Milford had the feeling that he himself, qua himself, was not quite congruent with the body he inhabited, and that he was being carried along across the barroom willy nilly. He couldn't feel his feet, but he could feel the warm smoky air touching his face, and the music and the babbling of voices poured into his ears, and the odors and the tastes of tobacco smoke, and, yes, what he now recognized as marijuana and hashish smoke, and other types of smoke he couldn't identify ("Probably opium," said the voice of his alter ego Stoney in his brains) drew deeply into his nasal and oral orifices. I must not panic, he thought, and Stoney added, "Yeah, try not to panic, it's not that big a deal, you're just going to take a pee."
There was a knot of people standing around the curved end of the bar, easily identifiable as poets by their attire, especially their headwear: berets, Greek fisherman's caps, brakemen's caps, wide-brimmed fedoras,
woolen beanies, women with hats made out of what looked like bricks or jewelry boxes, or those feather-adorned caps that Robin Hood and his merry men sported.
"Excuse me," Milford's voice emerged from his mouth.
No one moved.
"Excuse me," he said again, louder, and once again he was ignored.
"Excuse me!" he shouted, and everyone turned to stare at him.
"Jesus Christ, buddy," said a bearded man, who wore one of those tall fur hats that Russians supposedly wore. "You don't have to scream."
"But I said excuse me twice and everyone ignored me," said Milford.
"Maybe try saying excuse me in a normal tone of voice," said a small woman with a dead bird on her head. "Did that ever occur to you?"
"I'm sorry," said Milford, "but I'm just trying to get to the men's room."
"These punks," said a very small man wearing a Dodgers cap, "they come in here claiming to be lost poets. Hey, buddy, you ever ride a freight car?"
"What?" said Milford.
"You ever ride the freights, all across and up and down this great land of liberty, and, yes, of capitalist oppression?"
"No," said Milford, "I have never ridden a 'freight'," and then his alter ego Stoney added, with emphasis, "nor do I have any intention of doing so."
"Oh, well, excuse me, Lord Fauntleroy," said the small man, and he poked his finger in Milford's solar plexus, "but let me tell you something, you will never get to know, I mean really know, in your blood and your guts and your soul, you will never even begin to understand this country until you have crossed it on the freight cars, from Brooklyn to Baton Rouge, from Sheepshead Bay to the Fresno stockyards, from Bangor Maine to East St. Lou and all the way to the mighty Frisco Bay, from Baltimore Harbor to, to, uh –"
"To San Berdoo?" said Milford.
"Yeah, to San Berdoo, that's right," said the little man, and he jabbed Milford's solar plexus with his stubby index finger again.
"Stop poking me," said Milford.
"I am not poking you," said the little man, and he held up his finger. "I was merely touching the cloth of your peacoat slightly above the third button, like so."
And the man demonstrated by once again poking Milford in the solar plexus.
"If you do that again," said Stoney, "I will break your Vienna sausage-like finger."
"Oh, okay," said the little man, "getting tough are we? Don't be fooled by my small size, buddy. I learned how to fight in the hobo jungles of the Yazoo and Mississippi Railroad, and they don't follow the Marquess of Queensberry rules in those places."
"Please get out of my way," said Milford. "I'm just trying to get to the men's room."
"Well why didn't you just say that in the first place," said the little man. "Instead of getting all fascistic. I bet you never fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, did you?"
"Of course I didn't," said Milford. "I was only a child during the Spanish Civil War."
"You coulda fought if you really wanted to. Stowed away on an ammunition ship. Joined the Loyalists as a bugle boy maybe."
"Please let me pass."
"Lugging ammo and munitions to the trenches. You coulda done it."
"Well, I didn't, now please, I beg of you, let me pass."
"Hey, buddy, that's all you had to say."
"Great," said Milford. "I'm glad I finally found the right combination of words."
"But it's the attitude," said a new guy. This one wore a cowboy hat, and he was smoking a corncob pipe. "It's not so much what you say but the way you say it."
"How's this?" said Stoney. "Would you all please excuse me and let me pass so that I can get to the men's room?"
"Well, I guess that's okay," said the man in the cowboy hat.
"It's not great, but it'll do," said the little man in the Dodgers cap.
"Just a little common courtesy," said the small woman with the dead bird on her head. "Is that too much to ask?"
"That's all we ask," said the bearded man in the Russian hat. "That's all we've ever asked."
After glancing at each other, just to make sure they were all in accord, they all moved slightly aside, leaving Milford an eight-inch space through which to pass. He turned sideways and shuffled through.
He felt hands touching his inguinal area and his buttocks. At last he made his way though the poets and into the dark narrow hallway ahead.
What had the waitress said? Second door on the left? Or was it first door? Would the doors perhaps have signs indicating what gender they were for?
His body carried him along, through the dimness.
He came to a door. There was a rectangular pale space on the wood where a sign must have once been nailed. Was this the men's room? There was only one way to find out, and he opened the door, which opened inward.
Inside he saw a group of women standing and smoking cigarettes around two sinks.
"Come on in, big boy," said one woman.
"He's not so big," said another woman.
"You know what they say, Matilda," said a third woman, "it ain't the meat, it's the motion."
"Shut the door behind ya, fella," said a fourth woman, "you're letting all the smoke out."
"I beg your pardon," said Milford. "I was looking for the men's room."
A blonde woman walked over to him with a determined stride and put her fingers on the lapel of his peacoat.
"We were just talking about you," she said.
"You were?" said Milford.
"Yes, we saw you sitting there with Margaret. Margaret doesn't let just any schmuck sit with her. What's special about you, hotshot?"
"Nothing," said Milford.
"We'll be the judge of that," she said, and over her shoulder, "won't we, girls?"
"That's right," said one of the other woman, with dark hair swept high and back, and she and the other two women approached Milford.
"I'll just be going now," said Milford.
"Not so quick, pal," said another woman, with long red hair, and she stepped behind him and closed the door.
"That's right," said the fourth woman, who had hair the color of polished mahogany, and she put her hand on his arm. "You'll leave when we tell you to leave."
"But I have to, to –"
"To what?" said the first woman, the one with blonde hair.
"I have to, uh –"
"Spit it out," she said.
"Yeah," said the dark-haired woman. "No woman likes a mealy-mouthed man. Now spill."
"I have to pee," said Milford.
"Oh," said the blonde woman. "Well. We weren't expecting your life story."
"It's not my life story," said Milford, although he immediately wondered if it was.
"Then what is it?" said the blonde woman.
"I just have to pee, that's all."
"So, no shall we say hidden agenda?"
"No, I just have to, uh, you know –"
"Pee," she said.
"Yes," said Milford.
She let go of his lapel, then pretended to smooth it with her fingers.
"Well, if that's all it is," she said, "that can be arranged."
"Yes, that can very easily be arranged," said the redheaded woman, who was now standing directly behind Milford.
The one with mahogany-colored hair squeezed his arm.
"Easiest thing in the world," she said.
The one with upswept dark hair took hold of his other arm, his left one.
"Dead easy," she said.
Okay, said Milford's inner voice, I have a bad feeling about this.
"Right," said Milford, aloud, "uh, I guess I should go then, and, um find the men's room, or –"
"Or what, honey?" said the blonde woman, and she touched Milford's cheek with her fingers, the tips of which were painted the color of blood.
Milford had not been hot before, but now he felt sweat breaking out all over his body.
Get out, said his inner voice, the voice of his alter ego, called Stoney, get out, you fool, move! Move!
The blonde woman continued to stroke Milford's cheek, the mahogany-haired one gripped his right arm, the one with the upswept dark hair held tight to his left arm, the red-headed woman behind him put her hands on his sides and whispered into his ear words in a language he didn't speak.
Move, goddammit! said Milford's inner voice.
Milford didn't move, and the strange foreign words echoed through his cavernous head.
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