"The Cavemen Had No Names"

 

She was gazing off, through the smoke, gazing out at the babble and the jukebox music.

"There's still a chance," said the voice in his head. "She didn't exactly say no. Maybe she's thinking it over. Just don't say anything stupid now and spoil the moment."

"Is there really a chance?" said Milford, aloud.

"Oh, great," said Stoney, his alter ego, as Miss Blackbourne turned her regal gaze upon Milford.

"What?" she said.

"Um," said Milford, desperately, "I said is there really a chance."

"A chance for what? That I'll decide to make the beast with two backs with you?"

"Lie," said Stoney. "Lie, and be quick about it."

"No," said Milford, as quickly as he could. "I meant is there really a chance that I might find some, uh, meaning in life, some purpose, even if it's not as a poet, although of course I would prefer it to be. As a poet I mean. Or –"

He trailed off into silence, thank God, if there was a God, and this whole long day and night, not to mention his whole life, was proof that there was no God. 

She took a drag of her ebony and silver cigarette, slowly exhaled a great fragrant cloud in Milford's direction, and just when Milford thought she wasn't going to deign to say a word, she spoke:

"Y'know, if you're going to continue to be an utter bore I'm going to have to ask you to get up and leave right now."

"Wow," said Stoney. "I don't know about you, Milford, but I am totally in love with this woman."

"I lied," said Milford, after sighing for the twelve-thousandth-and-twenty-fifth time since he had unwillingly risen from the oblivion of slumber some sixteen hours ago, although it felt like at least sixteen months. "I was really responding to something my alter ego –"

"Bucky?"

"Stoney, actually, I was, uh, responding to something he said."

"Which was what?"

"That, uh, he thought there might still be a chance that you would, um – it was him saying this, not me –"

"Out with it. No woman can abide a man who beats about the bush, and please forgive the pun."

"He said," said Milford, "that there was still a chance that you would, uh –"

"Commit the act of darkness with you?"

"Yes, but, again, it was Bucky who said it –"

"Stoney, idiot," said Stoney.

"I mean, Stoney," said Milford.

"But Stoney, or Bucky, or whoever the hell he is," said Miss Blackbourne, "is you, is he not?"

Now it was Milford's turn to pause. Even Stoney was silent. And after thirty-nine seconds he, or possibly Stoney, said:

"In a sense, yes."

"Let me pose a question," said Miss Blackbourne. She took a drink of her highball before continuing, and Milford, forgetting again his alcoholism, took advantage of the moment to take a drink of his own highball. "If I agreed to take you to my narrow bed," she continued, "whom would I be taking? You, Mervin, or Bucky?"

"You mean Stoney," said Milford.

"Stoney then."

"Also, I don't mean to keep harping on it, but my name is Milford."

"What did I say?"

"I think you said Mervin."

"I beg your pardon."

"It's okay. No one ever gets my name right."

"But you haven't answered my question."

"What was it again?"

"If I were to allow you to – what's the phrase – hide your salami in my most private of parts, who would be the man wielding the soppressata shall we say, you, or this Chucky fellow?"

"I don't think I'm capable of answering that question."

"And who is saying that, you or Hucky?"

"His name is Stoney, and we're both saying it," said Milford's voice.

She gazed off into the smoke and the babble and the jukebox music again, and then she said, "Oh, Christ."

"What?" said Milford. Had he said the wrong thing? Was it possible ever to say the right thing?

"This fucking guy," said Miss Blackbourne. "You should pardon my fucking French."

And yet another man emerged from the swirling clouds of smoke. This one was a tall thin fellow dressed in overalls like a farmer, with a tattered straw hat on his head, and he carried a guitar on a strap over his shoulder.

"Hi, Margaret," he said. "I've written a new song, and I wonder if I could get some 'feedback' from you."

"Okay, Chet," she said. "How's this? I don't like it. Now scram, we're having a private conversation here."

"Hi, fella," said the man to Milford. "Ain't seen you round here before. My name's Chet Maliszewski."

He extended his hand, which was thin and white.

"Hello," said Milford. Reluctantly he took the man's hand and shook it, it felt strangely inanimate, like the hand of a department store dummy, not that Milford had ever shaken hands with a department store dummy, but at any rate the handshake was brief, which was always a good thing, or a less bad thing.

"What's your moniker?" said the man, wiping his hand on his overalls.

"Milford," said Milford.

"Jes' Milford?"

"Yes, just Milford."

"I been a-thinkin' of changing my name to just Chet, on accounta people are prejudiced against Polish people – quite unfairly, you ask me – so maybe I should just go simply by Chet after all. What do you think?"

"I don't care," said Milford. "If it was up to me I wouldn't have any name at all."

"So you could be just Anonymous."

"Even Anonymous is too much of a name for me."

"I like your style, pard. So, anyways, I'm gonna play y'all this new little ditty I just wrote, and it goes something like this." 

He struck a chord on his guitar, and began to sing, in a gruff, southern-sounding voice:

There's a notion 

of an ocean

of emotion deep inside

and I just can't hide it

and I just can't abide it

'cause it's tearing me apart

and eating up my heart

and the cause of it all is a lady 

called sweet Margaret

'cause she's got something I 

just can't get.

O sweet Margaret

I'll make you mine yet.

O sweet Margaret

I just can't forget

that time you said hello

and after talking to me

you told me just to go

and not come back

but here I am again

just a-singin' alas alack.

O sweet Margaret

I'll make you mine yet.

He struck a chord and then stopped singing.

"That's all I got so far, but I'm thinking I might add a few dozen more verses, kind of like one of the traditional Child ballads, like 'Tam Lin', say, or another favorite of mine, "The Midnight Ploughboy of Swampoodle", which in one variant has fifty-six verses. What do y'all think?"

"I think you should drop dead while you're still ahead," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Ha ha, you're such a card, Margaret," said Chet. He turned to Milford. "What do you think, Milbert? Be honest now, I can take it."

"I think it's great, Chad," said Milford, because he knew that no artist wanted honest criticism, but only praise, and lots of it.

"Thanks, Mulgrew," said Chet, "although my name is actually Chet, but, who knows, maybe I should change it to Chad. Chad something more Anglo Saxon maybe. Chad Mitchell?"

"Why don't you go away and work on your song now, Chad," said Margaret.

"Yes, ma'am, I reckon I'll do that," said Chet. "Nice meeting you, Milton."

"You too, Thad," said Milford.

"Thad, Chad, Chet, what's in a name?" said Chet.

"The cavemen had no names," said Milford. 

"Yes, sir, I like your style, Melvin," said Chet. "See ya, Margaret. I'll sing you the rest of the song after I finish it."

"I can't wait," said Margaret.

The fellow turned away and walked off into the smoke and the babble.

"Do you see what I have to deal with here?" said Miss Blackbourne. "With this crowd even an ill-favored chap like yourself doesn't look too terribly dreadful."

Yes, said Stoney, yes, there is still a chance! 

And this time Milford had the momentary good sense not to say anything, at least not aloud anyway, and it occurred to him (why had he never realized this before?) that the only sure way not to say something stupid was to say nothing, nothing at all. 

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