"Set Sail for Surabaya"

 

They headed toward the crowded bar, but someone called out.

"Livingston, old man."

This was a fat older man sitting at a booth to the left, and he was with another older man who was thin.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Boosterman," said Livingston.

"Get over here, boy," said the fat man.

Livingston and Harry went over to the table. Both of the older men were smoking cigars, and they had highball glasses in front of them. The one who had called was bald and his pink face seemed about to burst from inside like a balloon. The thin one's face was the color of a damp fog on a winter morning. They were aged perhaps somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five.

"Who's your pal, Livingston?" said the fat man.

"This is my friend the noted author Harry Beachcroft," said Livingston. "Harry, this is Mr. Boosterman and Mr. Pickles."

"Hello," said Harry. 

"Did you say Harry Beachcroft?" said Mr. Boosterman.

"Yes," said Livingston.

"Jesus Christ," said Mr. Boosterman. "Did you hear that, Pickles?"

"I did indeed," said the thin man.

"Not the author of Dead Man on a Merry-Go-Round?" said Mr. Boosterman.

"Yes," said Harry.

"And Dead Dames Don't Blather?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Set Sail for Surabaya?"

"Yes, that was me," said Harry.

"Good God, sir, it is an honor to meet you," said the fat man. "I would rise to shake your hand, but unfortunately my girth would make it awkward, stuffed into this booth as I am."

"That's quite all right, sir," said Harry.

"You and Livingston must join us for a libation."

"Well, uh," said Harry.

"Why not?" said Livingston. He squeezed down into the booth next to Mr. Boosterman, and Harry slipped in on the side of Mr. Pickles. 

"The Far Side of Hades," said Mr. Boosterman, "now there was a good novel!"

"Thanks," said Harry.

"Three Cheers for the Damned," continued Mr. Boosterman, "that was a rousing epic."

"Thanks again," said Harry.

"But you seem so young," said Mr. Boosterman. "I should have imagined you to be in your fifties at least."

"At heart I am in my fifties," said Harry.

"Ha ha," said Mr. Pickles. "I myself felt quite ancient even in the first grade."

"Who was it said age is just a number?" said Mr. Boosterman.

"A very wise fellow," said Livingston.

Another old man appeared at the table, carrying a tray and with a napkin over his arm.

"Drinks, gentlemen?"

"Yes, Claude," said Mr. Boosterman, "two more of the same for me and Mr. Pickles, and whatever our guests are having."

"My usual Cutty and soda with no ice, please," said Livingston. "What are you having, Harry?"

"I guess I'll have what you're having," said Harry. He might as well get drunk, or drunker. What was the point of sobriety at this juncture?

They sat and Mr. Boosterman named more of Harry's novels, even ones Harry had forgotten he'd written, which, he reflected, is easy to do when you've churned out one every two or three months over the course of a dozen years. The drinks came, and they drank, and the conversation shifted away from Harry's books, and after a while Harry thought, so, this is the way the upper crust live, or at least the way some of them do. They sit in their clubs and drink and talk superficially and state opinions on various subjects. The only real difference between these men and the clientèle of his own local tavern Bob's Bowery Bar was money. This seemed almost a profound insight, and he made a mental note to put it in his work in progress (working title: A Cloudy Day in Newport), a novel of anomie and despair among the moneyed élite, which thus far he had based only on Hollywood movies and the novels of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and John P. Marquand, from the Cholly Knickerbocker column in the Journal-American, and from New Yorker stories he would read or skim in the public library. He didn't consider this lack of first-hand knowledge of his subject cheating; after all, what did Shakespeare know about the royal court of medieval Denmark, or of the great families of Italy, or of ancient Rome, and no one ever called Shakespeare a phony or a poseur. It occurred to Harry that perhaps he should pay closer attention to the conversation at the table, and maybe he would pick up some good material, but the problem with that idea was that the conversation was boring, so much so that he forgot each drawling sentence or sentence fragment as soon as it was spoken, and then he realized further that he had in fact never been so bored in his entire life, not forgetting his wretchedly unheroic wartime service typing up requisitions in triplicate at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

"What do you think, Mr. Beachcroft?" said Mr. Pickles.

"Um, well, that's hard to say," said Harry, having not the slightest idea of the topic in question.

"But you are an author," said Mr. Pickles. "An intellectual."

"Well, I'm not so sure about the intellectual part," said Harry.

"You are far too modest," said Mr. Boosterman. "No one could write a searing novel like Sideshow Sally and Jimmy the Geek and not be an intellectual."

"Or Two Tickets to Tehatchapee," said Livingston. "You want searing? That book seared like a hot poker."

"It did indeed," said Mr. Boosterman. "So, please, Mr. Beachcroft, we implore you, in the words of the Bawdy Bard, to 'unmuzzle your wisdom'."

"Well, I would," said Harry, "but."

"But what?"

Should he just admit that he had been paying only the vaguest attention to a word that had been said since he and Livingston had seated themselves here fifteen minutes or a half hour ago? But such an admission might cause ill feeling.

Fortunately, Harry's dilemma was solved by his bladder, as he suddenly realized that he actually did need to go to the lavatory.

"Gentlemen, I will give you my thoughts on this subject, but first I am afraid that I must answer a call to nature. So if you could perhaps direct me to the men's room?"

"I'll show you, buddy," said Livingston.

"If you could just give me directions," said Harry, who had always felt awkward going to the men's room with other men.

"No, I have to go also," said Livingston.

"Oh, okay."

"Right, come with me," said Livingston. "Gentlemen, if you will excuse us."

"Hope it all comes out okay," said Mr. Boosterman. 

"Don't forget to give it that one extra wag," said Mr. Pickles.

"Ha ha, come on, Harry, let me be your guide," said Livingston. He shoved himself out of the booth, and Harry did as well.

"Hurry back, Mr. Beachcroft," said Mr. Boosterman. "I really want to hear your opinion on this matter."

"Um, uh," said Harry.

"Let's go," said Livingston. "I really gotta go."

They set off once again through the barroom, and Livingston put his mouth close to Harry's ear.

"I tend to forget how soul-crushingly deadly those guys are, but then I talk to them again, and it all comes rushing back to me. Come, we must make our escape."

"Okay, but I really do have to pee."

"So also I, but then we should bolt this popsicle stand posthaste."

"Where to?" said Harry.

"Does it matter?" said Livingston. "As a man once said, I think it might have been me, but I'll say it again: anywhere but here. This place is okay in small doses, but there's too many of these drudges here. Follow me, we'll go take a slash, and then high adventure awaits." 

Adventure? Harry had written about adventure in dozens of novels and stories and serialized novellas, but he could not say he had even once experienced what might reasonably be called adventure. Would he experience it this night? And if he did indeed experience it, would he live to transform it into salable fiction, perhaps even into art? 

He followed Livingston through the smoke-clouded room, full of babbling bores and the reekings of tobacco and liquor and leathery colognes.

"Oh, by the way, Livingston."

"Yes, Harry."

"What was it those guys were asking me about, anyway?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Okay, down this hallway for the pisser. Come on."

Harry followed Livingston down another dim hallway, hung with faded and dingy portraits of tedious tosspots of the past.

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

"Putting Down the Moro"

 

 

One of the big double doors opened and a little old man in an old-fashioned black suit was there.

"Oh," he said. "Mr. Lovechild. Out in this inclement weather."

"Well, you know me, Stokes," said Livingston. "It'll take a lot more than a raging blizzard to stay me from my appointed rounds."

"Ha ha, yes, sir, and I see you have brought a friend."

"I have indeed," said Livingston. "Stokes, I would like you to meet Mr. Beachcroft."

"I am very pleased to meet you, sir," said the old man to Harry.

"I, um, am pleased to meet you, Mr., uh, Stokes," said Harry.

"Just Stokes, sir," said the little old man. "It is not my place to be addressed by the honorific 'mister'."

"Okay, uh, 'Stokes'," said Harry.

"But do come in, gentlemen," said the old man called Stokes, stepping to one side. "You must be perishing from the cold."

"Thanks, Stokes," said Livingston, and he waved Harry on to go first.

Stokes closed the door behind them, and they were standing in a gloomy marble foyer, with a cracked vase full of umbrellas, and hooks on the walls with coats and hats.

"May I take your outer garments and headgear, gentlemen?" said Stokes.

"Don't bother, Stokes," said Livingston, removing his mittens. "We're just going to have a quick one at the bar and then we'll be on our way."

"Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen," said Stokes.

"Oh, I'm sure we shall, Stokes," said Livingston, and with his mittens he brushed some snow off the sleeves of his mackinaw. "Come on, Harry, stick with me."

They left the old man behind, and Livingston led Harry out of the foyer, down a short dim hallway decorated with paintings gloomy with age and into a great room thick with tobacco smoke and warmth and the smells of whiskey and gin and burning wood from a roaring fireplace. The room was furnished with comfortable looking plush chairs and sofas and in them sat old men who looked up to see who had come in and then looked away again.

"This is the lounge," said Livingston, "but let's just head right on into the bar."

"Okay," said Harry.

They forged through the large room filled with old men and smoke, Livingston nodding and saying hello to some of these senior citizens.

One of the old men said, or croaked, "Young Lovechild, how is your old man? Haven't seen him lately."

"Dead, I'm afraid, General Poormouth {at least that's what it sounded like to Harry}, for, lo, these past dozen years or so."

"Dead you say?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so, General."

"I hope he died peacefully."

"Keeled over from a massive cardiac infarction while hunting grouse out on the island," said Livingston. "I doubt he even knew what hit him, and both hammers of his beloved old Purdey gun were still cocked when they found him."

"Then he went the way he should have preferred, I daresay," said the old man called General something.

"Very much so," said Livingston.

"And who is your companion?"

"This is Mr. Harry Beachcroft," said Livingston. "The famous author."

"Harold Peachcough?" said the general.

"Beachcroft," said Livingston. "Harry Beachcroft, sir."

"Excuse me for not rising, Mr. Peachcraft" said the general. "It's my artharitis. Exacerbated by a spear wound in the groin from my time in the Philippines, putting down the Moro."

"That's quite all right, sir," said Harry. "Please don't get up."

"What books have you written? Anything I might have heard of?"

"Well, uh," said Harry.

"Did you ever read The Black Dwarf, by Sir Walter Scott?"

"Well, I've been meaning to get to that one," said Harry.

"What about some of these more recent books, like Daniel Deronda I think it is, by George Eliot?"

"That one is definitely on my reading list," said Harry.

"But you know who's a good author?" said the general.

"Who?" said Harry.

"Arthur Conan Doyle."

"Him I've read," said Harry.

"That man wrote like a motherfucker," said the general. "Pardon my barracks-room language but it's true. You should read his Sherlock Holmes stories."

"I, um," said Harry.

"Always a pleasure, General," said Livingston, "but, uh –"

"Name me a book you've written," said the general to Harry.

"Um, I've written quite a few, actually," said Harry.

"What's a good one to start with?"

"Well, I have a soft spot for a novel called Gin Mill Molly. It's about this girl –"

"Named Molly who works in a gin mill?"

"Uh, yes –"

"I'll ask for it next time I visit Brentano's."

"So, if you will excuse us, general," said Livingston.

"Yes, say hello to your father for me," said the general. 

"I will do that, General," said Livingston.

"He's a good man."

"That he is, sir."

"I knew your grandfather, too. Joe Lovechild. There was a man. Built his factory from scratch after his old man old Pete Lovechild had blown the family fortune on the nags and faro. But so it goes. You live a while, stomp the earth doing whatever you do, and then you die in the end. May I give you young pups some advice."

"Please do, General," said Livingston.

"Fuck a lot. Drink a lot. Eat a lot. Stay up all night gambling. If you see an ass, kick it. If any man insults you, slap his face. Grab life by the balls, before it grabs yours. And get all the sleep you can."

"We will try to do all that, General," said Livingston.

"Someday, if you don't croak first, you will wind up like me, sitting in a chair in this club, left only with your memories. So make sure you've got some good ones."

"We will, General," said Livingston.

"And you, Mr. Peachums," said the general to Harry. "You are a writer. So write well, as if your very life depended on it. Don't write arrant shit. Try to write as well as Arthur Conan Doyle if you can manage it."

"I will try, sir," said Harry.

"Won't you gentlemen sit and have a drink with me? On my tab, of course."

"We would, General," said Livingston, "but we're supposed to meet some people at the bar."

"Oh, of course. Fellow young scamps like yourselves I'll warrant. And, when you're sufficiently oiled, probably heading off en masse to some merry bawdy house."

"One never knows," said Livingston.

"Best times of my life were spent in bawdy houses. Now Havana, there's a town had some good bawdy houses. And Manila, my word. Vera Cruz, too. Also, believe it or not, Gallup, New Mexico. Lovely place there they used to call Salt Chunk Mary's, I visited there often when I was on the border with Pershing chasing Pancho Villa over hill and dale. To no avail."

"Well, nice chatting with you, General," said Livingston.

"If it weren't for this artharitis I'd be right there with you. Of course I can't remember the last time I've had an erection, but it might be fun just to caress an alabaster thigh, and to breathe a tart's Woolworth's perfume."

"Till we meet again," said Livingston.

"Go, go," said the General. "And when you get to that bawdy house tonight I want you to do just one thing for me, Livingston."

"What's that, sir?"

"Shove it in once for me, lad. Just once."

"I will, sir," said Livingston.

"Only once. Just say, 'This one's for the old general.'"

"Right, okay," said Livingston.

"Nice meeting you, Mr. Peachbaum," said the general to Harry.

"Nice meeting you, too, sir," said Harry.

"All right," said the general. "Run along now, boys, but remember what I told you."

"We will, sir," said Livingston. "Good night now."

"You only get one life. Waste it at your peril."

"We will bear that in mind, General."

"God I wish I could go with you, but, you know."

"Your arthritis," said Livingston.

"Yes, and that spear wound. The little bastards would smear the spear heads with shit. They knew what they were doing."

"We'll see you on our way out," said Livingston.

"I'll be here," said the general. "Unless I'm in the latrine."

"Shall we go?" said Livingston, to Harry, touching his elbow.

"Yes, okay," said Harry.

Livingston pulled on Harry's arm, and they headed off.

"Livingston!" came the general's croaking thin voice, and Livingston and Harry stopped and turned. "Just once!" cried the general. "Just one stout goodly thrust. For me."

Livingston paused, then nodded.

"At least one, General!" he called. 

He pulled on Harry's arm again, and they continued across the smoky room, redolent of smoke, of whiskey and gin, and half-remembered memories of bygone wars, of bawdy houses and moist alabaster thighs.

"Old guys," said Livingston. "They never miss a chance to impart a bit of hard-earned wisdom, do they? Ah, the bar, at last."

They passed into another room, dimmer and even smokier than the one they had left, with a long bar filled with men and the babble of voices and the tinkling of glassware, and the glinting of bottles ranged on shelves and beckoning.

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