"The Weirdo"

"All the other kids called Bobby Brand a weirdo, because instead of playing their childish games or hanging out in Pop’s Soda Shoppe he spent every summer day and night in his grandfather’s barn, working on his 'inventions'. But someday he would show them, he would show them all!"

– The Weirdo, by Horace P. Sternwall, a Tower Books “paperback original”, 1949; one printing.

"A Bock for Old Joe"

Nobody could ever understand a word old Joe ever said. When he spoke it sounded like an old Model T revving its engine a block away in the rain. But this didn’t stop him from talking to anyone who happened to sit next to him at Bob’s Bowery Bar. And whoever he was talking to would nod, and say, “Sure, Joe,” or “Yeah, you’re right, Joe. Absolutely right.” And Joe would make a sound like an old Model T engine on its last legs, a block away, on a snowy night.

One night old Joe went to sleep on his cot in the flop, and the next morning he woke up dead.

He approached the steps of God’s house, up on the hill.

St. Peter sat there on the porch at a little table with a big ledger in front of him.

“Name?”

Joe made a sound like a dying Model T, around the block, on a night thick with fog.

“What?” St. Peter said.

Joe repeated the sound, but louder, as if the Model T was parked right out front.

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” said St. Peter.

This went on for a while, and finally St. Peter got fed up. He picked up a small note pad, and scribbled something on it with his quill pen. He ripped off the page, folded it, and handed it to Joe.

“Take this, go through the door, give it to the man you’ll see in there.”

Five minutes later one of the docents led Joe into a barroom not vastly unlike Bob’s Bowery Bar.

“Sit anywhere you like, bar or table, and a server will be right with you.”

Joe always liked to sit at the bar, where he could talk to people, and fortunately there was an empty bar stool.

“What can I get you, sir?” said the friendly bartender.

Joe said something, but the bartender couldn’t understand what Joe said, even after he said it four times, and the guy on Joe’s left said, “I think he said Rolling Rock.”

“No,” said the guy on Joe’s right. “I think he said a bock, he would like a bock.”

The bartender leaned a little closer to Joe.

“Is that what you would like, sir? A bock?”

Joe made a sound like a cow belching.

“Just give him a bock,” said the guy on Joe’s left. “Because this is driving me crazy.”

The bartender gave Joe a pint of draft bock, and Joe made a noise like a stopped-up toilet finally flushing. But, whether he had asked for a bock or not, he accepted it, and drank it, and so for the rest of the eternity a bock became his “usual”.


– A Bock for Old Joe, and Other Tales of the Bowery, by Horace P. Sternwall; a Handi-Book paperback original, 1954.

“She Brooked No Nonsense”

“The more you try to convince of me of how interesting you are the more I become convinced of how monstrously boring you are.”

“Wow,” said Thad. “That’s harsh.”

“It’s not my job to bolster your sad little ego,” said Millie.

“So you’re saying you don’t want to go out with me?”

“I would rather die.”

“Gee. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“I should imagine it feels as if you are facing a very unpleasant truth about yourself.”

“So I guess this is it.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Don’t you think you could have been a little nicer about it?”

“I could have, but if I had you probably would have persisted in pestering me.”

“You really know how to deflate a guy, Millie.”

“Listen, Brad –”

“Thad.”

“Sorry. Listen, ‘Thad’, do you want my advice?”

“I’m not so sure, but okay.”

“You’re not a bad chap, and not bad looking, and you apparently make good money, but you’re a bore, a hopeless bore. But the good news is that there are thousands, no, millions of boring girls out there looking for a fellow, girls who are so boring they won’t think that you’re a bore. Find one of these boring girls. Preferably a nice one. Marry her. Raise boring children. Then grow old, and die. And now please never call me again.”

“So, like, you wouldn’t like to get together just for a cup of coffee sometime?”

Millie gave no verbal reply, but stubbed out her Vogue, polished off the last of her martini, slung her purse over her lovely shoulder,  got up, removed her wrap from the back of her bar stool, and walked away.

“Another martini for you, sir?” said the bartender.

“Yes, please,” said Thad.

– She Brooked No Nonsense, by "Harriet Pierce Stonebrake" (Horace P. Sternwall), a Perma Book paperback original, 1956.

"Xmas Memory"

Frankie Titana and Pete Willingham were the two most obnoxious and boring rummies on the Bowery, and so it stood to reason that they would become friends.

They were high on the hog now, because they had just come back from two weeks picking tomatoes in Jersey, and so instead of sleeping in a flop or an alleyway they had a nice clean room with a double bed in the Sunshine Hotel, fresh washed sheets and everything. Another week and they would be back in the flops or in the alleys, but that was the future, and who cared about the future? A hydrogen bomb could drop any minute. A guy could drop dead from a coronary, or get run over by a garbage truck. Worrying about the future was for chumps.

Frankie and Pete were sitting back comfortably in the bed, passing the Tokay bottle back and forth. Sure, they would prefer to be in some bar, but they were both banned from every bar below 52nd Street, and neither of them had felt like taking the subway uptown to try to find some dive they hadn’t been kicked out of yet.

“I got a question for ya, Frankie, and don’t take it the wrong way.”

“Sure, pal. I am an open book, so fire away.”

“When’s the last time you got a piece?”

“You mean tail?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let me see.” Frankie took a drag on his Bull Durham. “Let me just think a minute.”

“Take your time, Frankie, no rush.”

“Oh, I know, it was like two years ago. It was that broad Marie used to hang out at Bob’s.”

“The one that paid a guy to bump off her husband only the guy bumped her off by mistake?”

“Yeah, that Marie. It was when I had that job at the Fulton Fish Market, so one Friday I got paid, and me and Marie got to drinking, and, well, one thing led to another, and so for a fin she took me out in the alleyway and let me have a piece.”

“A fin, huh? Was it worth it?”

“Tell the truth, Pete, no. And when I think of all the bocks I coulda bought with that five bucks I could kick myself.”



Not to mention that Frankie had gotten not only crabs as a result of that encounter but a dose of the clap, but, no, Pete didn’t need to know that.

“So what about you, pal?” said Frankie. “When’s the last time you got a piece?”

“Creeping up on three years for me,” said Pete. “It was Christmas, and I guess I was feelin’ lonely.”

“You pay for it?”

“Yeah, I paid for it.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Tell the truth, pal, no.”

With Pete it had been Marie, too, except what a fool he had been, paying her a whole sawbuck when he could’ve had her for a fin. And getting crabs and a dose on top of it. But he didn’t tell Frankie that.

– “Xmas Memory”, from The Adventures of Frankie and Pete, by Horace P. Sternwall, an Ace Books paperback original, 1954; republished as The Future is for Chumps, the Didgereedoo Press (Australia), by “Hank P. Sheppard”, 1956.