"Hideaway"

As they walked towards the sound of the music, suddenly Mr. Whitman burst again into song.

Oh hi ho, the merry-o, the four friends travel on,

towards the sound of merriments and joys,

of dancing the Black Bottom and the Charleston,

girls and boys, girls and girls, and boys and boys!

What awaits them in this so-called den of sin?

Will they survive until the dawn of day,

or will they be found, quite dead and frozen

in some snow-choked dockside alleyway?

"All right, Walt," said Jelly Roll, turning his head in its porkpie hat, "chill, my man, because we're almost there."

"Oh, I will be 'chill', my friend," said Mr. Whitman, "verily like the silvery tops of the mighty Adirondacks in the bracing time of winter solstice –"

Jelly Roll stopped, and turned around completely to face Mr. Whitman.

"Okay, this is exactly what I'm talking about, Walt. Please do not embarrass my black ass when we get in this place, okay? That's all I'm asking."

"But, Jelly Roll," expostulated Mr. Whitman, "am I not allowed to wax poetic – I, a poet?"

"He's saying, Walter," said Miss Blackbourne, "just try not to act like a total nincompoop."

"Oh," said Mr. Whitman. "Well."

"I know it's hard for you, buddy," said Miss Blackbourne, "but make an effort."

"That's all I'm asking," said Jelly Roll. "I don't think I'm asking a lot here."

"Look at Milford," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Who?" said Mr. Whitman.

"The boy whose arm you're grappling."

"Oh. Merford you mean," said Mr. Whitman.

"His name is Milford," said Miss Blackbourne.

"It is?" said Mr. Whitman. He turned his great head and looked down at Milford, who was looking at the floor, littered with cigar and cigarette butts, chewing gum wrappers, syringes and used condoms. "Merford, what's your name, my lad?"

"Milford," said Milford, glancing up at Mr. Whitman's enormous bearded head in his dashing sweat-stained slouch hat. "But at this point I honestly don't care what you call me."

"Well, if Melford really is your appellation, then indeed I should like to call you by your correct and rightful Christian name."

"I'm not a Christian," said Milford.

"Shall we say then your correct atheist, or theist name then?"

"Look," said Miss Blackbourne, "all I'm saying is why can't you take a hint from Milford and just try to rein it in a little."

"Just a little, Walt," said Jelly Roll.

"Rein it in," said Mr. Whitman.

"Yeah, just a little," said Jelly Roll.

"Okay," said Mr. Whitman. "I shall try to learn from my friend Megford."

"'Cause here's the thing, Walt," said Jelly Roll. "They know me in this place."

"Oh, good," said Mr. Whitman.

"They know me," said Jelly Roll, "and I got a rep here."

"A rep. Like a rep tie?" said Mr. Whitman.

"Oh, Christ," said Jelly Roll. "Look, let's go, and everybody just try to be cool, all right?'

"And by everybody," said Miss Blackbourne, "he means you, Walter."

"Me?" said Mr. Whitman.

"Yes, you," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Just be cool, Walt," said Jelly Roll. "Do you think you can manage that?"

"That depends," said Mr. Whitman. "Define cool."

"It means not acting like a jerkoff, Walter," said Miss Blackbourne."

"Oh," said Mr. Whitman. "Wow."

"Okay, then," said Jelly Roll. "Now that we got that settled, let's go."

He turned and started walking down the dim corridor again, and Miss Blackbourne walked with him, slipping her arm into his.

"Gee," said Mr. Whitman, in a low voice, to Milford. "Do I really act like a 'jerkoff', Mungford?"

Milford sighed, his twelve-thousandth and thirtieth-first sigh since awakening with a sigh the previous morning.

"Okay," said Mr. Whitman, "a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, and sometimes a single sigh says as much as a weighty tome. I shall rely on you, my friend. If I get out of hand, please give me a nudge, a sharp elbow to the ribcage, or a stomp upon my instep with your stout workman's brogans. Will you do that for me?"

"Sure, Mr. Whitman," said Milford.

"Mr. Whitman was my father, may the great Buddha rest his soul. Please, call me Walt."

"Okay, Walt."

"Or Walter if you feel a touch of formality is appropriate."

"Okay, Walter."

"And may I call you Mel?"

"What?"

"May I call you Mel. Unless of course you prefer your full pantheistic prénom of Melvyn?"

"No," said Milford, swallowing a sigh, "Mel is fine."

"Splendid. And now let us hie ourselves hence and catch up with Margaret and Jelly Roll."

The big poet dragged Milford quickly down the corridor towards the increasingly loud music, and soon they turned a corner and caught up to Miss Blackbourne and Jelly Roll, who had reached a wooden door on which hung a sign with the faded painted legend

"THE HIDEAWAY"

Leave your cares behind

and your bullshit too.

Ring the bell and wait.

"Did you ring the bell?" said Mr. Whitman.

"Yeah," said Jelly Roll.

"Ring it again," said Mr. Whitman.

"No, once is enough," said Jelly Roll.

"I'll ring it again," said Mr. Whitman, and he stepped forward with his finger raised.

Jelly Roll grabbed Mr. Whitman's wrist.

"Listen, Walt," said Jelly Roll, "I respect you, man, and I consider you my friend. But if you don't cool it we're gonna have a problem."

"Ow," said Mr. Whitman, "you really have quite the strong grip, my friend!"

"Strong enough to snap your wrist like a twig, big guy."

"Okay, okay! Now can I have my wrist back?"

"I ain't gonna warn you again, Walt."

"Okay, okay, I get it."

"Nobody in this joint gives a shit if you're the great American troubadour."

"No?"

"Far as they're concerned you're just another loudmouthed honky."

"Oh."

"You get out of line in here, don't count on me to rescue your pasty white butt."

"Um," said Mr. Whitman.

"So you're gonna be cool?"

"Okay, okay, I'll be cool, now please let go of my wrist, Jelly Roll!"

Jelly Roll opened his hand and Mr. Whitman pulled his wrist away, rubbing it with his other hand.

"Jeeze," he said.

Just then the door opened and an enormous black man stood there, dressed in a railroad man's overalls and cap. Behind him swelled and roared music and shouting and laughter.

"Jelly Roll," said the man, in a voice like thunder across the mountains and the plains.

"John Henry," said Jelly Roll, and the two men shook hands as music and dark laughter and shouting poured and tumbled out into the corridor.

{Please go here to read the "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the Schaefer Award short-listed rhoda penmarq…}

"Four Friends, All Stout and True"

They were walking down yet another long dim narrow corridor. 

Mr. Whitman walked to Milford's left, his brawny arm in Milford's thin arm, pulling him along. 

Ahead of them walked Miss Blackbourne and the Negro man called Jelly Roll, and they also walked arm in arm.

Mr. Whitman was singing, and his song was thus:

Four friends, all stout and true

striding along through the hallways of life,

they know not wherefore, nor where to,

but on they stroll, through peace and strife.

Will they find what they are looking for?

And will they know it if and when they do?

Will they find satori behind that final door,

or will they find it leads to another one too?

Will they sing yippy-yi-ki-yay, and whoopsie-do,

or will they sigh and groan, oh no, not again,

as they realize that it matters not what or who,

and the time is not now, nor was it even then?

Mr. Whitman stopped singing suddenly, and said, "Hey Jelly Roll, you sure you know where we're going?"

"Yeah, man," said Jelly Roll, turning his head, "pretty sure. Keep singing, Walt."

"I'm just wondering if we might have taken a wrong turning back there."

"Maybe," said Jelly Roll, "but don't sweat it, buddy. We're bound to get somewheres sooner or later."

"Walt gets nervous when he goes more than five minutes without a drink in his great hairy paw," said Miss Blackbourne. "Ha ha."

"I'm not nervous, exactly," said Mr. Whitman, "but I could definitely go for a tankard of hot steaming and fragrant grog, as quaffed by the proud hearty sailors of the Royal Navy, or, alternatively, of a rich strong cold India pale ale, its head foaming over the brim like the waves of my beloved Brooklyn Harbor in a December nor'easter, flooding the quays where the brawny stevedores toil."

"Keep your shirt on, Walt," said Miss Blackbourne. "Jelly Roll knows the way, don't you, Jelly Roll?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, Miss Margaret," said Jelly Roll. "Okay, here we go."

The corridor continued straight ahead, but they had come to another corridor crossing the one they were walking along.

"All right," said Jelly Roll. "Let's hold up a minute."

They all stopped.

"Um," said Milford.

"What is it, Mumphrey?" said Mr. Whitman.

"It's Milford," said Milford. 

"Sorry," said Mr. Whitman. "Milford or whatever, what is it?"

"Why are we stopping?" said Milford.

"Ask Jelly Roll," said Mr. Whitman.

"Why are we stopping, Mr. Jelly Roll?" asked Milford.

"I just want to light up another reefer, my man," said Jelly Roll. He showed Milford the fat brown cigarette he held in his brown hand, then he put it in his lips. Miss Blackbourne had just lighted up one of her silver-tipped black cigarettes, and she gave Jelly Roll a light with her slim ebony-enameled lighter. Mr. Whitman took the opportunity to take out his leather pouch and he proceeded to pack the bowl of his pipe.

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em, Milford," he said.

What could Milford do? He took out his pack of Husky Boys, and soon enough all four of our friends were standing at this shadowed windowless conjunction of corridors, smoking.

"Okay," said Jelly Roll, exhaling a great lungful of thick smoke in Milford's direction. "I got a confession to make."

"What's that, Jelly Roll?" said Mr. Whitman.

"I got absolutely no fucking idea where we are," said Jelly Roll.

"Oh, great," said Mr. Whitman. "I knew it."

"You knew no such thing, Walter," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Okay," said Mr. Whitman, "maybe I didn't know it, Margaret, but I suspected it."

"Then why the fuck didn't you speak up when you first suspected it?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Whitman. "I didn't want to presume. And, anyway –"

"Anyway what?" she said.

"I was busy singing my song," said Mr. Whitman.

Milford sighed, a cigarette smoke through the nose sigh, his twelve-thousandth and thirtieth sigh since emerging from his dreams the previous morning, into the dream he called life.

"You okay, Milford?" said Miss Blackbourne.

In answer Milford only sighed again.

"Relax, man," said Jelly Roll. "One of these corridors must be the right one."

"Or the wrong one," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Now, Margaret," said Mr. Whitman, "let's not be pessimistic." He was puffing on his pipe, holding the flame of one of his Blue Tip kitchen matches to the bowl.

"I think we make a left here," said Jelly Roll.

"You think," said Margaret.

"Well, I can't be a hundred percent certain."

"We can't be a hundred percent certain about anything in this life," said Mr. Whitman. "Or the next life." He was puffing away on his pipe. "If there is a next life."

"This is the next life," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Point taken," said Mr. Whitman, after holding in a lungful of smoke for a minute, and then letting it all out in an enormous cloud that enveloped all four friends from head to toe.

"What point?" said Jelly Roll, emitting his own enormous cloud of thick sweet smoke.

"I forget," said Mr. Whitman.

"Fuck it," said Miss Blackbourne, "let's just go."

"Which way?" said Mr. Whitman.

Without a word Miss Blackbourne headed down the corridor to the left.

"Well, I guess we're going that way then," said Jelly Roll, and he followed after Miss Blackbourne.

"Let's go, Guilfoyle," said Mr. Whitman, and he took Milford's arm and pulled him along in the footsteps of Miss Blackbourne and Jelly Roll.

Mr. Whitman began to sing again:

Four friends, one named Walt, one called Jelly Roll,

a lad named Gifford, and a lady, Margaret Blackbourne,

embarked together on an endless midnight stroll;

they knew not why they lived, or why they were born.

But on they rambled, arm in arm, down a dim corridor,

smoking and talking, together, yes, but also alone,

knowing only that the journey led at last to a door

behind which lay Kierkegaard's Great Unknown…

They walked on. 

Eventually Mr. Whitman stopped singing, and they walked in silence.

Milford finished his cigarette, and he hated to throw his butts on floors, but there was nothing else to do, and so he flicked his Husky Boy stub away. He noticed that there were lots of other cigarette and cigar ends on the grey unvarnished wood of the flooring, and so he felt slightly less guilty.

After several minutes more of silent walking, silent but for the  hollow footsteps of the four companions, Milford heard a faint distant sound.

"I think I hear something," he said.

"What?" said Mr. Whitman.

"I don't know," said Milford.

"Wait a minute," said Jelly Roll. "Let's stop." 

He cocked his head.

"I hear something too," said Miss Blackbourne.

"What is it?" said Mr. Whitman.

"It's music, man," said Jelly Roll. "I hear music."

"Oh, my God," said Milford. "Let's go!"

"I told you I knew where we was going," said Jelly Roll.

"You didn't know shit, Jelly Roll," said Miss Blackbourne. "But, yes, let's go."

"Oh, thank God!" said Mr. Whitman, "or the Buddha, Vishnu, or the Great Spirit of the noble indigenous red man!"

And on they went, Miss Blackbourne and Jelly Roll, Mr. Whitman and Milford, down the dim corridor, towards the sounds and vibrations of music, echoing from who knew how far away, but growing louder with each step our four friends took.

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