"Shared Hallucination"

 

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…}

"With Dubious Intent"

 

"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…}