"Into Darkness"

How far away was that faint glow of light? It was impossible to say, but there was nothing else to do but to walk toward it. What was the alternative? There was none.

"I think," said Addison, "that the thing to do is to try to find a stairway."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Milford, in the darkness.

"It seems we're in some sort of basement."

"Yes, so it seems."

"But if we reach that light up ahead we should probably find a way out of here."

"So one might presume," said Milford.

"Well, don't you think that's a reasonable presumption?" said Addison. 

"Yes, it's reasonable," said Milford.

"I mean, don't all basements have stairways?"

"I don't know," said Milford. "I am hardly an expert on basements."

"You mean there might not be a stairway?"

"I don't know," said Milford. "What if this basement is only accessible by elevator?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said Addison.

"But I'll tell you one thing," said Milford, "I'm not getting back in that elevator we just got out of."

"No, that was rather –" Addison paused, "disconcerting."

They kept walking, the tips of their cigarettes providing their only immediate illumination.

The glow of faint light in the distance gradually formed the shape of a doorway, and after several minutes during which neither Addison or Milford said a word, each for their own reasons (fear, and the fear of saying something fearful, or something boring or stupid, or simultaneously fearful, boring, and stupid) they reached what was indeed a doorway, without a door. Addison stepped through first, Milford followed him, and they found themselves in yet another hallway, this one with walls of unpainted brick. Above them hung the source of the light they had seen, a bare bulb hanging from a high ceiling, and the corridor ran otherwise unlighted to the right and to the left.

"Which way now?" said Addison. 

Both directions seemed to lead only to darkness.

"I don't know," said Milford. 

"Some sort of ancient impulse deep within me suggests that we should go to the right."

"In that case we should probably go to the left," said Milford.

"Ha ha, that dry Milford wit," said Addison.

"You're the one with the alleged wit," said Milford. "One thing I have never been accused of is possessing wit."

"Ah, but moi, j'accuse, mon ami!" said Addison, dapperly tapping the ash of what was left of his Chesterfield to the floor.

"Addison," said Milford, after a slight pause, "may I ask you one small favor?"

"Anything, old chap."

"Oh, never mind."

"No, please, ask away!"

"I was going to ask you to stop speaking French."

"Oh, pardonnez-moi, mon vieux."

"Ha ha."

"No, but if it bothers you, I'll stop, I promise."

"Oh, never mind, I don't care, really."

"Vraiment?"

"Yes," said Milford. "Who am I to ask you not to speak odd phrases in French?"

"Well," said Addison, "at the risk of waxing sentimental, I like to think you're my friend. And that I am your friend. And so if it is in my power to be even slightly less annoying, it would be my pleasure to attempt to do so."

Milford bit off a sigh before it could fully achieve itself.

"Okay," he said.

"You mean, okay that I think of myself as your friend?"

"Yes," said Milford, looking away.

"You know, mon pote, I've never really had a friend," said Addison. "Have you?"

"I think you already know the answer to that," said Milford.

"Oh, I've had acquaintances," said Addison. "My classmates at school and college, who always seemed to be in cliques that I was banned from. And, during the war, my co-workers on the assembly line at the parachute factory, to whom I would say hello, and receive a curt nod in response, if that. And now of course, the fellow tipplers who frequent my local caravansary, Bob's Bowery Bar, but who always seem to have trouble staying awake when I attempt to converse with them. But a friend? Someone who does more than tolerate my presence?"

"Okay," said Milford. "I get it."

His Husky Boy had burnt down to a nubbin, and he let it fall to the floor.

Almost seeming to commit an act of solidarity, Addison also dropped his cigarette.

"I'm so glad," said Addison.

"What?"

"I said I'm so glad."

"Glad about what?"

"That we have become friends."

"Oh," said Milford. "Yes."

It occurred to him that it might possibly be a fire hazard just to toss their cigarette butts to the floor, and so, just to be on the safe side, he ground out his own discarded butt with the sole of his workman's brogan, and then stepped over and put his foot on Addison's still-burning dog end as well. Never being one to take much notice of anything outside the confines of his own skull, he now belatedly observed that the flooring seemed to be made of ancient bricks, and so there probably had been no great danger of a conflagration. No matter, what was done was done.

He became aware that Addison had said something.

"Don't you agree?" said Addison.

"About what?" said Milford.

"About what I just said."

"Do you mind repeating it?"

"Don't you agree, and again at the risk of waxing sentimental," said Addison, who had long ago grown used to people drifting off while he talked, "that it feels good to have a friend, at long last."

"Oh, right," said Milford. 

"Not to wax sentimental."

"No, of course not."

"Damon and Pythias. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer."

"Right."

"Holmes and Watson."

"Yeah," said Milford.

"Friends," said Addison. "After all the lonely years. After a lifetime of –"

"But you know why we've never had any friends," interrupted Milford.

"Is that a question?" said Addison.

"More a statement of fact," said Milford.

"Oh," said Addison.

"Yes," said Milford.

"Because we are, both," said Addison, "I confess I hesitate to say it –"

"We're both douchebags," said Milford.

"Yes," said Addison. "Might as well call a spade a spade."

"And a douchebag a douchebag," said Milford.

"Which still leaves us with the question," said Addison.

"Why we exist, or persist in existing?" said Milford.

"Well, that," said Addison, "but actually, on a perhaps more prosaic plane, I meant we are left with the question of which way to go, right or left?"

"You choose," said Milford.

"Well, as I said previously, my deepest impulse, or intuition if you will, tells me we should go to the right."

"Okay then," said Milford.

"So, then," said Addison, "to the left then?"

"Yes," said Milford, after only the slightest of pauses.

And the two friends headed down the dim hall to the left, toward the darkness, gradually entering into the darkness, which had no seeming end, and when they had walked in darkness a further minute, as if communicating telepathically, they stopped as one and brought out their cigarettes. Milford lighted them both up with his Ronson, their faces pale in the small light, which he extinguished with a click, and then on they walked, once again the tips of their cigarettes providing their only illumination.

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