“Uncle Buddy’s House”, Chapter 3: voix humaine

Our previous episode concluded with our hero, that raffish middle-aged rascal Buddy Best, mentioning the loathed man who has taken away Buddy’s wife Joan, a man Buddy refers to only as "the Ancient Mariner"...

(Go here to see the first chapter of this hard-hitting exposé of the tawdry private lives of Hollywood’s defiantly damned.)

The Mariner -- Buddy should have seen that one coming; and come to think of it, he had. This dude, with his beret and his salt-and-pepper ponytail, his goatee, his tinted granny glasses, his scarf and his suede elbow patches and his bare-wood beach house down by the bottom of Venice Beach. The jive motherfucker.

The jive-ass old acting-teacher motherfucker.

Hey, Buddy had been nothing but generous when it came to giving Joan parts in his cheesy movies. It wasn’t his fault if she couldn’t get other gigs. Let’s face it, she just wasn’t all that good, and all the acting classes in the world weren’t going to make her a whole lot better; but that didn’t stop her from taking classes, and so, enter the Ancient Mariner.

He had a real name of course, Stephen whatever, but to Buddy it had been The Ancient Mariner ever since that night Joan dragged him down to that showcase at the Mariner’s little theatre off South Venice Boulevard.

Joan was in the show, and so they had to get there early, but this was not a bad thing because it gave Buddy time to have half a doobie in the car and a Ketel One martini in a bar down the street beforehand. (Deirdre was supposed to have come too of course, but she had pleaded menstrual cramps and gotten out of it. Buddy went up to her room to see her before he and Joan left, and Deirdre admitted that although she was having her period she was faking the severity of the cramps. Buddy didn’t blame her.) He had wanted to prepare himself for what he figured would be little-theatre hell from the moment the curtain went up, if there had been a curtain, which there wasn’t, but amazingly the first piece of the evening wasn’t bad at all.

It started in complete darkness and all you could hear was this woman speaking in French. Now Buddy understood a little French, and he was the sort of opera buff who considered it sacrilege to sing operas in translation, but he was disposed to be annoyed anyway because this was not opera and this was not Paris; it was L.A., and people here had a tough enough time understanding English let alone French. Then the stage lights gradually came up, and things got better when he could see the woman speaking. Buddy hadn't looked at his program but he vaguely recalled the piece from his college French, something by Cocteau? Anyway, it was agonizing but short, just this pathetic French blonde talking on the phone in a throaty voice to the lying cheating son-of-a-bitch who had just dumped her. But the girl playing the part was good to look at. She wore a slip and old-fashioned sheer stockings and garters. She had an old-school body, rounded and pale and soft-looking, and when she leaned forward you could get a good look at her cleavage. Her yellow hair was a mess, her eye make-up was streaked all down her face, her lipstick was smeared. She was sexy as all hell. And she was good. When she cried you felt like she was crying for real, and you could see the tears glistening.

The piece ended, the lights dimmed out, and Buddy could hear women sniffling all around him. Even he had a couple of tears on his cheeks for the pathetic French babe on the phone. A good round of applause broke out, Buddy joined in, and his program slipped off his lap and down under the seat of the lady in front of him; he was damned if he was going to scrape around under there looking for it, but he made a mental note to check later for the French chick’s name.

The show went downhill from there. Next up came Joan’s piece, a scene from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Joan playing Maggie and some inarticulate gym rat doing Brick. Joan also got to wear a slip in this thing, and, yeah, technically Joan had a great body, the woman worked out like a fucking Olympic athlete, and her breasts looked great, as well they should have since Buddy had paid through the nose to have them overhauled a couple of times, but he preferred the friendlier-looking body of the blond Frenchwoman. Of course he wasn’t married to the French chick, which made all the difference in the world. Anyway, Joan was bad, the gym rat was worse.

Then a couple of tired old queens came on and did Vladimir and Estragon, and Buddy dozed off.

At the intermission he ducked out to the car and polished off the rest of the doobie.

The second half started off with more modern boredom, a scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but even with all the actors screaming their lungs out Buddy was able to get back to sleep, and only later did he realize -- and thank Christ -- that he’d slept through a scene from yet another enduring classic, Long Day’s Journey into Night.

What finally woke him up was a surprise attack of electronic noise, some horrible Stockhausen or imitation-Stockhausen bullshit, and then some sort of half-assed 1968-era light show. Then on comes this fuck in a Long John Silver outfit, shuffling out to center stage. The noise and the light show faded down but not out, and Buddy thought, Oh God now what in the fucking hell? And the clown on stage answered:

It is an ancient Mariner
And he stoppeth one of three...

And the hell if it wasn’t another masterpiece Buddy had had to read back in college, that bore-ass junkie Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, which this maniac proceeded to recite in what surely was its whole endless entirety, and in a fruity English accent. At one nightmarish point the Mariner went up on his lines, dropped back about ten stanzas, and recited them all over again. As far as Buddy could tell, no one else seemed to notice the repetition. (Which meant of course they weren’t really paying attention, they were simply accepting the torture the way people accepted so much torture in the name of artistic appreciation.) Certainly the idiot on stage didn’t seem to notice. He just plowed right on. And Buddy never did get back to sleep.

That was the last piece of the evening. The company came out for their curtain call, with the Ancient Mariner front and center. After the bows and some strained applause the Mariner said a few words, more than a few actually, and it finally dawned on Buddy that this madman must be the famous Stephen himself, Joan’s acting teacher. And as the house lights finally came up Buddy could only sigh with an albatross-shadowed relief, because he knew that his next and inescapable husbandly duty was to accompany Joan to the after-show party, at Stephen’s place, the Mariner’s place, “on the beach”.

(To be continued, unless that court order goes through. Please consult the right hand side of this page for a listing of all other published chapters of Uncle Buddy’s House, a Larry Winchester Production.)

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

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

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. Go here to find out. Please refer to the right hand side of this page for a complete listing of all other published chapters of Uncle Buddy's House. A Sheldon Leonard Production.)

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

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

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

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.)