Back to the hood

Yes, folks, going up to good old Olney tonight -- stomping ground of that poet laureate of the working man, Arnold Schnabel -- for some of Kim's Korean BBQ. If I am late with the next installment of Arnold's memoirs the blame lies entirely with Dean for forcing me to drink vast quantities of beer washed down with Johnnie Walker Red Label. And we just might stop into the legendary Green Parrot, right up the next block of 5th Street from Kim's.

(Pictured above is the trolley terminal that I walked past every day on my way to St Helena's parochial school.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 132: young love

It’s September, 1969, and as usual wars and chaos rage around the planet, but on this particular night, on the Johnstone ranch -- not very far from a depressed little town called Disdain -- young love has blossomed once again as it always will...

(Go here for our preceding chapter, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award©-winning epic from the battered Olivetti portable of Larry Winchester: “...perhaps the only contemporary novelist worthy of assuming the mantle of the great Sidney Sheldon.” -- Harold Bloom.)

When they came up for a little air Attie said, “You got me all excited in that car, Harvey.”

“You got me pretty excited, too, Attie.”

“I think you’re pretty excited now.”

“Don’t I know it.”

They clinched some more.

Then:

“Harve, I’m a virgin.”

“Good.”

“You wanta make me not a virgin?”

“Sure do.”

“You’re not afraid of the radiation sickness?”

“Hell, no,” said Harvey. But then on second thought: “Should I be?”

“The doctors say it’s not catching. It was only people that was too near the A-bomb test.”

“That’s cool. I mean, uh, not cool, but --”

“Where can we go, Harvey?”

“Go?”

“Where can we go right now?”

“Oh," said Harvey. "Well, I got a little bungalow Mr. Johnstone give me.”

“Let’s go then.”

They took the stairway that led down to the parlor instead of the one that led to the dining room, and they slipped out the back way and walked across the yard. The sun was finally starting to shimmer up over that blue smear of mountains out over the desert. They went into Harvey’s little bungalow and he didn’t turn on the light, first of all because it was unromantic, and second of all because the place was already a complete mess even though he’d only moved in the night before last.

They immediately went into another clinch standing up, and in between kisses they started to get each other’s clothes off. Then there was that awkward moment where Attie was completely naked and beautiful and, yes, glowing slightly green in the soft half-light, and Harvey was naked except for his blood-splattered Bill Blass trousers down around his ankles and his silk socks and Oleg Cassinis smooth-calf loafers. Attie pushed him back onto the little bed and pulled off his shoes and stockings and pants and his Johnny Carson Collection boxer shorts and then she said, “Okay, teach me, soldier boy.”

Harvey said that first thing was they ought to get a condom out of his wallet.

“We don’t need one, Harvey.” She got on the bed next to him and put her hand on his chest. “I can’t have babies because I don’t produce eggs because of my radiation.”

“Well, okay, then, I guess,” said Harvey.

They kissed a bit more, sitting side by side on the bed.

Then:

“Harvey, I probably won’t live more than a few years more.”

“Shit. That’s harsh, Attie.”

“Yeah. But here’s the thing. I wanta really experience life before I go.”

There was a pause, and then Harvey gently pushed her over on her back.

There was just enough dim light to see her in all her beauty, there was more than enough light.

A minute or two later Attie said, “What’s that you’re doin’ there, Harve?”

“Somethin’ I read about in the Evergreen Review. Just lie back and enjoy it, Attie.”

“Okay.”

(Continued here. Kindly look to the right hand side of this page for what very well might be an up-to-date listing of all other published chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™ “Not only a great book, but a great doorstop.” -- Clifton Fadiman, Collier’s Magazine.)

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 137: Catholic boy

Let us rejoin Arnold Schnabel (”Poet? Madman? Saint? All of the above?” -- Harold Bloom, on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon) and his friends (including that impish doll Clarissa) in the Ugly Mug, that cynosure of nightlife in the quaint old seaport of Cape May, NJ, on this strange warm night in August of 1963…

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

The waitress came to our table, and, on Larry’s request, she went to bring “Josh” a beer mug, and, while she was at it, a fresh pitcher of beer and two more Manhattans for Steve and Miss Rathbone.

Josh proved himself to be a charming companion, by the simple expedient of asking the various people at the table about themselves. Having already flattered Larry he at once turned to Steve and asked him how long he and Miss Rathbone had been engaged, and he betrayed not the slightest impulse to burst out into peals of laughter when Steve told him that not only had they just gotten engaged that very day but that they had indeed only met the previous afternoon.

It went on like this, with Josh (I suppose I may as well call him that, if only to avoid possible confusion for scholars of the future who may be working their way through this drivel for a study of trends of mental illness in the mid-20th century) asking Steve and Miss Rathbone where they were from, what they did for a living, and so on.

The fresh pitcher came, we drank, and once again I felt myself doing that thing I frequently do, drawing into myself so that the conversation at the table was almost as a distant buzzing of bees on a summer’s day.

Josh was talking to Elektra, asking her questions. It occurred to me that I had never really asked her questions about herself. Was this a bad thing? Did it matter?

I looked down at Clarissa sitting there on my lap. She had fallen asleep, her face against my side, her eyes closed, one hand on my stomach. Well, that was good. Let her sleep.

And pretty soon I found myself getting sleepy as well. It’s true that I had had a nap that afternoon, and a deep one, but nevertheless it had been a taxing day to say the least. So I found myself nodding, and finally Elektra put her hand on my arm.

“Arnold, do you want to go home?”

“Well --”

“Come on, darling, you’re falling asleep.”

Some other things were said and done, of which I was only vaguely aware. I tried to put some money on the table but Larry kept giving it back to me, so finally I gave up.

Then I was standing by the table with Elektra. I had Clarissa in her box under my left arm, I was shaking hands with people.

Josh held onto my hand.

“Get a good night’s sleep, buddy,” he said.

“I think I will,” I heard myself saying, as if from across the room.

“Ten a.m. tomorrow morning!” said Larry. “Mrs. Biddle’s back yard! Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! We’ll dive into that second act!”

“Yes, sir,” I said, as if from underwater; I remember the song "Only Love Can Break A Heart" was playing on the juke box.

And finally Elektra and I were working our way arm in arm through the bar and out through the side entrance.

The warm and humid air of the sidewalk felt like the breath of life after the smoky bar, and I immediately felt not nearly so sleepy.

“You know, we don’t have to go home,” I said to Elektra. “If you wanted another drink, or --”

“I’d just as soon go home, Arnold,” she said. “It’s been a long day. Walk me home.”

We went down Decatur, into the soft breeze of the sleeping ocean. She held my hand.

“We’re going to be going to Paris together, Arnold,” she said.

“So it seems,” I said.

She turned her head and looked up at me.

“You didn’t put Larry up to this, did you?”

“No.”

We walked past the Pilot House, she walked, I limped, we turned down Carpenters Lane.

“Okay,” she said. “But I want a separate hotel room.”

“Oh, of course,” I said.

“You’re such a gentleman.”

We crossed Jackson, and then Carpenters. Once again we went down the slate path at the side of her house, through the smell of damp roses and ivy, and then we were at the screen door in the rear. She put her arms around my shoulders.

I won’t go into all that transpired next except to say that while it did I was still holding Clarissa in her box under my left arm, and that while doing what I was doing one part of my mind was still in charge of holding the box as still as I possibly could so that Clarissa would not wake up.

Elektra opened the screen door from behind her, we stumbled into the dark foyer, and then against the wall in there.

What happened now seemed as inevitable as swimming after one has dived into the ocean.

And then we stood there, drenched, gasping into each other’s warm wet necks, Elektra’s arms still around my shoulders, Clarissa still in her box under my left arm.

Elektra drew her head back and looked into my eyes in the darkness.

She smelled like warm salt water taffy.

“What are you thinking, lover?”

Actually I was thinking, among dozens of other things, that I had only managed to remain in a state of grace for less than an hour since my second absolution of the day from Father Reilly; but I didn’t say that.

“I’m thinking that we didn’t use a, um, you know --”

I don’t think I’ve ever actually said the word condom.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m on the pill.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Is that okay? Catholic boy?”

“Oh, sure,” I said.

Like many non-Catholics I suppose she was not up on our curious ruling on the subject of sin, which was that one mortal sin was going to damn you to hell forever just as well as a thousand. So in other words I wasn’t about to quibble about variations on the sin of contraception if I was already condemned to everlasting agony for the act of fornication.

Suddenly I felt a movement in the box. I drew back from Elektra, and she let her hands slide down over my arms.

“Well, I suppose it’s bed time,” she said. “I’ll sleep like a log now.”

“Do you want me to walk you up?” I asked, hoping she would say no, and luckily she did, because I felt more movement in the box.

Elektra kissed me once more, bade me good night, and then went up the stairs. I quickly went out the door and started around the path to the side of the house.

“What a slut!” said Clarissa, from within her box.

“Quiet,” I whispered.

“I will not be quiet!”

“Just till we get past the house, please.”

She pushed against the lid, and I saw her pale face peeking out.

“Let me out and I’ll be quiet.”

I stopped and took the lid off. She got up, jumped onto my arm and then clambered down to the ground. She smoothed out the skirt of her dress and looked up at me, all innocence.

“I feel so refreshed after my nap,” she whispered.

“Well, come on,” I whispered back, and, replacing the lid on the box, I continued along the path.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going home.”

We came out onto the sidewalk and she took my hand.

“Take me to the boardwalk!”

“No, Clarissa, it’s too late.” I took my hand away from hers to look at my watch in the lamp light. “Past eleven. You should be in bed by now.”

“I’m not a child you know.”

“Listen, Clarissa -- “ I turned to look down at her, and then found my glance rising up, for she had become a full-grown young woman, of perhaps five foot six or so.

“Oh, no,” I said.

“Don’t be so surprised, you silly man. If I can talk and fly I should also be capable of assuming my full height. Now take my arm and walk me down to the boardwalk like a gentleman.”

(Continued here. Please look to the right hand column of this page to find what could be an up-to-date listing of links to all other extant chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™. "A tome which deserves to enjoy pride of place in every well-stocked beach bag this summer." -- Mrs. F.X. Slattery, The Catholic Standard & Times.)

The Caravelles: you are here --

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 131: breakfast

It’s been a very long day and an even longer night, and finally our bloody but unbowed heroes and assorted lords and ladies are heading in to breakfast in the vast but homely dining room at Jake Johnstone’s ranch, just a long hoot and a short holler beyond the outskirts of a town called Disdain...

(Go here to read the preceding chapter, or here for the first chapter of this Gold View Award©-winning masterwork from Larry Winchester, the man Cormac McCarthy has called “the only other contemporary novelist I can bear to read”.)

They moved into the dining room and sat down and Esmeralda and Chang dished out scrambled eggs and grits and sausages and hot biscuits with homemade rutabaga preserves, and by each plate was a cold beaded can of Tree Frog beer for the grown-ups or a bottle of Dr Pepper for the kids, with a bottle of good tequila in the middle of the table. And after everybody had their plates full Big Jake did an unheard-of thing. He told Esmeralda and Chang to grab a couple of plates and sit down and join in. Esmeralda and Chang both looked at each other and shrugged, then got plates and silverware and sat down.

Just about everybody was pretty damned hungry. Dick and Daphne and Harvey had respectively had Beef Wellington and Lobster Fra Diavolo and Surf ‘n’ Turf in the Samba Room, but none of it had been very good and they had only picked at the food out of politeness; and besides, all that seemed ages ago. They were ravenous now.

Paco and Derek were all doped up, so they didn’t eat too much, and pretty soon Derek just crawled under the table and fell asleep while Paco concentrated on the beer and tequila.

The Doc ate a bit of egg and potato and then sat back smoking, sipping a glass of the yellow tequila.

Enid was fucking starving. She’d thrown up all her barbecue at Paco’s place and it had been one long night; she dug in.

Hope usually ate like a bird, but seeing her idols Dick and Daphne and Enid eating like ranch hands made her want to emulate them, so she dug in too, as well as she could.

Attie and Cleb were poor kids, you didn’t have to ask them twice to clean up their plates.

As for Mr. MacNamara, Buddy and Brad, well, it had been a long time since they had had real Earthling food, and they were in something close to ecstasy.

Brad got a little drunk.

“All things said and done, I gotta say I love this fucking planet,” he said. “Fucking love it.”

“Hey, watch your language, mister,” said Cleb.

Brad raised both his hands.

“Whoa, sorry, kid!” He looked around the table, smiling, his mouth full of sausage. “I don’t watch myself with this guy I’m liable to get a shiv in my neck!”

“Just remember there’s ladies present is all,” said Cleb, coldly.

“I will, slugger! I will! Ladies! Real human ladies! And food! Real food! And real booze!” He paused, sighed, muttered, “Not like the shit they gave us in that fuckin’ casino, man.”

Cleb was about to correct Brad’s language again, but he let it go, this time.

“Okay,” said Enid. “Daphne. Speaking of this so-called casino -- tell me, what exactly transpired there?”

And Daphne resumed her tale, in her fashion.

The Rat Pack, the Samba Room...

Jake, wise to the joke, kept chuckling and saying, “Aw, Miss Daphne!”

But the Doc realized that it was probably all true. And stubbing out his cigarette he remembered Omaha Beach, he remembered rising up out of his body and looking down, and that vague awareness he had had of others somewhere up there, also looking down. It all made sense. For the first time in his life things made sense. And he felt himself on the threshold of that mental displacement he had first felt as he staggered up the beach that morning after getting hit. He didn’t fight it now. He let it happen and it happened. He was there in his head and everything else in the world was out there. And it was okay.


“Hey, Doc,” said Big Jake. “You gonna eat them eggs or memorize ‘em?”

And now he was back.

There was Big Jake’s fat chewing smiling face.

There was everyone else, and the Doc was with them. And it was okay.

“Stuffed, Jake,” said the Doc. “Delicious though.”

And he shook out another cigarette and lit it up and went back to listening to Daphne’s story.


When Daphne found herself on the verge of the part about Frank’s saying that the spacemen had previously abducted Dick and Hope and hypnotized them so that they would have sex -- well, she found herself hesitating for just a fraction. She glanced over at Dick, and the poor man was just frozen, staring at her in what could only be called great apprehension. She decided it was best to keep this part a secret, at least for the time being, and quickly improvised a different version, mutatis mutandis, of how and why she had got up from that table in the casino, “in an absolute huff”.

So on and so forth, and finally she got to, “So, it looks like curtains for us, with this horrible motorcycle madman just about to mow us all down with his machine gun, when -- thwoomp -- little -- Jed is it?”

“Cleb, ma’am,” said Cleb. “Cleb Parsons.”

“Mister Parsons here saves the day, throws this knife right into the madman’s neck.”

“It were Bull Thorndyke’s knife,” said Cleb.

“Pardon me?” said Daphne.

“It were the knife what Bull Thorndyke pulled on Harvey t’other day. The one the sheriff made him drop on the barroom floor. I picked it up and took it when no one weren’t lookin’.”

“How foresightful of you, Jed,” said Daphne.

“Name’s Cleb, ma’am.”

“Cleb. You were wonderful, Cleb.”

“Just did what needed doin’.”

“Yes you did.” Daphne addressed the table at large. “Oh, the look on that motorcycle fellow’s face when he saw who had thrown the knife. It was priceless.”

Everyone stopped eating for a moment, looking at Daphne.

“Well, it was,” she said. “Wasn’t it, Dick?”

“Well,” said Dick, and he put his forearms on the table. “Let me put it this way. I think I’ve had enough excitement tonight to last me a lifetime.”

“Amen,” said Daphne.


They ate up all the food and then Daphne looked around and said, “God, I’m still hungry. I’m a pig.”

Before you knew it Enid was offering to make pancakes but Esmeralda wouldn’t let her and then Daphne said she knew how to make pancakes, her specialty was blueberry pancakes. There weren’t any blueberries but there were plenty of Esmeralda’s rutabaga preserves so pretty soon Enid and Daphne and Esmeralda were all working together in the kitchen making rutabaga pancakes while Hope hovered about trying to be helpful.

Meanwhile Cleb had fallen asleep in his chair, so Attie went in and asked Esmeralda where she and Cleb were to sleep. Esmeralda left the pancake brigade, Harvey picked up Cleb, and Esmeralda led him and Attie up to a room on the second floor and then she left them alone.

Harvey helped Attie get Cleb undressed down to his worn old jockey shorts, and Attie tucked him in under the cool covers.

He’d been half awake as they were undressing him and now he said, “You comin’ to bed, too, Attie?”

Attie told him she was going to stay up for a little while.

“G’night, Harvey,” said Cleb, and Harvey said goodnight too.


Outside in the dim hall Harvey and Attie immediately went into a clinch.

(Continued here. Please look to the right hand side of this page for what might could be an up-to-date listing of all other extant chapters of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™. “A beach book you can read even when you’re not at the beach.” -- Mrs. Emily Grunger, Books Editor, The Olney Times.)