tales of the hotel st crispian: chapter 96

"Kid Conrad"

by Horace P. Sternwall 

edited by Dan Leo*  

illustrations by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

Frisco Johnny Ramirez took an envelope out of his inside suit-jacket pocket. The envelope had been folded four times, and he unfolded it and then poured a white powder out of it onto the little ormolu table between his arm chair and Conrad’s.

“You don’t mind, do you kid? I like a little snow now and then to give me a little lift, a little pick-me-up on top of the booze.”

“I could ask Williams to make us some fresh coffee if you like,” said Conrad.

“No thank you, Conrad,” said Johnny. “You see, I drink too much coffee it gives me gas.”

“I understand,” said Conrad.

“You like a line, pal?”



“A line?”

“Of snow. The Bolivian marching powder. The Big C.”

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” said Conrad. “You must forgive me, but I suppose I have lived a rather sheltered life. So, to be honest I have no idea what you’re talking about, in what I can only suppose is a sort of netherworld argot or patois.”




(Please click here to read the entire sordid chapter.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 333: dynamite

On a rainy August night in 1957, in the ladies’ room of a mysterious subterranean bar in Greenwich Village, our hero Arnold Schnabel and his faithful companion Big Ben Blagwell have made the acquaintance of three ladies: Becky Thatcher, Hester Prynne, and Brett Ashley...

(Kindly go here to read our preceding thrilling episode; potential completists may click here to return to the very beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning 53-volume masterpiece.)

“At this point in my life the only thing that keeps me going is the prospect of a new chapter of Arnold Schnabel’s monumental chef-d'œuvre.” — Harold Bloom, in The AARP Literary Supplement.

When Ben and I came out of the ladies’ room the women were already almost halfway down that dim narrow hallway, all three of them talking at once and the heels of their shoes making a sound like someone tossing handfuls of marbles on the concrete floor.

Ben put his big hand (again, and I hope for the last time, the only size hand he had) on my arm.

“Arnie,” he said, in a low voice, a low voice for him anyway, which wasn’t really all that low, but I don’t suppose the women could hear him over their own voices and the clacking of their heels, even if they were interested in what he had to say. “Arnie, listen, maybe we ought to decide ahead of time. Which one do you want?”

“Which one?”

“Yeah, which one do you like? Becky, Hester, or Brett”

“Well, Ben, like I said, I really should be going soon.”

“Yeah, but just for argument’s sake, which one do you prefer. I mean if push came to shove. If you had to choose with a Luger to your head.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The blond one?”

“Becky? Are you sure, Arnie? I don’t know, pal, she seems like a handful, you ask me.”

“Uh,” I said.

“Hey, let’s talk while we walk,” he said. “We’re losin’ em.”

It was true, the women were already turning the corner of the hallway, still chattering away together, the sound of their footsteps growing slightly less reverberant now, like the sound of a tennis table tournament rising up from the windows of a basement parish hall as you walk by, alone, headed towards a tavern in which you hope no one will try to talk to you.

Ben kept his hand on my arm and pulled me along.

“So which one?” he said. “I mean setting Becky aside just for a minute. You don’t like Hester, do you?”

“She’s the one with the red letter A on her dress, right?”

“Right. Don’t know why she has that letter A on her dress if her name’s Hester Prynne.”

“Well, if I remember correctly, I think it's because in this novel she was in, The Scarlet Letter, she —”

“Arnie, save the goddam literary talk for later. I don’t really care why she’s got a goddam A on her dress. I care about what’s under the dress.”

“Oh,” I said. “You like her?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I like them women what’s got spirit, ya know? So you don’t mind if I take her?”

“No, sure, go ahead,” I said.

“Thanks, buddy. I’ll do you a favor sometime.”

“No problem,” I said.

We came to where the hallway turned to the right. The women were up ahead, still chattering amongst each other.

“Hold on a sec,” said Ben. He still had his hand on my arm, and he yanked me to a standstill.

“Here’s my dilemma,” he said.

“A dilemma?”

It seemed odd to me that Ben would have a dilemma, but he lost no time in elucidating.

“I like that Becky, too,” he said. “That gal’s got sand. And I like a gal with sand. I like a gal with sand and I like a gal with spirit, too.”

“I don’t know what to say, Ben.”

“Don’t say nothing. Except do me a favor. You mind taking Brett?”

“The English girl?”

“Yeah. She ain’t bad-looking, Arnie. She ain’t bad looking at all. She’s got a figure like a fine racing yacht, all smooth lacquered curves but with like a built-in speed and power, like. I don’t sound like a queer, do I?”

“No, not at all.”

“She’s class, Arnie. Class all the way. Which is good for a classy guy like you. But me? A dame like that I’m always worryin’ about breakin’ one of her little Dresden china teacups, y’know?”

“Sure.”

“Try gettin’ these big sausages into one of them delicate Dresden teacup handles.”

He took his hand off my arm finally, and, putting his cigarette in his mouth, he held out both his hands splayed before my face, knuckles outward. For the first time, and I have no idea why it took me so long to notice this, but I noticed that he had a single letter tattooed on the first knuckle of each of the first four fingers of his hands; the ink was a faded navy blue, and crossed here and there with scar tissue, but with his hands held out so close to my face I could read the letters easily enough, even though they were upside down. On his right hand were the letters DYNA, on his left hand: MITE.

“Yes, I can see how you would have problems with delicate china, Ben,” I said.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth and lowered his hands.

“The thing is, Arnie,” he said, “high class English broads like that give me the willies. I always feel like they’re gonna correct my grammar or something on account of my unfortunately curtailed education which was not a very good one even before it got its curt tailed, ya wanta know the God’s honest truth.”

“Um,” I said.

“So you’ll take Brett then.”

“I don’t think I’ll be taking any of them, really, Ben.”

“Okay, fine, but if you do take one, take the English broad, okay?”

“Uh,” I said.

“Good. That’ll leave Becky and Hester for me, and who knows, if I’m lucky, I mean really lucky, maybe I can get them to go for one of them menageries like they have in them French post cards. You know what I’m talkin’ about, right?”

“Um,” I said.

“Word of advice about these English broads though, Arnie. Word of advice. Get ready for a wild ride. I mean a buckin’ bronco ride if ya know what I mean. These high class English dames, once you finally get ‘em on the springs you gotta be prepared to go the full fifteen rounds, but with the gloves off and no Marquess of Queensberry rules, neither.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Just a word to the wisenheimer.”

 

“Sure,” I said.

Ben turned his head and looked down the empty hallway.

“Shit,” he said. “We lost ‘em. Come on, pal, let’s catch up.”

I started to limp along (because limping was the only way I was able to ambulate myself, due to the pain which persisted in my right leg, even during those passages in which I have neglected to mention it). But once again Ben grabbed my arm.

“Wait, Arnie, not so fast.” He slowed me down to a very moderate hobble. “You never want to seem too anxious with dames, Arnie. Act like you really don’t give a damn.”

“Well, like I said, Ben,” I said, “I really don’t think I’m going to, you know —”

“Good, that’s good, Arnie, nonchalant like that. Like you’d just as soon go home and have a quick date with Lady Five Fingers while you’re drinkin’ a cold pint can of Rheingold and leafin’ through one of them men’s adventure magazines, ‘cause ya know why? ‘Cause then you don’t have to worry about talkin’ to her in the morning. Good. Keep playing it like that.”

“The thing is, Ben —” I said. We were coming out into the bar area again, between one end of the crowded bar and the bandstand, on which the combo were still playing, loudly, with a bunch of people in front of the bandstand waving their arms and shouting.

“What, Arnie?” said, or shouted, Ben. “You were saying something? Where’d those babes go?” He had let go of my arm and was now swiveling his head left to right, looking out at the people in front of the band, the people dancing, the people crowded up at the bar.

I put my mouth near the side of his head and shouted.

“My friend Josh is waiting for me upstairs.”

“Josh?” said Ben. He was still looking through the crowd, smoking his cigarette, searching for the girls.

“My friend Josh,” I said. “I don’t think I told you about him.”

Ben turned and looked down at me (I might have mentioned this about a thousand pages back, but Ben was about four inches taller than me).

“You have a friend?”

“Yes,” I said. “Believe it or not.”

“Not that I’m jealous, Arnie.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I mean, I got other friends, too.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Plenty of friends. Shipmates, mostly. The brotherhood of the sea.”

“Sure.”

“Who is this guy. You don’t mind my asking.”

“My friend Josh?”
 

“You know who I’m talking about.”

“Yes,” I said. “Josh. Well, he’s a young guy, sort of young, well, early thirties I guess.”

“Good looking guy?”

“Yes, he’s pretty good-looking,” I said. “Girls seem to like him.”

“So he’s no pansy is what you’re saying.”

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t think he’s a, uh —”

“Pansy.”

“No, I don’t think he’s a pansy, Ben,” I said.

“I’m really glad to hear that. Not that I got nothing against pansies. I am a seafaring man, Arnie, and one thing about us old sea-dogs, we are very shall we say liberal on the subject of pansies, and you would be too if you ever shipped out on a slow tanker from Frisco to Jakarta.”

“Well, he’s not a pansy, anyway, Ben,” I said.

“What’s his rice bowl?”

“Pardon me?”

“His gig. His métier like the Frogs say.”

“What’s he do for a living?”

“Yeah,” said Ben. “I mean if he does anything for a living.”

“Well,” I said. “This isn’t easy to say.”

“He’s not like a secret government agent, is he?”

“No, nothing like that,” I said.

“Wait. He ain’t one of them international soldiers of fortune, is he?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”

“Spit it out, Arnie. I can take it.”

“He’s the son of God,” I said. “Jesus. Jesus, Christ I guess is his last name. But he goes by the name of Josh. Because he’s traveling incognito, like a regular man.”

“Christ,” said Ben.

“Yes,” I said. “Jesus Christ.”

“No, I meant Christ, as in Jesus Christ, I mean like holy shit.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, Jesus Christ, Arnie. You’re friends with Jesus? Christ?”

“Yes,” I said. “I know it’s hard to believe.”

“Christ,” said Ben.

“Yes,” I said.

“I mean Jesus,” said Ben. “Jesus Christ. I’m impressed.”

“Um,” I said, “well —”

“So what’s he like?” He took a drag on his Sweet Caporal, then slowly exhaled, while he took another look around the bar, then he looked at me again. “Good people?”

 

“Yeah,” I said.

“Good guy, huh?”

“Yes.”

“But then I guess he would be. Son of God and all.”

 

“Yes,” I said.

“He ain’t like stuck up or nothing?”

 

“No, not really.”

“Not that you could blame him if he was,” said Ben. “Being the son of, you know, the Big Guy.”

“I think humility is one of his basic precepts,” I said.

“I say you chaps.”

Suddenly Brett was standing in front of us. She was tall for a woman, and she still held her cigarette, or maybe it was a new cigarette, not that it matters, in her cigarette holder, which was black and shiny.

“Hey,” said Ben.

“Um,” I said.

She looked at me, through a living plume of cigarette smoke.

“A lady could die of thirst,” she said.

Ben drove his elbow into my side, but it didn’t hurt too much.

(Continued here, not to do so would be cruel.)



(Special thanks to Kathleen Maher, who has sand.)

(Please turn to the right-hand side of this page to find a current listing of links to all other available chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©. Now published also in the Collingswood Patch™: “South Jersey’s last toehold on literacy.”)



tales of the hotel st crispian: chapter 95

"in the war"

by horace p. sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and eddie el greco

a rhoda penmarq studios™ production

(click here for the entire thrilling episode...)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 332: heroes

Let’s rejoin our hero Arnold Schnabel and his stout companion Big Ben Blagwell, here in the ladies’ room of a rather unusual subterranean Greenwich Village bar, on this hot moist August night in the year of our lord 1957…

(Please click here to read our previous exciting episode; go here to return to the very first chapter of this Gold View Award™-winning 61-volume autobiography.)

“Here’s the thing, Charlie. Arnold Schnabel’s universe is not just ‘another’ universe. No. The point is it’s a so much more fun universe.” — Harold Bloom, on The Charlie Rose Show.

“Aw, Lady Brett,” said Ben, “I think if you gave me a chance I could slow it down to an easy loping gallop, if you know what I mean.”

“Ha ha,” said Brett.

“Oh, please,” said Becky.

“Men,” said Hester.

I didn’t say anything.

“So,” Ben said, and he reached under the tails of his Hawaiian shirt and hitched up his belt a little. “What say you ladies let me and Arnie, I mean, wait, not Arnie, what was it you wanted to be called, Arnie? Harper? Archer? Wagoner?”

“Porter,” I said. “Porter Walker.”

“Porter,” said Ben. “What say you ladies let me and my pal Porter here buy you gals a libation or two or three?”

The women all looked at each other before saying anything. Then they somehow seemed to come to a silent agreement that it was Becky who should answer for all of them.

“Look,” she said, “you’re not some kind of weirdo, are you?”

Ben smiled at this. He looked at me and shrugged, then took his pack of Sweet Caporals out of his shirt pocket. I neglected to mention it before, and this is why I would make a terrible novelist, but he had come out of the stall without the still-lit cigarette stub he’d gone in there with. I can only presume he had flushed it down the toilet. I do know that it doesn’t matter what he did with it, and so I will now resume my narrative with Ben taking his Musso and Frank’s matches out of the same shirt pocket and lighting a new Sweet Caporal, and, after exhaling a great cloud of smoke into the already smoky ladies’ room he coughed once or twice and then said:

“Let’s face it, Becky, if I was a weirdo, would I admit it?” He paused, looking each of the ladies in the face in turn. “In my vast experience of all kinds of humanity in all my many travels and adventures on land and sea and through peace and war, it’s been my experience that the one thing a real weirdo will never do is admit to being a weirdo. Until he has you chained up in his dungeon that is. Once he’s got you helpless in his dungeon, then he can and probably will brag about being a weirdo till he’s blue in the face — but not until then.”

“Okay,” said Hester. “So in other words you very well might be a weirdo.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” said Ben. “And that’s to have a cocktail with me and Arnie I mean Porter.”

“No,” said Hester. “There is another way.”

“And what would that be?” said Ben.

“We could read or at least take a skim through your book.”

“Or one of his books, if he is in fact a recurring character,” said Brett. “And something tells me he is.”

“What?” said Ben.

“You don’t even need to skim through it,” said Becky. “Just read the front and back cover copy, that’s all you need to do.”

“What the hell are you broads talking about?” said Ben. He was smiling, but in a tentative way, as if he wasn’t sure if the ladies were joking or not.

“Oh dear,” said Brett. “He doesn’t know.”

“Oh dear God,” said Becky. “He’s a newbie. A rookie.”

“Hey, I think you’ll find that Ben Blagwell is no rookie,” said Ben. “I been around the block a few times. Quite a few times. Why, I’ve had adventures that would make your hair stand on end, even you, Hester and Becky, with your long hair and all. Stand straight up it would.”

“Who’s going to tell him?” said Hester.

“Does his friend know? Young dark and broody over there?” said Becky.

“I think he knows,” said Brett. “Don’t you know, Mr. Porter?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I know. I mean, I think I would be more sure if I were better read, but to be honest I mostly just read books about guys who are caught in a deadly whirlpool of deceit and flaming passions, that sort of a thing.”

“Not much of a classics man,” said Hester.

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

“So do you even know who I am?”

“Arnie,” said Ben. He wasn’t smiling any more. “Will someone please tell me what the hell everybody is talking about?”

“Answer my question,” said Hester, ignoring Ben and addressing me. “Doesn’t this scarlet letter A on my dress signify anything to you?”

“Oh,” I said. “Now I remember. The Scarlet Letter. By, uh, Nathaniel — somebody —”

“Hawthorne,” said Hester. “So you have read the book.”

“Well, I read the Classics Illustrated comic,” I said. “You see it was on the troop ship in the army, and I ran out of books about guys caught in vortexes of deadly passion, and they had these comics, so —”

“Hey, Arnie, or Porter,” said Ben. “Excuse me, but you can tell your life story some other time. Now fill me in on the gen, buddy. ‘Cause I’m getting a little uneasy here. Reminds me of this time I got trapped in this castle of torture by these leather-clad Nazi SS harlots, and —”

“Ben,” I said. “The thing is, everybody in this place is a character from a book.”

“What?”

I looked at the ladies.

“I mean,” I said, “I think that’s the case, right?”

“Of course,” said Hester.

“What did you think?” said Becky.

“Isn’t it an absolute yell of laughter?” said Brett.

“And,” I continued, speaking to Ben, “you and I are fictional characters also.”

“What?” said Ben. “Like in a book or one of them magazines?”

“Yes,” I said.

“This is where all the great characters go,” said Hester.

“Even the really villainous ones,” said Becky.

“They’re the best ones, anyway,” said Brett. “Give me a good nasty villain any old time.”

“I sort of agree,” said Becky. “Just no weirdos.”

“No,” said Brett. “No weirdos. They grow tiresome very quickly.”

“And we still don’t know that this fellow here isn’t a weirdo,” said Hester, gesturing toward Ben with her cigarette.

“He’s not,” I said. “He’s more the seafaring, hearty, brawling adventurous type.”

“And how do we know you’re not a weirdo,” said Hester. “And maybe you’re covering for your friend, who’s also a weirdo.”

“Well, I hate to admit it,” I said. “But I guess I might as well. In fact I feel duty-bound to do so —”

“Oh, get to the point,” said Becky. “We can’t stand in this ladies’ room all night. We’re wasting valuable drinking time.”

“I’ll say,” said Brett. “I’m absolutely dying of thirst.”

“I want to know what Porter here was going to admit,” said Hester. She reached over to the sink and tapped her cigarette ash into it. “What is it, Porter?”

“I’m a weirdo,” I said.

“No, really?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Arnie,” said Ben. “I mean Porter. You are not a weirdo. A little strange, maybe, a little eccentric, yeah; a little odd, sure — but you’re not a fucking weirdo. Pardon my French, ladies.”

“What do you do?” Hester asked me.

“My character in the book I’m in?”

“What else?”

“I’m a poet,” I said. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but — a sort of darkly handsome, brooding young poet.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad,” said Hester.

“Sure, darkly handsome brooding poet is fine,” said Becky.

“The broodinger the better,” said Brett.

“As long as he’s not a boring brooding poet,” said Becky.

“Are you a boring brooding poet?” Hester asked me.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” I said.

“Arnie,” said Ben, “Porter, whatever — you’re not boring. I mean, you may not be the liveliest guy at the party, but you are not a bore-ass.”

“Maybe I’m not,” I said, “but Porter’s kind of boring I think.”

“Okay, you two have lost me,” said Becky. “And why do you keep calling him Arnie if his name’s supposed to be Porter.”

“Well, ya see, Becky,” said Ben, “the thing of it is, in real life Porter’s actually this guy named Arnold Schnabel.”

“What?” said Hester.

“Huh?” said Becky.

“Arnold who?” said Brett.

“Schnabel,” said Ben. “Arnie Schnabel, nicest guy ya’d ever wanta meet, too. Sure, a little quiet maybe, a little bit of a loner like, but no weirdo, not really. And not too boring, either. Just a little like dry maybe.”

“All right, I’m confused,” said Brett.

“Me too,” said Becky. “Confused and, yes, getting bored. Let’s get those cocktails.”

“Yeah, might as well,” said Hester. “Come on,” she said, glancing from Ben to me. “We’ll let you boys buy us a round.”

“Now we’re talking,” said Ben. “Come on, Arnie, Porter, I mean.”

“Ben,” I said, “the thing is I should really be getting along.”

“But you just fuckin’ got here.” He quickly turned to the ladies. “Pardon my French, ladies. I spend a lot of time at sea, and in the kind of rough uncouth dives that seamen frequent, so you know how it is.” He turned back to me. “Arnie,” he said, in a low voice. “We got three good-lookin’ babes ready to have a drink with us. Don’t be a goddam stick in the ass.”

“But I’m supposed to be somewhere,” I said. “Back at Mr. Arbuthnot’s, because I said I would get his cat some —”

“Arnie,” said Ben. “Mr. Arbuthnot is in that other world, right? The one where you’re Arnold Schnabel.”

“Yes,” I said, “and in fact you’re there too, Ben, and that’s one thing I can’t figure out, which is are you the same Ben who’s waiting back at Mr. Arbuthnot’s, or —”

“Excuse us, gentlemen,” said Becky. “You two can stay here and hash out whatever little character conflicts you have going on there, but we’re hitting the bar.”

“No, wait, Becky,” said Ben. “Listen, Arnie, Porter,” he said. “Let me just ask you a question. What are the odds that your old world is working in the same, whaddyacallit, time thing, relative, you know, the time, fuckin’ —”

“Time continuum?” I said.

“Right, exactly,” said Ben. “Time continuum. You read them science fiction magazines, too.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “If there’s nothing else around.”

“How the hell you know your world is on the same time continuum?”

“You know,” I said, “in fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think it is. Because the first time I came here —”

“What, to this boozer?”

“Well, to this world —”

“Oh, I get it. So you’ve been in this, um, world before —”

“Only a couple times,” I said.

“Only a couple times he says,” said Ben. “You slay me, Arnie, Porter, whatever your name is.”

“Anyway, the first time I came here it happened when I was sleeping, and I had all these adventures —”

“Adventures.”

“Yes,” I said, “I had all these adventures that seemed to go on for a really long time, like enough to fill a good-sized novel, but when I finally woke up and came back to my own world it was only the next morning. In my world that is.”

“Okay, we’re going now,” said Becky.

“No, wait,” said Ben. “Look, Arnie, don’t you see? You can take your time here, have a ball, and then when you go back, if you can get back, maybe only like a milli-second will have passed.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But still —”

“You want to get back.”

“Well, it is my world,” I said.

“Okay. I can understand that,” said Ben. “But I’m not talking about staying here and going off on some crazy exotic ‘adventure’ or nothing, God forbid. I’m just talking about having one lousy drink.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Maybe two.”

“Well —” I said. 


“One drink and then we’ll see how we feel.”

“Okay,” I said. “One drink.”

“Maybe two,” said Ben. “Nothing is written in stone.”

“Can we please go now?” said Becky.

“Yeah, we’ve missed almost an entire set, too,” said Hester.

“Rick Martin is the most,” said Brett. “That cat can blow a mean trumpet.”

“Right, let’s go then,” said Becky.

I remembered my manners at the last second and quickly limped over and opened the door for the ladies.

 It suddenly occurred to me that Josh and my other so-called friends were waiting for me in the bar upstairs, and might be wondering where I was. Or, come to think of it, maybe they weren’t thinking about me at all.

(Continued here,  for the sake of all humanity.)

(Kindly look to the right-hand column of this page to find an up-to-the-minute listing of links to all other published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©. Now appearing also in the Collingswood Patch™: “South Jersey’s last bastion of fine literature.”)