"The Bold Romancer"

Another true tale of la vie de la bohème by Dan Leo

Illustrations and additional dialogue by rhoda penmarqfor quinnmartinmarq™ productions

This story brought to you by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

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Keeping his huge hand on Milford's small shoulder, Mr. Whitman signaled to the bartender with a finger of his other hand, which was also huge.  "Hey, Bret!" he shouted, boomed, declaimed. "When you get time." "Yeah, I see you, Walt," called the bartender, who was shaking a cocktail in a shaker. "When you get time," repeated Walt. "When I get time," yelled the bartender. Mr. Whitman leaned down and whispered in a voice like a hot scotch-redolent sirocco in Milford's ear. "Bret's had a bee in his bonnet about me ever since I told him I thought his western tales had an undeniable homoerotic flavor to them." Milford didn't care, but he didn't say so. Instead he said, if one can be said to say the sound he made, "Um." "This is the problem with writers," said Walt, no longer pretending to whisper, "they're so fucking sensitive. Oh, sorry, Miss Lou." "What?" said Miss Alcott, who had been turned again toward the minstrel band and the dancers. "Just said I'm sorry," said Mr. Whitman. "For what?" "I said a bad word in your presence." "There are no bad words." "Not even the F-word?" "Not even that word," said Miss Alcott. "Interesting," said Mr. Whitman. He finally took his heavy hand off of Milford's shoulder, and Milford felt that side of his torso rising up to the level of the other side, as if a great weight had been lifted from it. Which, he thought, is what had happened. "Now, tell me, dear Lou," said Mr. Whitman, "what are your thoughts on the C-word?" Miss Alcott had turned toward the music and dancing again, and now she swiveled back around on her stool to look at Mr. Whitman, who was bringing his pipe out of the pocket of his workman's brown chore coat. "What did you say?" she said. "I asked you about the C-word," said Mr. Whitman. "What about it?" "Do you mind it being used in your company?" From another pocket he took out a thick leather pouch. "Are you deliberately trying to get on my last nerve, Walt?" "Why, no," said Walt. He opened the pouch with thumb and finger and pinched out a big lump of something that looked like pigeon dung and stuffed it into the bowl of his pipe. "Just curious as to whether there are limits to what words you deem acceptable in mixed company." "I deem no words unacceptable, be they in mixed or unmixed company." "So you're giving me a free hand here." "I'll give you a free back of my hand in about one second," she said. Before a fight could break out, Bret the bartender was there. "What do you want, Walt?" "Ah, my good friend Bret!" boomed Mr. Whitman. He had put his leather pouch away and taken out a box of Blue Tip kitchen matches. "First off, and on my tab, another round of whatever my two friends here are drinking. What've you got there, Murphy, a grog?" "My name's Milford," said Milford, "and I'm drinking a sarsaparilla." "Sarsaparilla." "Yes," said Milford. "And before you say anything, I'm pretty sure I told you before, I am an alcoholic, and so I don't drink alcohol." "But I've seen you drink alcohol. I just saw you drink a grog back in the front bar." "That was a mistake. I was confused, because of those mushrooms I ate, and the marijuana I smoked, not to mention that stuff in your pipe that you made me smoke." "That "stuff' as you call it is, as I believe I told you, a blend of most excellent Kentucky burley and the finest Lebanese hashish, and it doesn't come cheap, and also I don't remember twisting your arm and forcing you to smoke it." "I only smoked it because I was afraid you would beat me up if I didn't." "I was only trying to be friendly." "I'm sure you were," said Milford, although he was sure of no such thing, "but, nevertheless, um –" "Yes?" said Walt. "I've lost my train of thought." "Happens to me all the time." "Walt," said the bartender, "I'm busy. What do you want to drink." "Oh, sorry, Bret," said Mr. Whitman. He lighted up his pipe with a kitchen match. The bartender looked annoyed, but he waited for Mr. Whitman to finish puffing. He exhaled an enormous cloud of thick musky smoke, and then said. "A nice hot grog for me. And whatever 'lady drink' Miss Lou is drinking, and another grog for my young friend Malone here." "He was drinking sarsaparilla," said Bret. "Give him a grog," said Mr. Whitman. "I don't want a grog," said Milford. "Also my name is not Malone." "Two grogs, and a lady drink for Miss Lou," said Mr. Whitman.  "Coming right up," said Bret. Mr. Whitman turned again to Milford. "You don't happen to have any more of those mushrooms on you, do you? The sacred mushrooms of the noble red man?" "No." "I wish I had some of those." "Well, I'm sorry, I don't have any." "Are you still feeling them?" "I think they're wearing off, I hope they are, anyway." "Here, take a toke of this." He offered the pipe to Milford. "No thanks," said Milford. "As you can see I'm smoking a cigarette." Mr. Whitman cast a cold eye on the pack of Husky Boys on the bar, and touched it with a finger. "Those things will kill you, son." "Sooner rather than later, I hope," said Milford. "Spoken like a true poète maudit! But here's the thing about this stuff," said Mr. Whitman, raising up his pipe in an admiring sort of way. "It induces the dreams from which we extract poetry. A few bowls of this mixture, and I can knock out twenty pages of immortal verse as easy as falling off a log. Come on, take a hit, it's not going to kill you." "If I 'take a hit', will you stop pestering me?" "I promise." "Good, give me that pipe." Milford took the pipe and drew deep. What did it matter? At least it wasn't alcohol, and he had to admit, there was something soothing about the smoke, something that seemed to flush away his worries, his fears, his awareness even of his own self. Mr. Whitman, smiling somewhere within his thick brindled beard, took out his box of kitchen matches again, struck one and held the flame to the bowl of the pipe as Milford continued to draw and puff. "There you go, my lad," said the big man, who now seemed even bigger, "suck deep, my friend, deep within your lungs, but try to hold it in longer before exhaling, as long as you can." Milford did as he was enjoined to do. The music played, the dancers danced.  At last Milford drew upon the pipe but nothing but stale air came through the mouthpiece. "It's kicked," said Mr. Whitman, and he took the pipe. "How do you feel?" "Um," said Milford, because that was all he was able to say. "Take a drink of that grog now," said Milford. There was a metal tankard sitting there, steam floating up from the liquid in it. Milford took up the tankard and drank. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice. "Now don't you feel better?" said Stoney, Milford's alter ego, from not so deep inside Milford's brain. The singer of the minstrel band was singing another song now. Through this old world I been a-rambling from east to west from north to south drinking and whoring and gambling and these are the words that escape my mouth. Don't you drink that rotgut whiskey or that gin that's brewed in a tub, just float down the mighty Mississippi, giving your manhood a gentle rub "Oh, I love this song!" cried Miss Alcott, swiveling about on her stool again. She tugged on Milford's arm, just as he was about to raise his tankard for a second gulp. "Milford, you must dance with me!" "Uh," he said. "Come on, daddy-o!" cried Miss Alcott. "Are you going to live your whole life sitting out the great barn dance of life?" "Um, yes?" said Milford. "Never fear," boomed Mr. Whitman. "I shall dance with you, Lou!" He held out his arm, she took it, climbed down from her seat, and off the two of them went to the dance floor. "Okay," said Stoney, who was now standing next to Milford. "You blew that one, big time." "I'm sorry," said Milford. "But I just couldn't." "Hey, ya know what?" said Stoney. "It doesn't matter." He picked up the tankard that Mr. Whitman had left on the bar, raised it up, and took a good long drink. He put the tankard back down and said, "Ahhh. Not bad. Okay. Get up, pal. We're gonna get you out of here." "Really?" said Milford. "Unless you want to stay." Milford looked out at the dance floor. Miss Alcott and Mr. Whitman were dancing vigorously, Miss Alcott twirling around the big man, their raised hands touching fingers to fingers. They were having what appeared to be a good time. "I know," said Stoney, "I know, you were hoping to lose your virginity with her, but, let's face it, pal, I don't think that was going to happen. Not tonight, anyway. Come on." "Should I finish this tankard of grog?" "Well, that all depends. Do you want to feel like total warmed over dogshit all day tomorrow?" "No," said Milford. "Then let's go, now, while you're ahead." "I'd hate for Miss Alcott to think I was being rude." "She'll understand." "You think so?" "She's a trained novelist. Of course she'll understand. Now let's go." Milford climbed off of his stool. He wavered, and swayed, and wobbled, but he did not fall. The singer sang. Oh I'm a bold and brave romancer wandering round through hill and dale. Folks say I'm just a chancer as I walk through snow and rain and hail. Yes, I am a bold romancer and I will sing my song real loud. I am also a hearty dancer and I do the race of man right proud…

“I Wisht I Was a Drop of Rain"

Another true tale of la vie de la bohème by Dan Leo

Illustrations and additional dialogue by rhoda penmarq, exclusively for quinnmartinmarq™ productions

This episode brought to you by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

"My newest 'rage' is the Husky Boy patented 'Ladies' Cork Tip' in Marvelous Magenta!" – Hyacinth Wilde, now appearing in Artemis Broadwater's Footsteps in the Gloaming at the Demotic Theatre

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Miss Alcott turned again to look in the direction of the minstrel band and the dancing people, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others Milford didn't recognize, although unless he was very much mistaken, that was Frank Norris and the young Edith Wharton kicking their legs in unison.  Milford wished he could lose himself in the music, in the moment, but he had never been able to escape the prison of his personhood without the aid of alcohol, and he had not consumed nearly enough alcohol tonight to do so. He took another drink of his sarsaparilla. Should he say, "Damn the torpedoes," the torpedoes of discretion, and ask the bartender to add a large jolt of whiskey to his sarsaparilla? No, that way madness lay, no, maybe not madness, but quite possibly passing out in an alleyway in the snow and freezing to death, which might not be a bad thing, but nevertheless Milford was a coward, and even though he had never enjoyed life, he was afraid of dying. He sighed, for the twelve-thousandth and twenty-second time since reluctantly assuming consciousness that morning which seemed like well over a year ago. The singer of the band was now singing another song. Oh I wisht I was a drop of rain falling off the eave I wisht I was the baby Jesus on that very first Christmas eve… Milford was sitting at his desk, looking through the window with its snow-crusted muntins out at the snowflakes falling on the snow-whitened old elm tree and onto MacDougal Street, also covered with snow, and on the snow-covered cars and people going by. On the desk blotter before him was the blank sheet of vellum foolscap, the same yellowed and foxed sheet that he had stared at every morning for the past fifty years, waiting for inspiration to come, for that first word to come. Yes, he had once been young but now he was old. He was almost as old as his mother, who was still alive, as was their faithful maid Maria, who had as usual brought him the Drip-o-lator of hot strong coffee which sat on a stained ceramic trivet to his right. For fifty long years he had sat at this desk, waiting. He picked up his old Montblanc fountain pen, unscrewed the cap, and replaced the cap on the barrel of the pen. Fifty years. The Martians had landed, but after a few weeks they had returned to their home planet, bored. The Russians had adopted capitalism, whereas the United States had become a social democracy, with free food, housing, and medical care for all. A thriving colony had been established on the Moon, transporting precious minerals to the earth in enormous rocket ships the size of ocean liners.  War had been declared against the Martians, and fortunately the Federation of Earthling Nations had triumphed, with human casualties amounting to just shy of fifty million. Atomic-powered flying cars were now all the rage, but many people still preferred cars that ran on wheels on the ground. Disease had been eradicated, and people now only died from accidents, murder, and suicide. It had been fifty years since Milford had taken a drink, but he still missed it sometimes. Milford recapped his fountain pen, and lighted up a Husky Boy. It was true, cancer had been eradicated, but cigarettes had still lost none of their charm.  He smoked, and gazed through the window at the falling snow. Suddenly he had an idea. Well, not exactly an idea per se, but a faint glimmering of a possibility of an idea. He picked up his pen again and uncapped it. He took a deep breath, coughed, and, at long last, he put pen to paper… "Marvin, my boy, there you are!" A great hand clapped Milford on the shoulder.  He turned, yanked like a yo-yo from the future back to the present.  It was Walt Whitman.  "Oh, hello, Mister, uh, Whitman," he said. "Walt, my lad, Walt! I thought we had long gotten past the use of Mister!" "Hello, Walt," said Milford. "I was wondering where you'd got to, what mischief you were getting up to, you young rapscallion you! Ah, but I see you are sitting with the lovely Miss Alcott. Hiya, Lou." Miss Alcott had turned also and was looking at Mr. Whitman. "Hi, Walt." "And so you have met my young friend Morgan!" "I thought his name was Milford," said Lou. "Is that what you told her, Muggles?" "Yes," said Milford. "You see, my name actually is Milford." "Are you sure?" said Walt Whitman. For a moment Milford said nothing, as the music played and the singer sang, and all around him people laughed and shouted. "Yes," said Milford, at a point just seconds away from rudeness, "I'm pretty sure my name is Milford." To be honest with himself, he wasn't completely sure, but he was pretty sure, unless this all was a dream, his whole life, and he was someone else. The singer in the band was singing. Oh I wisht I was a flake of snow,  falling from the sky I wisht I was the baby Jesus with a twinkle in his eye "My boy," said Walt Whitman, squeezing Milford's narrow shoulder with his massive hand, "my beamish boy – now, my lad, now the fun begins!" About time, too, thought Milford, but he didn't say that.  The singer was still singing. Oh I wisht I was a shooting star falling from the night I wisht I was the baby Jesus setting the whole world right

"Hot Cross Buns"

Yet another true tale of la vie de la bohème by Dan Leo

Illustrations and additional dialogue by rhoda penmarq, exclusively for quinnmartinmarq™ productions

This episode brought to you by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

"Big Boys smoke Husky Boys!" – Hyacinth Wilde, star of Horace P. Sternwall's smash new stage comedy Get Hep, Daddy-O!  

for previous story, click here

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The bartender came over. "Would you two lovebirds care for another round?" "What?" said Miss Alcott, who had been gazing at the minstrel band, her head swaying with the music. "Another round, Lou?" "Oh, yes, Bret," she said, "another one of these delicious Amontillados for me and a fresh tankard of sarsaparilla for my friend Milford. "You got it, babe," said Bret the bartender. "And it's on my tab." "No!" said Milford. "Please, Miss Alcott, let me –" "Nonsense," said Miss Alcott. "You are my guest, and I won't hear of it." The bartender took Miss Alcott's empty glass and Milford's tankard and went away, and Miss Alcott swiveled on her stool to face Milford. "I wonder would you care to dance, good sir?" "Um, uh –" "Look at Emily and Harriet out there tripping the light fantastic." On the small dance floor, among a group of other dancers dressed in old-fashioned clothes, Emily and Harriet were lifting their skirts and kicking their legs to the sprightly music. Dancing with them, or at any rate near them, was Nathaniel Hawthorne, seemingly impersonating an excited chicken. "Um," said Milford. "Doesn't it look like fun?" said Miss Alcott. "They're dancing the Black Bottom. Do you know that dance?" "I don't think so." "A most delightful Negro dance. I could show you how to do it." "I don't think so." "You don't think I can show you how? Oh, but I assure you I can, and will, and shall." "Here ya go, Lou," said the bartender, laying down a pony glass of golden liquid in front of Miss Alcott, and a metal tankard in front of Milford.  "Thank you so much, Bret," said Lou. "And now, Milford, take a quick quaff of your sarsaparilla and let us cut a rug, sir!" "Okay, Miss Alcott," said Milford, "two things. One, I don't dance." "Nonsense. Everyone can dance. Everyone with legs, anyway." "I would humbly disagree, but here's the other thing." "Oh, yes, you said two things." Miss Alcott had been smoking a cigarette, and now she stubbed it out in the cut-glass ashtray on the bar between them. "This is very difficult for me to say," said Milford. "Out with it, lad." "I have become possessed of another erection." Miss Alcott looked downward at Milford's inguinal area, over which he was holding the front tails of his peacoat. "Are you sure?" she said. "Yes, I am afraid so," said Milford. "I'm trying to hide it under my peacoat, as you see." She lifted her glass and took a sip of the golden liquid. "I had not known that I was so physically alluring," she said. "Either that or you are a most virile young man!" "I think it's those mushrooms I ate," said Milford.  "Oh, yes, the mushrooms." "They are affecting me in the strangest ways." "So you don't think you'd be able to dance?" "I'm not even sure I could stand upright." "What you must do is try to think of something else." "I'm trying, but it's difficult." "Didn't you say that some little man in the Pointers room advised you to think of your mother, and that doing so deflated your tumescence?" "Oh, right." "So, think about her again. Think about your mother." "I've lived my whole life trying not to think about my mother." "But it's for a good cause. Look, tell me about this mysterious mother of yours. Tell me about the good Mrs. Milford." "She is a harpy. Or should I say a harridan?" "Those are harsh words, dear Milford." "You don't know her. She has always treated me as if I were a complete disappointment to her." "And have you been a complete disappointment to her?" "Yes. But still." "Still what?" "No one likes to be despised by his own mother." "But have you tried not to be a disappointment to her?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I want to be myself." "Which is what?" "A fool," said Milford. "And why do you want to be a fool?" "I don't want to be a fool, but that's what I am." "And yet you still want to be yourself." "Yes. I realize it's a quandary. But, you see, someday I hope not to be a fool." "A noble ambition." "Oh." "Oh what?" "My erection. It has subsided." "Oh, good. Does this mean we can dance now?" "I'm afraid not. I may be a fool, Miss Alcott, but I choose not to be a dancing fool. However, if you wish to dance without me, please, do so." "No, I think I would rather sit here and continue to plumb your depths." "That shouldn't take very long," said Milford. "Are you saying you have no depths to plumb?" "I'm saying my depths are more like a puddle than an ocean. An inch deep at best." "I have rarely met a man so self-deprecatory." "I am only trying to be honest." "Trying?" "And probably failing." Milford suddenly realized that he hadn't smoked a cigarette in a half hour or more, he whose one consistent pleasure in life was to smoke, and who spent most of his waking hours with a lighted cigarette either in his lips or in his fingers, so much so that when he had gone for his draft physical the Selective Service doctor had dismissed him after only the most cursory soundings of his narrow chest, awarding him the precious status of 4-F, and so who was to say that smoking was bad for your health? Was it worse for your health than getting shot at? Milford thought not! At any rate he fished out his pack of Husky Boys and his lighter, and, if nothing else, having been raised a gentleman, he offered the pack to Miss Alcott. "Husky Boys," she said. "Are they as good as Lucky Strikes?" "You're asking the wrong person," he said. "For me cigarettes started as an affectation but have become, more or less, my raison d'être. Taste and flavor are the least of my considerations, and I've never yet had a cigarette I didn't like." "And are Husky Boys your cigarette of choice?" "No, I usually smoke this English brand called Woodbines, because I saw Dylan Thomas smoking them at a poetry reading and I wanted to be like him, but then this evening the poet Wallace Stevens pointed out to me that I was being pretentious, and told me to smoke American cigarettes. And so tonight I chose Husky Boys at random from the cigarette machine." "You lead a very interesting life, don't you?" "Only if you're interested in case studies of terminal neurosis." "Ha ha. Very well, I shall try one of your Husky Boys!" She took a cigarette in her delicate fingers, and like a gentleman Milford lighted her cigarette and then his own. The minstrel band was playing the opening bars of a new number now, "Camptown Races", or was it "Polly Wolly Doodle" or something else? "You have still not told me of your hopes and your dreams," said Miss Alcott. "I hope to be a great poet," said Milford. "And this is also my dream. However, one great and seemingly insurmountable obstacle stands in my way." "And pray what is that, dear boy?" asked Miss Alcott. "A complete and utter lack of talent," said Milford. "Oh, my dear, dear boy," said Miss Alcott. "My dearest idealistic but, oh, so naïve boy. Look around you." She waved her cigarette at the people at the tables, on the dance floor, and sitting at the bar. "Look at Mr. Longfellow there, at Mistress Bradstreet, at Mr. Poe, at Mr. Whittier and the two young Messrs. Crane! Where would any of them be if they let a minor detail like a lack of talent stand in their way?" Milford almost failed to hear what the lady was saying, so absorbed was he in enjoying his first cigarette in what seemed like a lifetime, but then the import of her words stormed the gates of the embattled fortress of his brain. He coughed before speaking, his usual smoker's cough, nothing to be alarmed about, at least not yet. "Do you mean to say," he said, "that there is hope for me still?" "Yes," said Miss Alcott. "The unwritten great poems are out there, in the ether if you will, waiting only to be born into this world. You must only allow yourself to receive them." "But," said Milford. "Yes?" "How do I allow myself to receive these poems?" "You sit down with a pen, and paper, you let your mind go blank, or, failing that, let it wander hither and fro, and you wait." "That's all?" "That is all." "And how long must I wait?" "Perhaps a lifetime." "So there's no guarantee." "Of course not. It's sheerly a matter of luck." Milford took another drag of his Husky Boy. Tomorrow he would ask Maria the maid to make him an especially strong pot of coffee and bring it to his room. He would fill his fountain pen (the handsome black and gold Montblanc that T.S. Eliot himself had given him) and put a blank sheet of foolscap on the blotter of his small desk in front of the leaded window looking out onto Bleecker Street.  He would wait. He would hope to get lucky. The singer of the band was singing now. If you have no daughters, give them to your sons. one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!