“The Secret Language of Dummies”

Waldo McGee was on his good behavior. He had a good steady job now at the Prince Hal Room in the Hotel St Crispian, and he didn’t want to blow it. After his last set he would pack up his dummy Mickey Pumpernickel in his suitcase, have his one free staff drink at the bar, one and done, and then catch a cab to Bob’s Bowery Bar for a nightcap. One bock beer, maybe two, and then back to his room just up the corner at the Parker Hotel.

But on this August night, as on most nights, Waldo woke up after only an hour or two of sleep. He lay there in bed, Mickey next to him, Waldo stared at the dark ceiling, he heard the elevated train roar by, and he knew there was nothing to be done but to go down the block to Ma’s Diner on Bleecker for a glass of milk and some pie.

Waldo got dressed, and with Mickey under his arm he went downstairs, past Zeke the night clerk asleep at his desk, and out to the street.

It was just five a.m., the sun had not come up, just a faint glimmering above the rooftops and the chimney pots of the Bowery.

The diner was empty except for Ma, sitting at the counter reading a movie magazine. She had just baked a fragrant batch of pies for the morning. Waldo asked for a slice of sweet potato pie, with fresh whipped cream and a glass of milk, and, picking up yesterday’s Federal Democrat from next to the cash register, he took a seat in the corner booth.

The news was bad, as it usually was, but Waldo knew he should try to keep up, because you never knew when you might read something you could turn into a bit for the act. Three sets a night, six nights a week, you had to try to keep the routine fresh for the regular punters. But the thing about the news was, it was all in the headlines, and there wasn’t much point in reading the whole articles. Waldo turned to the funnies, and he was reading Mutt and Jeff when somebody tapped on the window.

Could it be? Yes. It was. Mo Mosco. And looking a hell of a lot worse for the wear, but then Waldo doubted that he had looked much better himself a couple of weeks ago. Jeeze, when had he last seen Mo? Before the war?

Mickey gave Mo a “come on in” wave, and next thing you knew Mo was sitting across the table. He had a beat-up old suitcase, and he set it down on the seat next to him.

“Nice little joint here, Waldo. Real nice. Whatcha got there, pie? And I see you still got Mickey Pumpernickel.”

Mickey was sitting to the left of Waldo, on the window side.

“Long time no see, Mo,” said Mickey.

“Got an old friend of yours with me, Mickey,” said Mo, and he opened up the suitcase and took out his own dummy, Mr. Fleeber, and sat him up next to him across from Mickey.

“Whatta ya know and a hidey ho!” said Mr. Fleeber, his usual catchphrase. That hadn’t changed in twenty years.

Ma came over and stared at the two men and the two dummies.

“Now I seen it all,” she said.

“Hey, beautiful,” said Mr. Fleeber, Mo’s lips just barely twitching, “how’s about a nice hot cup of joe?”

“Sure, little fella. Anything else?”

“Nah, just a nice cup of joe, thank you very much. Hot, sweet and creamy, just like you, doll.”

“Get my friend a slice of pie, Ma,” said Waldo. “You like sweet potato pie, Mo?”

“Yeah, sure, but I ain’t really hungry, Waldo –”

Mo looked like he hadn’t eaten in a day or two or three. His skin was the color of an old gunny sack, and he had two or three days’ growth of salt-and-pepper beard.

“Make it another slice of sweet potato pie for my friend, Ma,” said Waldo, “with whipped cream, and get him a nice glass of milk, too, on my tab, including the cup of joe.”

“Gee, Waldo,” said Mo.

The two ventriloquists sat and talked about the old times, the last days of vaudeville on the old Pantages circuit, the hundreds of road houses and gin joints from the Catskills to the Ozarks, from Frisco to Key West. They each had another slice of pie and another glass of milk, and then they both began to doze.

“These guys,” said Mr. Fleeber.

“I know,” said Mickey.

“Living in the past.”

“You can’t do that,” said Mickey.

“No,” said Mr. Fleeber. “Once you do that you’re dead. You might still be walking around, but you’re dead. Dead inside.”

“You get Mosco cleaned up, you’ll get a gig,” said Mickey.

“Maybe,” said Mr. Fleeber.

“You got to try, Fleeber. You can’t give up.”

“I know that, Mickey. God knows I know that. But this guy.”

He jerked his little thumb at Mo, sitting there slumped with his stubbled chin on his chest.

“You think this jerk is much better?” said Mickey, pointing a finger at the sleeping Waldo. “But I pushed him, and I kept pushing him, and now we’re working, and if it’s up to me we’re gonna keep working.”

“That’s what I’m gonna do,” said Mr. Fleeber. “I’m gonna push Mosco. But, say, you know I hate to ask, but you think Waldo might front Mo a fin, maybe a sawbuck, just so’s we can get a flop, get a bath and a shave, maybe get the suit cleaned and pressed.”

“I don’t know about a sawbuck, but I’ll bet McGee’s good for a fin,” said Mickey.

“Gee, that would be great,” said Mr. Fleeber. “A flop, a bath and a shave, that’s all Mo needs. You watch, he’ll make the rounds and have a job tonight.”

Sitting at the counter, Ma looked over at the two ventriloquists. They looked like they both had fallen asleep, but they weren’t hurting nobody, so she would let them sleep for a while. It was almost six, and the breakfast trade would be coming in soon, so she got up to start making the pancake batter.

{Please go here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, illustrated by the one-and-only Rhoda Penmarq…}

“Say There, Young Fellow!”

It had been Terry Foley’s luck (whether good or bad no one could say) to complete his modicum of required military service between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Korean police action, and ever since his honorable discharge he had been, with the help of the G.I. Bill, “working on his novel”.  



Terry was a harsh critic of his own work, and he had summarily abandoned the entire 3,100-page first draft of his novel, set on an army base in Kansas, titled variously I Got the Olive Drab Blues; Last Call for Chow; Make Mine Khaki; and Ten-hut, Private Hooley! 

Terry had put a lot of time and effort into that draft, and for each sheet of completed typescript he had filled up God only knew how many pages of marble copybooks, and how many aborted sheets of expensive 20-lb typing paper had wound up in the waste basket or had been scissored up and converted into cigarette papers? But, let’s face it, who wanted to read about life on a dreary old army base in Kansas? It had been bad enough living through it all, let alone writing about it, and finally his own boredom and common sense won out. Terry shoved the whole enormous pile into his footlocker and began afresh with a saga of a young man from the provinces, fresh out of the service, who comes to New York City to become a novelist. He was four hundred pages into the first draft of this new approach now; working title: Say, There, Young Fellow!

Terry was twenty-four years old, and he was a virgin, he had no idea why. Well, no, actually he had a lot of ideas why, and these ideas were covered in detail in his novel. But could his novel be any good if his protagonist, Jerry Hooley, never lost his virginity? Would anyone want to read a Bildungsroman with no sex, let alone no romance?

The time of the year was August, a hot and oppressive August, but, Terry wondered, was there any other kind of August? He lived in a small studio apartment with no air-conditioning on Bleecker Street near the Bowery. One Wednesday afternoon a week he attended a summer creative-writing workshop at N.Y.U., but other than that his time was his own. Not counting his two years in the army he had never held a job since his boyhood paper route, and Terry was content to live off his modest government stipend and the odd ten-dollar bills sent to him by one or the other of his two grandmothers and four maiden aunts back in Ohio.

On a typical morning, shortly after the heat awakened him, usually between ten and eleven a.m., Terry would gather up his marble copybook and his #2 pencils and stagger downstairs and across Bleecker Street to the air-conditioned comfort of Ma’s Diner,  and there he would while away the rest of the morning and afternoon and early evening drinking copious cups of coffee, eating up to four or five slices of Ma’s delicious pies, and scribbling away in his copybook. When he grew tired or when the creative afflatus abandoned him, he would read a book or someone’s abandoned newspaper or movie magazine, or simply stare out the window at the passing parade of humanity. In the evenings he would take public transportation uptown to the Thalia or across town to the Waverly on 6th Avenue and catch a foreign film or a 1930s screwball comedy; afterwards, his long day done, it was back onto the el or the bus and home to his tiny apartment.

One day in Ma’s Diner a young woman sitting on the next stool addressed him.

“Excuse me, but I see you in here every day, writing in that copybook. May I ask what you are writing?”

Terry was not used to being addressed by strangers, and it took him several moments to rouse himself from his reveries.

“If I am being intrusive,” the young woman said, “please feel free to say so.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Terry. “I am writing a novel.”

“Indeed?” said the young lady, who, despite the season, was dressed all in black, topped with a black beret. “May I ask what is the thrust, or theme, or argument of your novel?”

“To put it bluntly,” said Terry, “it’s about a young man who comes to the city to become a novelist. But, of course, it is about many other things as well.”

“Of course,” said the young woman. “This is really quite the coincidence, because you see I too am writing a novel.”

And she tapped the large black leather-bound notebook lying on the counter before her.

Terry wished he had one of those handsome nice notebooks, but what was the use, his bohemian mode of life precluded such extravagances. Maybe he should move to Mexico, where the cost of living was allegedly much cheaper, where he could afford nice leather-bound notebooks instead of these cheap dime store copybooks? He bet Ernest Hemingway didn’t write in cheap copybooks. Or did he? He must go to the library and look up that New Yorker profile. He couldn’t remember if Hemingway’s preferred writing materials were mentioned in that, although he seemed to recall reading somewhere that Hemingway used #2 pencils, so at least Terry had that part of the deal covered…

“Do you want to know what my novel is about?” said the young woman.

“Oh, sure,” said Terry.

“It’s about the journey of a young girl who goes from a Catholic girls’ school to Vassar, and then she graduates and comes to the city to pursue a career as a jazz poet, and, yes, to awaken to her womanhood. But of course it’s about loads of other stuff as well.”

Womanhood, awakening. Loads of other stuff…

Suddenly it dawned on Terry that here was a girl – and, a bonus, a pretty girl – initiating a conversation with him, in a diner, and that this was like a pivotal scene in a novel: the boy meets girl scene.

This was his big chance, possibly. A new chapter in his life as well as his novel. He must not blow it. He must say the right thing.

“I would love to read some of your book,” he said, which was not entirely true, but probably much preferable to saying what he was actually thinking. 

He wanted to take a quick moment to write the previous sentence down, but, no, he would just have to try to remember it and get it down later. He must try to stay in the moment.

For her part the young lady, whose name was Araminta Sauvage, was thinking: could this be the plot turn, mutatis mutandis, she had been searching for in her own novel, the working title of which she had recently changed from Virgins of Vassar to The Womb of the City? 



This chap was not the best-looking fellow she had ever met, but, after all, what was more important: looks or brains? And wasn’t it high time that she (as well as her heroine, Amanda Bricolage) divested herself of her tedious so-called chastity?



“I’d be delighted to show you some pages of my novel,” she said. “But you must let me read some of yours.”

Yes! thought Terry, yes! 



But what he said was, “Gee, that would be swell.”

{Kindly click here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, illustrated by the one-and-only Rhoda Penmarq…}

"First Night"

“What’s the crowd like out there, Tony?”

“Good, Waldo, real good. I ain’t seen a crowd like this on a Tuesday since the World Series when we set up the extra TV sets at the bar.”

“Damn. Where’d all these people come from?”

“Beats me, but I’m glad they’re out there. Nothin’ I hate more than playing to a half-full room.”

“Jeeze.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Waldo. You’re gonna knock ‘em dead, Just give ‘em your twenty minutes, warm ‘em up good, then me and Shirley and the boys will do the heavy lifting till your next set.”

“I just wasn’t expecting a full house my first night,” said Waldo.

“You want a shot?”

“No, no shot, thanks though, Tony.”

“Awright, I’m gonna go out and play a few more solo numbers to lull them into submission, and then I’ll introduce you in about fifteen, so stick by the door.”

“Got it. Thanks, Tony.”

The canary Shirley De La Salle was putting on her make-up, and the bass player and the drummer and the guitar man were playing poker on a couple of beer crates set one on top of the other for a card table.

Waldo got up and cracked the door. The bar and almost all of the tables were full, and right there down front was a whole mob from Bob’s Bowery Bar. What the hell were they doing here? It was that young dame Araminta. Like a fool he had told her about his new gig, and she must have told the rest of the crowd. Didn’t they have nothing better to do on a Tuesday night? All her fellow poets were there: Hector Phillips Stone, the doomed romantic poet; Seamas McSeamas, the Irish poet; Howard Paul Studebaker, the western poet; Frank X Fagen the nature poet; Scaramanga, the leftist poet; Lucius Pierrepont St. Clair III, the Negro poet. That philosophical guy, the one everybody called the Brain, he was there, sitting right next to Araminta. That witty guy who wasn’t witty, the one they called Addison the Wit, even he’d shown up. Even the retired whore, Fat Angie, she was there, sitting next to Mushmouth Joe and that old guy they just called Wine on account of all he drank was Tokay wine. There was Philip the uptown swell, looking not too drunk for once, standing over by the service bar, saying something in the ear of the maître d’. Christ, Bob’s Bowery Bar must be like a ghost town tonight, and then, to Waldo’s horror, he saw that over at the bar even big Bob himself was here, next to Janet the waitress. And all of them were smiling, laughing, drinking and smoking, nodding their heads to Tony’s piano playing.

Waldo broke out in that all-too-familiar cold sweat under his brand-new second-hand suit. He closed the door and looked at Tony’s bottle of Cream of Kentucky over there on the shelf. Tony had said take a shot, hadn’t he?

He hesitated, then he went and grabbed Mickey Pumpernickel, went over to the john door, opened it, went in, closed it, went right over to the toilet, and threw up.

“You finished now?” said Mickey, a couple of minutes later.

“Yeah, I think I’m finished.”

“Then flush the toilet and throw some cold water on your face.”

Waldo flushed the toilet, sat Mickey on the seat, turned on the cold tap and splashed water on his face.

“Now rinse your mouth out, good.”

Waldo did what the dummy told him.

“There’s Listerine there, gargle good.”

Waldo gargled the Listerine, spat it out.

“Now one more rinse with the cold water.”

Again Waldo obeyed his dummy. The dummy knew best.

“Take out your Juicy Fruit.”

Waldo unwrapped a stick of gum, popped it into his mouth.

“You can’t give a good show if your mouth tastes like a garbage can.”

Waldo stood there, chewing, looking at his face in the mirror.

“Take out your comb, wet it, run it through your hair, just so’s you don’t look like you been sleeping in an alleyway.”

Waldo wet his comb, combed his hair.

“You want a cigarette? You got time for a cigarette.”

“No,” said Waldo. “I don’t want my throat to get dry.”

“Straighten your tie.”

Again Waldo did as he was told.

“You ready now?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“You feel good?”

“Good as I’m gonna feel.”

“Good, now take a deep breath, go out there and wait outside the green room door and wait for Tony’s intro.”

“Right.”

 

“It’s a good crowd out there. Feed off the energy of the crowd.”

“Right.”

“Now go.”

Waldo picked up Mickey and went out of the bathroom. Shirley and the bass man, the drummer and the guitarist all turned away and acted as if they hadn’t been listening.

He went to the door that looked out on the Prince Hal Room and cracked it open. He felt good.

“Hey, Waldo.”

It was the canary, Shirley De LaSalle.

“Warm ‘em up good for us, man. You and Mickey both.”

“Yeah, sure, Shirley, we’ll do that.”

And, with Mickey Pumpernickel under his arm, Waldo went out, closing the door behind him.

{Please go here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, illustrated by the one-and-only Rhoda Penmarq…}

“The Great Stream of Humanity”

“Waldo goddam McGee,” said Louie.

“Hi, Louie,” said Waldo. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“And the puppet, what’s his name, Rickey Rumpelwurtz?”

“Ha ha, no, it’s Mickey, Mickey Pumpernickel.”

“Mickey Pumpernickel.”

“Yeah.”

“I seem to remember telling you both never to darken my door again, Waldo.”

“That was a long time ago, Louie.”

“But I still remember it like it was yesterday.”

“Hey –”

“I get you a great gig at the Mocambo, opening for Desi Arnaz, and you throw up on the stage.”

“I had eaten some bad shrimps.”

“You were drunk as a skunk.”

Waldo said nothing. What Louie said was true, and they both knew it.

“Sit down, Waldo.”

Waldo sat down in one of the chairs across from Louie’s desk, and sat Mickey on his lap.

“All’s I want is a chance, Louie.”

Louie relighted his cigar with one of those Blue Tip kitchen matches he used, the same kind he was using the last time Waldo had been in here ten years ago.

“You been working?”

“Pretty steady. Out in the midwest mostly.”

“What kind of joints?”

“Roadhouses. VFW clubs. Some Knights of Columbus affairs, Shriners, Elks. Kids’ birthday parties.”

“And you finally decided to come back to the big city.”

“It’s the only town that matters,” said Waldo.

“What about Los Angeles?”

“I never liked L.A., Louie. Too much sunshine or something.”

He didn’t mention that mobster Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno telling him to leave town on the next train if he didn’t want both his legs broke; was it Waldo’s fault that the Weasel was so sensitive about Mickey making jokes about his girl friend?

Louie took a long pause, then tapped a sheet of paper on his desk.

“All right, old time’s sake, Sal’s Big and Tall Men’s Shoppe, down on Mott Street. It’s a sidewalk job. We’ll set you up on a chair outside the door and you try to get big and fat guys to come in and buy some 2-for-1 suits.”

“You want me and Mickey to be sidewalk hawkers for a Big and Fat store?”

“Ten bucks a day, don’t turn up your nose, and if it works out, maybe I’ll find you some other jobs.”

Now Waldo paused. Ten bucks a shift was a lot of beer, and it would keep him in his room down at the Parker Hotel.

“What’s the hours?”

“9 a.m. to 7 p.m., an hour for lunch, and you’re off on Sundays. This is a good deal for a gig like this, Waldo, and all you got to do is stay halfway sober and don’t throw up on nobody.”

Waldo was about to say yes, but then he felt Mickey’s little elbow dig into his ribs.

He stood up, holding Mickey under his arm.

“What,” said Louie. “You too good for this?”

“The hell with you,” said Mickey. “We are performers, not sidewalk shills for cut-rate haberdasheries for fat slobs. We have shared the stage with Wheeler & Woolsey, Ted Healy, Lillian Roth, Jerry Colonna, and dozens of other top names. We got a brand new act we been honing in joints from Toledo to Topeka to Tuscaloosa, and we are ready to take back this town by storm. So take your little sandwich-board job and shove it up your big flabby ass. You ain’t the only agent in this town, and if you were any good you wouldn’t even be handling gigs like Sal’s Big & Fat Shoppe. But if I know you, they prolly offered you a deal on a couple suits, am I right? Nix to you, buddy, and tell ya what, if I don’t see you round I’ll see you square.”

Waldo and Mickey did an about face, but before they reached the door Louie spoke up.

“Hey, wait a minute.”

Waldo and Mickey turned around.

“What?” said Mickey.

“I never even saw your lips move, Waldo. Maybe just a little, but it was more like a nervous twitch. I mean that was really good.”

“That’s because Waldo’s a pro,” said Mickey. “We are both professionals.”

Louie paused for just a moment.

“Sit your Irish ass back down, Waldo. I think I might have something for you.”


Ten minutes later, with Mickey under his arm, Waldo walked out onto the crowded sidewalk in the bright hot sunlight. He took a deep breath, and then he quickly turned left, walked around the corner of the building and back a few feet into the alleyway. He bent over and threw up, and when he was finished he straightened up, sweating.

“Jesus Christ, Mickey, you like to scare the hell out of me in there.”

“But I got us the try-out, didn’t I?” said Mickey.

“Yeah, that you did, pal, that you did. Christ, I need a drink.”

“The hell with that noise. We’re gonna go down to Ma’s Diner, get some nutritious food in your stomach, then we go back to the room for a nap. Then you’re gonna take a shower, get dressed and go over to the Hotel St Crispian and we’re gonna get that job.”

“Just one beer.”

Mickey slapped Waldo, but not hard. 

“Ow,” said Waldo.

“I’ll ow you, ya bum. Now let’s get movin’.”

And off they went out of the alleyway and into the great stream of humanity.

{Kindly go here to read the “adult comix” version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the one-and-only rhoda penmarq…}