“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 246: rescue

Let us return to the quaint seaside resort of Cape May, New Jersey, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in August of 1963, and to our hero Arnold Schnabel, who has just encountered an old acquaintance: the languid and mysterious Magda…

(Go here to read our previous chapter; click here to return to the very beginning of this Gold View Award©-winning 63-volume masterpiece of the memoirist’s art.)

“Bursting onto the scene amidst the death-throes of post-post-modernism, the serial publication of Arnold Schnabel’s autobiography created an entirely new literary movement: ‘Arnold Schnabelism’.” -- Harold Bloom in Field & Stream.

“Where is he stopping, your friend Josh.”

“He’s at the Chalfonte,” I said, without thinking, as is so often the case with me.

“Perhaps I should go over there and pay him a visit. Put a cold compress on his forehead.”

“Oh,” I said, “well, uh, I think he just wants to, you know, sleep it off?”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t serious. I’m not the nursing type.”

“Oh.”

She still stood with her back against the door frame. Inside the bar Ursula was blowing a saxophone solo to “Stardust”. The tables and the bar were full of chattering people paying no attention to the music. Magda took a drag of her cigarette, staring out at the rain. Her eyes were a marbled grey.

She muttered something in a foreign language.

“Pardon me?” I said.

“I said maybe I should stick to playing my piano. ‘Cause I sure as hell stink at picking men. Junkies, bunko artists, cheap chiselers, four-flushers and crooks. And drunks like this Josh character.”

“Josh is a nice guy,” I said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. “You seem like a good Joe, too bad you had a mental breakdown and don’t have a job. Have you had lunch.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lunch, have you eaten it.”

“No,” I said, “but I had a late breakfast.”

“Why don’t we go upstairs and blow some gage. I always keep some squirreled away for a rainy day. And as you notice it’s raining.”

“I really can’t stay, I’m afraid.”

“Dying to get away, aren’t you.”

“Well, I have some things I have to do.”

“On a Sunday.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let me keep you then.”

“Well, I wanted to see someone else here actually.”

“Who?”

“It’s a woman sitting at one of the tables. Her name is Gertrude Evans.”

“So you’re a ladies’ man.”

“No, I just wanted to have a quick word with her. About something.”

“Very mysterious. You seem somehow familiar to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I met you a long time ago. In a dream perhaps. Because you looked different then. Now I remember. It was this strange poet fellow in Greenwich Village, one night some years ago when I was jamming with Freddy and my grandmother at this dive called the Kettle of Fish. Have you ever been there.”

She of course was remembering meeting me in Miss Evans’s novel, when I was the romantic young poet Porter Walker. How odd that her real life had coincided with Miss Evans’s fictional universe. I hadn’t realized that such a thing was possible.

“The Kettle of Fish,” I said. “Um -- uh --”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Magda. “It wasn’t you, obviously. So are you coming in.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You seem perturbed somehow.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

“So we’re both perturbed.”

“Yes.”

“Come in then.”

“After you,” I said.

“Such a gentleman,” she said.

She started to turn and then Lucky was standing in the doorway.

“Well, well, well,” he said.

He was wearing an ash-colored suit again, although obviously a different one than the one he’d had on the previous night, which had been all in smoking rags the last time I had seen it. Otherwise he looked the same, tall, shiny black hair, a black moustache, holding a thick strong-smelling cigarette.

“Who is your lovely friend, Arnold?” he asked.

I said nothing.

“You won’t introduce me?” he said, smiling.

Again I said nothing.

Ignoring me Lucky offered his hand to Magda.

“My name is Lucky.”

She looked at his hand, but far from taking it in hers she put her cigarette holder’s stem between her lips, took a drag and slowly let the smoke out in Lucky’s face.

His smile faded and he lowered his hand.

“Magda,” I said, “would you --”

“Ah, so your name is Magda,” said Lucky to Magda. “My name is Lucky.”

“A rather puerile name for a grown man,” she said.

“Ha ha. A woman of spirit.”

“Ha ha. A man of idiocy,” she said.

“Excuse us, Magda,” I said, “Mr. Lucky and I are just going to have a word outside here.”

“Be my guest,” she said. “Anyway, Freddy wants me to sit in on the piano next number.”

“Oh, you play?” said Lucky. “I can’t wait to hear you.”

“Then hurry back and don’t forget to leave a buck in the tip jar.”

“Oh, I shall.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Mr. Schnabel,” said Magda. She walked away, I stepped back from the doorway, keeping my eye on Lucky. He came out and stood facing me at a distance of about two feet. The rain beat down on the awning over our heads.

“I can only give you a moment, old boy,” he said. “I have to get back to a lady.”

“Miss Evans.”

“Yes. The lovely Miss Evans.”

“I’m going to tell her who you are.”

“Do it and she’ll think you’re quite mad.”

“Why don’t you leave her alone?”

“What kind of a stupid question is that? My dear fellow, this is what I do. I tempt people and then I get them to give up their eternal souls.”

“I suppose you derive some enjoyment from that.”

“Yes, I do, actually. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll get you too, eventually.”

“Would you mind getting out of my way, please.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going in there to talk to Miss Evans.”

“It won’t do you any good.”

I made a step to go around him, but he stepped in my way.

“I could easily toss you across the street,” he said.

“That wouldn’t look good for you,” I said. “Calling attention to yourself like that.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Perhaps on another day I wouldn’t give a damn (you should pardon the expression), but I’m so close to getting La Evans to sign on the dotted line, I’d hate to blow the deal now. So go ahead, go in. Make an ass of yourself. Ha ha. I’ll give you one minute while I stand here and finish my cigarette and stare out at the rain. Reminds me of the Great Deluge. That was back when the man upstairs really knew how to keep humans in their place. Of course nowadays men do a pretty good job of mass-murdering each other without the big guy’s help. Ha ha.”

I brushed past him and went into the place. Miss Evans was sitting by the window with her back to me. She was smoking a cigarette and looking over her shoulder in the general direction of Freddy, who was singing “Lullaby of Broadway” now, with Magda accompanying him on electric piano while Ursula stood holding her saxophone and nodding, waiting for her moment to come in.

I walked over to Miss Evans. On the table were the remains of two pieces of chocolate cake, two coffee cups, a couple of drinks in snifters, a shiny blue woman’s purse, an opened pack of Marlboros, a book of Pilot House matches.

She looked up at me and blinked, as if she weren’t quite sure who I was.

She wore a dress I didn’t remember seeing before before. It had a pattern like something you would see on a color television set after a child had been playing with the horizontal and vertical dials. She wore a small blue pillbox hat off to one side of her head, and her hair was arranged so that it hid the bruise on her forehead.

“Oh. Arnold,” she said. “How terribly nice to see you. And. How was your little mass. Did you see Father Reilly. Did you talk to him. Did he say anything about me.”

“I didn’t go to mass,” I said. “Listen, Miss Evans --”

“Gertrude.”

“Gertrude --

“Why didn’t you go to mass. Won’t you go to hell now?”

“Only if I die,” I said.

“Oh, good.”

“Listen, Gertrude --

“Yes. Spit it out.”

“This guy you’re with, this Lucky guy --”

“Oh, you’re not going to start on that again, are you?”

“He’s no good,” I said.

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

“And you know this for certain?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And how do you know this. What in hell have you got against him. Do you hate him just because he’s taken me to lunch? Are you jealous, is that it?”

“No,” I said.

“Then what is it. Because how dare you. How dare you dare to tell me with whom I may or may not lunch. How dare you --”

“He’s the Devil,” I said.

“What?”

“He’s the Devil.”

“Oh, my, the Devil.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll say this,” she said, “he’s a handsome devil.”

“You should come with me,” I said.

“Come with you?”

“Yes.”

“What, now?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh. Then you do care.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Arnold, dear, that’s all I wanted to hear. But I can’t just get up and leave, darling. We’re talking about a contract, Lucky and I.”

“A contract.”

“A movie contract,” said Lucky, who was suddenly by my side, rubbing his hands together. “I think Miss Evans’s books would make fabulous movies.”

“Let’s go, Gertrude,” I said.

“Well, if you insist,” she said, and she stubbed out her cigarette in her dessert dish. I don’t think she meant to be coarse. I think she was simply drunk.

“Hey,” said Lucky.

Miss Evans put her hands on the table and stood up, knocking the chair back, but I quickly grabbed it before it could fall. She stared down at the table for a moment, then picked up the pack of Marlboros and her purse, then put down the cigarettes again while she clicked open the purse. She stared into the purse.

“Where’s my cigarettes?” she asked.

I picked the Marlboros up and dropped them into the purse.

“Why thank you, Arnold.”

I put a hand under her arm, the way I had seen men do in movies if not so much in real life.

“Unbelievable,” said Lucky.

“Oh, wait,” said Miss Evans. “Where’s my umbrella?”

“It’s hanging on a hook by the door,” said Lucky.

“Oh, good. And thank you ever so much for giving me lunch, Mr. Lucky. We’ll talk again soon.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“About contracts and things.”

“Why don’t you let me give you a lift home? I’ve got my Jag right outside.”

“No thank you, you see I simply adore walking in the rain.”

“Why don’t I draw up the papers and I’ll meet you say later this evening.”

“Oh my so soon.”

“I’d like to strike while the iron is hot.”

“It’s not as if all Hollywood is beating down my door dear boy.”

“How about I pick you up at seven say. I’ll take you to dinner.”

“Lunch and dinner in one day, oh my.”

I gave her arm a gentle tug.

“So I’ll pick you up at seven then,” said Lucky.

She shrugged her arm away from my hand and opened up her purse again, took out her cigarettes.

“Wait,” she said, looking at Lucky, “you don’t even know where I’m staying.”

“Of course I know where you’re staying,” he said.

She took out a cigarette, dropped the rest of the pack back into her purse, snapped it shut.

“Wait,” she said. “How do you know where I’m staying?”

“You told me. Heh heh.”

She put the cigarette in her lips, and -- just to annoy Lucky, who was reaching for his lighter -- I stepped in between him and Miss Evans, laid my umbrella on the table, and in one fluid motion grabbed the book of Pilot House matches off the tablecloth, tore a match off, and gave Miss Evans a light.

Exhaling smoke she touched the gold ring on my left hand as I shook out the match with my right hand.

“Where did you get this ring, Arnold?” she asked.

“Um, Mr. Arbuthnot gave it to me.”

I tossed the match into the ashtray on the table, picked up my umbrella again.

“Who the hell is Mr. Arbuthnot?” she said.

“A little old man who runs a curio shop on Washington Street.”

“Oh, bother these little old men! I’ve never seen so many little old men as in this benighted town.”

Her accent had gotten English again.

Lucky wasn’t even looking at her now. He was looking at me.

“So now you have the ring,” he said.

“Why can’t he have a ring?” said Miss Evans.

“No reason,” said Lucky. “No reason at all.”

“You know, old chap,” she said to him, “I really don’t remember telling you where I’m stopping.”

“Sure you did. You’re ‘stopping’ at Arnold’s aunts’ house.”

“Oh. So I must have told you,” she said in her normal accent, or anyway her most-normal accent.

“Let’s make it seven o’clock then,” said Lucky. “I’ll swing by in the Jag, we’ll take a run out to the Lobster House. You like lobster?”

“I adore lobster but oh no I just remembered I shall be otherwise engaged.”

“You will.”

“Yes, I promised Arnold here I’d meet him for drinks this evening at Phil’s Tavern.”

“Phil’s Tavern? Where’s Phil’s Tavern?”

“Pete’s Tavern,” I interpolated.

“That’s what I said,” said Miss Evans.

“Oh. Pete’s,” said Lucky. “The Negro bar.”

“Yes,” said Miss Evans. “Filled with joyous happy Negroes!”

“I don’t know what they have to be so joyous about,” said Lucky. He was quite blatantly staring at my ring now.

“No need to get all in an uproar,” said Miss Evans.

He didn’t say anything.

I gave her arm a pull, we went over to the coat rack, she found her umbrella, or at any rate she took an umbrella, all the while talking about how she was pretty sure this was her umbrella. As a gentleman should, I let her go out the door first.

I glanced back. Lucky was still standing over there, looking at me.

Ursula was playing another saxophone solo, and Freddy and Magda played along on their respective instruments, seemingly lost in their music even though no one in the crowded room seemed to be listening.

I followed Miss Evans out the doorway.

(Continued here, as is only meet and just.)

(Please look to the right hand side of this page for a listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©, the perfect thing to read on your iPhone as you grimly ride the train to and from that mind-numbing job, if you still have a job.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 245: stood up

A rainy Sunday in August of 1963 in the quaint seaside town of Cape May, New Jersey, and our hero Arnold Schnabel prepares to leave Mr. Arbuthnot’s Whatnot Shoppe...

(Go here to read our preceding chapter; new students may click here to go back to the very beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning 42-volume masterwork of the memoirist’s art.)

“How often when reading Arnold Schnabel’s massive chef-d'œuvre have I not experienced that transcendent sense of timeless disincorporation which the Oriental sages speak of?” -- Harold Bloom in The Cape May Pennysaver.

“Maybe, I say just maybe,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, “you shouldn’t keep that ring stowed away so casually in your pocket.”

“Oh.”

“What if there’s a hole in it.”

“In my pocket?”

“I didn’t mean the ring.”

“There isn’t a hole in it,” I said. “In my pocket I mean. I think.”

“Perhaps now there isn’t. But perhaps later there will be. You never notice a hole in the pocket until you lose something. Your keys. Or a ring. A most valuable and irreplaceable ring.”

“Um, would you feel better if I put it in my wallet?”

“I’m not sure that I would. Feel better.”

“But you --”

“I know, I kept it in my own wallet. But my wallet has a tiny compartment which I can keep shut tight and secured by a sturdy steel clasp. Does your wallet come so equipped?”

“No, it’s just an ordinary wallet I’m afraid.”

“One of these newfangled 'billfolds' I suppose.”

“Well, uh --”

“May I see it?”

I took it out of my back pocket.

“Worst place in the world to keep your wallet you know. Might as well hang a sign on your back saying please steal my wallet.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said.

He took the wallet from my hand, flipped it open.

“Made from the finest Naugahyde I see. Robert Hall?”

“I think my mother picked it up at the men’s department in Sears, actually.”

“You have no photographs in here, in the little plastic windows.”

“No.”

“Membership in the Knights of Columbus though I see.”

“Don’t ask me why,” I said.

“And is their power as far-reaching and insidious as I have heard?”

“No, you may be thinking of the Society of Jesus,” I said.

He closed the wallet up and handed it back to me. I put it away in my back pocket.

“I would feel better if you put the ring on your finger,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

“I’m not much of a one for wearing rings,” I said.

“I see,” he said, his bulging little eyes behind his glasses turning their gaze from my empty hand to the one that held the umbrella handle. “Not even an old school ring.”

“I never finished school. Except for grade school.”

“And they don’t give out rings for being graduated from grade school.”

“No.”

“I would feel much better if you wore the ring, old man.”

“Well, okay.”

“Here, I’ll hold your umbrella.”

I gave him the umbrella, dug the ring back out of my pocket.

“Your fingers are quite thick, aren’t they,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

They’d always seemed average to me, but I suppose to a man as tiny as Mr. Arbuthnot they might appear thick.

“Try the little finger,” he said.

“Which hand?”

“I assure you that is a matter of complete indifference to me and probably you and certainly to the rest of the universe, but try the left hand.”

With only moderate difficulty and bearable pain I managed to screw the thing onto my left little finger.

“How does it feel, my boy?”

“A little tight,” I said.

“You’ll get used to it.” He handed me my umbrella back. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope to see you again soon.”

“I’ll make it back as soon as I can,” I said.

“The sooner the better.”

“Okay then --”

“Wait. Better let me check to see if that copper’s around. Stand back.”

He opened the door and went out into the entranceway. I held the door open. Staying under his awning Mr. Arbuthnot bent forward and looked up and down the rainy street. He turned back to me, waving.

“Quickly. Here come some citizens. Just slip in behind them.”

I came out.

In an exaggeratedly hearty-sounding voice Mr. Arbuthnot said, “Thank you for dropping by, sir, and I hope you’ll stop in again soon. Better open up your umbrella now, cats and dogs out here.”

I opened the umbrella.

“Bad for our visitors, the rain,” he continued in the loud voice, “at least for those who like to lie on the sand in the blistering sun, but good for the farmers, that’s what I always say.”

He extended his right hand, and I took it. It felt less like a human body part than like something composed of vegetable matter, a small knot of dry twigs which I might easily crush if I weren’t careful.

Leaning close, Mr. Arbuthnot whispered, “Go! Go now, and god speed!”

Then, pulling on my hand and my elbow with a surprising force he threw me out into the rain behind a passing family group consisting of a husband and wife, each with an umbrella, and four small babbling children without umbrellas, one child stomping along at either side of each parent.

Hobbling with my sore legs I followed them down Washington and across Decatur, the children stamping purposefully into the water streaming in the gutters. I didn’t want to have to go by Wally’s again, so I let the family continue down the street while I waited for the light to turn and then crossed to the opposite corner of Washington. The Ugly Mug’s front door was open, I could hear midday revelry inside. The bars around here always did a roaring trade on rainy days. Lowering my umbrella to avoid the risk of being seen by some bibulous acquaintance within (and possibly being dragged inside) I hastened my stride down Decatur, past the side entrance of the Mug and down to the Pilot House next door, and there sitting inside a rain-wet window sat Miss Evans, smoking a cigarette and apparently talking to a dark-haired man facing away from me but towards her.

My first thought was probably what it now normally was whenever I saw Miss Evans, something like “Oh no” or “Oh Christ”, but my second thought was that I suddenly remembered that I had agreed to meet her for a drink at Pete’s Tavern, around six-ish, as if I didn’t already have enough on my plate for one day.

I quickly lowered my umbrella again and hurried past where she was sitting, past the entrance (from which exuded the inimitable dulcet stylings of Freddy Ayres, singing “Stardust” to the accompaniment of his accordion) and then on to the far corner of the building, where I stopped.

I stopped and stood there, holding my umbrella now directly above my head, because I had just remembered that Miss Evans had made another date, a date to meet Lucky for lunch, and that the dark-haired man she was sitting with must be he.

I stood there, the unrelenting rain clattering down so loudly on my umbrella that it felt like I was standing inside a drum being played by a thousand miniature madmen.

Right up ahead was Carpenters Lane. I only had to make a right here, walk one block to Jackson, cross the street and go down a couple of doors and I would be at Elektra’s shop. Even with my impaired stride I could be there in a minute and a half.

But I felt guilty. Guilty of what? Guilty of letting Miss Evans have lunch with Lucky? As if I could prevent her anyway? And had I not tried to warn her? I took one step, and then stopped again. No, I couldn’t go on. I would go back and go into the Pilot House. As annoying as Miss Evans was I would feel eternally guilty if I discovered that she had sold her eternal soul to Lucky without my making at least one last effort to get her to see who he really was, if she cared.

Sighing, and staring down at my wet cordovans, I turned around and walked back towards the entrance.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in from the rain.”

It was Magda, leaning against the door post, smoking a cigarette in a holder. She wore a black sleeveless dress. Her skin glowed palely in the watery grey daylight. I stepped under the awning and closed up my umbrella. I went up the couple of steps to the entrance. She had her blond hair done up in a different style from the way she had worn it the night before, although I couldn’t say how it was different.

“Hello, Magda.”

“Mister Schnabel. I have been waiting.”

“For me?”

“No. Not for you. For your friend Josh.”

“Oh. Josh.”

“Not very punctual, is he?”

“I -- um --”

“I thought you told me he was a nice guy.”


“I did?”

“Or words to that effect.”

“Well, he is a nice, uh, guy.”

“Then why is he standing me up? We had a luncheon date for noon. The bastard.”

How could I tell her that he must still be trapped in the universe of Miss Evans’s novel? Clearly I couldn’t. Sometimes a white lie really is the best option.

“He’s been taken ill,” I said. “He sent me to, to give his apologies, and to beg your forgiveness, and to tell you that he would be delighted to take you to dinner just as soon as he feels up to it.”

“You mean he’s hungover,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s it.”

(Continued here, if only because of certain inescapable legal obligations.)

(Kindly go to the right hand column of this page to find a listing of links to all other legally accessible chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©. Tickets still available for the Arnold Schnabel Society’s Spring Dance at the VFW on Chew Avenue, featuring the musical stylings of Freddy Ayres and Ursula, with special guest Magda on the piano. Ticket price includes unlimited Schmidt’s beer and your choice of “kielbasa-and-sauerkraut” or “hot roast beef” sandwiches, plus a tasty assortment of cookies and cakes.)

"The Doomed", Part Six

Illustrations by Rhoda Penmarq

As seen on the Dumont Network's Horace P. Sternwall Playhouse

(Check your local newspaper for availability in your area)


The thrilling conclusion of this very special mini-series event

Available exclusively at "flashing by"

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 244: sang-froid

Let’s rejoin our memoirist Arnold Schnabel and the aged Mr. Arbuthnot in that latter gentlemen’s kitchen in his rooms above his quaint little “Whatnot Shoppe”, in the quaint little seaside town of Cape May, New Jersey, on this rainy Sunday in August of 1963...

(Click here to read our previous episode; the adventurous may go here to return to the very beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning 72-volume masterpiece.)

“American literature -- nay, world literature -- may be neatly divided into three eras: ‘Pre-Arnold Schnabel’, ‘Arnold Schnabel’ and ‘Post-Arnold Schnabel’.” -- Harold Bloom in Good Housekeeping.

“Sit down, old man, and let me see what hidden treasures I can dig up in here.”

I took a chair, folded my hands on the table.

“Really sorry by the way about all that business out there,” said Mr. Arbuthnot as he set to work unscrewing lids from jars and rummaging through cupboards and drawers.

“Well, it wasn’t your fault,” I said.

“No, no, I suppose it wasn’t, but still I’m sorry that you got shanghaied into all this.”

“It’s no great hardship for me just to bicycle to the docks or a farm and back each day,” I said, and I imagined a slight halo around my head.

“Well, now, that there is an admirable way to look at it, my boy. A vigorous daily bout of exercise in the fresh air, best thing in the world for you. Provided you don’t have an accident, fall under the wheels of a garbage truck. Damn it, I think that Jones fellow has been digging into all my little stashes. Oh, but wait, here we go, sitting right here in a saucer.”

He turned around -- he was at the kitchen sink -- and showed me a fat, hand-rolled cigarette, only one-third smoked.

“Now we’re talking,” he said, and he came over to the table and sat across from me. On the table was an unclean ashtray of smoky blue glass. “The St Crispian Hotel,” it read, in flaked gilt, “At Your Comfort We Excel”. Mr. Arbuthnot knocked the bowl of his pipe empty into the ashtray, then pocketed the pipe, took out his book of matches and lit the reefer. He took several good drags, and held in the smoke.

“I gotta say,” he said, in a constricted voice, still holding in the smoke, “I’m impressed by your sang-froid, my boy. Most people would get just a trifle upset at the sight and sound of a talking cat.” He let out a great cloud of smoke in my direction, and when it cleared I could see that he was smiling. “You are one cool customer, Daddy-o. Here, take a hit.”

He extended the reefer. I took it, without meaning to, without meaning not to. And with the same absence of will I took a deep drag, and held the smoke in.

“There ya go, pal,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, “You’re no square. Holding it in like a good fellow.”

Finally I exhaled.

“I have a friend who is a talking fly,” I said.

“A talking fly?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “So, you know --”

In a circular motion I waved the hand that held the reefer, as if this waving would somehow translate my thoughts.

“So a talking cat,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, “is no big deal for you.” He got up from his seat, reached across the table and took the reefer from my fingers. He sat back, took a couple of short drags and held in the smoke. “And this talking, uh, fly friend, he -- is it a he?”

“Yes,” I said. “At least I’m pretty sure he’s a he.”

“And he is -- he is in addition to your friend who is Jesus.”

“Yes, he’s a different friend. I just met the fly last night.”

“Uh-huh.”

He finally exhaled, again blowing the smoke straight across the table at me.

“You see,” I said, “I found myself exiled in this book I was reading --”

“Hold on. Back up. You were exiled in a book?”

“Yes,” I said. He proffered the reefer. I took it and had another drag. “The Devil knew I didn’t like the book, so he exiled me in it, to get back at me.”

“Why did he want to get back at you?”

I was holding in the smoke, I was getting almost expert at this.

“I say why did the devil want to get back at you,” repeated Mr, Arbuthnot.

“Oh,” I said, finally exhaling, “we had had a couple of altercations, he and I. And I suppose I had gotten the better of him both times. So he was angry. Anyway it was in the world of this book that I met this talking fly.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“So, anyway, I managed to trick the Devil again, he was in the novel too, he was a publicist named Nicky Boskins --”

“Nicky Boskins.”

“Yeah, although in this world, the one we’re in now, he goes by the name of Lucky.”

“Lucky.”

“Yeah.” I took another drag, then another. “Anyway, I tricked him again and I made it back to this world, and somehow the fly came with me.”

“I see. And where is this fly now?”

“I guess he’s still back at my aunts’ place.”

“I suppose you didn’t want him tagging along to your tryst with -- Calliope is it?”

“Elektra.”

“Elektra,” he said. “Hey, pass that stick back, will you?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I handed it over to him. I watched him smoking it, then pushed my chair back, got up and went over to look out the open window over the sink. We were in the back of the building, and outside was Lyle Lane. The rain fell unremitting on the old houses, the trees and bushes and gardens. Down the street to the left I recognized Mrs. Davenport’s big ramshackle house, where Mr. Jones lived, if he still lived, if you could call what he did living, and I suppose one must.

“Damn,” I said.

“What’s the matter, buddy?”

I turned.

“I just remembered,” I said. “Again. I mean I remembered it earlier and then I forgot it again --”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m supposed to be getting together with this guy today to work on a screenplay, and I’m already almost three hours late.”

“Who’s this ‘guy’?”

“His name’s Larry Winchester. He’s a movie director.”

“Larry Winchester. What movies has he directed?”

“Let me see, what did he tell me. Uh, Two For Tortuga?”

“Two For Tortuga. Hmm. Don’t know it. What else?”

“The Vacant City?”

“No.”

“Several Lonely People?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Return of the 300 Spartans?”

“Sounds good but no.”

“Stopover in Singapore?”

“Stopover where?”

“Stopover in Singapore.”

“No, sorry.”

“Mademoiselle 38? Ask Not The Hangman? White Slave Ship? Assignment in Bangalore?

”Didn’t you say that last one already?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, right, that was the Stopover one.”

“In Singapore,” I said.

“These are all talkies, right?”

“Yes.”

This was getting dull. I turned around to look out the window again.

“What are you staring at out there?”

“Nothing,” I said. “The rain, the trees.”

“Ah, yes, the glories of nature.”

I glanced at my watch. It was almost one o’clock. I turned away from the window again.

“Well, look,” I said, “this has been -- interesting --”

“Well put.”

“But I should be going.”

“Yes, our master plan.”

He got up from his seat, took another drag from the reefer and offered it again to me. I went over and took it, it was very small now, barely smokeable, but I carefully took a couple of small drags. It was only then that I remembered that I had not wanted to smoke reefer, but it was too late now. I passed it back to him. He took one last little drag himself and put the stub out in the ashtray.

“Okay, let’s split,” he said.

We made our way out of the kitchen, Mr. Arbuthnot leading the way. Shnooby was still sleeping soundly on the dining room table. Mr. Arbuthnot turned to me, smiling, and held a finger to his lips.

We crossed into the living room and to the stairhead, and -- this time with me leading the way -- we went downstairs.

Back in his shop Mr. Arbuthnot reminded me not to forget my umbrella. I thanked him, headed across the room, took the umbrella out of the priceless Ming Dynasty vase, and finally Mr. Arbuthnot and I stood on either side of the front door, looking out at the sidewalk, the street, the rain.

“You won’t forget the seafood for Shnooby?”

I sighed.

“Do you think he’ll mind if I take a little while?” I asked.

“It all depends on how long he sleeps and on how long you take. Are you having second thoughts?”

“Well, it’s just a question of -- you know --”

“Fitting it into your busy schedule.”

“Yes," I said.

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“I’ll try.”

“If I were you I shouldn’t want to disappoint Shnooby.”

“Yes,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Not if you value your life.”


“What?”

“Just joking. Ha ha. I’m sure things won’t have to go quite that far. Look, here come the first of the worshipers I think, making their way home from church.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s some across the street heading for luncheon at the Cape Coffee Shoppe. Have you had their pies?”

“Yes,” I said, “they’re not bad.”

“Might I ask one question before you slip away.”

“Yes?”

“Why did Wally lay that stuff on you, man?”

“I have no idea.”

“That bastard. I wonder if he has more?”

“I think he might,” I said. “He seemed to imply that he did.”

Suddenly Mr. Arbuthnot came over to me and grabbed one of my lapels in each of his small old fists.

“Don’t toy with me, pal.”

“I’m not,” I said. “It’s just that he said something about maybe my coming back for more. If I liked it.”

“Then he must have it!”

“I couldn’t say for certain,” I said.

“Damn his eyes. Do you think you could buy some from him for me?”

“Is it legal?”

“Legality be damned!”

“But -- excuse me, Mr. Arbuthnot, why can’t you just go over there yourself and --”

“Because that man hates me! And I despise him. We’ve been crossing the street when one of us sees the other coming for years, decades --”

“Oh.”

“Out of the question. I wouldn’t lower myself. So what do you say? Can you help me out?”

He still had his hands on my lapels.

“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

“Why don’t you go over there now?”

“Mr. Arbuthnot, please, I already told you that --”

“Oh, I know, I know, your precious Eleutheria --”

“And I have to meet this guy Larry, too, remember, and get Shnooby his seafood --”

“Yes, yes.” He finally let go of my lapels, and smoothed them out with his fingers, or at least went through the motions of smoothing them out. “Forgive me. But perhaps on the way to my place with Shnooby’s food you could drop by at Wally’s --”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Whatever you do, don’t say it’s for me.”

“I won’t.”

“But wait. He won’t sell it cheap, you can count on that, now that he thinks you’re hooked.”

“How much do you think he’ll charge?”

“Good question. The moon? The stars? Or merely the earth? Damn his eyes, damn him and all he stands for.”

“Uh --” I put my hand on the door knob.

“Wait,” said the old man

I waited, but I kept my hand on the door knob.

He reached inside his jacket and brought out an old cracked brown leather wallet. He unfolded it and then undid a metal clasp over a tiny compartment. He dug his finger and thumb into the little pocket and brought out a plain gold ring, or at least a golden-colored ring.

“Here,” he said. “Offer this to Wally. But make sure you’ve got the stuff in your other hand before you give him this.”

I took my hand off the door knob it and took the ring. I held it up and looked at it in the grey light that came in from the street.

“Valuable ring, huh?”

“Valuable, you ask? Tell me, are you familiar with Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen?”

Just to move things along I said, “Sure.”

“Then you remember the titular ring in that operatic cycle, and its awful powers?”

“The powers of the ring?”

“Yes, of the legendary ring of the Nibelung.”

“Its powers.”

“Yes, do you remember its awful powers?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Well, that ring, my boy, that unassuming little band of gold in your hand right there makes the ring in Der Ring des Nibelungen look like something that came out of a Cracker Jack box!”

“Okay, then,” I said, “I’ll take good care of it.”

And I dropped it into my right trousers pocket.

(Continued here, for various inexplicable reasons.)

(Please turn to the right hand column of this page to find a listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©, along with a separate listing of links to many of his beloved poems, suitable for recitation as a final statement before the jury adjourns to decide one’s fate.)