“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 134: whacked

Let us rejoin our heroes, anti-heroes, and assorted featured players on a day in September, 1969, at the hospitable Johnstone Ranch (“Reasonable Rates For Folks Who Hanker For a Taste of the Real Old West”), not very far from a town called Disdain...

(Go here for our previous chapter, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award©-winning yarn from Mr. Larry Winchester. “...like Cormac McCarthy but without the big words.” -- Harold Bloom.)

That morning a great dust storm blew up through the area but then it passed and the day opened up bright and clear and warm and everything seemed like you could reach out and touch it.

Everyone had a good long sleep and after people finally started waking up that bright afternoon they all sat around the parlor drinking tea and eating little burritos made with the leftover barbecue meat.

Jake was nice enough to give Brad one of his old western suits to replace his bloodstained one, and Dick gave Mr. MacNamara a nice grey serge number from Hawkes of Savile Row that was a tad too small but still better than the bullet-ridden and gory jacket and trousers he had been wearing.

Buddy wound up in some old ranching clothes of Ed Harris the foreman’s.

Harvey drove Cleb and Attie home in the green Corvair, and he stayed for dinner out at the Parsons spread.

Buddy spent part of the afternoon working on Paco’s station wagon and sure enough he got it running again. Paco bade a fond farewell to one and all and drove back to the reservation.

Jake sent Tip Bullock out to Enid’s truck with four spare tires. The Doc and Enid drove out with him, and after they had changed the tires Enid and the Doc drove back on in to Disdain together.

Mr. MacNamara and Brad and Buddy spent some little time palavering together out on the porch and when they came in Mr. MacNamara took Big Jake aside and they had a little talk. Then Mr. MacNamara sat down next to Dick and Daphne and they talked quietly for a while. And then Mr. MacNamara and Brad and Buddy said so long to everyone and drove off in a nondescript old Packard that Jake had lying around. Jake said later that he had offered them the car free gratis and for nothing, but that old Mac had insisted on paying cash for it, in the form of five crisp new hundred-dollar bills.

Dick and Daphne had a talk with Jake over cocktails, and Jake said he thought it’d be a damn swell idea for Hope to take a trip to Europe with them. That Albuquerque head-shrinker had advised that she hold off college at least till next January. Well, Jake was no head-shrinker but maybe a trip like this was just what she needed. Get her out in the world a mite, do her a world of good; then if she wanted she could start college in January or even the following fall. Truth to tell he was thinking it’d be nice to be able to bring a señorita or two home now and then and not have to worry about corrupting Hope. Not to mention let someone else take care of her whenever she had one of her little nervous breakdowns.

****

That night Dick and Harvey had a little chat on the front porch, sitting side by side on a couple of wicker rocking chairs with a stand-up ashtray between them. Dick asked Harvey if he would like to come along with him and Daphne and Hope. Their plan was to drive the Thunderbird back to Frisco and drop it off for Dick’s friend Huey, then take a plane to Philadelphia, have a brief visit with Daphne’s grandmother in Cape May, and then on to New York and finally to Europe. Harvey said thanks but he reckoned he’d hang around here for a little while, maybe work on the ranch if Mr. Johnstone would give him a job.

“Don’t want to leave Attie, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Not just yet anyway.”

“She seems like a really nice girl.”

“That she is.”

“Why don’t you -- you know --”

“Take her with me?”

“Yeah. I mean, not necessarily with us.”

“She won’t leave. She wants to stay with her old man and her brother.”

“Oh.”

“They all got radiation poisoning. Each other’s all they got. I’ll hang around a month or so, then I guess I’ll be movin’ on.”

“Oh. Well -- we’ll write then, Harvey, keep in touch --”

“Sure,” said Harvey.

Dick sort of wanted to reach over and put his hand on Harvey’s shoulder, but, well, no, better not. Instead he took out his last joint. He’d been thinking of saving it for the road, but, what the hell, no time like the present. He handed it over to Harvey and lit him up with the trusty old Ronson. Harvey toked deeply several times and then passed the joint to Dick.

“You wanta hear my theory, Mr. Smith, I mean Ridpath?”

He still hadn’t let out the smoke. These kids today were pros.

“Dick,” said Dick, between two tokes.

“Dick?”

“What’s your theory?”

Harvey let out the smoke, a great redolent cloud in the crisp cool desert air.

“I think we invented them outer space guys.”

“We did?”

“Yeah. The human race did. I think we invented ‘em. I mean, not on purpose. But, like, our dreams invented ‘em. We had to invent ‘em, ‘cause we ain’t never satisfied with what we got. I mean, the life we got ain’t enough, the universe we got ain’t enough, and, like, we know we’re all alone but we can’t stand to be alone. So we invented this whole other universe out of our dreams. And the people in this other universe don’t even know we invented ‘em. They don’t even know they’re a dream.”

Dick toked deeply, held it in, and exhaled slowly.

“You mean -- they don’t really exist?”

Harvey took the joint.

“Nah, of course they exist. It’s just, we created ‘em. Don’t know how, but we did.”

He toked.

“Wow,” said Dick. “That’s pretty --”

What was the word --

“Heavy,” said Harvey, still holding it in.

Actually Dick was thinking more along the lines of preposterous.

Harvey passed him back the joint, exhaling another great cumulus cloud of smoke.

“Harvey?”

“Yeah?”

Dick took a couple of little tokes.

“Don’t -- try to make too much sense of life. Don’t -- fall into that trap.”

He gave the joint back to Harvey.

Harvey stared at the joint.

“I am whacked,” he said.

****

(Click here for our next fabulous episode. Kindly look to the right hand side of this page for what might sometimes be an up-to-date listing of all other available chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, recently shortlisted for the Kilgore Trout Memorial Award for Vaguely Scientific Fiction.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 139: the Frug

In our previous episode of this Gold View Award™-winning memoir our hero -- that prince of letters Arnold Schnabel -- was last seen making a getaway with that literally living doll Clarissa, on this sultry night in August of 1963, in the old seaside resort of Cape May, NJ...

“By, the way,” she said, “what’s the story behind that limp of yours?”

My limp, I had forgotten about it.

“I fell from a third-floor window today,” I said. “I should have been injured far more severely, or killed, but Jesus appeared and broke my fall.”

“Ha ha, very amusing.”

“No, it’s true,” I said. “That was him by the way, back in the bar. That fellow who joined us in the booth.”

“Josh, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“You know you really are quite insane, Arnold.”

We reached Beach Drive.

“The boardwalk!” she said. “Let’s go!”

And she pulled on my arm.

“Wait for the green light, Clarissa.”

“Oh, yes, the green light. I like the automobiles,” she said. “In my day they were quite different, and not nearly so numerous. Oh, good, the light’s gone green. Let’s cross.”

We walked across, and went up the steps to the promenade. Plenty of people still walked back and forth, although of course without the small children at this hour.

“Which way shall we go?” she asked.

To the right was Frank’s Playland. I certainly didn’t want her dragging me in there. I wasn’t sure my nerves could stand it, to be quite honest.

“Oh, this way, I suppose,” I said, steering her to the left.

“So,” she said as we strolled the boards, arm in arm, “tell me about this dark wanton of yours, this Athena --”

“Elektra,” I said.

“Whatever her name is.”

“Well, she’s a jeweler,” I said, “but she also sings very well, and --”

“God, it’s good to be out and about!” She did a little skip, but kept her hold on my arm. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let me tell you something, Arnold, that Jack Scratch fellow?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever make a bargain with him. No matter how splendid he makes it sound.”

“I won’t.”

“I made a bargain with him and look what happened to me. Turned into an inanimate doll. What a dreadful bore. But I knew I would make my escape from that shop some day. I only had to be patient. Thank God you and that friend of yours Dick came along. Something about you, or him, or the both of you, broke the spell. And now I am free.”

“Well, I’m very glad, Clarissa.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes,” I said.

“After I called your lady friend a slut and a wanton?”

“Well, I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t say those things,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose you would.”

“Things are different nowadays,” I said.

“Oh, are they?”

“Yes.”

“Anything goes, I suppose.”

“Well, not anything,” I said.

“I hope you’re not referring to me breaking into that shop.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Good.”

We had come to that group of shops and restaurants on the boardwalk across from the movie theatre.

“Oh!” she said. “Water ice! Take me in here and buy me a water ice, please.”

I took her into the water ice place. There was a short line, and Clarissa pulled me right over behind a big stout man in a Hawaiian shirt and what must have been his wife, who was also stout.

She immediately engaged this couple in a conversation about the best flavors of water ice. It all seemed prosaic enough and harmless. The stout couple paid for their ice and left, and Clarissa and I ordered, raspberry for me, lemon for her. I paid, and we left the shop.

“Wait a moment,” she said. “Here, hold this for me.”

She handed me her paper cone of yellow ice. It matched her dress.

She clicked open her little white purse, then put two fingers under her belt, brought out a folded wad of bank notes and dropped them into the purse.

“Clarissa,” I said, “where did you get that money?”

“From that smelly old hippo,” she said. She put her fingers under her belt on the other side of the buckle and brought out another folded wad of money. “And this was from the lady hippo.” She dropped it also into her purse and clicked it shut. “Now may I have my water ice, please.”

“Clarissa, you mean you picked their pockets?”

“I picked the male hippo’s pocket. The female one, I picked her purse.”

“Clarissa,” I said. “Give me that money. I’m returning it.”

The portly couple were not far away, starting to walk down the steps to the street.

“I will not give it to you. Look at them. They can afford it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Look how rotund they are. They must be well off if they can afford to eat like pigs.”

“Clarissa, give me the money.”

“I’ll deny everything. I’ll make a dreadful fuss. I’ll say you stole the money, Arnold. Who are the police going to believe? A well-spoken young lady like me or a known lunatic like yourself? You’ll be on the first bus back to the insane asylum.”

The overweight couple were now crossing Beach Drive.

“All right,” I said. “But this is it. No more crimes.”

She held out her hand.

“May I have my water ice now?”

I gave it to her, and she licked it.

“But I need clothes,” she said. “I need money.”

She took my arm again and we continued our walk.

“Look,” I said. “I’ll help you. But please stop robbing and stealing.”

“You’ll help me? How? Will you give me money?”

“Well, I suppose I could give you a little money. But what you should do is get a job.”

She turned her head and looked at me, but she said nothing until we came abreast of Convention Hall, complete with its sign advertising “Saturday Night Dancing with Rockin’ Harry Hirsch and His Combo”.

“Oh, is that a dance hall?” she asked.

“It is,” I said.

“You must take me!” she commanded, and she dragged me over to the entrance, at which I duly paid for our admission.

We went through the broad hall and into the vaulted dance floor.

“What is this Ubangi music?” she yelled into my ear.

“It’s called rock ‘n’ roll,” I said.

A band, presumably Rockin’ Harry and his men, played on the stage at the far end, and the dance floor was filled with people, most of them very young.

“And what is that lewd dance they’re doing?”

“It’s called the Twist,” I said.

“I want to do it! Come on!”

She pulled on my arm.

“I can’t do the Twist,” I said.

“Oh, posh, look how simple it is!”

I let her pull me onto the dance floor. She wasn’t happy until she had gotten us right near the center of this sweating mass of gyrating youth. Finally she let go of my arm and began to dance the Twist.

“Look, see?” she said. “Easy as pie. Twist, Arnold.”

And, in my way, I Twisted. I felt like a fool, but I derived some small consolation from the thought that all the other men and boys on this dance floor also looked like fools.

I’ll say one thing for the Twist, it leaves both your hands free, and so we were able to continue to lick our water ice as we danced.

The next dance I had to do was the Mashed Potato, then the Frug, and finally the Hully-Gully. By this point we had long finished our water ices and tossed the paper cones onto the dance floor which was already liberally littered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other sundry refuse. Once again, and for the twenty-seventh time this long day, I was soaked with sweat.

When the Hully-Gully finally ended the band switched to a slow song, I believe it was “Blue Velvet”. Clarissa opened her arms beckoningly, but I held up my hands.

“No, Clarissa, please --”

“You won’t dance with me?”

“I’m drenched with sweat. My leg hurts. And I need to rest.”

She on the other hand looked fresh as a daisy, with only a slight beading of perspiration on her porcelain forehead.

“Oh poof!” she said. “All right.”

She held out her hand palm downward and wiggled her fingers dismissively at me.

“Go rest,” she said. “I’ll meet you after a few dances near the entrance.”

She gazed around her.

“I’ll find someone to dance with me,” she said.

I headed through the throng toward the entrance, and there I took a place among a lot of thuggish-looking young men, all of them smoking cigarettes and peering threateningly from under their eyebrows. These fellows didn’t scare me particularly, but on the other hand I didn’t want to have to get drawn into an inane conversation with any of them. So I did something I learned to do a long time ago in low railroadman’s bars, I assumed a very serious and grim expression, with my hands thrust in my pockets, trying to look like a psychopathic killer instead of the mere psychopath I am. But then I realized that to complete the picture I really should have a cigarette hanging from my mouth. Fortunately there was a cigarette machine there in the lobby. I went over to the cashier and got some change, then went over and bought a pack of Pall Malls, not forgetting to pick up the free book of paper matches that slid out so satisfyingly along with the cigarettes.

I walked away from the machine slowly.

It was now around 11:30 and I had not had a cigarette since that first one of the day, the one that had produced that determinative coughing fit.

Well, I had never intended to quit cold. I deserved one now. I tapped the pack a couple of times against my palm, then stripped the cellophane and opened the foil. There they were, twenty of them, twenty long rich doses of ecstasy, the whole of it so much more than a man had any right to ask for in this life.

“Hello, Arnold,” said Clarissa. “Shall we go now?”

“That was quick,” I said.

“I got bored without you. Come. Let’s go.”

She took my arm. With my free hand I put the pack of cigarettes and the unused book of matched back into my pocket, and together we walked out onto the boardwalk again.

(Click here for our next thrilling episode. Please look to the right hand side of this page to find what may very well possibly be an up-to-date listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “Truly a memoir for our times, although perhaps to say as such is to damn this masterpiece with faint praise.” -- Harold Bloom, on The Bonnie Hunt Show.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 133: sunrise over the desert; New Mexico; September, 1969

And the long night has finally come to an end here at the Johnstone Ranch, that oasis of civility not very far from a town called Disdain...

(Go here for our previous chapter, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award©-winning masterpiece from Larry Winchester. “...the Homer of our wretched age.” -- Harold Bloom.)

It was past seven by the time Dick and Daphne finally made it back to their room.

Dick stood in the bleary light and emptied out his pockets.

The Browning.

His cigarette case and lighter.

The transistor radio with the bullet hole through it (he had forgotten that he still had it).

The two small revolvers -- his own trusty Airweight, and the Colt .38 he had taken off of Brad, which he was pretty sure belonged to Mac; he’d return it tomorrow.

They took off their blood-stiffened clothes, threw them across the floor and got naked into the cool unmade bed. It would have been nice to take a bath or a shower but they were just too fagged out. They sat up against the pillows and they each had one more cigarette.

“God, what a night,” said Daphne. “I feel --”

She paused.

Dick turned and looked at her. Daphne often gave one pause but she herself so rarely paused.

“Yes?” said Dick.

“I feel as if I know what it is to be insane.”

Now Dick paused.

“Yeah,” he said.

And it was true, so fucking true, it was all insane.

They smoked.

And Dick thought, well, tomorrow’s another day, as Scarlett O’Hara once said. Even if it is already tomorrow. But just to sleep now. A good long sleep. And then what. What new chaos awaited them?

“Dick, you don’t think those space people will bother us any more, do you?”

“I hope not. After last night I should think they’d prefer never to see us again.”

“Good. That Frank person was a dodgy character. Do you think Papa will stay on earth now?”

“He probably has to.”

“Mama will have a cow.”

“I dare say. Oh, by the way, when you were making those delicious pancakes your father told me he’s giving us some money. A belated wedding present.”

“Oh really? How much?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“From that famous briefcase of his?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it real?”

“Well, he said it’s indistinguishable from the real thing, but then he also said we should be careful how we spend it. You know, ration it out, or --

“Right, that’ll be the day. Say, Dick?”

“Yes?”

“Do you mind that I’m half space-person?”

“No.”

“You hesitated.”

“Only a half-second.”

“You really don’t mind.”

“Why should I?”

They sat there against the pillows, their cigarette smoke trailing upward in the soft light, and Dick discreetly admired Daphne’s breasts for the ten thousandth time.

“Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“What about Hope?”

“Oh. Right.”

“I know it’s not your fault but if what Frank said was true she’s having your baby.”

“Yeah. I -- I really haven’t quite had time to think about that.”

“What should we do?”

Dick was thinking about this when their door opened and Hope peeked in.

“Speak of the devil,” said Daphne, and she chastely pulled the sheet up over her breasts.

Hope came in and softly closed the door behind her. She was wearing the same nightdress that Dick had seen her in yesterday, the same one Daphne had seen her in the night before yesterday.

“May I come in?”

Daphne told her she was already in, then tapped the bed next to her and told Hope to come over.

Daphne scrunched over closer to Dick, and Hope came over and sat crosslegged on the bed, her nightdress tucked under her knees. She smelled like maple syrup and butter. Daphne gave her a cigarette and then filled her in on the whole business of her and Dick having sex in a flying saucer and how she was now presumably pregnant with Dick’s child.

“Well,” said Hope, finally, “I’m too young to bring up a kid. I want to live life, and travel. I think I’ll just give it up for adoption. I’ll tell Papa it was some guy from the air force base. He’ll have such a fit.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Daphne, after only a moment. “Come with us for a trip.”

“A trip? Where?”

“It doesn’t matter. Europe.”

“Europe would be nice.”

“Come with us on a trip to Europe and you can have the child there and your father will never know. And then Dick and I will adopt it.”

“Really?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. I mean it’s half Dick’s anyway.”

“That would be great. And then I could visit it sometimes.”

“Sure. Do you think your father will let you go?”

“I’ll handle him.”

“Well, it’s settled then. Is this okay with you, Dick?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” said Dick, as if the matter hadn’t already been settled.

(Continued here. Please look to the right hand side of this page for what we hope might be an up-to-date listing of all other published chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, soon to be a major motion picture produced and directed by Larry Winchester and starring Dane Clark and Martha Vickers, coming to a drive-in near you on a double bill with Larry’s Count Dracula’s Niece, starring Barbara Steele and Vincent Price.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 138: trouble!

Our memoirist Arnold Schnabel continues his long day’s journey into night in the company of the Victorian doll Clarissa, who has now assumed the form of a real live young lady of unknown provenance.

The time: 11:02 p.m., August 10, 1963.

The place: near the corner of Jackson Street and Carpenters Lane, in the pleasant Victorian resort of Cape May, NJ.

(Go here for our previous chapter or here for the barely remembered beginning of this Gold View Award-winning masterpiece.)

“I really was intending just to go home,” I said.

“And what about me?” she asked. “Do you know how long I’ve been sitting in that dusty shop?”

“I have no idea.”

“Since nineteen hundred and ten.”

“Oh, well, that is a long time,” I said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Well, all right then,” I said.

I let her take my arm, and we started down the sidewalk towards the ocean.

A man and a woman were strolling towards us from the opposite direction.

“I love your dress!” said the woman to Clarissa.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Are you a tour guide?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A -- you know -- a Victorian tour guide.”

“I most certainly am not.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman. “It’s just --”

“Is it just that I am not walking about displaying my lower limbs for all the world to see like some wild aborigine?”

“Pardon me?”

“Hmmph! Come, Arnold,” said Clarissa, and she pulled me along the sidewalk and away from the flabbergasted man and woman.

“Tour guide,” she said.

“Well, you can’t blame her, Clarissa,” I said.

“Because I’m not dressed like some Hottentot?”

“Well, it’s just that your dress is a little -- outdated.”

She stopped, and looked down at her outfit. Then she looked down the street and across the street, obviously observing the attire of some other passing women and girls.

“All right, I’ll concede that you have a point," she said. "Listen, you can get rid of that box now.”

She referred to her grey cardboard doll box, which I still dutifully carried under one arm.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, we won’t be needing it any more.”

“Well, okay. The next trash can I see.”

“Oh, bother. Give it to me.”

I did as she asked, and she unceremoniously tossed it over a fence and onto someone’s lawn.

“Now,” she said. “I’ll need some new togs. Do you know of a good dress shop?”

“No, I wouldn’t, but --”

“No, of course you wouldn’t. What’s that up there?”

She referred to a store called the Mitzi Shoppe, up ahead and across the street.

“It’s a -- um -- ladies’ shop,” I mumbled. “But it’s probably closed.”

“Let’s have a look.”

A few seconds later we were standing outside the shop, which indeed was closed, although the display window was still lit.

“There are some pretty things here,” said Clarissa.

“We can come back tomorrow,” I said.

“Cover for me,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Keep an eye on the street.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask so many questions.”

She took a quick glance up and down the street, then took a pin out of her hair.

She went up to the door, and, pretending to be looking in at the wares inside, she began picking the lock.

“Clarissa!” I whispered. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh, be still,” she said. “Some knight in shining armor you are.”

“I never claimed to be a knight in shining armor!”

“Hold on. I think I’ve got it.”

Sure enough, the lock clicked, she turned the knob, and opened the door.

She looked back over her shoulder at me.

“Well, are you coming in?”

“No!”

“Coward. Stay outside then. Let me know if a policeman comes. Just rap on the window.”

“Clarissa!”

But she was already in the store, closing the door behind her.

I felt horribly exposed. I quickly walked across the street to the opposite sidewalk. What I should do, I thought, was just go home. She didn’t know where I lived. I owed her nothing, and, after all, she was breaking the law. In fact, what I should do, I thought, as a good citizen, what I should really do is walk to the nearest phone booth and call the police. But then I thought, wait, she’s been sitting in a dusty antique shop for more than fifty years. Perhaps I should not judge her. Perhaps --

I realized that I must look suspicious, just standing there on the pavement, so I started walking back up Jackson in the direction we had come from.

Then I felt guilty. I was abandoning her. Where would she go? Back to Mr. Arbuthnot’s shop? I stopped, hesitated, then jaywalked across the street again. I hesitated once more. I turned and looked down the block, toward the shop. I found myself wishing she would just hurry. I started walking again, towards the shop, but very slowly, trying to seem casual.

I came to the shop, looked in. There in the shadows I could see Clarissa, holding a dress up at arm’s length. Anyone passing by and looking in could just as easily have seen her.

I fidgeted. I looked back down the street toward town, but no one was coming on this side of the street, thank God. I turned and looked up towards the beach, and the coast was clear on that front also. I went to the shop door, turned the knob. She had left the door unlocked. I opened it and went inside.

“What do you think of this one?” she asked, holding out the dress.

“It’s very nice,” I said. “Now hurry. Anyone can see us in here.”

“You really think it’s nice?”

“Yes, it’s -- it’s -- beautiful.”

“Well, if you say so. Let me try it on. There’s a changing room back there I believe.”

She went through the dark shop to its rear and opened another door. I went and crouched behind a mannequin, keeping a look-out on the street. People passed by, some of them even gazed into the display windows, but they all continued on. My body had cooled off after my escapade with Elektra in her foyer, but now I began to sweat again in this un-airconditioned dim shop.

Finally I heard the door open behind me, and I turned.

“How do I look, she asked?”

It was a yellow dress of seersucker, with a blue cloth belt and a full skirt, with a brighter blue ribbon at the bodice, short puffy sleeves. She did look good.

“Swell,” I said. “Now let’s go.”

“I need shoes!”

I looked down and saw that she had taken off the lace-up Victorian boots she had been wearing before.

“Okay, but please hurry,” I said.

Fortunately the shop only stocked a small assortment of shoes, and she soon settled on a yellow pair because they matched her dress.

I looked away as she bent over and put them on.

“Well, how do I look?” she asked.

I turned and looked. For all the world she looked like a smart young woman of the present day, at least as far as I could tell.

“Great,” I said. “Now let’s go.”

“I need a handbag.”

I assumed my crouching position behind the mannequin again, and finally she tapped me on the shoulder. She had found a shiny white leather purse, a small one with a long thin gold lamé strap.

“Nice?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s small, but then I don’t have anything to put in it. Not yet, anyway.”

“Right," I said. "So, shall we go then?”

“Of course.”

I went to the door. I couldn’t see anyone outside.

“Okay, let’s beat it,” I said.

I opened the door, she slipped out past me, I closed the door. She took my arm, we left the entrance and headed down toward the beach.

“Don’t walk so fast, Arnold,” she said.

I slowed down.

What I would do, tomorrow -- no, tomorrow was Sunday, but Monday -- first thing Monday morning, I would buy a money order -- would fifty dollars cover it? -- and then I would mail it to the shop, anonymously. That would make it okay. That would sort of make it okay.

But what would the shopkeeper make of the Victorian dress and boots Clarissa had left in the dressing room?

Well, I couldn’t worry about that now.

(Continued here, and until someone or some thing stops us. Feel free to look to the right hand side of this page for what one hopes to be an up-to-date listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. “Not just a memoir, but a roadmap for the soul.” -- Harold Bloom.)

"Your mojo don't work on your baby like mine." -- Tina Turner