“The Bob’s Bowery Bar Christmas Miracle”

A heartwarming tale for the season by Dan Leo

Copiously illustrations by rhoda penmarq

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Gee, them girls was sumpin,” said Little Joe, the littlest of the five or six guys named Joe who frequented Bob’s Bowery Bar. “They was really sumpin. I ain’t never seen girls like them in here before.” “And you never will again,” said Seamas McSeamas, the Irish poet. “’Twas an aberration, lad. An errant shifting of the stars and planets.” “They said they was gonna come back in on Christmas Eve for Bob’s annual Christmas party,” said the guy they called Wine, because all he drank was white port wine and lemon juice.  “Them girls was in their cups when they said that,” leaned in fat Angie, the retired whore who now sold artificial flowers on the street. “They won’t come back in this joint. Them girls was class, my friend – high class.” “High class they was, Angie,” said Seamas. “Terpsichoreans by profession.” “You watch your mouth, you drunken Mick,” said Angie. “They was ladies and I ain’t gonna sit here listenin’ to you impugn ‘em.” “I was not impugning them, dear Angie,” said Seamas. “A terpsichorean you see is a dancer.” “Then whyn’tcha say that instead of showin’ off with your big words, ya pretentious Paddy bastard ya.” Seamas could see Bob looking at them from down the bar, so he let it go. No one ever won an argument with Angie, retired whore or not. “Gee they was swell babes,” said Little Joe. “I sure would like to see ‘em again.” “Me too,” said Wine. “I wouldn’t try to talk to them or nothing. I just would like to look at them.” “Me too,” said Little Joe. “I wouldn’t know what to talk to them about anyways.” “Ladies like that don’t talk to bums like youse guys,” said Angie. “I realize that, Angie,” said Little Joe. “I’m just sayin’ is all.” “The Brain talked to them,” said Wine. “I seen ‘em. They was just chatterin’ away with the Brain.” “The Brain is an educated man,” said Seamas. “A philosopher.” “He’s a bum,” said Angie. “That may be true,” said Seamas, “but he is an educated bum if you will, and a philosophical one.” “A bum,” said Angie.  “He went home with ‘em,” said Wine. “I seen ‘em. Went out the door together.” “That is because they live in the same building round the corner,” said Seamas. “They live around here?” said Little Joe. “Right around the corner,” said Seamas. “Maybe they will come in then,” said Little Joe. “For the party I mean.” “Don’t bank on it, baby,” said Angie. “I’ll tell ya one thing,” said Wine. “I ain’t leavin’ here all night, just in case they do come in.” “You better take it easy on that white port wine and lemon juice then,” said Angie. It was only five in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and so the annual Bob’s Bowery Bar Christmas Eve party was hardly in full swing yet, but not only Wine, but Little Joe, and Seamas, and even Angie, they were all determined to stay here all night just in case the two beautiful girls did show up. Of course, they all no doubt would have stayed all night anyway, or for as long as their funds lasted, but now they had a real reason not to go anywhere else, a reason even more important than the desire for drunken oblivion and loud meaningless roistering. The time passed, and more of the usual crowd rolled in out of the snow falling outside, and at seven Bob and his mom and Janet the waitress laid out the annual free Christmas buffet: pretzels and chips, hard-boiled eggs, hot cross buns, pigs-in-blankets, and three big hotel pans filled with hot roast beef in gravy, hot turkey in gravy, and hot ham in red-eye gravy, with a mountain of kaiser rolls to make sandwiches with. Many of the regulars hadn’t eaten all day in anticipation of the free once-a-year feast, and Bob prevented no one from coming back for more, even Seamas, who ate at least seven sandwiches and no one knew how many hardboiled eggs and pigs-in-a-blanket. The one regular customer notably missing all night was Gerry “the Brain” Goldsmith, but it was known that Gerry came from a wealthy family, so maybe he was scrounging off them this Christmas Eve; it was possible, if only faintly so. The hours tumbled loudly by, the bar was packed, but still the two beautiful young ladies had not appeared. Little Joe actually began to cry into his bock beer. “They ain’t comin’,” he said. “They ain’t comin’. They ain’t comin’ tonight nor never.” “Brace up, lad,” said Seamas. “At least you saw them that one night. Try to remember that, and hold tight to the memory in your heart.” “Just one more time I wanted to see ‘em,” said Wine. “Just once. I wouldna tried to talk to them or nothin’. Honest. I wouldna scared ‘em away. I only just woulda looked.” “I toldjez they wouldn’t come,” said Angie. “Ladies they was. Real ladies. Sumpin you clowns wouldn’t know about.” More time roared by in drunkenness and shouted carols, and if anything the bar got even more packed, but then, just as the old Ball railroad clock above the bar clicked midnight, the front door opened, letting in a blast of snow and icy air. As if on command everyone in the bar fell quiet and turned to look. The only sound was Bing Crosby on the juke box, singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”.  At first the swirling snow obscured the man holding the door open, but then everyone could see it was no other than Gerry Goldsmith, known as the Brain, in his same old ancient chesterfield coat and battered grey fedora. Looking outside, he made a gallant waving motion with one arm, and who should walk in like two goddesses out of the Christmas falling snow but the two beautiful young ladies, the blonde called Pat and the brunette named Carlotta. Pat wore a leopard-spotted pillbox hat and Carlotta a snow-dappled red beret. Laughing they entered, and the smiling Brain pushed the door shut against the snowstorm. “It’s a miracle,” whispered Little Joe. “A Christmas miracle,” said Seamas. “Now I know there is a God,” said Wine. “Ladies,” said Angie. “Real ladies. Smiling at Christmas on the likes of us, and God bless ‘em.” Well, I’ll be damned, thought Bob, and he decided right then he wasn’t going to charge those girls for a single drink, and, what the hell, the Brain too. Because it was a miracle.  A goddam Christmas miracle. next story

minnie the midget's christmas

story by horace p sternwall

art by konrad kraus and danny delacroix

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they called her minnie the midget. she was not really that small. but she was small enough and had a baby face and big blue eyes and for a long time she was able to pass for a little girl, especially in a dim light. especially at night, under street lights, or at the entrances to bus stations and subways where she told sad stories to passersby, mostly about how mommy was sick and how daddy had drunk up the rent money or lost it at the track. she worked this ticket for many years, all over this great land, from seattle to miami beach, from tijuana to bangor maine, up and down the mississippi river from chicago to new orleans, and back and forth on route 66, getting her kicks and boosting from the hicks. but you can’t grift father time, and the lines began to appear on minnie’s face as clear as the tracks on the atchison topeka and santa fe railroad. the pickings got slimmer and slimmer. one night just before christmastime, a few blocks from the bowery in the greatest city in the world, minnie found herself on a park bench, accompanied only by a pint bottle of wine. the snow began to fall. minnie took a few hits of the wine. out of the mist a small figure appeared. it looked, from outward appearances, like a little waif of a girl, the kind minnie had spent so much of her life impersonating. the little girl stopped and stared at minnie. who are you? minnie asked. i am the ghost of christmas past, said the little girl. and i just want to remind you of all the real little girls, with real sick mommies and real drunken daddies who might have benefited from all the money you so shamelessly scallywagged from honest folk all these years. yeah, well, merry christmas to you too, minnie said. the little girl passed by, and a few minutes later a second figure appeared. it seemed to be a tall, regally erect grayhaired woman. minnie thought she looked like the statue of liberty, or like abraham lincoln’s wife in a movie she had seen a few days ago on 42nd street. who might you be? minnie asked. i am the ghost of christmas future, said the woman. i would just like to inform you that the time is coming when an enlightened society will take proper care of all needy and deserving children, and such skullduggery as you have inflicted on a gullible public all these years will no longer be a viable option, even for someone as cynical and depraved as yourself. that sounds wonderful, minnie said. merry christmas and happy new year. the grayhaired lady went on her way. a few minutes later a third figure appeared. a redfaced rednosed man, hatless, with his white hair blowing in the cold breeze, wearing a long coat that might have been red when it was new and clean. you must be the ghost of christmas present, said minnie. no, said the man, i am only santa claus, and i would like to buy you a drink. next story

"The Butler"

A tale of two young ladies in the big city by Dan Leo

Copiously illustrated by rhoda penmarq

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“Oh, my dear God!” said Carlotta. “What,” groaned Pat, from her bed on the other side of the “oriental” folding screen which afforded them at least the fantasy of more than one room in their apartment (“Lg studio w/kitchenette & bath. Heat water electric incl. Bleecker off Bowery”). “Oh my dear God in Heaven!” said Carlotta. “What?” said Pat. “I’m so hungover!” said Carlotta. “Oh,” said Pat. “Is that all it is. I thought maybe a rat jumped up on your bed and was staring at you.” “Heh heh,” said Carlotta, as opposed to actually laughed Carlotta. “What did we do last night?” asked Pat, not in the sense of what awful thing did we do last night, but rather a simple curious question as to what in fact the two girls had done. “We went to Bob’s Bowery Bar after we left the Prince Hal Room.” “No!” “Yes, we did.” On their opposite sides of the oriental (made by immigrant Chinese women in a little factory down in Mott Street) partition each girl lay on her back smoking a cigarette. Carlotta had an ashtray on her stomach, a glass ashtray with the words THE ST CRISPIAN HOTEL WHERE THE SERVICE IS SWELL emblazoned on it in gold and red paint. Pat was using an open copy of Photoplay for an ashtray, dropping her ashes on an article titled MONTY CLIFT – HOLLYWOOD’S BROODING LONER? OR SECRET LOVER BOY? “Oh, my dear Lord,” said Pat, after a half-a-minute’s rare silence between the young ladies. “I remember! What were we thinking?” “That’s just it,” said Carlotta. “We weren’t thinking. Those guys in the Prince Hal Room kept buying us drinks and we got drunk. And then when they got fresh we ran out and jumped in a cab to supposedly go home.” “I remember, and when the cab passed by Bob’s Bowery Bar we thought it would be a good night to try it out, heh heh. After that I remember nothing.” “We were so drunk.” “I hope we didn’t disgrace ourselves,” said Pat, stifling a yawn. “It’s a dive. How could we disgrace ourselves there?” “Good point. Well, at least we got home somehow.” “I want coffee. I’ll give you a dollar if you make a pot of coffee.” “The hell with you, sister. You make it.” “I make splendid coffee,” said a man’s voice. Both girls screamed and pulled their bedclothes up to their necks, being careful not to drop their cigarettes, although Carlotta’s ashtray and Pat’s Photoplay both slid to the floor. A man laboriously stood up from where he had apparently been lying on the rug at the feet of the two beds. He was a middle-aged, dumpy fellow, wearing a shabby old chesterfield and a beat-up fedora. Each girl could see exactly one half of him on either side of the oriental Mott Street screen. “I assume the coffee and percolator are in your kitchenette?” He smiled at each girl in turn on either side of the screen, his hands folded together in an ingratiating sort of way. “Who,” said Carlotta. “Are you,” said Pat. “Oh,” said the man. “I could have sworn we introduced ourselves last night, but I’m Gerry. Gerard Goldsmith. But please call me Gerry. They all call me ‘The Brain’ down at Bob’s heh heh, God knows why, but please, call me Gerry.” Simultaneously each girl suddenly recognized the man as someone they had passed occasionally on the stairs of their tenement apartment house, a funny-looking man who always doffed his hat and said good day or good evening with a shy smile. “What,” said Carlotta. “Are you doing here,” said Pat. “’Gerry’,” said Carlotta. “You don’t remember inviting me in?” said Gerry, turning his glance from one side of the screen to the other, in order to include both girls in the question. “We,” said Pat. “Invited you,” said Carlotta. “In,” said Pat. “’Gerry’” said Carlotta. “Yes, and what a swell time we had!” said Gerry. “In fact, I should say it was the most, what’s the word, scintillating time I’ve ever had in my life!” Oh, no, thought both girls, simultaneously. Please God no. “Uh,” said Carlotta. “Um,” said Pat. “So, I’d better get to that coffee,” said Gerry. “Don’t you two ladies even budge. Just let me know, cream or black, and how many sugars?” Both girls paused before answering. They heard the el roar by on the other side of the building, and after its roar had faded Carlotta said cream, two sugars, and Pat said cream, one sugar. next story

the damned

story by horace p sternwall

art by konrad kraus and danny delacroix

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trixie was getting desperate, she had married frank o’connell when she was 17 and he was 48, confident that he would be dead - from a heart attack or overwork or drinking or old age - in three or four years. but here it was going on five years, and he was still alive. he was still making money, more than ever, from the construction business that he inherited from his father and he was still in solid with his pals in city hall and the assembly. but trixie wasn’t getting any younger, and when would she get to spend the money all by herself ? and not have to put up with frank and his drunken, slobby, and occasionally jealous ways. and then, suddenly she saw some light… frank started staying out on a regular basis on a particular night of the week - thursday, to be exact. maybe he was just playing poker with some slice of his huge group of pals, but he never said so, and he never seemed to get any calls where he talked about a poker game or anything like it. no, trixie told herself, it must have come at last - a girl friend! divorce court, here i come! alimony, give me a great big hug! trixie had long had the names (in her head, not written down) of some private detectives who specialized in such matters. so one night when she was sure frank was at a corned beef and cabbage dinner for one of his assembly buddies, she put in a phone call to al’s bar, an establishment that was known to be a favorite watering hole of private detectives. this is al’s bar, a voice, probably of al himself, answered. hello, is vic vance there? or maybe lou gracchus? both of those bums are here. hold on, i’ll get vance for you. after about ten seconds, a growling voice on the line. vic vance here. mister vance? i wonder if you could help me. i understand you specialize in divorce work. that a lot of other things. but. yeah, i can probably help you out. you have a name? i prefer not to tell you my name just yet. maybe we could meet? sure. how about right here at al’s? i would rather not. it is too well known for this sort of thing. how about the all night automat on bedford st? beside the hotel st crispian? i know that place. you want to meet there now? no. how about - two thirty tomorrow afternoon. is that too early for you? no, that’s good. how will i know you? i will be wearing a cute little red hat. and i am kind of cute myself. then i guess i won’t have any problem spotting you. * a week later. trixie sat at a little table in the all night automat, poking at a piece of lemon meringue pie and looking out at a light rain. she was waiting for vic vance to show up for their second meeting, and to hear his first report. she had avoided contacting him by phone since her original call. vance showed up on time, as he had for the first meeting. he sat down across from trixie without bothering to buy anything for himself. so how did it go? trixie got right down to business. very strange, vance answered. in fact, unique in my experience, and i thought i had seen it all. you do not say so. can you be a little more specific? well, let me tell you how it went down. i staked out your husband’s office on thursday, just like you said. and it starts to get dark, and it’s a little after five o’clock and a guy comes out of the building, and it looks like your husband, from the pictures i seen of him. and then i think, wait a minute, it can’t be him, look how he’s dressed, like a complete bum. heavy overcoat, a hat that looks a dog got at it, shoes that look they got holes in them, you follow me? so i think it can’t be him. so i step back into the shadows, and commence to wait some more. but i wait and wait, and nobody looks like your husband comes out. and the lights in the building go out. and i finally think, hey, that guy dressed like a bum must have been him after all. trixie was getitng a little impatient, but she just said, and then what? well, vic vance does not cheat his clients, mrs o’connell, but aims to give them full value. now you told me he is always putting on the feedbag at some function on fridays, and then it is the weekend. and you said he always goes missing on thursday, but some other nights too, so i take a chance and look out for him on monday night. you follow me? yes, he got home late on monday. go on. well, on monday night i get lucky, and the guy dressed like a bum comes out again, dressed exactly the same, and this time i follow him. i follow him down sixth avenue to bleecker street, and then down bleecker to the bowery. not really that surprising, the way he’s dressed. but - the bowery! trixie exclaimed. he goes into an establishment on the corner, called bob’s bowery bar. are you familiar with it? i don’t think so. it does not sound like a place i would grace with my presence. well, i know the place. it is a place you just walk into without getting checked out, in fact you can just sit in it all day as long as you don’t make trouble, so i follow him right in. trixie laughed. i think i am starting to get the picture. he meets some redfaced straggly haired drunken bimbo his own age… no, nothing like that at all. hear me out. there is a big table in the center of the floor and seven or eight guys sitting around it and your husband joins them. nobody pays you much mind in a place like this so i get a draft at the bar and sit down at a table right beside them where i can hear everything they say. and they all talk loud! they all have red noses and look they could use a shave and a haircut. and you know what they are? no, tell me. poets! they all call themselves poets, and write poetry. poetry? you mean, like in the sixth grade? what does frank want with them? he calls himself a poet too. they don’t know him as frank o’connell the construction magnate, but as salty mcwilliams the hobo poet. he is leading what you call a double life. trixie just stared at vance, who continued. anyway, whatever else these guys are, they seem very friendly, especially if you buy them a drink, so i go over and join them and get friendly. they start reading and reciting their poems, and your husband, who they know as salty, reads a couple of his, and i ask him if he will write one down for me, and he gives me the paper he was reading from and autographs it for me, which was nice of him. vance took a piece of paper out of his breast pocket. want to hear it? trixie shrugged. if you insist. i am still trying to process this. vance started to read - we are the damned of the damned, my friend with footsteps down the centuries far from the castles and penthouses of those who do as they please the stars are our fathers, distant and cold the jails our welcoming mothers the roads our pitiless teachers stray cats and dogs our brothers the railroad tracks glitter, but do not smile the bulls break their sticks on our heads we dream of beauty and kindness but only - o k, that is enough, trixie interrupted. tell me, are there any laws against this stuff? anything i can use for a divorce? for having a double life or whatever? i would not think so. but if you want to pay a lawyer, you can. vance took another, more neatly folded piece of paper, out of his pocket and put it on the table. here is my report, he told trixie. if you want to try a lawyer, let me recommend will wiley. here, let me write his number down. he took out a pen and wrote on the back of the report. i can keep trying, if you like, maybe we can find something else. trixie shook her head. i don’t think so. i will call you at al’s if i change my mind. trixie had paid vance up front in cash for what he had done. he got up, tipped his hat, and left. trixie stared out at bedford street. the rain was falling a little harder. she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. when she thought about frank she wanted to laugh. when she thought about herself she wanted to cry. next story

"The Genie"

A phantasy of the writer's life by Dan Leo

Lavishly illustrated by rhoda penmarq

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It didn’t happen often, but Harry Beachcroft was stuck. He had been sitting at his battered old Royal portable all afternoon, and he still hadn’t typed a single word. This is what happened when your rent was a month overdue, when you hadn’t had a story or a novel accepted in three months, this is what happened when you really needed to make a sale!  Harry lighted up another Philip Morris Commander and looked out through the thick smoke of his fifth-floor walk-up out at the grey December rooftops of the Bowery, at the elevated tracks, at the sky that promised snow. How he wished he could be downstairs and just around the corner at Bob’s Bowery Bar, hoisting an imperial pint of Bob’s rich basement-brewed bock, carousing with the rest of the gang of pulp writers, bad poets, four-flushers, punks, and assorted reprobates, but he had promised himself he wouldn’t go down to the bar until he had at least knocked out a first draft of a story or the first chapter of a novel or maybe a novella. Something, goddammit! Why couldn’t a genie suddenly appear out of this cloud of cigarette smoke and tell him a story fully-formed, so that all Harry would need to do was type it up – and Harry was a fast typist, too! The hell with it, the thing to do was just to start typing, just bash out the first nonsense that came into his head, and let the devil take the hindmost. And so Harry typed: Gary Meeker was blocked, blocked goddammit! He had been sitting here in his Bunker Hill hotel room overlooking the Angel’s Flight railway tracks all this hot August afternoon, trying to find a way into this screenplay he needed to write, and write quick, before he got kicked out of his room and had to shift quarters to Skid Row. Mel Melvin over at Colossal Studios had promised him five hundred bucks for an original script in their Range Riders of the Jungle series if he could turn it in by Monday, but here it was Friday and he had idea zero, zilch, nada, nothing! What he wouldn’t give for an angel to drop down from heaven and give him a story idea – an angel, a genie, a devil, Gary didn’t give a damn. “Well, here I am,” said a voice, kind of like Peter Lorre’s, and Gary turned, and sitting there yogi-style on the unmade bed was a little guy dressed up like an Arabian. He was smoking a roll-your-own, and if Gary was not mistaken it was a reefer. “You say you need a story, Mr. Meeker? I got a million of them. You ready?” “Sure, pal,” said Gary. “Fire away. But can you make it about the Range Riders of the Jungle?” “No problem,” said the little guy. “Okay, then,” said Gary. He cracked his knuckles, then splayed his fingers over his battered old Olivetti portable. “Go.” And the genie began to tell his tale. next story