"A Man Called Milford"

Milford lifted the cup of sweet fragrant tea again, and drank, and then he drank again, and once more, and the cup was now empty. 

He sighed, his twelve-thousandth-and-twenty-ninth sigh since awakening from a troubled nightmarish sleep the previous morning into a troubled and nightmarish long day and seemingly endless night. 

"Walter," said Miss Blackbourne, apparently in response to something Mr. Whitman had said, something Milford hadn't caught because he had a bad habit of not listening to people, "don't you ever get tired of pontificating?"

"Ouch!" cried Walt.

"Burn!" said the Negro man called Jelly Roll. "Burn, baby, burn!"

Milford wondered if he should pour himself another cup of tea from the blue and white teapot. 

"Ah, dear Margaret," said Mr. Whitman, "it is an occupational hazard of the poetic sage, this urge to spout wisdom and platitudes."

"Spout bullshit you mean," said Miss Blackbourne.

"Heh heh," said Mr. Whitman, lifting his tankard to his wet-whiskered lips.

"Look at Jelly Roll there," said Miss Blackbourne, "you don't see him going on with all this godhead and brotherhood of man baloney."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Jelly Roll. "Murder ballads and cat house cantos are more my style."

"That's because you're not full of crap like Walt," said Miss Blackbourne. "I mean, don't get me wrong, Walter, you're a great poet and all that, but Jesus Christ, man, give the fucking pomposity a rest now and then."

"I shall try, dear Margaret," said Mr. Whitman, tilting his great hairy head under that slouch hat of his. "It's hard for me, but it's just that I am so overflowing with what the Greeks called agape, that is to say brotherly love, although I suppose there is something to be said for sisterly love as well –"

"Can it," she said. "Look at Milford there, he knows how to keep his trap shut."

"You mean Mulgrew?" said Mr. Whitman.

"I thought it was Milford," said Miss Blackbourne.

"I think it's Milltowne," said Jelly Roll.

"What's your name, pal?" said Miss Blackbourne, addressing Milford.

"What?" said Milford. He was still wondering if he should pour himself some more tea. 

"I asked you what your name is," said Miss Blackbourne.

Milford wanted more tea, but on the other hand he knew that if he kept on drinking the delicious and restorative tea he would have to go to the men's room again, and he was afraid of going back to that men's room, he was afraid of going to any men's room ever again.

"Milford?" said Miss Blackbourne.

"Yes?" Milford managed to say.

"I asked you a question."

"What was it?"

"Miss Margaret wants to know what your name is, man," said Jelly Roll.

"It's Mulvaney, right?" said Mr. Whitman. "Tell her, Mahoney."

"It's not Mulvaney," said Miss Blackbourne. "Nor Mahoney. Milford, if that really is your name, tell us what your name is."

"My name?"

"Yes," said Miss Blackbourne. "It's a simple question. What's your name?"

"I'm pretty sure it's Moxton," said Mr. Whitman. "Or Moxley."

"What's your name, man?" said Jelly Roll.

Suddenly Milford realized that he couldn't remember his name. What was his name? 

"Um," he said.

"Uh-oh," said Jelly Roll. "I seen this before."

"Um, uh," elaborated Milford.

"It's Mulgrave, right?" said Mr. Whitman.

"It's not God damned Mulgrave, Walt," said Miss Blackbourne. "Milford, didn't you tell me your name was Milford?"

"I, uh," said Milford.

"He's too high," said Jelly Roll. "Can't remember his own name. Too much muggles and hash, too many magic mushrooms, too much jimson weed and John the Conqueroo and ayahuasca and laudanum, and probably too much good old-fashioned lush, and now it looks like your special tea just sent him right over the edge. What'd you put in that tea anyway, Miss Margaret?"

"It's just plain ordinary Assam tea," she said. "I would never dose someone I'd just met."

(Milford suddenly remembered that he had also drunk some sarsaparilla supposedly spiked with ambrosia, the mystical viaticum of the gods, but it seemed too much effort to share this memory with his companions.)

Miss Blackbourne reached across the table and touched Milford's hand with the fingers of her hand, the nails of which were long and sharp and painted the color of fresh glistening blood. 

"Darling, just tell us your name."

"His name is Murgatroyd I think," said Mr. Whitman.

"Still thy tongue, Walt," said Miss Blackbourne, and now she touched Milford's cheek, which had grown even more pallid than usual. "What's your name, buddy?"

"My name is," said Milford, but then he stopped. 

He stood up, almost knocking his chair over, but Jelly Roll grabbed it.

"Hey, where you going, McGraw?" said Mr. Whitman.

"Sit down, my good man," said Miss Blackbourne. "We only want to know what your name is."

"It starts with an M, I'm pretty sure of that," said Jelly Roll. "What about Mulligan?"

Milford reached under his peacoat and into the side pocket of his dungarees, brought out his old Boy Scout wallet, and opened it up.

"Now what are you doing?" said Miss Blackbourne. 

Milford looked into the wallet's compartment where he kept a few cards and scraps of paper, ideas for poems, drafts of suicide notes and such, and there was his library card. He took it out and looked at it.

"'Marion Milford,'" he read, aloud.

"See, I told you guys," said Miss Blackbourne. "Marion Milford, but he goes by Milford because Marion is a girl's name."

Milford sat down again.

"Can I see that card?" said Mr. Whitman.

Milford handed him the library card, and Mr. Whitman took a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from inside his workman's jacket and put them on, then looked at the card.

"Yes, it does say 'Marion Milford'," he said. He looked at Milford over the rims of his glasses. "Is this your library card?"

"Um," said Milford.

"I mean," said Mr. Whitman, "is it your card and not someone else's, or a forgery perhaps?"

"I, I –" said Milford.

"Of course it's the boy's card," said Miss Blackbourne. "Why else would he have it in his wallet?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Margaret," said Mr. Whitman. "Take your time, Mulliford. All we want to know is if this is actually and in truth your own and proper library card."

"Yes," said Milford, after only a brief pause. "I think so."

"You think so."

"Yes. Unless –"

"Unless what?"

"Unless I dreamt that it's my library card. Unless my whole life has been a dream. Unless I'm in someone else's dream. Unless I'm dreaming what's happening now."

"Wow," said Jelly Roll. "That's some heavy ass shit right there."

"It's his fucking library card, Walt," said Miss Blackbourne, "now give it back to him before the poor boy loses whatever of his mind he has left."

Mr. Whitman looked at the card one more time then proffered it across the table to Milford, who took it and put it back in his wallet. Then he stood up again, almost knocking his chair over again (Jelly Roll grabbing it again), and he put the wallet back into the side pocket of his jeans, and sat down, again.

"Milford," said Mr. Whitman, and he took off his glasses.

"I told you, Walt," said Miss Blackbourne.

"My man Milford," said Jelly Roll. "He knows his own name."

"I guess he does, Jelly Roll," said Mr. Whitman. "I'll warrant he does." He folded up his glasses and put them away. "Don't you, Mugford?"

"Walter!" said Miss Blackbourne.

"Aw, I'm just fucking with the kid, Margaret," said Mr. Whitman. "Come on, let's finish our drinks and blow this popsicle stand."

"I'm down with that," said Miss Blackbourne. "Do you want to go somewhere else, Milford?"

"Yes," said Milford, because he always wanted to be somewhere else, except when he was in bed

"Do you want another cup of tea first?"

"No," he said, and he felt as if he were emerging from a thick fog, out of a dark cobbled alleyway, into a street where there were lights and motors and people and the sounds of laughter and music, a living and sparkling city of night. "Let's just go."

"Right, let's roll," said Jelly Roll. "And I know just the place to go."

And soon enough our four friends got up from the table and left.

And where to? 

To another bar, of course.

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated and with additional dialogue by the illustrious rhoda penmarq…}

"Ode to Joy"

Out of the thickly falling midnight snow and into Ma's Diner came Gerry "the Brain" Goldsmith, the gentleman philosopher. 

The usual assortment of stumblebums and bindlestiffs sat at the booths and the counter, and down there in the middle perched on a stool was Smiling Jack.

Gerry brushed some snow off his old camel's hair chesterfield, took off his twenty-eight-year-old fedora and flapped it against his side, loosened his frayed and worn Andover rowing-team muffler, and then went over to where Smiling Jack sat.

"Hello, Jack, anyone sitting here?"

"Why, no," said Jack, smiling, "take a seat, my friend!"

Gerry took the seat. Yes, Smiling Jack was alive, hale and hearty as ever. The remains of what looked like corned beef hash and eggs were on a plate before him, and Jack had just lighted up a cigarette with a match torn from a book on which were printed the words 

MA'S DINER

Where the Food Could Not Be Finer

The matchbook reminded Gerry of the Zippo lighter in his pocket, the lighter he had taken from one of Smiling Jack's pockets, along with a pack of Luckies and nine dollars and seventy cents, when, less than an hour ago, he had found Jack's frozen body leaning up against a streetlight pole, Smiling Jack lifeless but still smiling, the blank eyes slightly open, the eyelashes crusted with ice. 

Gerry reached into his coat pocket and brought out the Zippo.

"I say, Jack, look what I found just inside the doorway."

"A lighter?"

"Yes. A Zippo."

"So it is –"

"Don't you own a Zippo?"

"I do, yes, but somehow I lost it tonight."

"Maybe this is your lighter, Jack."

"I suppose it might be."

"Here, take it."

"Oh, but it could be anyone's lighter."

"Most likely it's yours."

"But you found it, Gerry. You should keep it."

"I want you to have it, Jack. Something tells me it's yours."

"What do you mean by something?" said Smiling Jack, who believed as a matter of principle in a higher power.

"It's just a feeling," said Gerry.

"Ah, but one thing we learn in the program, Gerry, is that feelings are not facts."

"In this case I think my feeling is a fact, Jack."

"But how can you be sure?"

Ma was standing there behind the counter listening to all this.

"Oh, hello, Ma," said Gerry. "I wonder if I could have a cup of your most excellent chicory coffee, and as well I think I'll go for –" he glanced at the bill of fare posted on the blackboard up on the facing tiled wall, "oh, I suppose I'll go for the All Day Deluxe Breakfast, with eggs sunny side, scrapple and home fries, please."

"You got it, Mr. Goldsmith," said Ma, and she went away.

Gerry turned back to Smiling Jack, and held out the Zippo.

"Please take the lighter, Jack."

Jack took the lighter and examined it.

"Y'know, it does somehow look like my lighter."

Ma came back with a cup and saucer in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. She filled the cup for Gerry, and topped off Smiling Jack's cup.

"Finished with your breakfast, Mr. Jack?" 

"Yes, Ma," said Smiling Jack, "thank you very much, it was excellent.

Ma took away the plate, and Jack flicked back the cap of the lighter and thumbed the wheel, and a vibrant blue and yellow flame emerged.

"Strange," he said, shutting the cap, "but it even feels like my lighter." 

"I want you to have it," said Gerry.

"Well, only if you insist," said Jack. "It's funny, but not only did I somehow lose my lighter tonight, but I thought I had some money in my wallet, and some change in my pocket, but when I came in here it was all gone. I also had somehow lost a pack of Luckies I was sure I had. Fortunately for me, Ma let me have a meal on credit, and she even lent me a quarter for a pack of Luckies."

"Ma is a very good person," said Gerry.

"She is indeed," said Smiling Jack. "A living saint."

"Yes," said Gerry. 

Ma would never go through the pockets of a man she found frozen to death leaning up against a light pole in a raging blizzard. And then head directly to the nearest bar.

Gerry added sugar to his coffee from the dispenser, and milk from the little metal pitcher, then stirred it all up, and sipped.

He still owed Smiling Jack nine dollars and seventy cents, as well as a pack of Lucky Strikes, but all in good time, if the universe granted him the time. But here's what he would do, what he should do. As usual he had blown through his monthly remittance before the end of the month, but what he would do, tomorrow he would look for a transit authority token in the little tray where he kept pennies and nickels and sometimes even dimes on the little table by the door of his room, and he would go out into the cold and the snow and take the subway up to 52nd Street and the offices of Goldstein, Goldberg and Gold, and he would ask Mr. Goldstein for a modest advance, fifteen or twenty dollars. Then he would just have to find a subtle way to get the nine dollars and seventy cents to Smiling Jack, without admitting of course that he had lifted that amount from the frozen Jack's pockets. No, make it an even ten dollars, because he had also taken that pack of Luckies…

In the meantime all he could do was to sit here and talk with Smiling Jack, as insanely boring as the man was. This would be his penance, and when Jack inevitably offered him one of his anti-alcoholism pamphlets (Are You a Drunkard?) from his leather satchel, he would say yes, thank you very much, Jack. Which wasn't to say he would actually read the thing, but he would take it, because it was the least he could do, the very least. 

Jack had been talking, but what was he saying? It didn't matter, people had to talk, some more than others, and Jack seemed to love to talk more than most, perhaps it was his way of proving to himself that he was still alive, or at any rate not dead and in the ground, not yet anyway. 

And then Ma was there, laying down that great warmed plate of food, the eggs glistening with butter like two suns, the smells of the spiced potatoes and the scrapple and the eggs and butter uniting in a symphony, or, if not a symphony, an ode, an ode to joy. 

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