“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 123: “Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell…”

Larry Winchester, delver into worlds that normal writers would run like cowardly dogs from, dives once again into the foul mind of Moloch, leader of the loutish Motorpsycho outlaw biker gang, out here in the desert beyond a town called Disdain, on a fateful night in September, 1969...

(Midterms are approaching. Go here to review our previous episode, or here to go to the beginning of this sprawling but “oddly untedious epic".* )

*Harold Bloom, on The Joey Bishop Show

First came that idiotic swine Johnstone in his Cadillac, brutally cleaving into their ranks and shouting like a maniac. Glancing back over his shoulder Moloch saw a couple of the men and their bikes flying like toys in the air in the Cadillac’s wake as it wheeled viciously off to the left.

Then came the saucer.

Moloch had indeed seen the glowing green fucking thing descending from the sky, swooping down and then swerving madly all about, but he had kept his bike heading straight on anyway. He could be a very single-minded fellow at times. The others had kept on also, not so much out of courage, Moloch knew, but out of stupidity, and blind obedience, and fear of the contempt of their fellows, and of the wrath of Moloch. Like the bloody fucking Light Brigade they were. And now they would meet the same fucking fate as the Light Brigade as well.

Moloch was about twenty yards to the front of the pack and as the saucer came at him he leaned radically to his right and felt the hot whoosh of the thing passing over his head and then he skidded and his bike flew out from under him and his body hit the dirt hard, he rolled over three times, struggled up to one knee and turned and saw the thing smashing down into his screaming men, squashing them all like so many bugs.

Well, they were like bugs, really.

And then Moloch was lifted up from the earth by a warm thick wind that smelled like burning vacuum cleaners, and he was sucked along head over heels in the dusty tail of the skidding and bouncing saucer, which, come to think of it, was making a sound like a gargantuan vacuum cleaner with something living trapped in its snout.

****

“In a way I’d like to be able to say we ran down those motorcycle guys on purpose, but, to tell the truth, at that juncture all of us -- including Brad, who was supposed to be piloting -- we were all bouncing around that cabin, like, um, like --”

“Mexican jumping beans.”

“Exactly. I mean, no one had their seatbelts on. So when the thing finally did lurch to a halt, we were pretty well banged up. The TV screens had all gone blank so we didn’t really know where we were, but I’ll tell you one thing, we were ready to get the hell out of there.”

“Papa woke up.”

“Right, Old Mac sits up and says, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’”

“And darling Buddy is sitting up now too, and he goes, ‘Well, I think we’ve landed, Major.’”

“Then this awful green smoke started pouring out from somewhere.”

“And this time it wasn’t because I’d peed in the works.”

“So, Mac takes charge, says follow him, and we all go.”

“Don’t forget the briefcase.”

“Oh, right, how could I? First Mac grabs this old leather briefcase that’s on the floor there, and then he says to follow him --”

“Right.”

“Which of course we do, through these corridors back to --”

“Labyrinthine.”

“Through these labyrinthine corridors back to where we’d first come in. He presses a button and the door slides into the bulkhead, and, God, fresh air never smelled so good.”

“Relatively fresh.”

“Right. It was a little stinky out there but it was still better than being in that saucer.”

“I’ll say. I don’t care if I never go into outer space again. But anyway, I’m first in line to get out of course, and I look out and, oh, no, you’ll never believe it, but we were sort of teetering over that atomic sink hole that that horrible primeval family had perished in. We weren’t quite in it, but the saucer, which was giving off this weird green Technicolor glow, was extended over the edge of the depression and its bottom was only about a foot or so off the surface of the quicksand. Am I getting this more or less right, Dick?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Then -- I look down -- and -- there’s this head in the sand!”

“Pym.”

“Some old navy buddy of Dick’s”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call Al Pym my buddy. Al -- Al didn’t really have buddies.”

“Well, buddy or not, Dick decides to rescue him.”

“We couldn’t just leave him there. I mean, you know, there he was, just his head sticking out of the sand, looking up at us with this resigned expression. He was -- well, never mind. So I reached down out of this opening while Harvey and the other guys held onto my belt, and I told him to reach his hand up, and after a while he manages to pull one arm up out of the sand and reach it up, and I grab hold of his hand, and pull, and the other guys are pulling me, and we’re actually making some headway, he’s coming up, first his shoulders, and then he’s out up to his chest, when --”

“Uh-oh!”

“Yeah.”

“The saucer starts sliding into this pit.”

“Yeah, sadly for Pym. Just went right over him. I tried to pull him up, but --”

“You did your damned best. He almost dragged you under.”

“Yeah, he did almost, actually.”

“And he said the queerest thing. I mean literally.”

“Well, we don’t have to repeat that.”

“As he was going under he said, ‘Dick I love you!’”

Mr. Ridpath shrugged.

(Go here for our next thrilling chapter. Kindly refer to the right hand column of this page for a possibly up-to-date listing of all other recovered episodes of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, soon to be serialized on Westinghouse Studio One, starring Richard Burton as Moloch, and John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine as Dick and Daphne.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 128: Dick in love

“Arnold Schnabel: as expansive as Whitman, as mad as Rimbaud, as attuned to the multifarious meaning of each moment of existence as Proust, and as American as Mom’s apple pie, warm from the oven.” -- Harold Bloom, on The Bonnie Hunt Show.


Our previous episode of this Old Spice Award-nominated memoir culminated in Arnold and his friend Dick Ridpath clasping hands outside the entrance to the Ugly Mug, that popular watering-hole in the port of Cape May, New Jersey, at approximately 10:22 PM on the 10th of August, 1963…

He seemed reluctant to let go of my hand.

“Arnold,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can I talk to you about -- about something?”


Okay, I thought. He’s going to talk about the Mr. Arbuthnot business. About stepping through a spinning globe of the earth and into a world where we were as invisible as ghosts. About dropping into a single frozen moment through the Book of Time, and, once there, to bear witness to the near-destruction of the world by Mr. Arbuthnot’s cat, Shnoopy.

In other words: proof that I was not mad?

“Sure, Dick,” I said. “Anything. Anything at all.”

“I can’t stop thinking about what you told me last night,” he said.

Last night seemed like a year ago.

“What was that, Dick?” I asked.

“About Daphne,” he said.

“Ah.”

“About her being in love with me.”

“Oh, right.”

He was still gripping my hand, and his grip was quite strong.

“Dick,” I dared say. “My hand.”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

He let go of my hand. Some people came out of the bar just then, and Dick gently put his hand on my arm, guiding me out of their way.

“Arnold.”

“Yes, Dick?”

“I’m thirty-three years old. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been to war. I’ve -- seen a lot of things --”

He paused.

“Take this a minute, will you?”

He handed me the box with the doll in it, then he took out his cigarette case and his lighter.

“I’m smoking entirely too much,” he said, taking out a cigarette, closing the case, tapping the cigarette on the lid of the case.

He stared up the street, in the direction of Mr. Arbuthnot’s shop, the church, and beyond that the Acme parking lot, across which diagonally was Pete’s Tavern. He pocketed the cigarette case, lit his cigarette, glanced at me shyly and briefly.

“Did she talk about me today?”

“Daphne?”

“Yes.”

“A little,” I said.

He looked at me full on.

“It’s okay, Dick,” I said. “She’ll wait for you. Until you’re ready. And until she’s ready.”

“Right,” he said.

“Right,” I said.

Not that I knew I was right, or even had any idea what right was.

“I’m acting like an idiot,” he said. “What’s so special about her? She’s just a girl, like a million others.”

“No,” I said, after honestly thinking about it a moment.

“No?”

“No.”

“No,” he said. “No, she’s not, is she?”

“No,” I said.

“So I’m not insane to be so madly in love with her?”

“You might be insane,” I said. “Not that I’m any person to judge. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing for you to be madly in love with her. Even if you are insane.”

He looked at me.

“Okay, I’m going now,” he said.

But he stood there, holding his cigarette.

“Have a good night, Dick.”

“I have to go back to the, uh, to the base, day after tomorrow,” he said. “But I don’t want to. I want to resign my commission. I want to take her -- Daphne -- take her away, find some island, live on the beach.”

I said nothing.

“But somehow I know that wouldn’t be the thing to do,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t think we’re meant to live idyllic lives. What do you think, Arnold?”

“I’m not so sure we’re meant to do anything,” I said.

“I should go,” he said, after staring at me for three seconds. “I’m boring you.”

“You should go so that you can be with Daphne,” I said.

He stared at me again.

Then he turned and walked away, crossing the street, walking quickly, tossing his cigarette into the gutter.

I stood there and watched him go, merging into all the other people walking on the sidewalk, all of them trying to enjoy their lives, I stood there and watched, I don't know why, and then I saw Dick cross Washington Street at the end of the block.

Then I realized that I was still holding the grey cardboard box with the doll in it.

But by this time Dick had already disappeared beyond the corner of the church, he would be jaywalking across Ocean Street, going diagonally across the Acme parking lot, past the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and across Jefferson Street to Pete’s, to the girl he loved.

Should I run after him?

But then by what law had I to run, rather than walk?

But if I walked rather than ran then I’d have to go into Pete’s again to give Dick the doll. Who knows what else would happen there, or even on the way there? I might never make it back to the Ugly Mug this night. And after all Elektra was still waiting for me, presumably.

No. Enough madness for one night.

I would keep the doll for Dick, give it to him tomorrow at Mrs. Biddle’s. That was the sensible thing to do.

Then the top of the box pushed open.

The little dark-haired, dark-eyed doll in the Victorian costume had pushed the lid off. I held the lid in my free hand to keep it from falling to the pavement.

“That’s right, Arnold,” she said. “You can give me to Dick tomorrow. Now let’s go inside. I’m interested to meet these friends of yours. All right, now close the lid. Let’s get a move on.”

I put the lid back on the box.

(Go here for our next spine-tingling chapter. Please see the right hand column of this page to find an allegedly complete list of links to all other published episodes of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, soon to be a major motion picture from Metro Goldwyn Mayer, starring Tyrone Power as Arnold Schnabel and Robert Walker as Dick.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 122: “...over and under and sideways...and down…”

Larry Winchester, that “literary Frank Gorshin”* here switches effortlessly from the folksy drawl of the pusillanimous rancher Big Jake Johnstone to the urbane badinage of those adventurers-without-portfolio Dick and Daphne Ridpath, and then dizzyingly back to Jake again...

(Go here to review our previous chapter, or here to see where the whole tragic tale began.)

*Harold Bloom, on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

Well, lemme tell ya now, if you got a spaceship comin’ at ya hell bent for leather from one direction and a pack of drug-addled bloodthirsty machine-gun-totin’ motorcycle banditos comin’ at ya from the other direction, well, t’ain’t but common fuckin’ sense to skedaddle sidewise but pronto.

So that’s what I did, sir, I just wheeled that Cadillac right and peeled outa there mucho pronto, Tonto.

Trouble was that ol’ flyin’ saucer just kept headin’ right after me! I could see it plain as day in the rearview mirror. Comin’ right after me it was. I didn’t know why it wanted me. I never done it no harm. Never done no man no harm. Nor no outer space man, neither.

****

“I had no idea what I was doing. No idea. Out of one eye I could see on one TV screen Enid and Hope trying to get the English fellow out of the station wagon, while on another screen I’m getting the bigger picture -- motorcycle gang approaching, Big Jake hightailing it out of there in his Cadillac -- and that’s when it really got crazy. I grasp the general situation and figure, okay, I guess I’ll try to land in between Hope and Enid and the motorcycle gang. I figure this has got to scare them away -- but the problem being as I say I don’t really know how to land the damn thing and I’m none too adept at steering it, either. I mean we’re swerving all over the place, up, down, sideways.”

“That’s when Brad got into the act again,” said Mrs. Ridpath.

“Right. I’d been so preoccupied I had almost forgotten about friend Brad, who’d been duly administering to Mac and Buddy, but suddenly I guess he realized what a botch I was making of things.”

“You were not.”

“Well, I was, really.”

“Oh, as if Brad --”

“Well, let me tell it.”

“Sorry.”

“So, Brad jumps up, yells, ‘What the fuck ya doin’, you’ll kill is all!’”

“Oh, that’s him. To a T.”

“So I say, well, Christ, Brad, you land it! And that’s where --”

“All hell breaks loose.”

“Yeah. I’m getting up to let Brad sit, and Brad’s sitting down, and in that transition we somehow lost control...”

****

I seen he was after me all right. I never done nothin’ to him but he was after me like a coyote after a desert rat.

What could I do? Skedaddlin’ to the right didn’t work so I wheeled around one-eighty again, and wouldn’tcha know that bastard was still on my tail, so I figured, fuck it, wheeled left and realized right away I was headin’ straight for that pack of motorcycle scum.

This point I just didn’t fuckin’ care.

Zoomed right by the station wagon, seen they’d got that English punk outa the car, but I didn’t care about that neither, and them motorcycle fellas was headin’ straight on hellbent for leather even though that goddam’ saucer was still hot on my trail -- hell, I guess them biker guys was just too high on drugs to know any better -- and about one second later I’m drivin’ right into their midst, and I’m screamin’ and yellin’, ‘Outa my way, you sons o’ bitches, ‘cause this is one heap of American-made vehiculation that ain’t stoppin’ for nobody or nothin’!’

And I wanta tell ya, them boys an’ their bikes just parted like the Red Sea parted for God’s Chosen People. Oh, you better believe I bumped a couple or three of ‘em, and they went flyin’, cartwheelin’ an’ screamin’ behind me, but I didn’t give a flyin’ fuck in the wind, no sir. Hell, they shoulda just got out of my way!

Fuckin’ douchebags.

Pardon my French.

(Continued here. In the meantime feel free to look to the right hand side of this page for what purports to be an up-to-date listing of links to all other recovered chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, third-place prize-winner of Good Housekeeping’s Sprawling Epic Award.)

Ray Charles: hit the road, Jack!

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 127: brothers

“Arnold Schnabel...a man who set out to write his memoirs as a form of therapy, or perhaps even out of boredom, and in the process wrote the pre-eminent masterpiece of American prose.” -- Harold Bloom, on The Charlie Rose Show.

Having narrowly averted the destruction of the universe as we know it, Arnold and his friend Dick Ridpath are now safely back in the apartment of Mr. Arbuthnot, in the quaint seaside resort and fishing port of Cape May, New Jersey, on a warm August night in 1963…

(Go here for our previous, cataclysmic episode, or here to see where the whole damn thing began.)

Dick and I again exchanged glances. Of course we both needed a drink, but on the other hand I think we had both had had more than enough of Mr. Arbuthnot for one evening.

“I really should be going, Mr. Arbuthnot,” I said, or panted. I was still quite out of breath from our adventure, and the sweat continued to stream from my every pore.

“I hope you gentlemen will not hold this, uh, incident against me,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Dick. His floral-print shirt was drenched, and he was pinching a bit of material in and out at his waist, trying to fan some air onto his torso.

“Please accept my apology,” said the old fellow.

“No apology needed,” said Dick. “It wasn’t your fault -- uh -- that --”

“That my cat Shnooby almost destroyed the universe?”

“Well -- come to think of it, maybe next time you should lock him in another room,” suggested Dick.

“A superb idea,” said Mr. Arbuthnot. “And, gentlemen, please come see me again. I have many other wonderful things I can show you.”

“Sure,” said Dick.

Mr. Arbuthnot took his Meerschaum out of one jacket pocket, and his tobacco pouch out of the other. I noticed that unlike Dick and me he wasn’t sweating at all.

“But I must ask you again,” he said, “please do not speak to anyone, not even to each other, of what you have seen here tonight.”

“Okay, sure,” said Dick.

“Mr. Schnabel?”

“Yes?”

“Mum’s the word?”

“Oh. Sure,” I said.

He filled his pipe.

“We don’t want to -- open a can of worms, do we?” he said.

“No,” I said. “Who would believe us, anyway?”

“A very good point. You wouldn’t want people to question your sanity again, would you?”

“I don’t think they’ve ever stopped questioning my sanity.”

“Heh heh. Yes. Quite."

Dick and I watched as he put away his tobacco, took out his box of matches, lit his pipe.

“Well --” said Dick.

“Oh. Allow me to show you out,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

We followed him to the stairs, and down, into the dark shop. This time he flicked on a light switch, and an overhead electric chandelier came on, casting light on all the various goods in his store.

“Gentlemen, he said, turning to us as we came from the stairs, “I want each of you to choose one item from my shop, as a present from me.”

“Oh, really, we couldn’t,” said Dick.

“Were it not for you two and your strong legs and backs, and might I say your admirable nerve, the world would be in flames right now. The least I can do is give you both some humble item from this hodgepodge.”

“Well --” said Dick.

“I quite insist.’

I just wanted to get out of there, so I didn’t argue. I looked into one of the glass cases. I saw a wide flat box of fountain pens.

“I’ll take a pen, then,” I said.

“Excellent!”

He hustled around the counter, but instead of taking a pen from one of the ones on display he reached lower down, opened a drawer, and brought out a small reddish-purple leather case. Putting the stem of his little pipe between his teeth, he clicked open the case, and brought out from it a tortoise-shell pen.

“How about this one?”

“Great,” I said. To tell the truth I’d never had a really nice pen.

“Let me show you how to fill it.”

I sighed. Sometimes you wonder if you’re ever going to be allowed to leave a place. And the thing is, once you do finally get to leave, how often do you wind up just going to someplace else you want to leave?

Anyway, he produced a little unlabeled jar of ink from somewhere, unscrewed the lid, and filled the pen. It had one of those little metal levers that pull out from the pen. I thought I could handle it.

“This is a very special ink,” he said, wiping the nib of the pen on some old rag from somewhere. He replaced the cap of the pen, put it back in its case, shut the case and finally handed it over.

“May you write many classic poems with this instrument.”

He puffed away smiling on his pipe.

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Here, take the ink as well.”

He put the bottle of ink into a little black cardboard box, put a lid on the box, and the box into a small black velvet bag with a gold-colored drawstring, which he fastened and tied in what I believe was a sailor’s knot. Thank God, he did not put the bag into something else, but handed it over. I put the pen case in one pocket of my Bermudas and the bag with the ink into another.

“And Mr. Ridpath?”

Dick was gazing at a shelf of old dolls.

“A nice antique doll for your girlfriend? Phoebe?”

“Uh, Daphne, actually. And she’s not really my girlfriend. And she’s a little old for dolls, really.”

Quickly and silently Mr. Arbuthnot scurried from behind the counter and over to Dick, nudging him aside. Putting his pipe between his teeth again, he reached up from his toes and brought down a doll in Victorian dress, with black ringlets and wide dark staring eyes.

“This one is lovely. Take it.”

“Really, Mr. Arbuthnot --”

“Look at this craftsmanship. Almost like real. Better than real. Believe me, your friend Dagmar will be overjoyed. And she can pass it on to your children.”

“Well --”

“I’ll wrap it up for you.”

Dick and I stood there among all of Mr. Arbuthnot’s wares, many of which now seemed to be stirring gently, or restlessly, as Mr. Arbuthnot took the doll behind his counter, rummaged around, found a grey cardboard box for it, stuck it into the box, and brought the box back over to Dick. Dick didn’t get a bag for his present.

“Okay, thanks a lot,” said Dick.

“Remember, not a word.”

“Mum’s the word,” said Dick.

“Splendid. As an officer and a gentleman I’m sure your word is your bond. And Mr. Schnabel --”

“I give you my railroad man’s word,” I said.

“And I shall accept it without further remark.”

Finally Dick and I made it out the door.

Mr. Arbuthnot held the door open for a moment, looking up and down the street.

“Looks like the coast is clear! Good night, gentlemen. I look forward to seeing you both again, soon.”

And with that he shut the door and locked it. We saw him walk to the back of the store and switch off the light.

Dick and I looked at each other.

I wondered, should I bring up all that had just happened? It was true I had given my word to Mr. Arbuthnot that I wouldn’t, my railroad man’s word. But I was no longer a railroad man really. I was a lunatic, my word meant nothing. I decided on the spot that (as with our time-travel trip the previous night) if Dick broached the subject first, well, okay then, all bets were off. But if he chose to honor his promise to Mr. Arbuthnot, then so too would I.

“Well, that was a little weird, wasn’t it?” said Dick.

“Yeah, a little,” I said.

“So, back to the Mug for you, Arnold?”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“I’ll walk you over,” he said, and we started off down the block, Dick carrying that somewhat coffin-like cardboard box beneath his arm.

“Why don’t you join us, Dick?” I asked. Although as soon as I said this I remembered that our booth was already full with Larry and Steve and Miss Rathbone as well as Elektra, not to mention St. Thomas Becket and his friend Jack Scratch looming over it.

“Well, actually,” said Dick, “I was hoping to catch up with Daphne tonight. Mrs. Biddle told me you were out with her and Tommy and some other girl earlier?”

“Yes. Sister Mary Elizabeth.”

“Sister?”

“Yes. We met a nun earlier today.”

“You and Daphne met a nun?”

“Yes. Daphne and I went swimming together. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. You met a nun when you went swimming?”

“Yes. At the convent, out on the point.”

“You and Daphne were at the convent?”

“Just the beach in back of the convent. And its back porch."

We were outside the Ugly Mug now. All sorts of people were coming and going along the sidewalks and driving their cars up and down the street. Everything looked normal, or as normal as it was ever likely to look.

I think Dick’s politeness kept him from asking more questions at this point. Which was fine for me. I put my hand on the front door handle of the bar. But then I remembered something.

“Oh, by the way, Dick, I think you might be able to find Daphne at Pete’s Tavern.”

His face lit up.

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes. I left her there with Tommy and the sister.”

“Pete’s Tavern -- isn’t that a Negro bar?”

“Yes.”

“So you think I should I go there?”

“Why not? You can give her the doll.”

“Yes. The doll.” He glanced down at the box under his arm. “Well, I guess I’d better get over there then. You’re sure she won’t think me intrusive.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, thanks, brother.”

Dick offered his hand, and I took it.

(Go here for our next thrill-packed episode. Kindly refer to the right hand side of this page to find what one hopes is an up-to-date listing of links to all other extant chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, third-place prize-winner of the AIG Award for Confessional Literature.)

Chris Farlowe: treat her good --