Dan Leo's Blog

It was a tavern, a saloon, yet another one, dark and choked with smoke, packed with people sitting at tables and booths and at a long bar. There was no music to be heard, only a dull babble of voices.

Addison and Milford turned and watched the little fat bald bearded man turning the button of a deadlock, thrusting home the bolt of a barrel lock and then securing a chain lock above it. He then turned to the two companions.

"There," he said, taking his pipe from his mouth. "That should keep the douchebags out."

"Thank you, sir," said Addison.

"And the door itself is quite secure I think," said the little man. He rapped the wood of the door with his tiny chubby fist. "Go ahead, give it a knock."

"Oh, I believe you," said Addison.

"That's solid three-inch oak you're looking at there," said the man.

"Yes," said Addison, "it does look quite stout."

"You need stout wood for a door," said the man. "And perhaps you are concerned with the hinges?"

"Um, uh," said Addison.

"What about you, young man," he said, turning the thick lenses of his glasses on Milford. "Know anything about door hinges?"

"Not really," said Milford.

"Really?"

"Yes," said Milford. 

"You really know nothing at all about door hinges?"

"I know that they attach a door to the wall."

"It's called a jamb."

"Yes, sorry, the jamb."

"Well," said the little fat bald bearded man, "may I then direct your attention to these door hinges." He gestured vaguely with his little hand. "Solid stainless steel. With screws also of the finest quality alloy. Let those douchebags pound and kick to their hearts' content, they're not getting through this door!"

"Well, that's very, uh –"

"Comforting?" said the little man.

"Uh," said Milford.

"Yes, it's comforting," said Addison.

"And you, young sir," said the man, looking at Milford. "Do you not feel comforted?"

"Yes," said Milford. "Thanks."

"I know what you're both thinking, by the way."

"Um," said Addison.

"Yes," said the little fat man, "I know very well what you're thinking." Again he turned those thick glasses in Milford's direction. "You can't hide it."

"Uh," said Milford.

"Especially you can't hide it," said the man. "Your friend is a little better at playing the game, and bully for him, but not you, you can't play the game, can you? Can't, or is it won't? But one thing is undeniable, and that is that you don't."

"Pardon me?" said Milford.

"You are pardoned," said the man. "For thinking so apparently that I am boring you with my talk of doors and locks and hinges. Do you deny it?"

"No," said Milford.

"Good fellow." He turned to Addison. "See, he admits he's bored. As are you."

"Um," said Addison. 

"We can learn from the young people, my friend. Because they have not yet learned how to 'play the game'. The 'game' that society would have us play."

"Um, yes," said Addison, "I have always felt that we have much to learn from the youth of today."

"Not that we cannot also learn from our elders."

"Yes, of course," said Addison. "The elders have much to, uh, you know, impart to, um –"

"And as well we can also learn from our coëvals," said the little fat man. "Or do you disagree?"

"Um, uh, no, uh," said Addison.

"What about you, young fellow?" the fat man said to Milford.

"I'm sorry, what?" said Milford.

"Do you also agree that we have much, potentially speaking, to learn from our coëvals?"

"I neither agree nor disagree," said Milford.

"You have no opinion?"

"I have no opinion, nor interest, nor do I have any interest in having an opinion, nor even an interest in having an interest."

The little fat man put the stem of his pipe into his lips and drew on it, as if pensively. The pipe had gone out, and it made a noise like a mouse's death rattle. He withdrew the pipe and addressed Milford again. 

"I'm beginning to like you, my lad. You remind me of myself when I was your age, young and full of nihilism. But look at me now."

"What do we have here, Bormanshire?" said a new voice.

Addison and Milford turned to see another little fat man.

"Oh, hello," said the first little fat man. "Mr. Bogman, meet my new friends whose names I have not yet been so privileged as to ascertain."

"Bogman is the name," said the new little fat man, extending his fat little hand in Addison's direction. He was smaller than the first little fat man, yet proportionately fatter, and he wore a toupée the color and seeming texture of a ferret's fur. 

Addison reluctantly but resignedly took the man's littler fat hand in his own larger but much thinner hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Mister, uh, Bogman."

"And your appellation, sir, if one may know it?"

"Well, it seems my friends all call me Addison, but in point of fact my actual name –"

"Well, if that's what your friends call you, then so also shall I, by George."

The little man called Bogman continued to hold onto Addison's hand, but now he turned his round face toward Milford.

"So you must be Steele then?"

"What?" said Milford. "No, my name is –"

"Ha ha," said the first fat man, apparently named Bormanshire. "I get it, Addison and Steele! Well-played, Bogman!"

"But all jesting aside," said Mr. Bogman to Milford, still holding tight onto Addison's hand. "What's your moniker, young man?"

"Milford," said Milford.

At last the little man called Bogman slipped his hand out of Addison's with a squishing sound and now extended it to Milford.

"Slide me five, Clive," he said. 

Reluctantly Milford gave the man his hand, although it should be made clear to the reader that Milford never gave his hand to anyone willingly.

"A weak hand," said Mr. Bogman, "and a weaker grip. Not that I pass a moral judgment, because I suspect that you are a poet. Do you deny it?"

"Would it do any good if I did?" said Milford.

"None at all, my dear Milfold, none at all, because everything about you screams not only 'poet', but 'bad poet'. And again, I make no moral judgment, merely an observation."

"He's a bad poet," said Mr. Bormanshire. "And Addleton here is a bad novelist."

"Splendid. You have done your usual yeoman service as gatekeeper, Bormanshire," said Mr. Bogman, and he allowed Milford to withdraw his hand from his own, the squishing sound repeating itself. "Shall we then proceed to the formal initiation of these young chaps into the ranks of the Society of the Prancing Fool?"

"Forthwith," said Mr. Bormanshire.

"Come with us, gentlemen," said Mr. Bogman.

"Um," said Milford.

"Uh," said Addison.

"Don't be afraid," said Mr. Bogman.

"Yes, fear not," said Mr. Bormanshire.

"But, uh," said Milford.

"Lookit," said Mr. Bormanshire, "you're a bad poet, aren't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Milford.

"And you," said Mr. Bogman, pointing his fat little forefinger at Addison, "are a bad novelist, n'est-ce pas?"

"Well," said Addison, "I think that remains to be –"

"He's writing an epic novel about the Old West," said Mr. Bormanshire, "but it's actually by way of being an in-depth exploration of man's search for meaning in a meaningless world."

"Right, so, bad novelist," said Mr. Bogman. "Swell, now come with us, gentleman."

"But where are you taking us?" said Milford.

"We're not taking you anywhere," said Mr. Bogman.

"That's right," said Mr. Bormanshire. "We're not taking you anywhere, because you're already here."

"Yes," said Mr. Bogman, waving to the barroom before them, the tables and booths and the long bar, all filled with people and smoke and the indecipherable rumbling of human or humanoid voices. "You're here, you see."

"At long last," said Mr. Bormanshire.

"You're home now, lads," said Mr. Bogman.

"Home at last," said Mr. Bormanshire.

"Home sweet home," said Mr. Bogman.

"At long last," said Mr. Bormanshire.

"Home," said Mr. Bogman, with what sounded like a tone of finality.

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

They ran until they came to a turning of the dim hallway, to the right, and this passage led into an unlighted section through which they stumbled, bumping into one another and almost falling several times until they came to another turn, this time to the left, a long stretch of narrow corridor lighted by widely and irregularly spaced dim bulbs, and on they staggered, still hearing the shouting and stomping reverberating behind them.

After another minute they came to a junction where the corridor continued straight ahead into dimness but was bisected by another corridor going to the left and to the right. 

They each bent forward, panting and sweating, their hands on their knees.

"Which way?" gasped Milford.

"I haven't the faintest idea," said, panted, Addison. 

To the right the corridor continued on into dimness and then darkness, as it did to the left. 

"This way?" said Milford, pointing to the right.

"Why not?" said Addison.

They both looked over their shoulders, and far back down the way they had run they saw the angry gang turning a corner stomping and roaring and shouting imprecations.

"Faggots!" one voiced yelled, echoing down the corridor.

"Cunts!" bellowed another harsh voice.

"Perhaps we should split up?" said Milford. "And then only one of us will die."

"Yes, but which one?" said Addison.

"I don't want to die alone," said Milford.

"I for my part don't want to die at all," said Addison.

"So we stick together?" said Milford.

"To the end," said Addison.

"To the right then?" said Milford.

"Why not?" said Addison.

"Cunts!" echoed a harsh voice.

"Faggots!" echoed another voice.

Not knowing why, the two companions turned and ran down the corridor to the left, and after another minute they reeled into another section of darkness, and when they emerged from it a few minutes or a day later they were no longer able to run, but walked, staggering and wheezing, and, turning another corner they saw up ahead to their horror that the corridor came abruptly to an end, but there was a door, which they limped up to, and on the door was a sign that read, in cursive script

THE PRANCING FOOL

If you've abandoned

all hope of hope,

if you've given up

even the the hope 

of giving up,

then ring the bell

or go to hell.

Below the sign was a crude painting of what might have been a prancing fool.

"Ring the bell," panted Addison.

There was a door button to the right of the door, and Milford put his finger on it and pressed it for two seconds.

He turned and looked at Addison, whose normally pallid face had gone red, and was streaming with sweat.

Back the way they had come they could still hear the harsh voices, and the stomping of feet.

"Ring the bell again," said Addison.

"Do you think I should? My mother always told me it is impolite to ring a doorbell more than once."

"But was your mother ever chased by a mob of douchebags out for her blood?"

"Not to my knowledge, no."

"Then, please, Milford, I implore you, ring the bell."

"Well, all right," said Milford, and he reached up to press the button again, but before he could do so the door opened inward, and a little fat bald bearded man stood there, peering at them through thick-lensed glasses. He held a smoking pipe, and he wore a rumpled suit of brown serge, with a red and white polka dot bowtie.

"Hello," he said. "May I help you gentlemen?"

"Yes, sir," said Addison. "We are being chased by a mob of, you should pardon the expression, douchebags, intent upon killing us, and we ask sanctuary."

"I admire your succinctness, sir," said the little fat bearded and bald man. "So am I to take it that you have both abandoned all hope?"

"If you deny us entrance, then, yes, I think you could safely say that we have abandoned hope."

"Or hope has abandoned us," said Milford.

"Yes," said the little man, "good, very good, but have you abandoned all hope of hope?"

"Oh, for God's sake," said Milford, "can't you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That stomping and shouting, down the corridor?"

The man cocked his head.

"Yes, now that you mention it, I do hear it. It sounds like an angry mob, or at least a gang."

"Precisely," said Addison. "A gang, a mob, and they're after us, so we adjure you, please let us in."

"First I have to ask you, and I think I know the answer, but I must ask anyway, are you gentlemen men of letters?"

"Yes!" whined Milford. "I am a poet, and my friend is a novelist."

"Splendid," said the little man. "Only one more question for each of you. Are you, young man, a bad poet?"

"Yes! Isn't it obvious?"

"And you, sir," the man said, turning his glasses in the direction of Addison, "do you write bad novels?"

"Well, that remains to be seen," said Addison. "You see, I am still only in the beginning stages of my first novel."

"And may I ask what this novel is about, if you are capable of saying so?"

"It is an epic of the old west, about a wandering gunslinger named Buck Baxter, on a quest to seek revenge upon a gang known as the Bad Men Gang for having slain his kinsfolk, but in a sense it is a novel about man's search for meaning in a world devoid of meaning –"

"Very well," interrupted the little fat bald and bearded man. "I think I've heard quite enough. You may both come in."

"Thank you!" said Milford.

"Yes, uh, thank you," said Addison, who was just slightly miffed that the man had not let him finish describing his novel.

In the dim distance the shouting and the stomping grew progressively louder, resounding down the hallway.

"Oh, dear," said the little fat man. "Come on in then, if you're coming, and I will lock and bolt the door."

He stepped to one side and Milford went in, followed hard on his heels by Addison.

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

A minute passed.

"Maybe you should press the button again," said Addison.

"I would, but I'm afraid of upsetting that John Henry fellow," said Milford. 

"Oh, right," said Addison. "We wouldn't want to do that."

"We're lucky he let us in there at all."

"No, yes, you're entirely correct." 

"How about if we wait another minute, just in case he didn't hear the bell, and then we'll press the button again."

"Splendid idea."

Another minute ticked by, and they smoked their cigarettes in silence. There was much they could have talked about, but for the moment neither of the two companions had the inclination, and besides, they were still very much under the influence of that fat hand-rolled cigarette of Jelly Roll's which they had smoked, what, ten minutes ago, fifteen minutes ago, a month ago. 

"Wait," said Milford, abruptly.

"Yes?" said Addison.

"That Bowery Bert guy, is he really a guardian angel?"

"Oh, I had quite forgotten about him."

"We were with him only two minutes ago."

"And yet he had passed from my thoughts, like unto a faceless figure in an unremembered dream," said Addison, in his best George Sanders voice.

"Did we dream him?" asked Milford.

"Well, if we dreamt him, that means we both shared the same dream."

"And is that possible?"

"Is it any less possible than that he is in fact a guardian angel?"

Milford paused, thinking, trying to think.

"Perhaps he was a shared hallucination," he said, "brought on by Jelly Roll's cigarette."

"Perhaps this entire life is a shared hallucination," replied Addison, "brought on by the madness of existence."

"It might not even be a shared hallucination," said Milford. "Perhaps this is only my hallucination, and even you are part of it."

"Or, might I posit," said Addison, "the reverse might be the case, and you are part of my hallucination."

"I feel real," said Milford.

"Yes, but you would say that, wouldn't you, if you were an hallucination?"

"Yes, I suppose I would."

"Ring the doorbell again."

"Well, okay," said Milford, but with no enthusiasm evident in his voice or demeanor.

"Or we could wait one more minute."

"Yes, let's do that. I don't want to, to –"

"Incite the wrath of the formidable John Henry."

"Yes."

After half a minute Milford spoke.

"I hope the ladies are still there."

"So also I," said Addison. "I gather you like that one, what's her name, Lou?"

"Yes, Lou," said Milford. "Although I'm not so sure she likes me so much. Which one do you like?"

"Oh, who am I to be picky?"

"But if you had to pick."

"I should think Harriet."

"Yes, she seems nice."

"Or perhaps that Emily."

"Yes, she's nice also."

"But then, what's her name, Anne also possesses a certain je ne sais quoi."

"This is true," said Milford.

"But in the end I daresay I would be happy to take what I could get."

"Yeah, me too," said Milford.

"Do you hear that."

"Hear what."

"Listen."

In the shadowy unseen distance of dim corridors, somewhere down to the left of the doorway, the echoing sounds of tramping shoes, perhaps even of jackboots, and the cries and shouts of harsh male voices.

"Oh, no," said Milford.

"Yes," said Addison.

"It's them," said Milford.

"I'm afraid so," said Addison.

"The douchebags."

"Yes, sadly."

"What do we do?"

"We hope that John Henry opens this door before the douchebags get here. Press the button again."

"I just hope he doesn't get angry with us for pressing the button twice."

"Press the button. I'll take John Henry's ire over the prospect of being torn limb from limb by a mob of bloodthirsty douchebags."

"I'll just press it once, and briefly," said Milford, and he did so.

The two companions waited, and the stomping and the shouting grew closer.

"The Bard of Avon had it all wrong," said Addison. "Forget about women, because hell hath no fury like a douchebag scorned."

The distant stomping and shouting grew increasingly less distant, like an oncoming locomotive train of fury and nastiness, like a tidal wave of bloodlust.

"Y'know, Milford," continued Addison, "if this were a novel, then the douchebags might be interpreted as the inevitability of fate, and, by extension, of death. And indeed –"

"Addison," said Milford.

"Yes, old chap."

"I say this as a, dare I say it, a friend –"

"I am touched," said Addison. "And, may I say that I in turn consider you as a friend. Indeed, my only friend."

"Same here," said Milford.

The stomping and shouting grew louder, and closer, much louder and much closer.

"Oh, but you were saying?" said Addison.

"Never mind," said Milford.

"No, please, what was it?"

What Milford had been about to say were the words, Will you please just shut the fuck up. But now, as the shouting and stomping roared nearer down the dim hallway, he didn't want these words to be possibly the last he would ever speak, and so instead he said, "I think we'd better start running."

And now, out of the darkness down the hall in the distance they saw the angry mob of douchebags breaking out of the shadows in a thundering stampede, and Addison said, "Yes, I think we should."

As one the two companions tossed their cigarettes to the floor, turned on their heels, and ran, as behind them the roaring and stomping and shouting of the douchebags echoed and vibrated down the dim hallway.

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

"Now when you say you are an angel," said Addison, who was still very much under the influence of Jelly Roll's fat hand-rolled cigarette, "are we to understand that you speak metaphorically?"

"No, you ass," said Bert. "Like the immortal Popeye, I means what I says and I says what I means. I am indeed an angel, sub-category 'Guardian Angel', proudly serving the district of the lower Bowery, for, lo, these past one hundred and twenty years."

"Um, okay," said Addison.

"What nonsense," said Milford.

"You speak of nonsense to me," said Bowery Bert, "you little twerp?" 

He bent over, pulled something from the snow, and banged it against his stubby legs revealing it to be a furled umbrella.

"You know what I should do?" he said to Milford.

"No?" said Milford.

"I should take this umbarelly and give you a sound thrashing, that's what I should do!"

"Look," said Milford, "again, I'm really sorry I peed on you, but I didn't know you were there. You were completely covered with snow, and, as Addison has already pointed out, I probably saved your life by urinating on you, because otherwise you might have frozen to death."

"And I'm just after telling you, you young pup, that I, as an angel, am incapable of dying."

"Okay," said Milford. "Sure."

"And what is that supposed to mean? 'Okay. Sure.'"

"Nothing," said Milford.

"You think perhaps I am insane, do you?"

"I think perhaps you are drunk," said Milford.

"And what if I am? If you had to be a guardian angel for thousands of hopeless dipsomaniacs, you would be continuously drunk too."

"Okay, well, look," said Milford, "by way of apology, how about if I give you the price of a nice hot all-night diner meal?"

"I don't want your money. You think I need money?"

"Um, uh –"

"I can stroll into the Bowery Savings Bank come morning and take out a hundred thousand dollars if I got a mind to."

"Oh," said Milford, "well –"

"I piss on your pathetic handouts. Just like you pissed on me. Fuck you for insulting me as if I were some common bindlestiff."

"Look, sir, I'm sorry, I just assumed –"

"Yes, you 'assumed', just because I was catching forty winks under a snowbank in a dark alleyway. Well, let me tell you something, buster, never 'assume'!"

"Okay, I won't," said Milford.

The little man now turned to Addison.

"What was your name? Addlesworth?"

"Well, they call me Addison, actually," said Addison. "But, not to be pedantic, my baptismal name is –"

"Did you ever catch up to them two fair ladies I seen you with?"

"Why, yes, in point of fact I did."

"Then why ain't you with them, Addlesbury, instead of loitering with dubious intent in a snow-choked alleyway with Little Lord Fauntleroy here?"

"Well, you see, Fauntleroy – I mean Milford here – had gotten just a little under the weather, and so I thought I would help him home."

"You mean to say you committed a selfless act?"

"Possibly," said Addison.

"I am impressed," said Bowery Bert. "You don't seem the type."

"Normally, I confess, I am not," said Addison. 

"But an access of altruism overcame you."

"Yes, I suppose so."

Now the little man turned to Milford.

"You don't deserve such a friend as Allerburgh, Fauntleroy."

"I know," said Milford.

"You don't seem so under the weather now."

"I think I've gotten a second wind, yes," said Milford.

"And are you still in the process of trying to get home?"

"Well, no, you see, I decided after all that I wanted to go back to this bar where we were."

"Because you wanted to get your end wet?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Because you wanted to make the beast with two backs with a maiden fair."

"Look," said Milford, "again, I'm sorry for urinating on you, but I would really prefer not to discuss my personal affairs with you."

"Fine, be like that," said Bowery Bert. "Be a stuck-up prig all your life. I don't give a shit."

"Look, Bert," said Addison, "if I may call you Bert –"

"Please do, Addleburn."

"I beg you not to mind my friend Milford, but he is a reserved sort of chap, you see."

"Is that what you are?" said Bert to Milford. "Reserved?"

"Yes," said Milford.

"Bit of a stick up your ass?"

"Uh, well –

"But you do admit, do you not, that you wanted to get back to that bar in the hopes of committing the act of darkness with a maiden fair?"

"Yes," said Milford, giving up, "I fully admit it."

"Then I just have one question, for the both of youse," said Bert. "What the hell are yez doing in this alleyway in the midst of this blizzard?"

"We got lost," said Addison.

"You got lost," said Bert.

"Yes," said Addison. "By the time we decided to go back to the bar with the ladies, we had gotten lost in this warren of dim and dark corridors, and one thing led to another, we had several strange adventures, we were chased by an angry mob for one thing, and –"

"You got lost."

"Yes," said Addison. "And, anyway, we came to this door, and we opened it, and went outside, and –"

"And now here you are."

"Yes," said Addison. "Here we are."

"Standing in a dark alleyway in a blizzard."

"Yes," said Addison.

The little man undid the fastening-button on his umbrella, and unfurled it above his head.

"You two are rather hopeless, aren't you?" he said.

Neither Addison or Milford replied to this question. Who were they to say if they were hopeless? And what was hope after all at bottom and in the end but the desire to live, even if to live was so consistently disappointing?

The little fellow reached into a pocket and brought out a stub of a twisted cigarillo, and put it into his mouth. Only now did our two heroes – who both lacked the novelist's and the poet's eye for detail – notice that he wore gloves from which his stubby grimy bare fingers protruded. 

Milford thought it was the least he could do to light the fellow's cigarillo, and so at once he reached into his peacoat pocket, brought out his nice Ronson lighter, and after only seven clicks managed to produce a flame from it and ignite the little man's little cigar.

"Thanks," said Bowery Bert, exhaling a great cloud of smoke into the air filled with thick falling snow. "Maybe you're not so bad after all, Fauntleroy."

"I may not be bad," said Milford, "but I don't know if I'm any good."

"Let me be the judge of that," said the little man, or guardian angel. "You know, I don't know why, but the two of youse have aroused my pity, and I am going to help you. I want you both to close your eyes."

"What?" said Milford. He had put his lighter away, and he was wondering why he was still standing here, with Addison, in the bitter falling thick snow, in an alleyway, talking to this old bum.

"I said close your eyes, squirt," said Bowery Bert.

"But why?"

"Oh, just do it, Milford," said Addison.

"I'm afraid," said Milford.

"He's not going to hurt you," said Addison. "Are you, Bert?"

"I might hurt him if he doesn't close his eyes," said Bert.

"Oh, all right, I'll close my eyes," said Milford, and in fact he closed his eyes.

"You too, Addleton," said Bert, and Addison also closed his eyes.

"You got 'em closed, the both of yez?" said Bert.

"Yes," said Addison.

"Yes," said Milford, feeling the snowflakes attack his eyelids behind the lenses of his glasses.

"Okay, now open them," said Bert.

The two friends opened their eyes, and now they were indoors, out of the blizzard, standing in front of a door, a familiar door on which was a sign, that read

"THE HIDEAWAY"

Leave your cares behind

and your bullshit too.

Ring the bell and wait.

The little man called Bowery Bert was nowhere to be seen.

Addison looked at Milford and Milford looked at Addison.

Addison took out his crumpled pack of Chesterfields and Milford took out his Husky Boys. 

Milford got out his Ronson and gave Milford a light, and then lighted himself up.

The two companions exhaled two great merging clouds of smoke.

"Shall we?" said Addison.

"Why not?" said Milford.

He stepped forward and pressed the door button.

And they waited.

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

They didn't float over the edge of an enormous black abyss but they did find themselves finally at the end of a hallway where there was a door, and a sign above the door read EXIT in red letters.

"Oh," said Addison.

"Um," said Milford. 

"It says EXIT," said Addison.

"Yeah," said Milford.

"Should we?" said Addison.

"I don't know," said Milford.

"Let's think it over," said Addison.

"All right," said Milford.

The two companions both attempted to think it over, the pros and cons, but their thoughts traveled far and wide and fruitlessly.

"Okay," said Addison, after a minute that seemed like an hour, or a lifetime, "here's the thing."

He paused, for yet another lifetime. Milford waited, alternately patiently, impatiently, and indifferently.

"Here's the thing," said Addison again, making an effort, he was constitutionally indisposed to effort of any sort, and even more so now, under the influence of that hand-rolled cigarette they had shared what must have been not five minutes ago, no matter how long ago it felt, "if we go through this door we abdicate any chance to find those lovely ladies again."

"This is possibly true," Milford managed to say.

"Only possibly?" said Addison, an unfeigned note of optimism in his voice.

"Yes," Milford said. "Maybe we'll find them again." He paused.  "Someday, or some night." And then he added, "Somehow."

There was an old and tarnished horizontal panic bar on the door, and Milford put his hand on it and pushed it in and the door moved very slightly but with resistance.

"Help me push it," he said.

"Oh, yes, of course," said Addison. 

Side by side the two companions each put two hands on the bar and lent their weight to it. The door budged an inch outward and flurries of snow came through the crack.

"Right," said Addison. "I think we're pushing against a snowbank."

"Or a dead bum, frozen in the alley?" posited Milford.

"This too is a possibility," said Addison. "Shall we give up?"

"Not yet," said Milford. "Let's give it another try."

"If you insist," said Addison, in an almost neutral tone, with perhaps the smallest tinge of churlishness.

"I don't insist," said Milford, "but I'm curious."

Addison bit his tongue before he could say curiosity killed the cat, but only because of his aversion to cliché.

"Right then," he said. "A good shove. On the count of three?"

"Let's just shove," said Milford. "Ready?"

"And able," said Addison.

Milford ignored the cliché and pushed on the bar, and so did Addison, and now the door grudgingly opened, if a door could be said to open grudgingly, and after half a minute the door was now open perhaps twelve inches, and heavy snow fell through the opening between it and the jamb and lintel.

"Free," said Addison. "Free at last."

They could see the snow piled up in a great drift outside the door. The snow was white, or off-white, and more snow fell heavily from above, sheets and truckloads of snow, as if the heavens were pouring it down in an effort to cover the entire earth and all of its inhabitants forever and for good and good riddance. It was impossible to see anything beyond the snow.

"This must be how the early arctic explorers felt, peering out from their tents," said Addison. "And thinking, 'You know what? Let us go back inside, comrades, and crawl into our sleeping bags, and just go back to sleep, that sleep which -"

"I'm going out," said Milford.

"What?" said Addison.

"I'm going out. We've gotten this far. Why stop?"

"But it's awfully snowy out," said Addison.

"Yes," said Milford. "I'm aware. But I'm tired of wandering these dim hallways. I'm going out."

"Don't leave me here."

"Then let's go."

"You go first, and I'll follow."

"All right," said Milford, and without hesitation he turned sideways and went through the opening. 

Outside the cold snow fell all around him and all over him, and the snow on the ground came up to his knees. He sensed that he was in an alley, the walls of two buildings just barely visible through the falling snow. To his right he saw a faint light, as of a street light. 

Addison emerged sideways from the doorway. 

"Where are we?"

"We must be in an alleyway next to the building we were in."

Both of them were speaking loudly through the muffling of the snowfall.

"There's light down that way," said Addison.

"Yes, I see it," said Milford.

"Shall we head toward it?"

"Yes."

And the two friends trudged through the knee-deep snow towards the light.

"Wait," said Addison. "We left the door open. Should we go back and close it?"

"Leave it," said Milford. "Someone else might need to escape."

And onward they trudged through the snow, towards the light which grew less faint with each step they took.

"Oh, um, wait a minute," said, shouted Milford.

"What is it, old man?" said Addison. "Not having second thoughts, are you?"

"No, um, but –"

"Because I don't mind going back, not at all, I've never been what you might call the outdoorsy type, let alone Northwest Mountie in the frozen Yukon type. I should be delighted to turn back and head inside, where I'm sure we'll find a delightful warm caravanserai if we keep searching."

"Look, I just have to pee, okay?"

"Oh. And do you want to go here?"

"Yes, God knows if and when we'll find a bar with a men's room, so, yes, I would like to go here."

"Then, please, fire away, old chap."

"Do you mind looking away?"

"Not at all, mon vieux, not at all. I confess I'm just a tad bit pee-shy myself. I'll just turn and enjoy the rich O. Henryesque beauty of the snow tumbling down in this alleyway. Y'know, I almost take back what I just said just now about not being much of an outdoorsman. There's something to be said for the old alleys of the city. The stained bricks and the cobblestones. And, yes, even the ashcans. And doesn't the snow somehow make everything beautiful? Why, even –"

"Hey!" shouted an unknown voice. "Stop pissing on me for Christ's sake, you asshole!"

Addison turned to see a gnomish figure rising up from the snowbank that apparently Milford had been urinating on.

"I'm so sorry, sir!" whined Milford, desperately trying to put away his so-called organ of virility.

"Wait," said Addison to the gnome, "it's Bowery Bert! Bert, you know us, it's me, Addison, and that's Milford, and I'm sure he didn't mean to micturate on you."

"You two little twats," said Bowery Bert, brushing pee-stained snow from his worn old coat. "I should have known. I should run the pair of yez straight down to the everlasting fires of hell!"

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Bert," said Milford, attempting with his cold fingers to button the fly of his dungarees.

"Bert," said Addison, "look at it this way. You were passed out in that snowbank, weren't you?"

"And what if I was?" said Bert. "Who are you to point the accusing finger of scorn?"

"I am not scornful at all, but if Milford had not awoken you from your slumbers, you very well might have frozen and died."

"Look, wise guy, I'm an angel," said Bert. "And you know one thing about angels?"

"Um," said Addison, because he didn't know one thing about angels.

"Angels don't die," said Bowery Bert.

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

No one stopped them from leaving, no one cared if they left or if they stayed.

"It's like life," said Milford, as they approached the door. 

"What is?" said Addison, prepared to be bored.

"No one cares if we live or die, and no one cares if we leave this place or if we stay until we're as old as all these old wrecks in here."

Addison made no reply to this. His mind was still on the Falstaff beer and the shot of Cream of Kentucky he had never gotten.

They came to the door, Milford opened it, waved Addison through, and followed. 

Outside in the dim hallway they stood, smoking.

"Okay, here's the plan," said Addison.

"A plan?"

"We pick a random direction, and the first bar we reach, we go in and have a shot and a beer."

"What about getting back to that Negro bar and the ladies?" said Milford.

"Oh, I assure you, mon pote, I haven't forgotten about that place, and of course those delightful ladies, heh heh. But I just think we should stop into the first bar we see even if it's not the Negro bar and have a beer, a beer and a shot. Sort of get our bearings and then set out anew, rested and refreshed."

"Once again, Addison, you forget, or disregard the fact, that I am a recovering alcoholic."

"Then just have a beer, old chap. A beer hardly counts. A beer is nothing."

"I'll have a ginger ale."

"Splendid," said Addison. "Ginger ale, a most noble beverage."

"Although I suppose it doesn't really matter at this point," said Milford, "since I've already had whiskey, wine, and beer, and grog laced with rum, not to mention sarsaparilla infused with ambrosia – the supposedly legendary food of the ancient Greek gods – as well as having smoked marijuana and hashish and eaten the sacred mushrooms of the American Indians."

"Then a beer is okay," said Addison. "In fact it might even be recommended at this point."

"But what really put me over the edge were these hand-rolled cigarettes that this Negro fellow Jelly Roll gave me."

"Do you have any left?"

"I don't think so."

"Would you mind checking?"

"If you insist."

"I'm only curious."

Milford put his cigarette in his lips and put his hand in the side pocket of his pea coat. He came out with a fat hand-rolled cigarette.

"I had no idea I still had one of these," he said. "I wonder if Jelly Roll stuck it in there surreptitiously?"

"Perhaps he did," said Addison. "Giving you one in reserve, like a good fellow. Shall we smoke it?"

"Addison, I just told you that it was one of these that put me over the edge."

"And yet here you stand, hale and hearty."

"That's only because I've been running around being chased by a gang of bloodthirsty douchebags, and the effect has been sweated out of me."

"Can I smoke it?"

"Be my guest, I don't want it."

"Are you sure?"

"Positively. But I warn you, if you smoke it, you too might go over the edge."

"What's in it?"

"if I recall correctly, it's Bull Durham tobacco, mixed with Acapulco gold and Panama red, jimson weed, John the Conqueroo, ayahuasca, and laudanum."

"I don't know what any of that is except for the laudanum, which quite frankly I've always wanted to try."

"Here, help yourself."

Milford proffered the fat hand-rolled cigarette, and Addison took it, and looked at it.

"I feel rather like Keats's Cortez," he said, "staring with his eagle eyes at the Pacific with a wild surmise."

He tossed away his Chesterfield, which he had smoked down to a stub anyway.

Milford walked over to where the still-smoking butt lay and ground it out with the sole of his stout workman's brogan. Then he realized that he had smoked his own Husky Boy down almost to its end, and so he dropped it to the floor and ground it out also. When he looked up, Addison had just lighted up the hand-rolled cigarette with one of his paper matches. 

"Rather an interesting flavor, and aroma," said Addison, exhaling, and flicking away his match. "Musky, with notes of old leather and dried apple."

"I think you're supposed to hold the smoke in for a while," said Milford.

"Indeed? For how long?"

"For as long as you can stand."

"Thanks for the tip, old boy."

Addison took another drag and held it in, while Milford walked over and stepped on the match Addison had just tossed to the floor, even though the match was extinguished, but he couldn't help himself. And why? Was he not able to control these absurd compulsions? Was he not able to control anything in his life? He glanced over at Addison, who was holding his breath, and Milford didn't know why, but he walked over and took the cigarette from Addison's fingers and took a great drag on it himself, ignoring or not caring about the end moistened with Addison's spittle, and so the two companions stood there, eyes wide open, holding in the smoke, and after a minute Addison exhaled, followed shortly by Milford, their two clouds of smoke mingling and merging in the still indoor air.

"Ah," said Addison.

"Yes," said Milford. "Ah."

"Shall we take another drag each?"

"Why not?"

What did it matter? What did anything matter?

They stood there, passing the cigarette back and forth, luxuriating in the madness they were submitting themselves to, in the strange ecstasy of the madness, feeling if not happy then indifferent to everything but this moment which seemed to stretch on forever, and not only forever but into the past and into a present which existed both in the future and the past, in some realm beyond time.

And, in time, if there was such a thing as time, five minutes later, or five years later, they had smoked the cigarette down to a nubbin, a red glowing nubbin in which was contained all the universe. 

Addison stubbed out the nubbin on a button of his coat sleeve, and then dropped it into a side pocket of his top coat. It seemed somehow disrespectful just to toss the butt to the floor, and, besides, he thought, perhaps he could chew on it later, slowly, and then swallow it, and then this feeling he now felt would blossom forth from within himself to outside himself and he would become one with all the universe.

Without a word the two friends then floated randomly in one direction down the hallway, and on they floated, saying nothing, there was nothing to say, there was everything to say, and they turned a corner and came to a dark passage which they entered into without fear, and they floated through the darkness until the darkness grew less dark and then was replaced by dimness and still onward they floated.

Would they come to some sort of edge, or ledge, beyond which was a black and bottomless abyss, and if they did come to such an edge, or ledge, would they float over it, and then what would happen? 

They didn't know. 

And on they floated.

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

"Let us start with Mr. Charrington," the tiny old man said to Addison.

"Me?" said Addison.

"Yes, please. Tell me of your life, such as it has been, not forgetting your hopes, your dreams, and of course your accomplishments."

"Well," said Addison, "for starters, I'm afraid my name isn't Charrington."

"Then may I ask why you said that it was?"

"Well, you see, I didn't actually say my name was Charrington, sir."

"Please, call me Happy, Mr. 'Charrington'."

"Happy," said Addison.

"That's better. So, you say your name is not really Chaffington. But I gather that is the name which you are, as they say, 'operating under'."

"Well, no, not actually –"

"Oh, I get it now."

"You do?"

"There's just something about your demeanor, your manner of speaking and your mode of dress. Am I wrong in guessing that you are a literary man, sir?"

"No," said Addison, "on that point I do plead guilty."

"A novelist, I daresay!"

"Yes, for my sins."

"I knew it! As soon as I saw that rumpled and worn flannel suit and the fedora looking like it's been through a war, I said to myself, 'Happy,' I says, 'there is a novelist if there ever was one!'"

"You have a most discerning eye, Happy," said Addison.

"Bleary my eye may be," said the old fellow, "clouded and cataracted and occluded with glaucoma as well, but I can still tell a novelist from any common chancer or pool parlour jackanapes. Chalk it up to a long lifetime, rich with experience and the observation of and intercourse with – I speak of social intercourse, not sexual, not that I am prejudiced against chaps of a bent bent, mind you – mankind. And also, to an admittedly lesser extent, womankind."

"Um," said Addison.

"And so we have established then that you are indeed a novelist and that Chadsworth is the latter part of your nom de plume. But what is the first and perhaps also middle part of it? I ask so that I may look for your works at my favorite bookshop."

"Um, uh, Bertram Collingswood," said Addison.

"So your full pen name is Bennett Coleman Hapsworth?"

"Yes," said Addison.

"And is there any particular favorite of your novels that you would suggest that I read?"

"Yes," said Addison. "You might want to try The Diary of an Illiterate, Volume One."

"Diary of an Inveterate Anglican?"

"Yes," said Addison.

"So it is a religious work."

"Somewhat, yes," said Addison. "Although I would call it more a philosophical work in its themes."

"Theosophical you say! Splendid. It's good to know that the young scribes of today do not shy away from spiritual matters. That it's not all rutting and rioting." 

The old fellow now cast his illegible gaze at Milford. 

"What about you, Milbert?" 

"I write poems," said Milford. "With neither reason, purpose, nor rhyme."

"Poems of seasons, porpoises, and limes?"

"Yes," said Addison.

"And something tells me that they are quite good poems indeed."

"No, they're all pretty bad, actually."

"Of course your poems are sad. Life is sad. And then we die. You know, I think I can help you lads in your literary endeavors."

Neither Addison nor Milford said anything to this.

"Do you want to know how I can help you?" prodded the old man.

"Do you own a publishing company?" asked Addison.

"Do I what?"

"Do you own a publishing company?" asked Addison, almost shouting.

"Yes, of course I keep good company, although, alas, as you can see, it consists mostly of chaps with one foot – if not both of them – in their graves. It is such a delight to converse with two bright young fellows like yourselves, and so I am glad to impart my wisdom to you. Perhaps you will then avoid at least a modicum of the mistakes I have made, indeed that most men make. I mean if you want to hear it."

"Please, Happy," said Addison, "in the words of the bard of Avon, 'Unmuzzle your wisdom.'" 

"Well, I don't know who this Bart O'Mahon is, but I will gladly share my wisdom, and indeed I shall tell you lads the meaning of life."

"Well, that's certainly a tall order, sir," said Addison.

"You can order a tall water if and when Lucullus ever arrives with our drinks. But shall I tell you?"

"What's that?" said Addison.

"Shall I tell you the meaning of life?"

"Oh, by all means, sir," said Addison.

The old man looked at Milford, or at least turned his withered face in Milford's direction.

"What about you, sonny? Want to know what it's all about, this whole dog and pony show we call life?"

"Yes, thank you," said Milford.

"Very well then," said Happy. "I will tell you. I will tell you both. No more fruitless searching, no more agonized midnight lucubrations, no more endless dark nights of the soul in the bright and harsh noonday sun. Save you both a lot of botheration and wasted time. Are you ready?"

"Yes," said Addison.

"What about you, my poetic young friend?" he said in Milford's direction.

"I'm sorry, what?" said Milford, whose attention had wandered for some reason, or reasons.

"Do you want to know the meaning of life?" said Happy.

"Yes, please," said Milford.

"Then bend an ear my friends, and I shall tell you."

He paused. He looked at his pipe, which had gone out. In the background the room hummed with ancient conversations and monologues, and with the singing and playing of a forgotten song by the old piano player in the hazy blue light. 

"The meaning of life," said the old man called Happy.

"Yes?" said Addison.

"The meaning," said the old man, again.

Addison said nothing now, wary of leading the witness. 

Milford also said nothing. There was nothing to say, not that there ever was.

"Of life!" said Happy.

He paused again, but this time the pause did not end.

His little bald head bowed forward, and it was hard to tell, but it seemed that his eyes had closed.

"Is he dead?" asked Milford.

"Perhaps just asleep," said Addison.

"He doesn't seem to be breathing."

"Maybe he's so old that he doesn't need to breathe that much."

"I think we should leave," said Milford.

"But we have drinks coming," said Addison.

"Addison," said Milford. "There are other things in life besides free drinks."

"I know, but still," said Addison.

"If he's dead, do you want to sit here and drink with a dead old man?"

Addison paused. Was it so bad after all to drink with a dead old man?

"Maybe he'll wake up and tell us the meaning of life," he said.

"Maybe he won't wake up," said Milford.

Addison paused again.

"I can't believe I'm going to forfeit a free Falstaff and a shot of Cream of Kentucky."

"Look," said Milford, "you can stay if you want to, but I'm leaving."

"Oh, all right," said Addison.

"If it will make you feel better, I will buy you a beer and a shot when we get to where we're going."

"Really?"

"Yes, now please, let's leave." 

"Very well." 

They both stood up from their chairs.

The old man was still sitting there, his head slumped forward, his dead pipe still gripped in his tiny hand. Was it a death grip?

"Come on, Addison," said Milford.

"All right," said Addison, sadly, turning down free drinks for the first and no doubt last time in his life. 

The two companions stepped away from the table and headed back in the direction of the door, breathing in the smells of smoke and old men and of wisdom unimparted, as the piano player sang and played his unknown song.

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

It was a tavern, another one, or a club of some sort, dim and thick with smoke, and in the shadows were stuffed chairs with what looked like nothing but old men sitting in them, and tables and booths with old men sitting at them, and over to the right a  long and crowded bar, and straight ahead on the other side of the room sat an old man in blue light at a grand piano singing a song from the turn of the century. The place smelled strongly of varieties of smoke, not only that of cigarettes, cigars and pipes, but also marijuana, hashish, and opium, but beneath these smells lay the odors of damp woolens, of galoshes in stuffy closets, of decaying lace in the dresser drawers of the houses of great-grandparents, of basements and attics filled with broken furniture and stacks of old newspapers and National Geographics.

Milford and Addison panted and sweated, standing there, as the old man smiled and looked up at them. His head was as hairless as a skeleton's, and he was dressed in an old three-piece grey suit, in the height of the fashions of the Gilded Age.

"Welcome to the League, gentlemen."

"The League?" said Addison.

"Yes, the League," said the little old man.

"And what League is this?" asked Addison.

"Guess," said the man.

"The Justice League of America?"

"Ha ha, no," chuckled the old fellow, taking out a pipe, and now looking at Milford, or presumably looking at him, as he wore glasses which seemed to be at least a half-inch thick, magnifying his eyes to the size of an elephant's and with the same inscrutable gaze. "How about you, young fellow?"

"Pardon me?" said Milford, absorbed in the dull horror of the old man's massively wrinkled face and goggled eyes.

"Guess what sort of League this is?"

"The League of the Damned?"

"Ha ha, quite risible, my youthful friend! Would you like to guess again?"

"No, thank you," said Milford.

The old man now swiveled his skull again towards Addison.

"What about you, my good man? One more guess?"

"Um, uh," said Addison.

"Guess correctly and you get to drink free the rest of the night," said the old guy, packing his pipe with ragged leaves from a cracked leather pouch.

"My friend too?"

"But of course!"

"Okay," said Addison. He looked from the old man to around the room, and then back again to the old fellow. "The League of Veterans of the Army of the Potomac?"

"By George!" said the old guy, "Close! Very close!"

"May I ignite your pipe, sir?" said Addison, drawing out his book of Bob's Bowery Bar matches.

"How gentlemanly of you!" cried the old man, and he allowed Addison to light his pipe, drawing in the smoke with wet rattling slurping noises. 

Addison waved the match out.

"Is there an ashtray nearby?" he asked.

"Oh, just toss it to the floor, my good chap, we don't stand on ceremony here at the League."

Addison did as he had been urged, and noticed that the floor was already liberally littered with spent matches and butts of cigarettes and cigars.

"Nice place you've got here," he said, with a perfectly straight face. "Don't you think so, Milford?"

"Yeah, sure," said Milford. 

"We really want to thank you for letting us in, mister," said Addison, taking out his pack of Chesterfields. "Don't we, Milford?"

"Yes," said Milford. "We appreciate it, sir."

"Think nothing of it," said the old man, puffing away on his pipe. "Who was it that was chasing you, anyway?"

"You should pardon the expression," said Addison, lighting up his Chesterfield, "but they were douchebags."

"Douchebags you say! From that douchebag bar round the way?"

"Yes, I suppose it was them," said Addison, flicking his match away.

"Nasty brutes. I suppose they tried to recruit you into their unholy ranks."

"Yes, they did," said Addison, exhaling his Chesterfield smoke with a resigned-seeming expression on his face.

"Damn their impudence! The most cursory glance could tell the discerning eye that you fellows are not douchebags."

"Well, thank you for saying that," said Addison.

"Not douchebags, nor cunts neither."

"Again, thank you," said Addison.

"But if you be not douchebags, or cunts, may I ask what you are?"

"That is a good question," said Addison.

The old guy turned his face of wrinkles toward Milford.

"What are you, young man?"

"Idiots," said Milford.

At this the old man took his pipe from his mouth and sputtered and hacked, his little body convulsing like a marionette whose puppeteer had gone mad.

"Are you all right, sir?" said Addison.

The old guy sputtered and spluttered and hacked some more, but then said, "Oh. Oh my. Oh dear."

"Would you like to sit down?" asked Milford.

"Sit down? Why?"

"In case you're having an attack of some sort."

"I wasn't having an attack," said the old guy. "I was merely laughing at your bon mot."

"Oh."

"'Idiots,' he says! Idiots! Oh my word. You are quite the scamp, my lad," he said to Milford.

"I was only speaking the truth," said Milford.

"Idiots!"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"I'll give you one more guess."

"Pardon me?" said Milford.

"One more guess as to what we are the League of."

"The League of People Banned From Other Leagues?"

Once again the old fellow fell victim to a fit of spluttering and coughing, to such an extent that a set of dentures flew from his mouth and fell clattering on the floor. Milford took his handkerchief from his jeans pocket, bent down and picked up the dentures with it, and offered them to the man, who was breathing heavily and snorting.

"Oh, thank you, my good chap," he mumbled toothlessly, and shoved the dentures back into his mouth without bothering to wipe them off. "I swear your witticisms will be the death of me, my boy."

"I will try to keep them to a minimum," said Milford.

"Oh dear, perhaps you better had. Very well. I will tell you lads where you have found yourselves. Welcome, I say to you young gentlemen, to the League of Little Old Men! Would you care for a libation?"

"Yes, thank you," said Addison.

"What about you, pal?" the man asked Milford.

"I don't drink."

"You don't? Why in heaven's name not?"

"I am an alcoholic."

"But you're a mere stripling!"

"Yes, but I started young," said Milford.

"What about a sody pop then?"

"Sure, that would be nice, thank you."

"Splendid," said the old guy. "Please accompany me, if you will."

The old guy turned and walked, slowly, one step at a time, past three or four tables at which elderly men sat, some of them playing cards, others just sitting drinking and smoking, past a smaller table at which two old geezers played chess, or at any rate stared at a chess board, then finally to an arrangement of three cushioned arm chairs ranged around a low round table. He climbed up on one chair, and looked at Addison and Milford, waving a tiny hand.

"Please, gentlemen, be seated."

Our friends sat, Milford to the right of the old man, Addison to the left.

Milford took out his pack of Husky Boys. If ever there was a time to smoke, and a necessity to smoke, this was it.

"My name, by the way," said the old guy, "is William Henry Harrison Happington. But, please, call me Happy."

"Pleased to meet you, uh, Happy," said Addison. There were three ashtrays on the table, all of them with ashes and the stubs of cigars and cigarettes in them, and he drew one closer and tapped his Chesterfield ash into it. "This is my good friend Milford," he said, nodding to Milford, "and my name is –"

"Mildred you say?" said the old guy.

"No, Happy," said Addison. "Not Mildred, but Milford."

"I did not think he was a member of the female persuasion," said Happy, "but one can never be quite sure, can one?"

"No, I suppose not," said Addison.

"At least not until you get him or her into the bedroom, ha ha!"

"Uh, yes, I suppose that's true," said Addison.

"Not that I've gotten anyone into a bedroom for many years myself."

"Well, uh," said Addison.

"And what is your name, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"Well, all my friends call me Addison, but –"

"Happington, you say? I wonder if we are related. Are you by any chance the great grandson of my nephew James Buchanan Happington?"

"Um, no, you see I said Addison, not Happington, sir."

"Please, call me Happy."

"Sure, 'Happy'."

"So you say your name is Farrington? Any relation to the Farringtons of Grosse Pointe?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so –"

"Thank God. A most unfortunately decadent clan, if I do say so. Ah! Our noble manservant."

Another tiny old man was standing there, in a tuxedo, holding a tray, and with a dirty towel over one arm.

"Drinks, gentlemen?"

"Yes, Lucullus," said Happy. "Bring us three glasses of Falstaff lager, please, and a round of Creams of Kentucky."

"Coming right up, Happy," said the old man apparently called Lucullus, and he turned and hobbled slowly away.

Happy smiled at Addison and Milford, or at any rate stretched out the ends of his thin pale lips.

"With any luck," he said, "we will have our libations within the hour. But in the meantime, let us smoke, and get to know one another, and talk."

Milford lighted up a Husky Boy with his Ronson. Somehow the old man had forgotten, or neglected, or chosen not to order him a soft drink. It had been very hard to be an alcoholic, and it was proving just as hard, if not infinitely more so, to be a recovering one.

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

Neither of our friends could bear staying silent for much more than a minute in another person's presence, and so after fifty-nine seconds had barely elapsed they simultaneously spoke. 

"You know –"

"You know –"

"Yes?" said Addison.

"No, you go first," said Milford.

"No, please, by all means, after you, old chap."

"No, I insist."

"Well, only if you insist."

"I do."

"You know –" said Addison, again.

"Yes?" said Milford.

"Hmm."

"Go on.".

"This is embarrassing."

"No need to be embarrassed, Addison. Not with me. I am the crown prince of embarrassment."

"Well, here's the thing, Milford."

"Yes?"

"I've forgotten what I was going to say."

"Oh."

"So why don't you just go ahead and say whatever it was that you were about to say?"

"Me?"

"Yes. Please, feel free."

Milford paused, or, at any rate, he said nothing as they continued to walk along, and at the minute mark Addison spoke again.

"Why the hesitation, old man?"

"I'm hesitating," said Milford, "because I too have completely forgotten whatever it was I was going to say."

"Oh," said Addison.

"Not that it matters."

"And why is that?"

"Because I've never said anything interesting or original in my life, and I very much doubt that I'm about to begin now."

Addison now took the sort of pause the popular novelists he preferred would have described as thoughtful.

"May I say something?" he then said.

"Please do," said Milford. "Anything would be better than walking lost along these dim corridors in utter silence."

"What I have to say is only this," said Addison, his voice assuming the heavily George Sandersesque tone he reserved for his most profound pronunciamentos, "which is that once you start requiring yourself to be interesting or original you might as well just take a vow of silence like one of those monk fellows. Because, my dear fellow –"

"Wait."

"What?"

"Listen."

They both stopped.

"Do you hear that?" said Milford.

Addison cocked an ear.

"Yes," he said. "I hear it. A faint rumbling."

"An amorphous sort of mumbling," said Milford.

"A slightly sort of sinister grumbling."

"From up ahead there."

"In the darkness, yes."

"What if it's those guys?" said Milford.

"The douchebags you mean?"

"Yes."

"Could they still be after us?"

"Why not? Maybe they have nothing better to do."

"If they catch up to us," said Addison, "I daresay they will tear us limb from bloody limb."

"Yes, at the very least they'll thrash us senseless."

"Or," said Addison, "that just might be the sound of friendly people."

"I'm afraid," said Milford.

"So also I."

"As much as I find life tedious still I cling to it."

"As well you should, my friend. After all this might just turn out to be your night."

"Or it might turn out to be the night on which I am beaten mercilessly to death."

"So what do we do?" asked Addison. "Walk toward the sound of human beings, or retreat?"

Once again Milford paused.

The rumbling mumbling grumbling grew louder.

"I could be wrong," said Milford, "but it sounds to me like an angry drunken mob."

"The douchebags."

"Possibly."

"So we should retreat."

"Yes, I think that might –"

Ahead down the corridor the folds of darkness stirred, shadows took anthropoid form, and a voice echoed, shouting.

"Hey, it's them! It's those two cunts!"

Another voice shouted and echoed.

"Come on, boys, let's get 'em!"

Feet trampling, guttural cries.

"Oh no," said Milford.

"I think our questions have been answered," said Addison.

The time for conversation had ended, and the time for turning tail and running for one's life had come. Again.

And so on they ran, as fast as their unathletic legs could carry them, and as far, turning a corner to the right, and then another one to the left, and then they saw a staircase and mounted it, leaving it at the next floor and then ran down another hallway, but still they heard the distant shouting and the stamping of angry feet, and on they staggered wheezing and sweating until they came to another staircase, turning into it and stumbling almost falling down a flight, and on the landing they saw a door under a dim light fixture with a hand-painted sign that said in cursive letters

 

Do Not Enter

"Oh, thank God," said Milford, panting, sweat streaming down his face, and he put his hand on the door knob.

"It says do not enter," panted Addison.

"Fuck that," said Milford, and he pulled and twisted the knob. 

"Is it locked?" said Addison.

"Yes, it's locked," said Milford.

"Knock."

Milford knocked, and then pounded with his fist.

"Hello!" he shouted.

"Not so loud," said Addison. "The douchebags will hear you."

"Hello," rasped Milford, in a stage whisper, and he continued to pound on the door.

"Don't pound so loud," said Addison. "You'll give our position away."

Milford continued to pound, but less forcefully.

And then the door opened, inward, and a little old man stood there in shadows.

"May I help you?"

"Listen," said Milford, "excuse us, we know the sign says do not enter but my friend and I are being chased by an angry mob who want to kill us."

"To kill you?"

"Or," said Addison, "at the very least to beat us to within an inch of our lives."

Behind them and from up the stairs came the sound of tramping feet and shouting voices.

"Please, sir," said Milford. "That's them."

"Yes, I hear them," said the old man. "You boys certainly are in a pickle, aren't you?"

"Yes!" whined Milford.

"Ha ha," said the old man.

"We adjure you, sir," said Addison. "If you could just –"

"You young pups!" said the old man. "If it isn't one thing it's another! Very well then, come in if you're coming, and I daresay you had better be quick about it."

Neither Milford nor Addison had to be invited twice, and in they went, and the old man closed the door behind them.

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}

The weedy man with the garnet toupée still sat on his stool by the doorway, smoking his pipe.

"What, you're leaving already?"

"Yes, well, just a quick one," said Addison.

"Oh, 'a quick one'," said the man, what was his name? Ben?

"Yeah," said Addison, "one and done, you know…"

"No, I don't know," said the man, yes, Ben was his name, Ben the Bore. "I'll tell you what I do know. Do you want to know what I know?"

"Sure," said Addison.

"What I do know is you yourself don't look like the one-and-done type. You look more like the drink until you run out of money or people to buy you drinks type to me."

"Um –" said Addison. Was he really that transparent?

"And as for you," the man addressed Milford, "you strike me more as the sit sullenly at the bar downing beer after beer until the bartender throws you out at 4 A.M. at which point you stagger into the nearest alleyway and pass out in a pool of your own piss on the cold cobblestones amidst the garbage and rats type."

"Uh –" said Milford. Was it really that obvious?

"What's the matter," said the guy, "this place not 'exciting' enough for you two?"

"No," said Addison, "it's not that –"

"Not enough brilliant repartee for you gentlemen here?"

"Look, sir," spoke up Milford, "we're just leaving, all right? There's no law saying we have to stay here, is there?"

"Not that I know of," said Ben the Bore.

"Well, then, good night."

"But can I just say something?"

"Okay," said Milford, sighing, for the twelve-thousandth and thirty-fourth time since he had awakened long ago the previous morning from a troubled sleep into a more troubled wakefulness.

"Why are you sighing?" said the man.

"Don't mind Milford," said Addison, "he sighs quite often."

"I hope I'm not boring him," said Ben the Bore.

"Oh, I'm sure you're not," said Addison.

"Am I boring you, Milforth?" said the man, to Milford.

"My name is Milford, and, yes, you're boring me," said Milford.

"Well, that's just too bad, young fellow, because I've got something to say, and you're going to have to listen to it."

"All right," said Milford, putting his fist to his mouth to stifle another sigh.

"I just want to say," said Ben the Bore, pausing and pointing the mouthpiece of his pipe at Milford, and then at Addison, "I only wish to say that I hope you two fellows don't think you're better than us."

"We don't, we assure you," said Addison.

"Then why may I ask are you leaving when you just got here?"

"We have to go somewhere."

"Where?"

"To another bar."

"Another 'bar'?"

"Yes."

"What other bar." 

"It's called the Hideyway I think."

"The Hideaway?"

"Yes, that's it."

"That's a Negro bar."

"Yes, we're aware," said Addison.

"You're not Negroes."

"Of that we also are aware."

"Then why are you going there?"

"Listen –" said Milford, "Ben is it?"

"Yes," said the man. "Ben. Ben the Bore. I'm surprised you remember my name. Most people don't. And I suppose you know why."

"Because you're so boring?"

"Yes. Which is why I am called Ben the Bore. Not Ben the Exciting Guy. Ben the Bore. And I am okay with that. But you were saying something? Or about to?"

"Yes," said Milford, "but now you've bored whatever it was I was going to say right out of my head."

"And for that I apologize. See? I may be a bore, but at least I'm polite."

"Uh," said Milford.

"Boring but polite, that's me," said Ben the Bore.

"Yeah," said Milford. "Oh, wait, now I remember –"

"Remember what?"

"What I was going to say."

"Please say it then. See, I said please, because I'm polite."

"Okay," said Milford, "what I was going to say was, and no offense intended, but what business of yours is it that we're going to a Negro bar or any other sort of bar?"

"Oh," said Ben. "Wow."

"What do you mean?" said Milford.

"What I mean is, wow, the arrogance."

"How is what I said arrogant?"

"Because you're implying that I am overstepping my bounds simply because I find it shall we say curious to say the least that two gentlemen as blatantly Caucasian as yourselves would want to go to a Negro bar, but you won't stay and enjoy yourselves here, with your fellow members of the European ethnicities."

"Here's one reason," said Milford. "It's that everything about this place is boring, and annoying, including you. The whole place reeks of tedium. Even the bartender told us we should leave."

"He did, huh? That's Joe for you. Well, I'm sorry he said that, and I will have to have a word with him. We can't have him scaring away customers that way. So, look, why don't you fellows go back to the bar and just have another drink, maybe get something to eat. If you don't want the baloney and American cheese sandwich on white bread special, you might consider the peanut butter and jelly on white bread, that's pretty good."

"Sorry, we're going," said Milford.

"So what you're saying is that it's really just too boring for you here."

"Yes," said Milford, "it's too boring here."

"That hurts," said Ben. "And you know why it hurts? It's because you two look pretty damn extremely boring to me. And if you fellows think it's too boring here, what does that say about this place? About everyone in here? What does it say about me? Yeah, I'll admit it, that hurts. That stings."

"But we really do have somewhere else to go," said Addison. "So don't take it personally."

"Right," said Ben. "The Hideaway. The Negro bar."

"Yes," said Addison.

"I wish I could go there," said Ben.

"Then you should go," said Addison. "It's really quite an amusing place."

"Yeah, I'll bet it is," said Ben.

"So go there sometime," said Addison.

"I did try to go there one time," said Ben. "They wouldn't let me in. And, you know, it wasn't because I was white, either."

"Oh," said Addison.

"No, it wasn't because I'm white. It was because they said I looked too boring."

"Let's go, Addison," said Milford, after a pause that was awkward even compared to all that had gone before.

"Sure, go," said Ben the Bore. "I won't stop you."

"Thanks," said Addison. 

"Don't thank me," said Ben.

"All right," said Addison.

"Just leave," said Ben the Bore. "But I will say this. Don't come back."

"We won't," said Milford.

"Enjoy the Hideaway. Enjoy the Negro bar. Enjoy the music, and the happy people. Enjoy your capability of experiencing enjoyment."

"We'll try to," said Addison.

"Come on, Addison," said Milford. He didn't want to have to touch his friend's arm again, but he would if it came to that.

"Okay," said Addison. "Good night," he said to Ben the Bore.

"I hate my life," said Ben.

Addison was rarely at a loss for words, but now he was. Milford broke down and gave his companion's arm a slight pat, and they went to the door. Addison opened it, Milford went through, and Addison followed him.

Outside in the dim corridor Addison took one last drag from what was left of his latest Chesterfield and dropped it to the floor.

"Okay," he said.

"Yes," said Milford. "Okay."

He went over and stepped on Addison's Chesterfield butt, grinding it out with the sole of his stout workman's brogan.

"I'm starting to wonder," said Addison. "If we'll ever find our way back."

"Me too," said Milford.

"I mean," said Addison, "should we just give up? Just keep going until we find an exit, and go home?"

Milford paused.

"No," he said. 

"Are you thinking of the ladies we left back at the Hideyway?"

"The Hideaway," said Milford.

"Yes," said Addison.

"Yes," said Milford. "I was thinking of them."

"I don't really want to go home either," said Addison. "So shall we continue?"

Right before them was the dim hallway leading back the way they had come, and to the right and the left was another dim hallway, ending in darkness in both directions.

"We should have asked for directions," said Addison.

"Yes, we should have," said Milford.

"We could go back in and ask that Ben guy for directions."

"Yes, we could," said Milford.

"But we're not going to, are we?"

"No, we're not," said Milford.

"Okay, then," said Addison. "Which way?"

Milford looked to the left, and then to the right.

"To the left?"

"Fine," said Addison.

"No, to the right," said Milford.

"Right it is," said Addison.

They hesitated a moment, and then, without another word, turned to the left, and walked down the dim corridor towards the darkness.

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