Dan Leo's goddam blog...
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“All right, mate,” said the man. “Nice and easy now, let’s see your wallet, and no funny business or I’ll perforate you right good and don’t believe I won’t. Sid the Shiv they calls me and not without good reason.”
“Sid the what?” said Mr. Jones.
“The Shiv,” said the man. “Sid the Shiv.”
“Thought you said Sid the Shit.”
“Right. Don’t push me, grandpa. I got what they call a sociopathic personality.”
“What’s that? Shrink-talk for being an asshole?”
“I’m warnin’ ya. Button your lip, gramps, I got a little respect for me elders but not a lot.”
“I don’t fucking believe this,” said Mr. Jones. “Even in the goddam afterworld we gotta worry about cheap little hoods and switchblade artists.”
“What made you think it would be any different?” said the man, keeping the point of the blade about two inches from my throat. “By the way, I’ll wanta see your wallet too, granddad.”
“Fuck you,” said Mr. Jones.
“’Fuck you’?” said the man. “Howzabout I give your boyfriend here a little fuck you?”
And he brought the point of the knife even closer to my throat.
“Okay,” I said, “take it easy.” And I reached into the back pocket of my bermudas for my wallet.
“Don’t give it to him, Arnie boy,” said Mr. Jones.
“But –”
The man stuck his knife’s point right up to the skin of my throat, just to the left of my Adam’s apple.
“Nice and easy, chum,” he said.
I got my wallet out of my pocket, but I was understandably nervous, and it slipped from my fingers and fell to the cobblestones at my feet.
“Oh,” I said.
“You playin’ games with me, chum?” said the man in the zoot suit. I suppose I should call him Sid. Sid the Shiv. He poked the point of his knife at my throat. “I said you playin’ games with me?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t move.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“I got my blade on you, boy.”
“I know,” I said.
“Just so you know that,” he said, and, keeping his knife arm outstretched, he started to bend down to pick the wallet up, but then suddenly stopped. “Oh, I get it,” he said, and he straightened up again, leaving the wallet where it was. “Oldest trick in the book. Distract a man and then cosh him. Where’s your cosh?”
“My what?”
“Your sap, your blackjack.”
“I don’t have one.”
He glanced at Mr. Jones.
“You, pops, pick up your clumsy friend’s wallet.”
“Fuck you,” said Mr. Jones.
“Pick it up or I give your pal an emergency tracheotomy.”
“You ain’t got the balls,” said Mr. Jones.
“Um, listen, sir,” I said. “I’ll pick it up.”
“All right,” he said. “Pick it up, but slow and easy like.”
“Okay,” I said, and I started to bend over.
“Oh, no,” said the guy.
“Pardon me?”
I was slightly bent over.
“Not that way, pal. Second oldest trick in the book. You bends over and comes up with a roundhouse right-hook haymaker in me breadbasket.”
“Really, I was just bending over to pick it up.”
“Don’t take the piss with me, mate.” Once again he held the knife’s point very close to my throat. “Don’t ever take the piss with me.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” I said.
“There ya go,” he said. “Takin’ the piss again, and I just told you not to.”
“But –”
“Okay. Bend your knees,” said the man, “slow and easy, facing me. Just like you was doin’ a deep-knee bend. Then when you get down far enough reach out your right hand – again, slow and easy like – and pick up the wallet. Then, slow and easy, rise up again, and hand me the wallet.”
“Okay.”
“How you gonna do it?”
“Slow and easy?”
“That’s right.”
“Y’know, I really don’t have very much money in the wallet,” I said.
“Slow and easy, mate.”
“Okay,” I said. And I started to flex my knees.
“Slow,” said the guy, drawing his knife back a few inches but keeping it pointed at my carotid artery. I bended my knees as slowly as I could. “Easy,” he said.
Believe me, I was trying my best to go as slowly and easily as I could, with Sid’s blade descending along with me, but then my knee went out on me again, my right knee it was this time, and with a flash of pain I pitched forward, my head butting the man right in the pit of the stomach, knocking him backwards, I heard his head thump against the cobbles, and then I was lying on top of him and he was lying still.
“Ow,” I said, pushing myself off the man. “Ow.”
Lying on my back I brought my throbbing knee up and put both my hands around it, which did nothing to ease the pain.
“Ow,” I said, staring up at the swirling greyness of the fog.
Then Mr. Jones was leaning over me.
“You okay, buddy?”
“My leg,” I said. “Ow.”
“Hurts, huh?”
“Ow.”
“Nice move, Arnold. You knocked the bastard out cold. Dig this.” He showed me a knife. “Got his switchblade. Nice one, too. Looks like one of them Dago blades.” He folded the blade into the handle and dropped the knife into the side pocket of his jacket.
“All right, let’s get you up,” he said.
He pulled on my arm, and I managed to get up to a sitting position, where I stopped, holding my knee with both hands and trying not to say ow.
Mr. Jones reached down and picked my wallet up off the cobblestones, handed it to me.
“There ya go, buddy.”
Holding my knee with one hand, with the other hand I shoved the wallet back into the rear pocket of my bermudas.
“Now come on, you lazy bastard,” said Mr. Jones. “Let’s get that drink.”
“I’m not sure I can stand up,” I said.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Mr. Jones. “Well, fortunately, I got a little somethin’ for ya.”
He reached into his suit jacket and brought out a little Bayer aspirin tin.
“Oh, aspirin might help a little,” I said. “Better give me two. Ow. Or three. No, make it just two, because I haven’t eaten lately and –”
“You’ll only need one,” he said, and he clicked the tin open. “And besides, one is all I got left. I was saving it for an emergency, but what the hell, I like you, Arnold.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Ow. What is it. Ow.”
“Just take it. It’ll make the pain go away.”
“It’s not addictive, is it?”
“Just fucking take it, man. You won’t get addicted from one tab. Christ.”
There was one pill in the tin. With genuinely trembling fingers I took it out, put it in my mouth.
“Just swallow it,” said Mr. Jones. He clicked the tin shut and put it away again. “The quicker the better.”
I swallowed the pill.
“Ow,” I said. “How long will it take to work?”
“Give it a minute, buddy. Here, let me feel that knee.”
“No! Don’t touch it!”
I kept both my hands over it, as if it were some precious little animal I was protecting.
“Stop your whining and let me feel it. I just wanta see if anything’s broke.”
“Well, okay,” I said. “Just be careful.”
I lifted my hands off and looked away and up into the fog.
I felt gentle old fingers touching and prodding that nexus of pain that was my knee.
“Ow,” I said. “Be careful.”
“You big baby,” said Mr. Jones. (Ow, I thought, but did not say.) “This knee ain’t busted. Sure, it’s scraped, and swollen, but you didn’t break nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Arnie, you know how many freight trains I jumped on and off of in my younger days?”
“No.”
“Guess.”
“A lot?”
“That’s right. A lot. You think a freight-hoppin’ hobo don’t know from knee injuries?”
“Well –”
“Argggh,” said Sid.
“What did he say?” asked Mr. Jones.
“Argghh,” Sid said again.
He was still lying on his back, right next to me, but now he was stirring, although his eyes were still closed. His pompadour had partially collapsed, and greasy strands of hair lay down over his face like spider legs.
“He looks in pretty bad shape,” I said.
“He got what he deserves,” said Mr. Jones. “Turn him over, will you?”
“Why?”
“Just turn him over.”
“Well, okay.”
Using both hands I gripped the man at his hip and shoulder and turned him over on his stomach. He was very light, and this wasn’t hard to do.
“Argghh,” he said.
“Did you want to check his head, Mr. Jones?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“You know, check his head to see if he’s seriously injured, or –”
“Yeah, right,” said Mr. Jones.
Going around to the other side of the man, Mr. Jones hunkered down, picked up the rear flap of his zoot suit-jacket, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Be cool, brother.”
Mr. Jones opened the wallet and took some bills out of it. He dropped the wallet onto the pavement, and counted the money.
“Mr. Jones,” I said. “You can’t just rob him like that.”
“Arnie,” said Mr. Jones, “we’re letting this creep off easy. Somebody else would call the bulls. As it is he gets off with a headache and a, what, a twenty-two dollar fine.” He shoved the money into his trousers pocket. “Plus he loses his switchblade. Tough. How’s your knee now?”
“I think the pill is starting to kick in a little.”
“Arrghh,” said the man again.
“Shaddap, shitbird,” said Mr. Jones.
“Argghh.”
The man made an effort to push himself up from the paving stones, but then collapsed again.
Mr. Jones nimbly stepped over the man’s legs.
“Come on,” he said. “Get up. First round’s on me.”
He held out his thin and gnarly little hand to me. It occurred to me that if I really let him try to pull me up the result would most likely be him lying on the ground and me still sitting on it. However, just to make him feel useful, I took his hand, and, gritting my teeth, I pushed up from the pavement using my free hand and my better leg.
When I was finally standing again Mr. Jones patted me on the arm.
“There ya go, buddy. Standing up like a good soldier.”
“Argghhh,” said Sid, lying there on the cobblestones.
“What about him?” I said.
“What about him?” said Mr. Jones.
“It seems a shame just to leave him lying here,” I said.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Well –”
“Come on, let’s get them drinks.”
“Let me just check on him,” I said.
“Jesus Christ.”
I hobbled a step or two closer to the man and bent over his head.
“Hey,” I said. “Sid. Are you okay?”
“Bloody hell,” he said.
“Leave him,” said Mr. Jones. “He’s okay,”
“Bloody hell,” the guy said again.
He was still lying prone, his face to one side, most of it obscured by what used to be his hairstyle. He put one hand on the back of his head. I felt bad.
“Listen,” I said, “do you want us to, uh, try to take you somewhere? Or get help? Or –”
He said something I couldn’t make out. He took his hand away from his head, and tightened both his hands into fists, pulsing the heels of his hands against the wet cobblestones.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Third oldest trick in the book,” he said, in low, strained voice. “Fuckin’ sucker head-butt.”
“It was an accident,” I said. “My knee went out.”
“Accident my arse.”
“No, really –”
He mumbled something else but I couldn’t hear what he said. I bent over closer.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I couldn’t hear you.”
Again he mumbled something unintelligible.
I bent over a little closer.
“Could you repeat that?” I said.
And then, in a voice only barely above a whisper he said, “I’m gonna fucking kill you. I swear. If I see you again I’m gonna fucking kill you. And the old man. I’m gonna murder yez both.”
I straightened up.
“What did he say?” asked Mr. Jones.
“He said he was okay,” I said.
“That’s all?”
“Uh, yeah, he said he’s just gonna rest for a bit. But he’ll be okay.”
“Argghh,” said Sid.
“He don’t sound too okay,” said Mr. Jones. “But fuck him. Let’s get that drink.”
“Kill you,” said Sid.
“What did he say?” said Mr. Jones.
“Um, ‘See you,’” I said.
“Kill yez both,” said Sid.
“What?” said Mr. Jones.
“See us both,” I said. “He said he’d see us both.”
“Not if we see him first,” said Mr. Jones. “Come on.”
The jazz music was still playing out there in the fog somewhere, and had been playing. We headed off in the direction of the music, me limping, Mr. Jones shuffling, and behind us I could hear Sid’s voice fading into the fog behind us.
“Kill yez...murder yez both...the both o’ yez...argghh…”
I kept climbing up the ladder, going slowly, one step at a time, sliding my hands up the wet rails without ever completely letting go with either hand. Both my legs hurt at various places, and I wouldn’t have put it past either of them to seize up on me at any moment. After having made it this far I didn’t want to slip and fall down into that inky water.
Pretty soon my eyes and nose, not unlike Kilroy’s, were suddenly above the level of the top of the wall, which was about two feet broad, with everything beyond obscured by fog, if there was anything beyond. The fog was not still, but stirring very gently, as though it were breathing. Mr. Jones was nowhere to be seen. The handrails of the ladder curved up above the wall into twin inverted “U”s, fixed into the stone with bolted metal plates. I climbed on up, and, keeping hold of the rails, I called out into that grey and lightly swirling void.
“Mr. Jones?”
“What?” came his voice, from somewhere below.
“Where are you?” I called.
“Down here, Arnie-boy. There’s a flight of steps right at your feet.”
Looking down I saw some stone steps rising up out of, or descending into, the fog below. The steps were about three feet wide.
“Oh, okay,” I said.
The steps looked wet.
“You see them?” called Mr. Jones’s voice.
“Yes,” I said.
There was no handrail.
“Come on down. But be careful.”
“I will,” I said.
“You don’t need to take any more croppers today.”
“No,” I said.
“So come on.”
“How many steps are there?” I asked.
“Just a half-dozen or so. Eight maybe.”
“I wish there was a railing,” I said.
“So write your congressman. Come on, buddy, if I can make it then you should be able to.”
“Right,” I said.
“Just be careful.”
“I will,” I said.
“One step at a time, you’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I said. “So it’s just like six or eight steps, right?”
“Around six or eight,” said Mr. Jones. “Maybe ten.” I think he was getting a little impatient. “I didn’t count them. Now come on.”
“Okay,” I said, and I stepped down.
One step at a time. I took another step. I felt a jolt of pain in one knee, but to be honest I was getting used to these by now. I just had to take my time and be careful. I took another step and now I could make out the dim silhouette of what must be Mr. Jones, standing near what must be the foot of the steps.
“Oh, I can see you now,” I said.
“That’s great, Arnold. Now hurry the fuck up.”
I took another step, perhaps too quickly in my embarrassment at my own timidity, because the sole of one of my Keds slipped out from under me, and I fell, backwards, and downwards, my backside thumping hard upon first one step, then another, and a third, maybe a fourth, till finally my feet hit hard pavement and I pitched forward into a pair of thin short legs, knocking them and the old man’s body to which they were attached to the ground.
“Fucking Christ,” said Mr. Jones.
“Ow,” I said.
“I told you to be careful.”
“I was trying to be,” I said. “Ow.”
“You tackle me, and you’re the one who says ow?”
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“Get your face out of my crotch, damn it!”
I rolled off of him. I was in a great deal of pain, most of which now emanated from my rear end, but I thought it best not to mention this at the present moment.
“Are you okay, Mr. Jones?”
“Considering that some big fool just tackled me to the bricks, yes. Now help me up.”
Gritting my teeth, I first got myself on my feet, and then reached down, took hold of both of Mr. Jones’s forearms, and pulled him upright.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” I said. “Too much.”
“I’ll live,” he said. “Or rather I will live if indeed we are at last in the world of the living.”
Keeping one hand on his arm, I looked around. Except for the first few of the stone steps I had just so ineptly descended and a bit of the wall on either side of them, all I could see was Mr. Jones and a yard or so of the ground around us, paved with grey cobblestones.
“Fucking fog,” said Mr. Jones.
“Well, I guess we should just keep walking,” I said.
“It beats just standing here.”
“Okay, then.”
“Just do me a favor.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tackle me no more.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said. “Let’s just take it slow and easy, at least till we get clear of this fog.”
And so arm in arm we headed slowly into the fog, me limping more than ever, Mr. Jones shuffling as decrepitly as ever.
Then I began to hear a sound, like the beating of a heart, and then a sort of rhythmic crashing sound like distant waves at the shore, but speeded up, and then when I also heard what at first I thought was a woman crying I realized it was not noise I was hearing but music.
“Mr. Jones,” I said, “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Stop a second.”
I put my other hand on his arm.
“Why you always grabbing me for like that, son?”
“Sorry,” I said, taking my hands away. “But listen.”
He cupped a hand to his ear and turned his head so the ear was facing in the direction we had been walking.
“Now I hear it,” he said. “Sounds like one of them hot jazz combos.”
“We must be back in the world of the living then,” I said.
“So one would assume,” he said. “But where in the world of the living actually are we? Somehow this doesn’t seem like Cape May, does it?”
“No, I said, “unless it’s some part of Cape May I’m not quite familiar with.”
“You’re quite familiar with Cape May then, are you?”
“Well, there are parts I suppose I haven’t been to,” I said. “Maybe we’re out near, I don’t know, the Coast Guard base.”
“The Coast Guard base.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You think so.”
“Well, I just mean, like, you know --”
“Possibly.”
“Yeah,” I said, already suffused with doubt.
“Well, personally I never travel more than five blocks from my room,” said Mr. Jones. “So what do I know?”
“I think we should just keep walking towards the music,” I said. “It must be a bar.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Mr. Jones. “A little whiskey, just to cut through the fog in our lungs.”
“Well, I was thinking we could ask where we are, get some directions maybe.”
“Yeah, sure. And we’ll have a whiskey while we’re askin’.”
“Well, maybe one,” I said.
“Or two,” said Mr. Jones. “After all, it’s not every day that a fella comes back from the dead.”
“True,” I said, although this was in fact the second day in a row that I had done so, if indeed we were back from the dead.
“A man’s got a right to celebrate,” said Mr. Jones.
“Yes,” I said.
“A couple whiskeys. Couple beers. Wait -- maybe Manhattans! You like Manhattans, right?”
“Well, uh --”
“Or, say, ya know what’s good? Champagne Cocktails. Ever have one?”
“Um, I don’t think so --”
“Cognac and champagne. And some other shit, but cognac and champagne are the key elements. We can only hope they have some good cognac and champagne in this dive we’re headed toward. How much money you got on you, anyway?”
“Um --”
“Hullo gents.”
Both Mr. Jones and I gave out with little yelps of fright at the sound of these last words and the sudden sight of their apparent speaker, who seemed to emerge from the fog before us all at once although he was standing still, a small pale man in a sharkskin zoot suit and a bolo tie, lighting a cigarette with a lighter and smiling. He had glossy black hair that bulged up in a sort of bubble over his forehead and he had a long scar on one cheek.
“Holy shit,” said Mr. Jones. “You scared us there, buddy.”
“Heh heh.” The man clicked his lighter shut and dropped it into the side pocket of his jacket. “It’s this damn fog,” he said, keeping the cigarette in his mouth. He had some sort of English accent. “Can’t see your nose in front of your face.”
“I can never see my nose in front of my face,” said Mr. Jones. “Because my nose is on my face.”
“Okay, I’ll rephrase that,” said the man. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it for a moment. Then he looked at me, and then at Mr. Jones. “This damn fog is so thick you could cut it with a knife.”
“That’s better,” said Mr. Jones.
“But a sharp knife,” said the man. (On second thought he could have been Australian or South African, or something else.) Again he looked at me and Mr. Jones in turn, and then he went on. “It’s like that thick. This fog. You’d need a real sharp knife to cut it. Razor sharp.”
“Okay, I get it,” said Mr. Jones.
“Yeah, sure,” said the man. “So, you chaps new in town?”
“That depends,” said Mr. Jones. “What town is this?”
“Ha ha. I would say you slay me, pops, but then you might assail me again on a point of verbal accuracy.”
“Even speaking figuratively,” said Mr. Jones, “I fail to see how my simple question would slay you or otherwise incapacitate you to the extent of making you unable to answer my simple question.”
“Ha ha. Trust me, gramps, if I was in a position to be slain you would be doing so now.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Just what I said. If I could be slain you would be slaying me, absolutely killing me, that’s how funny you are. You should be in the music halls, or panto. Take your act on the road, like. Maybe a carny. The Old Joking Midget they could call you. You pays your penny and he slays you. Dead.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Jones, “you, you dockside lout, all we want to know is what town this is. Is that so hard a question?”
“Ha ha, you chaps really are lost, ain’t ya?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jones. “We’re lost. In the fog. Now can you please tell us where we are.”
“Ha ha. You’re lost all right.”
“Excuse me -- sir,” I said.
“The big man speaks. And here I was thinking you was the strong silent type. What gives, daddy-o?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I am an open book. A bible. A telephone directory. I am a compendium of favorite items from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. I am the Sears Roebuck Catalogue and Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia. I am Father Butler’s Lives of the Saints and the goddam Torah rolled into one. I am the Domesday Book. Ask away, my friend.”
“Okay,” I said. “What we’d like to know is if this is --”
“If what is?”
“This --” I said, making a sideways sweep of my hand.
“Whoa, John Barrymore with the dramatic gestures,” said the fellow.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “So, like, um, what we’d like to know is if this --”
“This,” said the guy, sweeping his hand.
“Yeah,” I said. “We were wondering if this is the, uh, um --”
“Take your time.”
“Hey, fuck you, pal,” said Mr. Jones.
“Aw, now that ain’t nice,” said the man.
“Is this the land of the living?” I said.
“What?” said the man.
“Is this the land of the living.”
“The land of the living.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ha ha,” he said.
“Answer the question,” said Mr. Jones.
“Ha ha,” said the man.
“What?” said Mr. Jones.
“That’s my answer,” said the man. “Ha ha is my answer.”
“So you’re saying we’re not in the world of the living,” said Mr. Jones.
“Ha ha,” said the man.
“Answer us,” said Mr. Jones. “You insolent ponce. Yes or no.”
“No,” said the man. “Nix. Nyet. Nein. Ixnay. No.”
“Shit,” said Mr. Jones.
“Ha ha,” said the man.
“That fucking ferryman,” said Mr. Jones.
“Who?” said the man. “Harry?”
“Yeah,” said Mr. Jones.
“Goddam Harry, always getting lost. Pathetic.”
“Damn his eyes,” said Mr. Jones. “So what is this place?”
“This place?” The man looked around, as if there were anything at all to see except fog. “Some people call it the Island of Lost Souls. Some people call it the Place With No Name, or the Port of Grim Shadows. Some people call it Nowheresvile, daddy-o.”
“What do you call it?” asked Mr. Jones.
“I don’t call it nothing, pops. I don’t call it nothing at all.”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Jones.
“Nothing,” said the man.
“Nothing?” I said.
“Not a goddam thing,” said the man.
“Well, okay, then,” I said. “I guess we’ll be moving along.”
“Where yez goin’ ya don’t mind my asking.”
“We were headed towards the sound of that music,” I said.
“Oh.” The music had been playing faintly in the distance all throughout the above conversation, and I could now hear what sounded like a saxophone. “That joint,” said the man.
“You know it?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know it.”
“Well, that’s where we’re going.”
“Hold on just a second.”
“I beg your pardon?’
He put his cigarette in his mouth, then reached into his jacket and brought out something, did something with his fingers, and a four-inch blade flicked out. It looked very sharp. He pointed the blade toward my throat.
