"King Snake Moan"

 

 

Milford drew deeply once again on the fat brown hand-rolled cigarette, breathing in its mysteries, its promises, and its secrets.

The combo continued to play, and a man's thick voice carried over the music and with the music, singing strange words that meant nothing and everything.

Here come the big king snake,

don't you hear him moanin'?

Here come my little gal,

Don't you hear her groanin'?

Come gather round this old camp fire,

come gather round and hear the tale.

Don't deny my name nor my desire,

don't you hear that night wind wail?

"Miss Alcott?" said Milford.

"Yes, dear boy?"

"I have decided that my entire life has been without meaning or purpose."

"Yes, and?"

"Well," said Milford. "That's all, I guess. I wonder, would it be best for me to make my way to the Brooklyn Bridge, way out to the middle of it, and then throw myself off?"

"How would I know?" said Miss Alcott. 

"But you are wise."

"I'm not that wise. Drink your sweet tea."

Milford looked down at the tall glass sitting on the bar, russet in color and beaded from the sparkling ice inside it.

"I'm afraid," he said.

"Of what? Of having an original thought?"

"I'm afraid if I drink the tea I will have to go to the men's room again."

"If you drink it I'm sure you will have to go to the men's room. In fact," she said, "even if you don't drink it you will in due course have to go to the men's room. Or perhaps to an alleyway. I'm told that men are particularly fond of making water in alleyways."

"There is something to be said for it," said Milford. "In fact there's much to be said for it."

"Expand upon your thesis, please."

"In an alleyway there is a much lesser chance that someone will try to talk to you."

"And is it so horrifying to be talked to in a men's room? I speak from a position of total ignorance you understand, never having been in one myself."

"I met Mr. Whitman in a men's room," said Milford, not exactly answering her question.

"Oh, dear," said Miss Alcott, "that must have been, if not horrifying, then, shall I say, disturbing?"

"It was," said Milford. "But it seems I can't go into any men's room without being spoken to by strangers."

"And is it always so 'disturbing'?"

Milford cast his memory back, through a thousand bars and even further back to the dreaded rest rooms at Princeton, at Andover, and even in grade school at Friends Seminary.

"Yes," he said, "it is always and invariably disturbing."

Miss Alcott took a drag of her Lucky Strike, slowly allowed the smoke to escape from her parted red lips, and then she said, "I'll tell you what's disturbing. What's disturbing is a young man who is afraid to drink his sweet tea because he doesn't want to use a public rest room. Are you going to live your entire life in fear?"

"She's got a point, Milford," said that voice in Milford's head. "Are you going to be a man, at long last? Or are you going to be a coward all your life?"

Before he could stop himself, Milford lifted the glass up, removed the straw, placed the straw on the bar top, then lifted the glass to his lips, gulping the tea. He paused halfway, then drank again. Then he shook the ice in the glass and took one more rattling drink, and laid the glass down.

"Bravo, Milford!" said Miss Alcott, smiling. "Let no one henceforth say that you are too afraid to drink a glass of sweet tea!"

"I owe it all to you, Miss Alcott," said Milford, "And to me," added the voice in his head, called Stoney.

"How do you feel now?" said Miss Alcott.

"I feel – and it might be because of this 'cigarette' I've been smoking," said Milford, "and also the delicious sweet tea – but I feel like a new man."

"How is – please pardon the personal question," said Miss Alcott, "but how is your erection?"

Milford gazed down toward his inguinal area.

"Oh," he said. "It seems to have subsided."

"Splendid," she said. "That means we can dance."

"Dance?"

"You heard me."

"But I don't dance."

"Perhaps not yet you don't. Look at those happy people."

She gestured towards the small area in front of the combo, which was filled with dark-skinned people cavorting.

"I don't know how to dance like that," said Milford.

"Then you will learn."

She stubbed out her Lucky Strike. 

"Um," said Milford.

She slipped off her bar stool, then picked up what was left of her glass of sherry and downed it.

"Come on," she said. "You're only young once."

Milford shifted his narrow hindquarters off of his seat.

"There's my boy," said Stoney, in the dark undiscovered caverns of his skull. "You can do this."

For a fraction of a second Milford wondered if he should leave his cigarette in the ashtray where Miss Alcott had stubbed out her Lucky Strike, but he decided to take it with him.

Miss Alcott took his arm and looked into his eyes with her marbled brown eyes.

"Let us," she said, "trip the light fantastic."

"Yes," said Milford. "Let's."

And arm in arm they made their way toward the small dance floor filled with dancing dark-skinned people, the women in brightly colored dresses, many of the men wearing zoot suits and long golden watch chains.

The man at the microphone sang.

Shake it up and shake it on down,

kick that can all the way uptown,

come on, pretty baby now, come on

we gonna boogie till the break of dawn…

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq. And we wish a happy Thanksgiving to all our beloved readers…}