"Two C-Words"

 

On they walked, without speaking, until neither could bear not speaking one second longer, despite having nothing interesting to say, a consideration that had never stopped either of them before.

"Y'know –" said Addison.

"By the way –" said Milford, simultaneously.

"What?" said Addison.

"No, you go first," said Milford.

"No, by all means –" said Addison.

"It was nothing," said Milford.

"But it must have been something," said Addison.

"Yes, I suppose so," said Milford.

"Then what was it?" said Addison.

"Um," said Milford.

"Yes, go on."

"Uh."

"Please, expand. I am on tenterhooks."

"Okay," said Milford.

"What are tenterhooks, anyway?" said Addison.

"I have no idea," said Milford.

"Y'know," said Addison, assuming his George Sanders "intellectual" voice, "someday, they'll invent little devices that you can carry in your pocket, and all you'll have to do is ask it a question on any subject, and it will give you an answer."

"Oh?" said Milford.

"Yes," said Addison, "so you can just ask it, what's a tenterhook, and it will tell you."

"Okay," said Milford, after a moment's pause, "but –"

"But what?"

"Will it tell you the meaning of life?"

"Possibly," said Addison.

"Will it give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning?"

"To urinate?"

"Yes, there's that," said Milford.

"So what were you going to say?" said Addison.

"I haven't the faintest idea. What were you going to say?"

"Me?"

"Yes. You started to say something."

"I have no idea either," said Addison.

"Have you noticed something odd?" said Milford.

"I notice very little," said Addison, "but what I do notice is unfailingly odd."

"We have been walking for five minutes at least and we haven't gotten anywhere."

"Yes," said Addison.

"We've turned down two or three corridors, at random."

"Seemingly at random, yes," said Addison.

"Seemingly?" said Milford.

"Well, yes, at random, touché," said Addison.

"We're lost," said Milford.

"Do you mean in the existential sense?"

"That, yes, but also in the literal sense."

"All right, granted," said Addison. "But we must get somewhere if we keep going."

"What if we reach a dead end?"

"Then I suppose we'll just have to turn around and go back the way we came."

They walked on, and after three or possibly four minutes they came to another intersection of dim hallways.

"Now which way?" said Milford.

"Right, I think," said Addison.

"May I ask why you think right is the right way?"

"Okay, how about left then?" said Addison.

"We're lost," said Milford, again.

"Yes, this is true," said Addison. He took out his Chesterfields, and offered the pack to Milford. "I suppose you don't want a Chesterfield?"

"No, thanks," said Milford. He patted his peacoat pockets, and brought out his pack of Husky Boys.

"What happened to your Woodbines?" said Addison. 

"Oh," said Milford. "Well, earlier tonight I met this old poet who told me I was a – please pardon the word, but it was his locution, not mine – he said I was a – and, again, I quote – a 'cunt' for smoking English cigarettes, and he crumpled up my pack of Woodbines and threw them to the floor."

"Oh, dear," said Addison, who could well sympathize, having been called a cunt himself on more occasions than he could possibly count.

"So," continued Milford, "when I went to buy a new pack I saw these Husky Boys in the machine and bought them."

"So, no more Woodbines for you then?"

"No. I may well be a cunt, but I don't want to be thought a cunt."

"An admirable ambition I think."

Addison lighted up both their cigarettes with a match from his book of Bob's Bowery Bar matches.

"Thank you," said Milford.

"You're welcome," said Addison. "Y'know, perhaps in a sense, but in a very real sense," he was speaking in his full-blown Ronald Colman/George Sanders voice now, "perhaps not being thought a cunt is the first step in not actually being a cunt."

Milford had no response to this proposition, and he made none.

"You disagree?" said Addison.

"I neither agree nor disagree," said Milford. "But since I apparently am a cunt, my opinion is probably worthless."

Now it was Addison's turn not to respond.

After a long and echoing minute, he did speak.

"So, on that note, which way?"

"Straight ahead," said Milford, stifling a sigh with a drag of Husky Boy smoke.

"Straight ahead it is," said Addison, and they continued onward, the corridor growing dimmer and dimmer until they were walking in almost complete darkness, the only illumination the tips of their two cigarettes.

From the corner of his eye Addison saw the red glow of Milford's Husky Boy leave its wobbling position where presumably it had been in front of Milford's face and swerve in an arc downward.

"If this were happening in a novel," said Milford's voice in the darkness, "the critics would say it was a metaphor for the absurdity of life."

Addison said nothing, as he saw the red glow rise up again to the height of Milford's mouth, and for thirty seconds the only sounds were that of the two friends' footsteps in the darkness.

"Y'know, Milford," said Addison, after these thirty seconds had elapsed, "critics really are the consummate cunts of the world."

Milford had no reply to this remark, at least none that he voiced, and the two companions walked on in the darkness that was relieved only by the glowing red tips of their cigarettes. 

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}

"The Two Friends"

 

Once again the feeling of floating, and Milford rose up into the night through the heavy falling snow, and he looked down on the city vaguely sprinkled with stars, and he fell through outer space and into the mouth of an enormous snake and came to the edge of the earth, and he looked over the edge into bottomless darkness and thought why not, and he stepped over and tumbled down and down.

"Hey, buddy."

It was Addison, reappeared out of the fog of smoke, gripping his arm.

"Oh, hello," said Milford.

"You awake?"

"Now I am."

"Good, let's get you out of here."

"All right."

Addison pulled him along, they came to a door, Addison pulled it open, and then shoved Milford gently through.

They stood in the dim hallway as the door closed behind them, and from behind the door came the sounds of Jelly Roll's piano and his singing and the babble of drunken voices.

"Okay," said Addison, "first thing, get your sweater and peacoat on, it's like the North Pole out there."

The process took no more than three minutes, maybe four, with Addison helping by buttoning up Milford's peacoat for him, because Milford's fingers had trebled in size.

"Okay, great," said Addison. "Now let's get you home."

"Wait," said Milford.

"What for?"

"Why are you helping me?"

Addison paused before answering.

"Y'know, Milford, I may be a drunk, and a pathetic remittance man, and a talentless poseur, but I like to think I am not a total reprobate, and that I am in my own small way, yes, dare I say it, a gentleman. I saw a friend in need, so I thought why not help him out?"

Now it was Milford who paused.

"I can't say that is something I've ever done," he said. "Help a friend in need. But then –"

He said nothing.

"But what?" said Addison.

"I've never had a friend," said Milford.

Addison brought out his pack of Chesterfields. One thing he hadn't mentioned was that his little beau geste in offering to walk Milford home would undoubtedly raise him in the estimation of the three ladies at his table, at least one of whom might just possibly, if not tonight, then perhaps in some vague futurity, relieve him of his virginity before he died. Even someone as loquacious as Addison knew it was possible to say too much sometimes, and why cast oneself in a bad light when so many others were willing to?

"Well, my good fellow," he said, "I hope you will consider me your friend," and he gave the Chesterfield pack a shake. "Coffin nail?"

"Thanks," said Milford, "but I prefer Woodbines."

Addison expertly inserted a Chesterfield into his lips directly from the pack.

"What is it with you and Woodbines?" he asked. "I've always been interested in other people's little pretensions."

"I saw Dylan Thomas give a reading one time at the Jewish Y, and he was smoking Woodbines."

"Well, that explains it," said Addison, taking out his book of Bob's Bowery Bar matches, "and the burly sweater and peacoat, I suppose."

"The peacoat is more an attempt to express solidarity with the working class."

"But have you ever worked yourself?"

"Never."

"Well, count yourself lucky, my lad." Addison lighted his cigarette, and tossed the match to the floor. He exhaled a great cloud of smoke, and semi-consciously assumed his "poetic" voice, which he had honed by watching Ronald Colman and George Sanders movies. "When the war ended and I was finally laid off from my job at the parachute factory, it was the happiest day of my life, and I swore never again, not if I could help it. Trust me, young Milford, there is nothing more horrible than a job."

"I have sometimes thought of shipping out on a tramp steamer."

"Why?"

"To gain experience of life?"

"Take it from me, boyo, a bruised veteran of well more than two years on the assembly lines, some experiences are better left unexperienced. No, there is nothing better than idleness. But come on, let's get out of this. You need to hit the hay, and I need to get back to that table and those three lovely ladies."

"All right."

"Do you remember how to get out of here?"

"No," said Milford.

"Me neither," said Addison, "so let's just start walking until we find an exit." 

The dim hallway went to the right and to the left, and another hallway led directly ahead.

"Might as well go this way," said Addison, pointing, and they started walking straight ahead.

They walked on into the dimness, the hallway seeming to curve very gradually, and they saw neither a doorway or an ending. They continued walking and after several minutes came to another interior crossroads, the hallway they were in leading straight ahead, and another hallway crossing it and going to the right and to the left.

"I think we turn left here," said Addison. "What do you think?"

"I have no idea," said Milford.

"Okay, let's go left."

They turned left and wandered along another gently curving hallway barely illuminated by widely spaced low-wattage lightbulbs in the ceiling until after some five minutes they came to a bifurcation, one passage curving to the right, the other to the left.

"Which way?" said Addison.

"Wait a minute," said Milford.

"Okay," said Addison.

They stopped. Addison came to the end of his Chesterfield, dropped it to the floor, and ground it out with the sole of his shoe. He looked at Milford, who was staring at the floor.

"What is it, old boy?" asked Addison.

"I feel as if I am becoming dissociated from my corporeal host," said Milford.

"I know that feeling," said Addison. "It will pass."

"What if it doesn't pass."

"That moment will come to all of us, my friend. One name for it is death."

Milford sighed.

"That," he said, "was the twelve-thousandth and thirty-second sigh I have heaved since awakening from my troubled night's sleep this morning."

"And it probably won't be your last," said Addison, "not until you fall asleep again. And then when you awaken you can start the whole process over once more."

"Maybe we should go back," said Milford.

"You mean you don't want to go home? To your presumably cozy bed?"

"Back at the bar I was sitting with an intelligent and attractive woman. And I left her there to go home and go to bed? What is wrong with me?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Addison.

"Can we go back?"

"Why not?"

"There is no reason why not."

"I agree," said Addison.

"Let's go back," said Milford.

"Okay," said Addison. "Do you remember how to get back?"

"No," said Milford.

"I suggest we turn around and attempt to retrace our steps."

"Okay."

"Shall we hie us hence then?"

"Yes."

And so they turned around and headed back the way they had presumably come. There was nothing else they could do. Or, rather, there were countless other things they could do, but this was the course they chose, and on the two friends forged through the gently curving and dim hallway.

{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}