces: collibosher --

My dad and my grandmom

2009-05-28T17:58:00.002-04:00

For those who have commented so nicely about my father’s letters from WWII, here’s a picture of him with his mother, before he went overseas. Her name was Rose, née Reilly. My dad would have been about twenty-two here.

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 136: the world

2009-05-26T17:10:00.004-04:00

Our previous episode found Dick and Daphne re-united by chance, after almost two decades, with the no-longer young Harvey (with his eighteen-year-old daughter, Heather) in Paris, in the summer of 1988...

(Click here to start at the beginning of this Gold View Award©-winning masterpiece from the battered Smith Corona portable of Larry Winchester, “The last of the giants.” -- Harold Bloom, on The Charlie Rose Show.)

We had been sitting outside the café for almost an hour after lunch, and Daphne and Heather were really hitting it off, just chatting away. I had fallen into a contented fade-out, sipping my beer and smoking a cigar, watching the people go by in the sunlight.

Then Dick leaned over toward me and said in a low voice:

“She looks just like Attie.”

“Except for the braces on her teeth,” I said.

“You’re a lucky guy.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Excuse me for asking, Harve, but -- you’ve never gotten married?”

“I’m seeing a woman back in L.A. It looks like we’re headed in that direction.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

Right about then a very handsome and tall young guy wearing a backpack over one shoulder came strolling up to the table. He looked like an Italian soccer star.

“Rafael!” yelled Daphne.

He bent down and he and Daphne kissed each other French-style on both cheeks. Then he punched Dick on the shoulder American-style and Dick feinted with a left and punched Rafael with a right to his shoulder.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Rafe.”

“Rafael,” said Daphne, “I want you to meet one of our oldest friends and his simply stunning daughter: Harvey and Heather.”

I shook Rafael’s hand, which was about twice as big as mine. Rafael’s eyes were having trouble not darting over to Heather.

Rafael and Heather then said hi to each other, and shook hands. They were both blushing. Rafael looked around, saw an empty chair at another table and pulled it over. Daphne and Heather wordlessly made room between each other, and Rafael sat down between them. He started to take off his backpack and Heather helped him with it.

“This is too perfect,” said Daphne.

Rafael and Heather started to chat together, about school, where they were going to college that fall...

Daphne put her hand on my thigh. This felt good.

Yeah, it was all too weird, but what else was new? I half expected Old Mr. MacNamara to come strolling up.

Speaking of:

“Hey, how’s your father, Daphne?” I asked.

I was very jet-lagged, and on my fourth glass of red wine. I put my hand on her hand on my thigh.

“Oh, Papa died, I’m afraid. Again.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She drew her hand away. Too bad, I’d been enjoying that.

She put the ends of her fingers on her wineglass. White wine, shining in the sunlight.

“He was on some sort of expedition, in the Gobi Desert, along with Buddy Reilly and that Brad person. Remember Brad?”

“Brad Dexter? Sure I remember him.”

“Brad,” she said, and she paused a moment. “Well, anyway, apparently, they all went out in their jeep together, the three musketeers, out into the Gobi, and then they got lost and ran out of gas and, well, their jeep was found out there in the wastelands, but -- no Papa, no Buddy, no Brad. Nothing. Neither hair nor hide.”

She took up her glass of wine and took a sip, swirled the wine in the glass, then put the glass down again.

“It was -- a very Papa way to go,” she said.

****

After a while Heather and I went back to the hotel and took naps, and later we all hooked up again and had dinner at some Moroccan joint in the Quarter. Then we all walked around showing Heather the sights.

Finally we wound up in this very smoky basement jazz club. A band led by an American trumpet player was playing, and Daphne and the kids were all leaning together on the other side of the table; I couldn’t really follow their conversation over the music.

Dick and I had been doing some more catching up through the evening. He’d never heard the whole story about Attie finally dying back in 1980, the letter I got from my mother, and me dragging my ass back to Disdain and taking custody of a daughter I hadn’t known I had.

“You never knew,” said Dick.

“I never knew. I’d never gone back home again. I wrote Attie a few times after I left, but all she ever sent me were like two-sentence post cards, and then after a while even those stopped. My mom used to write fairly regularly, but she never mentioned a baby.”

Dick and I were leaning close to each other. I had been gazing through the smoke at the band. I turned my head to look at him. He was looking intently at me.

“I realize now I was a complete asshole,” I said. “Never even going back for a visit to my mom. But I just couldn’t do it.”

“How is your mother?” asked Dick, moving on.

“Fine. She moved out to L.A. to live with us, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s good, you know, to have a woman around for a kid.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, what did I know about taking care of a kid?”

“Right. And how does your mom like L.A.?”

“Fuckin’ loves it. She wanted to work, so I got her a job with a craft services company at MGM. Fuckin’ loves her job. Everybody on the lot loves her, too.”

“Well, that’s really nice, Harve.”

“Yeah. And it kinda makes up for all the years when I wouldn’t visit her. I guess.”

“I’d say so.”

“Y’know, I thought Attie was barren,” I said.

“You did? Why?”

“Because that’s what she told me. She told me she was barren, from radiation exposure.”

“Oh,” said Dick. “So -- she was mistaken --”

“Either that, or -- or she, uh -- she --”

“What?”

“She wanted to have a kid, but she didn’t necessarily want me to know she had a kid. ‘Cause she knew I wanted to travel around, see the world, experience life. All that shit.”

“Oh. I see.”

“She didn’t want to tie me down.”

“Right.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, you know.”

“Sure,” said Dick.

We both shut up for a bit then, and listened to the music.

(Continued here. Please see the right hand side of this page to find what may well be a listing of links to all other published chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, as seen on The Philco Television Playhouse starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Skip Homeier.)

For my father

2009-05-25T18:39:00.007-04:00

(In honor of Memorial Day I'm re-running this piece I originally published a couple of years ago in Newcritics. )

I've got this extremely fragile and yellowed page from the Philadelphia Bulletin, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1945. I keep it folded up in the back of a photo album. The page has a round-up of the latest military casualties: killed, wounded, missing, taken prisoner. My father is listed in there:

Sergeant Edward J. Leo, 22, son of Mrs. Rose Leo, 3651 N. 15th St., was wounded December 13 in Germany. An infantryman, he attended Roman Catholic High School and Simon Gratz High School. He was a truck driver, and boxed as an amateur as well as a professional.

About ten years ago my mother gave me a little greeting-card box without a lid, in a Ziploc bag. In the box are about thirty of my dad's letters home from the army in World War II. The earlier ones are written on small cheap stationery; most of the later ones are V-mail, single-sheet photocopies, five inches by four-and-a-half. (From Wikipedia: "V-mail correspondence worked by photographing large amounts of censored mail reduced to thumb-nail size onto reels of microfilm, which weighed much less than the original would have. The film reels were shipped to the US, sent to prescribed destinations for developing at a receiving station near the recipient, and printed out on lightweight photo paper. These facsimiles of the letter-sheets were reproduced about one-quarter the original size and the miniature mail was delivered to the addressee.") The letters are all signed "Bud", which was his family nickname.

Here's a bit from one dated 11/10/44, to my dad's Aunt Kate. He's stationed in England, waiting to get sent across the Channel:

I was glad to hear Franklin got in again, so were the rest of the Joes. You can see by the papers that things are going good with the war. The Nazis ought to be cracking up pretty soon...

Here's another one written on the cheap stationery, dated 11/13/44. “Jack" is my dad's younger brother):

Dear Mother, Dad & Jack:
This is me again and I'm running out of things to say. The place is pretty much of routine.

I was on pass the other night with O'Melia and Will Hazlett. Will is from Philly, he lives out around 26th & Allegheny Sts.

We were in an English Pub (taproom) spending a nice quiet evening. Their beer is nothing like ours, its kind of warm and tastes flat. They've got a dart board in every pub, just like in Philly. Their boards are the same size but the no.2 ring is about two inches outside of the cork and their game is a little bit different. They don't have any dart boards in Boston so O'Melia didn't know how to play. Me & Will teamed up and played some English men and beat them every time. They've got everything but a juke box in the pubs...

This is from 11/28/44. (My dad's father had served in the army in France in WWI.):

I visited Le Havre what a beating that place took. I traveled all through France and saw some interesting things. I probly passed through a lot of towns that are familiar to Dad. I'm now in Belgium and have it pretty nice. Tonight I'm living in a private home its a break as its teaming rain and cold outside...
I was in the field in France but I still had a turkey dinner.

Well I have to get up early tomorrow. We're having Mass. Don't worry about me as I went to confession and communion on Thanksgiving...

Here is the entirety of a later letter, a V-mail. I can't quite make out the date :

Belgium
Dear Mother Dad & Jack:

How are you? I am O.K. I went on a tour of the neighborhood with a guy last night, we went to the main part of town and its pretty nice. I even bought an ice cream sunday, the ice cream was good but nothing like ours. I bought four bars of candy for 100 franks ($2.28) they were about as big as a nestle “Babe Ruth". Cakes candy and cigarettes are about the only expensive things though. Apples are beautiful and a good deal of apple pies float around and you know how I like apple pies. There is nothing else new to say. I can use some air mail envelopes and stamps also soap. Well thats about all I have to say, I'm going to bed early to night and rest up. Write soon and tell every one I was asking for them.

Bud

P.S. Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary.

And that's about all you had room for with a V-mail letter.

This V-mail to his Aunt Kate is dated 12/1/44. He's quartered with a Belgian family:

...Another day is over and I'm in my house again. I'm getting to be one of the family. The family consists of husband and wife two grownup boys and the wife's brother. When that mob congregates with me and my two buddies (we've got a room on the 2nd floor with a double and a single bed) in the kitchen its a riot. Its an old fashion 3 story house and we sit in the kitchen and drink beer and talk. They speak flemish up here but we understand each other. The lady does our laundry for us also. They're all Catholics over here too and the church is about a mile from where I stay. I go to mass every morning I'm not too busy...

12/6/44:

I'm spending a real quiet night at home.I'm sitting here in the kitchen and the two boys Jose and Victor are playing their trombone and trumpet for me. They're pretty good and know some American songs...

There is a big gap in the letters here. My father was wounded by a mortar shell, and his left leg was amputated. Besides getting the Purple Heart that every wounded soldier got, he was also awarded a Bronze Star, but I don't know what for.

The next V-mail I have is dated 1/15/45; It's to his Aunt Edna and it's from a hospital in England:

Dear Edna:
I just received a letter from you dated the 7th. I was glad to hear from you. Yesterday I was snowed under with the mail.

I haven't received any of the packages or old mail from the Company. Where they're at they're probly not receiving mail. If I don't have any reply by the time I'm ready to leave here I've written O'Melia and will give him the authority to get all my packages. If he's still alive they'll do him more good than me back in the States. We had that agreement anyhow, whoever got hit first got the others packages.

There's not much going on here, me and the guy next to me were out in the wheel chairs all afternoon again today. We took two of the walking wounded with us today to do the pushing, yesterday we went by ourselves but it was too rough going up hill.

There is a guy bothering me, I write all his letters for him. He's got a banged up arm, tonight he got his first letters in a long time, so I guess I'll be kept pretty busy. Say hello to everyone for me and keep writing.

Bud

This is to his mother, 2/1/45. He's still in a hospital in England:

They were talking about my outfit in a news broadcast today. They're really going to town now. I wish I was with them...

Here's the last letter I have, a V-mail dated 2/23/45:

Dear Mother:
I'm still here in the other hosp. and times passing pleasantly.

Bill O'Melia came to see me Thursday and stayed till Friday. He was surprised to see me in as good shape as ever. We had a good time talking over old times. His feet are pretty good now. I hope they don't send him up to the front again when warm weather comes. At the present he's stationed at a hospital about a hundred miles from me.

I ought to be leaving here soon, I don't know when, I don't think they know theirself. I don't mind waiting though. I kind of hate to go leaving all my brothers here.

Well I don't have much more to say, tell Dad & Jack, hello!

Bud

My father never bragged about his army service, he never complained about losing his leg. He died in a car accident in 1977. This is my tribute to him.

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 141: the Admiral

2009-05-21T03:22:00.007-04:00

Let us rejoin our hero Arnold Schnabel on this sultry August night in 1963, strolling along the boardwalk of old Cape May, NJ, arm-in-arm with that ever-popular living doll Clarissa…

(Go here for our previous installment, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award-winning memoir.)

We went past the last of the boardwalk shops and amusements and onto that long stretch of the promenade on which people must fall back on the clean ocean air and the sight and sounds of the ocean and the beauty of the enormous twinkling sky, or their own devices, to ward off boredom and dread.

“How is your leg?” asked Clarissa.

I had forgotten that I was limping, just as I had forgotten that my leg hurt, but now that she mentioned it of course I became aware of both limp and pain.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“I really seem to have found myself in a pickle,” she said, getting back to herself. “What I’ll need to do is find some rich man and marry him. Something I should have done a long time ago. Do you have any rich friends, Arnold?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” I said.

Not that I would have introduced her even if I had a rich friend.

“Oh, wait,” she said, “what about this motion picture that you and your friend are going to make?”

“Yes?”

“Can’t I be an actress in it? Your what’s her name, Helen of Troy?”

“Elektra.”

“Her, she’s going to be in it. There must be some other female parts.”

“Well, I suppose so, but --”

“I have experience you know. I played Lady Macbeth in a production at Bryn Mawr.”

What had I got myself into? I needed to think, and to think fast.

“Clarissa,” I said.

“I so love it when you say my name like that. Say it again.”

“Clarissa.”

“Love it. Do go on.”

“If I’m not mistaken it was some bargain you made with Jack Scratch that turned you into a doll?”

“Yes. Drat my vanity. You see I wanted never to grow old. What Jack didn’t tell me, and what I didn’t bother to read in the fine print of his contract, was that I would spend my eternal youth as a damned doll. Pardon my language.”

“And this was when? What year?”

“Nineteen hundred and ten.”

“Okay. Well, how would you like to go back to 1910?”

“Oh, that would be marvelous. I’m sure my family is wondering where I am. Do you think you could take me back?”

“I can try.”

“You are resourceful, Arnold.”

“We’ll see. Let’s stop for a moment.”

“My, this is exciting,” she said.

“Let’s go over and look at the ocean,” I said.

We went over to the beachward rail, and we looked out at the grey empty beach, at the surf and the dark sea.

“Now what happens?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I think we should stare out at the ocean.”

“The ancient, timeless, eternal ocean?”

“Right.”

So we stared, for a minute or so. I tried to concentrate, to see the wholeness of time instead of the continuous flickerings of present moments in which we ordinarily live.

And then I saw a German U-Boat emerge from the waves only a few hundred yards from the shore, the gleaming water streaming from its conning tower in the starlight as the dark boat slid though the swells and down toward the cape and the bay.

I saw steamships from the turn of the century and then came the wooden ships, the three-masted frigates and schooners and men-of-war, I saw the canoes of the Indians and even the longships of the Norsemen.

“This is rather dull,” said Clarissa.

“Bear with me,” I said. “Tell me, when you made this deal with Jack Scratch, were you staying here in Cape May?”

“Yes, my family and I were stopping at that dreadful Admiral Hotel down the road. Do you know it?”

“Yes.”

I had on many occasions walked by this enormous pile of brick and concrete, which had recently been bought by the Reverend McIntire and re-named The Christian Admiral.

“All right,” I said. “I’m going to give this a try.”

“To take me back?”

“Yes.”

“How thrilling! What do I do?”

“Keep holding my arm.”

“Ooh, your strong manly arm. Do you exercise with dumbbells, Arnold?”

“No, but I swim a lot. Now try to concentrate, Clarissa.”

“Sorry. I will.”

“Okay, let’s start walking, nice and easy.”

“Anything you say.”

We resumed out stroll.

“Look ahead,” I said. “Do you see the Admiral down there?”

“How can I not? It’s hideous, isn’t it?”

It was about four blocks away up the curve of the beach, looming huge and monstrously, set apart from the mostly beautiful downtown area of Cape May, and just as well.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s just keep walking.”

A young couple were coming down the boardwalk. The boy wore a white t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, and blue jeans. His heavily greased hair was swept back in a ducktail. His girlfriend wore a full dress with white socks and Mary Jane shoes.

The young couple passed us, and then another slightly older couple approached. The man wore an army summer uniform of the sort I had been issued during the war. The girl had her long hair scooped up above her forehead in the fashion of those days.

“Those people look somehow odd,” whispered Clarissa.

“I know,” I said, as we passed the couple. “It’s happening quicker than I had hoped. I think we’re in the mid-1940s.”

“Oh, how wonderful!”

“I’ll need your help, Clarissa. When you see people who seem dressed like in 1910, tell me.”

“Dressed as in 1910,” she corrected me.

“As,” I said.

A 1930’s couple came up next, the man with the thin moustache and shiny hair of Clark Gable, the woman with the platinum helmet of Jean Harlow.

And so we walked back through time, through the 1920s and into the teens. By the time we reached Pittsburgh Avenue and the block dominated by the Admiral Hotel the streetlights had changed from electric to flickering gas.

“I think we’re back in my own time now,” Clarissa said. “Or close enough.”

There was no one nearby on the boardwalk, but an open Oldsmobile Limited touring car rolled past us along Beach Drive. The men in the car wore straw boaters; great multi-colored hats like flowers sat on the heads of the women.

Clarissa let go of my arm, and turned to face me.

I realized that she was wearing one of those large hats, festooned with blossoms made of satin. Her dress came down to her patent leather boots, and looking down I saw that I was wearing a white suit from the epoch, complete with spats. It occurred to me that people must have been very uncomfortable in summer in these clothes. I know I was sweating.

“Will you come with me?” she asked.

“I’d better not,” I said. “It’s late, and --”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid of getting stuck here in 1910,” I said.

“I can understand that.” She turned and looked across the street at the hotel. “I suppose I can manage it from here.”

She paused.

“Well, thank you, Arnold. Thank you very much”

“You’re welcome, Clarissa.”

“I suppose I’ll have to go back to being mortal now,” she said.

“Maybe there are worse fates,” I said.

“Don’t I know it.”

Behind us the surf crashed gently, sounding the same as it always does.

“Well, ta,” she said.

“Goodbye,” I said.

“Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

“That’s possible, I guess.”

“I’ll be so much older than you.”

“Yes.”

“More’s the pity. I could get along with a man like you.”

She went up on her toes and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“All right,” she said, “no sad goodbyes! Wish me luck!”

“Good luck, Clarissa.”

There were some steps there, and she flounced down them to the street. Before crossing though she looked back.

“Come visit me sometime, Mr. Schnabel!”

I shrugged.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Ha!”

She started across the road. A carriage with two horses was coming right toward her, but the driver reined in and put on his brakes. On the opposite sidewalk Clarissa headed purposefully toward the hotel entrance.

I watched her float up the two flights of steps, across the portico, and through the front doors.

I waited for a minute, just to make sure she was well in and not being chased or thrown out.

Then I turned, and I headed back down the boardwalk. The years and the decades drifted past me, and by the time I reached Convention Hall I was back in what looked to be 1963.

I looked down at myself and I was once again wearing my polo shirt, my bermudas, my Keds with no socks.

I heard the rock ‘n’ roll of Rockin’ Harry Hirsch and his men booming from within the hall. I stopped by the steps that led down to the drive and to the movie theatre across the way. I took out my packet of Pall Malls, and the book of matches.

The whole time I had been with Clarissa I had thought I wanted to be free of her. But now I missed her.

(Continued here, and don't worry, many hundreds of Arnold’s neatly-filled marble notebooks still remain to be transcribed. Kindly look to the right hand side of this page to find links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “With all due respect to Newman and to Augustine, perhaps the greatest of Catholic memoirs.” Msgr. Francis X. “Franny” Slattery, SJ, L’Osservatore Romano.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 135: reunion

2009-05-19T01:27:00.005-04:00

We now raise the curtain on the final act of Larry Winchester’s beloved epic, presented here for the first time in all its uncut glory...

(Click here for our previous chapter, or here for the beginning of this Gold View Award©-winning masterpiece. “This book never leaves my bathroom.” -- Harold Bloom.)

Paris, August, 1988

After checking out our rooms we were heading out the front door when who should we practically bump into on the sidewalk but, hardly the worse for wear, Dick and Daphne Ridpath.

They walked right past us and they looked older of course and they were wearing sunglasses, but I knew it was them all right. Neither of them quite caught that it was me, and after all I was wearing my shades too, but, fuck, let’s face it, I’m just not all that striking-looking. But they did both glance back. And I said, “Dick? Daphne?” And they stopped. I took off my sunglasses. And Daphne goes, “Good God. Soldier boy.”

And then she comes over and puts her hands on my arms and kisses me on the mouth.

“Harvey darling.”

She looks at Heather.

“And please don’t tell me this is your girlfriend.”

“This is my daughter, believe it or not.”

And I did the introductions.

I was amazed but come to think of it not surprised at how well they looked. Dick’s hair had gone grey but as opposed to me the fucker still had most of his hair, and he was even slimmer than I remembered him being back in ’69. Daphne had some lines at the corners of her eyes but she still had that body, a little bit more filled out but still firm looking. The pixie haircut was gone and her hair was long and lustrous, a little reddish now, and piled up on top of her head with little tendrils curling down the sides of her face. Her lipstick was a deep brownish red. And both she and Dick had very white teeth that even looked real.

Back in the old days they looked just like a pair of movie stars, and fuck them now if they still didn’t. Just older.

We all retired to an outside table at a café nearby on the rue Mouffetard called Le Bateau Ivre. This had been one of my hangouts when I spent six or seven months in Paris back in ’71, or was it ’72, whatever, it was the year Jim Morrison died, whenever the fuck that was.

Daphne told us how beautiful Heather was.

“You look just like your mother, darling.”

Heather for her part was obviously enthralled with these two, and I could tell I’d risen a notch or two in her estimation.

I hadn’t seen the Ridpaths since that September back in 1969. We had said we’d stay in touch, but that hadn’t worked out too well. I moved around a lot in the seventies, and Dick and Daphne never seemed to stay in one place longer than a month, so after a few years the correspondence dwindled away to not-quite yearly Christmas cards; and then, for the past six or seven years, nothing.

Daphne asked me what we were doing in Paris, and I told her we were on vacation.

“What about you guys?” I asked.

“We live here now,” said Daphne. “We’ve finally taken a form of root someplace. You see we wanted Rafael to have some stability and a decent secondary education.”

Rafael -- pronounced the Spanish way -- was Dick’s son by Hope, Daphne’s adopted son.

“Um, I should know this,” I said, “but, uh, did you guys ever have any other --”

“I can’t,” said Daphne. “I had a couple of miscarriages, and one almost killed me, and I had to have an awful operation where they removed half of my insides, and -- well --”

“Oh my God --”

“Oh, it’s all right now, supposedly. But it was very boring there for a while, and the upshot was I couldn’t have kids.”

“Shit, I’m sorry --”

“On the positive side it all scared me enough to get healthy. I gave up smoking, and, you’re not going to believe this, I gave up red meat.”

“Get out.”

“No, seriously. Also I practice chi kung on a daily basis, this tedious Chinese discipline that I used to make fun of Dick about. I’m absurdly healthy now. Except I do drink wine. There are limits.”

So we had lunch, and we caught up a bit. I told them a little about my show-biz career, but I didn’t want to bore Heather, so I just kept to the broad outlines, and then turned the conversation back to Dick and Daphne. They had an apartment right up the street on Claude Bernard. And amazingly, they both had day jobs now, taking American and Canadian tourists on bus tours through Paris and its environs…

But something was happening, and it had only happened to me once or twice before, this thing where you’re with someone you haven’t seen in a very long time and yet it feels like you’ve just seen them last week. Almost nineteen years and a lot of shit and here we all were again, and it felt right. A little weird, true. But weird felt normal.

(Continued here. Please feel free to refer to the right hand side of this page for what we hope might be a listing of all other extant chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, all of them free, gratis, and for nothing; donations will however be accepted in aid of the Larry Winchester Film Society’s annual Larry Winchester Film Festival at the Fern Rock Theatre, featuring a 48-hour marathon of Larry’s masterworks, including the first showing in over fifty years of Too Late The Wiseguy {1953, Dane Clark and Martha Vickers} in a brand new 35mm print restored from the original negative, in Dolby mono sound.)

The Smiths: hand in glove --

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 140: the promise

2009-05-15T03:45:00.006-04:00

Previously in this Gold View Award™-winning memoir* our hero Arnold Schnabel was seen being hustled out of Cape May’s Convention Hall and back onto the boardwalk by that imperious animated doll Clarissa, on this seemingly endless night in August of 1963...

*”As vast, as all-encompassing, as life itself; and would that our own lives could be half as entertaining.” -- Harold Bloom, in Parade Magazine.

“I don’t mind if you light a cigarette, you know,” she said.

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m supposed to be quitting anyway.”

“What on earth for? It’s manly to smoke. Oh, let’s turn down here.”

She pulled me down to the walkway to the side of the hall. The last time I had been on this pier was not two hours earlier this evening, with Dick and Mr. Arbuthnot, the three of us recoiling in horror as that enormous black cat poked his giant paw down out of the night-time sky. But halfway down the pier Clarissa stopped me by a wire-mesh trash can. She looked all around her and then reached inside the top of her dress and brought out a man’s wallet.

“Oh, no,” I said.

She took some bank-notes out of the wallet, then dropped the wallet into the trash can.

“Clarissa --” I said.

“What?”

She was counting the bills.

“Where did you get that wallet?” I said, stupidly.

“I took it from this oaf who was dancing with me.”

“But you told me you would stop stealing.”

“No I didn’t.”

She opened her little white leather purse and stuffed the money into it with the rest of her ill-gotten loot.

“Well, you have to stop it,” I said. I picked the wallet out of the trash and looked through it. “Look, this poor guy has his driver’s license in here, a Diner’s Club card, look, his library card --”

“What is your point, Arnold?”

“My point is that you have not only stolen from this man, but you’ve caused him a great inconvenience.”

“He deserved it. You should have heard the way he spoke to me. He called me ‘baby’. And he tried to rub his body against mine.”

“I’m going to take this wallet back into the hall.”

“And do what with it?”

“I’ll -- I’ll leave it with the cashier, or -- uh --”

“Oh, give it to me.”

“All right.” I handed it to her. “And I want you to put that money back into it,” I said.

She walked over to the railing opposite, and then with a side-hand gesture she tossed the wallet over the top rail and down into the dark crashing surf.

She turned to face me across the boards. Her dark curly hair swirled around her pale face in the ocean breeze.

“You’re such a bore,” she said.

I paused for about two or three seconds I suppose. Then I turned and headed back towards the boardwalk.

I had almost gotten to the front corner of the hall when I heard her hurrying footsteps behind me.

“Arnold!” she called.

I kept going, headed toward the steps that led down from the promenade.

“Arnold, please wait!”

At the top of the steps I stopped, I don’t know why, but I didn’t turn.

I felt her hand on my arm. Keeping her hand on my arm she came around in front of me. There were tears in her dark eyes.

“Please don’t leave me, Arnold. I promise I won’t steal any more. Or rob. Please don’t leave me.”

A tear slid down one of those porcelain cheeks. I took out my handkerchief, and put it in her hand, the one that wasn’t gripping my forearm, but she didn’t wipe her face.

“I’ll be all alone if you leave me, Arnold.”

“All right,” I said. “I won’t leave you.”

“Do you promise?”

A man and a woman came up the steps. The man looked at us then quickly looked away. The woman however continued to look from me to Clarissa as she and the man came up the steps and then past us. A lover’s quarrel, they thought. If they only knew.

“Promise me, Arnold,” said Clarissa.

She squeezed my arm.

“I promise,” I said. I peeled her small but strong fingers from my arm. “Look, you should wipe your face, Clarissa.”

She dabbed her eyes and her cheek, then handed me back the handkerchief. I put it back into my pocket.

“I was only trying to amass a grubstake,” she said.

“But that’s not the way to do it.”

“I know. I’ve been very naughty.” She straightened the collar of my polo shirt, although I have no idea if the collar needed straightening. “But what shall I do?” she asked. “Will you give me money?”

“Clarissa, I’m living on a half-pay disability allotment from the railroad.”

“But aren’t you helping that Larry man to write his motion picture?”

I had conveniently forgotten all about that.

“Well, yes,” I said.

“He’s probably paying you loads of money for that.”

She had backed me into a corner.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll help you out, just till you get settled. But you’ll have to get a job.”

“A job?”

“Yes.”

“You mean like a steno, or a waitress?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds frightfully boring.”

I couldn’t deny what she said.

“No,” she said. “No, that won’t do. We’ll have to think of something else. Come, walk with me some more, Arnold.”

She put her arm in mine.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s stroll along the boardwalk some more. It’s such a lovely night.”

I really did want just to go home at this point. But, if I did, what would I do with Clarissa? I certainly couldn’t bring her to my aunts’ house. No, no, I couldn’t do that. Could I?

“All right,” I said, and once again we started strolling along the promenade, arm in arm, just as if we were a normal couple.

(Continued here, and on and on until hell freezes over. Please look to the right hand side of this page to find links to innumerable other chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, third-place winner of the Catholic Standard & Times’s “Saint Augustine Award” for Confessional Literature.)

Spring is here. Why doesn't his heart go dancing?

2009-05-13T13:27:00.004-04:00

Because of the boring demands of quotidian life, it's going to take a couple of more days before we will be able to publish the feverishly-awaited next installment of Arnold Schnabel's Gold View award-winning memoir, Railroad Train to Heaven, and so -- we hope not as a mere sop to the masses -- we offer this re-run of one of Arnold's more beloved poems.

This sonnet first saw light in the May 18, 1963 number of the “Olney Times”. By this point one wonders if the editors of that august and generally upbeat paper were even bothering to read Arnold’s increasingly disturbing poems before running them. But we can only be thankful that print them they did. (Poem republished by permission of the good people of the Arnold Schnabel Society.)

“The Day of the Worm”

When I was a lad, so many years before my fall,
I feared strange moist days like today,
Days of spring, after rain, a sky of steel grey,
When it seemed that no one was outside at all,
Or if they were, they were always several blocks away;
And on such days whilst walking aimlessly around,
I would notice a plethora of worms arising from the ground
And wriggling across the wet concrete pathway,
Millions of them, rising up, implacable and blind;
What did they want, and why were they here?
I wanted only to be home, and to leave behind
Their vileness, their inexorable legions, and my fear.
And, now, from the damp loam of my soul what new creatures
Arise, silent, smiling, and with my own features?

(Check the right hand side of this page for a listing of other classic poems by Arnold Schnabel.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 134: whacked

2009-05-12T02:22:00.011-04:00

Let us rejoin our heroes, anti-heroes, and assorted featured players on a day in September, 1969, at the hospitable Johnstone Ranch (“Reasonable Rates For Folks Who Hanker For a Taste of the Real Old West”), not very far from a town called Disdain...

(Go here for our previous chapter, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award©-winning yarn from Mr. Larry Winchester. “...like Cormac McCarthy but without the big words.” -- Harold Bloom.)

That morning a great dust storm blew up through the area but then it passed and the day opened up bright and clear and warm and everything seemed like you could reach out and touch it.

Everyone had a good long sleep and after people finally started waking up that bright afternoon they all sat around the parlor drinking tea and eating little burritos made with the leftover barbecue meat.

Jake was nice enough to give Brad one of his old western suits to replace his bloodstained one, and Dick gave Mr. MacNamara a nice grey serge number from Hawkes on Savile Row that was a tad too small but still better than the bullet-ridden and gory jacket and trousers he had been wearing.

Buddy wound up in some old ranching clothes of Ed Harris the foreman’s.

Harvey drove Cleb and Attie home in the green Corvair, and he stayed for dinner out at the Parsons spread.

Buddy spent part of the afternoon working on Paco’s station wagon and sure enough he got it running again. Paco bade a fond farewell to one and all and drove back to the reservation.

Jake sent Tip Bullock out to Enid’s truck with four spare tires. The Doc and Enid drove out with him, and after they had changed the tires Enid and the Doc drove back on in to Disdain together.

Mr. MacNamara and Brad and Buddy spent some little time palavering together out on the porch and when they came in Mr. MacNamara took Big Jake aside and they had a little talk. Then Mr. MacNamara sat down next to Dick and Daphne and they talked quietly for a while. And then Mr. MacNamara and Brad and Buddy said so long to everyone and drove off in a nondescript old Packard that Jake had lying around. Jake said later that he had offered them the car free gratis and for nothing, but that old Mac had insisted on paying cash for it, in the form of five crisp new hundred-dollar bills.

Dick and Daphne had a talk with Jake over cocktails, and Jake said he thought it’d be a damn swell idea for Hope to take a trip to Europe with them. That Albuquerque head-shrinker had advised that she hold off college at least till next January. Well, Jake was no head-shrinker but maybe a trip like this was just what she needed. Get her out in the world a mite, do her a world of good; then if she wanted she could start college in January or even the following fall. Truth to tell he was thinking it’d be nice to be able to bring a señorita or two home now and then and not have to worry about corrupting Hope. Not to mention let someone else take care of her whenever she had one of her little nervous breakdowns.

****

That night Dick and Harvey had a little chat on the front porch, sitting side by side on a couple of wicker rocking chairs with a stand-up ashtray between them. Dick asked Harvey if he would like to come along with him and Daphne and Hope. Their plan was to drive the Thunderbird back to Frisco and drop it off for Dick’s friend Huey, then take a plane to Philadelphia, have a brief visit with Daphne’s grandmother in Cape May, and then on to New York and finally to Europe. Harvey said thanks but he reckoned he’d hang around here for a little while, maybe work on the ranch if Mr. Johnstone would give him a job.

“Don’t want to leave Attie, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Not just yet anyway.”

“She seems like a really nice girl.”

“That she is.”

“Why don’t you -- you know --”

“Take her with me?”

“Yeah. I mean, not necessarily with us.”

“She won’t leave. She wants to stay with her old man and her brother.”

“Oh.”

“They all got radiation poisoning. Each other’s all they got. I’ll hang around a month or so, then I guess I’ll be movin’ on.”

“Oh. Well -- we’ll write then, Harvey, keep in touch --”

“Sure,” said Harvey.

Dick sort of wanted to reach over and put his hand on Harvey’s shoulder, but, well, no, better not. Instead he took out his last joint. He’d been thinking of saving it for the road, but, what the hell, no time like the present. He handed it over to Harvey and lit him up with the trusty old Ronson. Harvey toked deeply several times and then passed the joint to Dick.

“You wanta hear my theory, Mr. Smith, I mean Ridpath?”

He still hadn’t let out the smoke. These kids today were pros.

“Dick,” said Dick, between two tokes.

“Dick?”

“What’s your theory?”

Harvey let out the smoke, a great redolent cloud in the crisp cool desert air.

“I think we invented them outer space guys.”

“We did?”

“Yeah. The human race did. I think we invented ‘em. I mean, not on purpose. But, like, our dreams invented ‘em. We had to invent ‘em, ‘cause we ain’t never satisfied with what we got. I mean, the life we got ain’t enough, the universe we got ain’t enough, and, like, we know we’re all alone but we can’t stand to be alone. So we invented this whole other universe out of our dreams. And the people in this other universe don’t even know we invented ‘em. They don’t even know they’re a dream.”

Dick toked deeply, held it in, and exhaled slowly.

“You mean -- they don’t really exist?”

Harvey took the joint.

“Nah, of course they exist. It’s just, we created ‘em. Don’t know how, but we did.”

He toked.

“Wow,” said Dick. “That’s pretty --”

What was the word --

“Heavy,” said Harvey, still holding it in.

Actually Dick was thinking more along the lines of preposterous.

Harvey passed him back the joint, exhaling another great cumulus cloud of smoke.

“Harvey?”

“Yeah?”

Dick took a couple of little tokes.

“Don’t -- try to make too much sense of life. Don’t -- fall into that trap.”

He gave the joint back to Harvey.

Harvey stared at the joint.

“I am whacked,” he said.

****

(Click here for our next fabulous episode. Kindly look to the right hand side of this page for what might sometimes be an up-to-date listing of all other available chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, recently shortlisted for the Kilgore Trout Memorial Award for Vaguely Scientific Fiction.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 139: the Frug

2009-05-08T02:49:00.013-04:00

In our previous episode of this Gold View Award™-winning memoir our hero -- that prince of letters Arnold Schnabel -- was last seen making a getaway with that literally living doll Clarissa, on this sultry night in August of 1963, in the old seaside resort of Cape May, NJ...

“By, the way,” she said, “what’s the story behind that limp of yours?”

My limp, I had forgotten about it.

“I fell from a third-floor window today,” I said. “I should have been injured far more severely, or killed, but Jesus appeared and broke my fall.”

“Ha ha, very amusing.”

“No, it’s true,” I said. “That was him by the way, back in the bar. That fellow who joined us in the booth.”

“Josh, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“You know you really are quite insane, Arnold.”

We reached Beach Drive.

“The boardwalk!” she said. “Let’s go!”

And she pulled on my arm.

“Wait for the green light, Clarissa.”

“Oh, yes, the green light. I like the automobiles,” she said. “In my day they were quite different, and not nearly so numerous. Oh, good, the light’s gone green. Let’s cross.”

We walked across, and went up the steps to the promenade. Plenty of people still walked back and forth, although of course without the small children at this hour.

“Which way shall we go?” she asked.

To the right was Frank’s Playland. I certainly didn’t want her dragging me in there. I wasn’t sure my nerves could stand it, to be quite honest.

“Oh, this way, I suppose,” I said, steering her to the left.

“So,” she said as we strolled the boards, arm in arm, “tell me about this dark wanton of yours, this Athena --”

“Elektra,” I said.

“Whatever her name is.”

“Well, she’s a jeweler,” I said, “but she also sings very well, and --”

“God, it’s good to be out and about!” She did a little skip, but kept her hold on my arm. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let me tell you something, Arnold, that Jack Scratch fellow?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever make a bargain with him. No matter how splendid he makes it sound.”

“I won’t.”

“I made a bargain with him and look what happened to me. Turned into an inanimate doll. What a dreadful bore. But I knew I would make my escape from that shop some day. I only had to be patient. Thank God you and that friend of yours Dick came along. Something about you, or him, or the both of you, broke the spell. And now I am free.”

“Well, I’m very glad, Clarissa.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes,” I said.

“After I called your lady friend a slut and a wanton?”

“Well, I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t say those things,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose you would.”

“Things are different nowadays,” I said.

“Oh, are they?”

“Yes.”

“Anything goes, I suppose.”

“Well, not anything,” I said.

“I hope you’re not referring to me breaking into that shop.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Good.”

We had come to that group of shops and restaurants on the boardwalk across from the movie theatre.

“Oh!” she said. “Water ice! Take me in here and buy me a water ice, please.”

I took her into the water ice place. There was a short line, and Clarissa pulled me right over behind a big stout man in a Hawaiian shirt and what must have been his wife, who was also stout.

She immediately engaged this couple in a conversation about the best flavors of water ice. It all seemed prosaic enough and harmless. The stout couple paid for their ice and left, and Clarissa and I ordered, raspberry for me, lemon for her. I paid, and we left the shop.

“Wait a moment,” she said. “Here, hold this for me.”

She handed me her paper cone of yellow ice. It matched her dress.

She clicked open her little white purse, then put two fingers under her belt, brought out a folded wad of bank notes and dropped them into the purse.

“Clarissa,” I said, “where did you get that money?”

“From that smelly old hippo,” she said. She put her fingers under her belt on the other side of the buckle and brought out another folded wad of money. “And this was from the lady hippo.” She dropped it also into her purse and clicked it shut. “Now may I have my water ice, please.”

“Clarissa, you mean you picked their pockets?”

“I picked the male hippo’s pocket. The female one, I picked her purse.”

“Clarissa,” I said. “Give me that money. I’m returning it.”

The portly couple were not far away, starting to walk down the steps to the street.

“I will not give it to you. Look at them. They can afford it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Look how rotund they are. They must be well off if they can afford to eat like pigs.”

“Clarissa, give me the money.”

“I’ll deny everything. I’ll make a dreadful fuss. I’ll say you stole the money, Arnold. Who are the police going to believe? A well-spoken young lady like me or a known lunatic like yourself? You’ll be on the first bus back to the insane asylum.”

The overweight couple were now crossing Beach Drive.

“All right,” I said. “But this is it. No more crimes.”

She held out her hand.

“May I have my water ice now?”

I gave it to her, and she licked it.

“But I need clothes,” she said. “I need money.”

She took my arm again and we continued our walk.

“Look,” I said. “I’ll help you. But please stop robbing and stealing.”

“You’ll help me? How? Will you give me money?”

“Well, I suppose I could give you a little money. But what you should do is get a job.”

She turned her head and looked at me, but she said nothing until we came abreast of Convention Hall, complete with its sign advertising “Saturday Night Dancing with Rockin’ Harry Hirsch and His Combo”.

“Oh, is that a dance hall?” she asked.

“It is,” I said.

“You must take me!” she commanded, and she dragged me over to the entrance, at which I duly paid for our admission.

We went through the broad hall and into the vaulted dance floor.

“What is this Ubangi music?” she yelled into my ear.

“It’s called rock ‘n’ roll,” I said.

A band, presumably Rockin’ Harry and his men, played on the stage at the far end, and the dance floor was filled with people, most of them very young.

“And what is that lewd dance they’re doing?”

“It’s called the Twist,” I said.

“I want to do it! Come on!”

She pulled on my arm.

“I can’t do the Twist,” I said.

“Oh, posh, look how simple it is!”

I let her pull me onto the dance floor. She wasn’t happy until she had gotten us right near the center of this sweating mass of gyrating youth. Finally she let go of my arm and began to dance the Twist.

“Look, see?” she said. “Easy as pie. Twist, Arnold.”

And, in my way, I Twisted. I felt like a fool, but I derived some small consolation from the thought that all the other men and boys on this dance floor also looked like fools.

I’ll say one thing for the Twist, it leaves both your hands free, and so we were able to continue to lick our water ice as we danced.

The next dance I had to do was the Mashed Potato, then the Frug, and finally the Hully-Gully. By this point we had long finished our water ices and tossed the paper cones onto the dance floor that was already liberally littered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other sundry refuse. Once again, and for the twenty-seventh time this long day, I was soaked with sweat.

When the Hully-Gully finally ended the band switched to a slow song, I believe it was “Blue Velvet”. Clarissa opened her arms beckoningly, but I held up my hands.

“No, Clarissa, please --”

“You won’t dance with me?”

“I’m drenched with sweat. And I need to rest.”

She on the other hand looked fresh as a daisy, with only a slight beading of perspiration on her porcelain forehead.

“Oh poof!” she said. “All right.”

She held out her hand palm downward and wiggled her fingers dismissively at me.

“Go rest,” she said. “I’ll meet you after a few dances near the entrance.”

She gazed around her.

“I’ll find someone to dance with me,” she said.

I headed through the throng toward the entrance, and there I took a place among a lot of thuggish-looking young men, all of them smoking cigarettes and peering threateningly from under their eyebrows. These fellows didn’t scare me particularly, but on the other hand I didn’t want to have to get drawn into an inane conversation with any of them. So I did something I learned to do a long time ago in low railroadman’s bars, I assumed a very serious and grim expression, with my hands thrust in my pockets, trying to look like a psychopathic killer instead of the mere psychopath I am. But then I realized that to complete the picture I really should have a cigarette hanging from my mouth. Fortunately there was a cigarette machine there in the lobby. I went over to the cashier and got some change, then went over and bought a pack of Pall Malls, not forgetting to pick up the free book of paper matches that slid out so satisfyingly along with the cigarettes.

I walked away from the machine slowly.

It was now around 11:30 and I had not had a cigarette since that first one of the day, the one that had produced that determinative coughing fit.

Well, I had never intended to quit cold. I deserved one now. I tapped the pack a couple of times against my palm, then stripped the cellophane and opened the foil. There they were, twenty of them, twenty long rich doses of ecstasy, the whole of it so much more than a man had any right to ask for in this life.

“Hello, Arnold,” said Clarissa. “Shall we go now?”

“That was quick,” I said.

“I got bored without you. Come. Let’s go.”

She took my arm. With my free hand I put the pack of cigarettes and the unused book of matched back into my pocket, and together we walked out onto the boardwalk again.

(Click here for our next thrilling episode. Please look to the right hand side of this page to find what may very well possibly be an up-to-date listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “Truly a memoir for our times, although perhaps to say as such is to damn this masterpiece with faint praise.” -- Harold Bloom, on The Bonnie Hunt Show.)