"What Pope Innocent III Once Said"

Another sad but true tale of  la vie de la bohème, by Dan Leo

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

Today's episode brought to you by the Husky Boy™ Tobacco Co.

"If one must smoke, and apparently one must, one could do worse than smoking a Husky Boy!" – Horace P. Sternwall, author of Flapjacks at Midnight: Lucubrations of a Loon, Vol. IV

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It felt as if it had taken him a week to cross the crowded smoky barroom, and when finally  the Professor reached the bar and climbed up on a stool, he looked to the right and to the left for someone to expound to. This was the longest bar he had ever sat at, it seemed to extend to infinity to both the right and the left. Was he at the middle of the bar? It was hard to say. But what mattered was that he was at a bar, which was all he had ever wanted in all his life. "Whaddaya want?" said a bartender, a big fellow in shirt sleeves and a bowtie. "Hello," said the Professor. "How are you?" "Who gives a shit how I am?" said the bartender. "I'm a fucking bartender, that's how I am, for my sins, which were many, apparently. Now what the fuck do you want, because as you can see I am busy back here." "I wonder do you have a bock beer." "You can stop wondering, because, yes, we have a bock beer." "Splendid," said the Professor. "And my second question is –" "And I hope it's the last," interpolated the bartender. "Ha ha, yes," said the Professor, "my second question, and I shall try to make it my last, is I wonder if I may run a tab." "Relax, big guy, all the drinks here are on the house." "Oh, dear God," said the Professor. "Then is it true, am I in paradise?" "I'll let you be the judge of that." "Ha ha, yes, well then, could I have a bock draft?" "Sure." "Could I have a large one?" "You can have whatever the fuck you want." "Then I'll have the largest glass of bock beer you have, please." "One imperial pint of draft bock, coming up." The bartender went away. "First time here?" said a man to the Professor's left. "Yes," said the Professor. The man's face was the color of an old gunny sack, and it appeared to be of the same texture. He wore glasses which magnified his eyes in such a way that they appeared to be two mud-colored amoebae pressing against the lenses. But he wore a jacket and tie, and a concrete-colored trilby hat and so presumably he was a gentleman. "I take it you are an academic," said the man. "Yes," said the Professor, although it had been over two decades since he had been fired from his last teaching job. "So also am I," said the man. "I wonder if perhaps you read my article, 'The Semicolon; Is It Really Moribund?' It was in the Reader's Digest Digest." "The Reader's Digest Digest?" "Yes, it was a short-lived offshoot of the Reader's Digest, aimed at readers who wanted material even more digestible than those in the parent publication." "Well, I'm sorry to say I missed that article." "A pity. I truly believe it was the last word on the semicolon. What is your own line of country, if I may be so bold as to ask?" "European History, primarily pre-Renaissance. Perhaps you read my monograph, 'The Albigensian Heresy: Its Mysterious Origins', which appeared, in regrettably severely truncated form, in The Late-Medieval Quarterly?" "Sounds utterly fascinating, but, alas, I'm afraid I've never even seen a copy of the Late-Medieval Quarterly. Oh, your libation is here." The bartender had laid down a great tall swooping glass before the Professor, filled with a dark liquid and topped with a thick foaming white head. "There's your bock, buddy," said the bartender. "Oh, thank you, good sir," said the Professor, and he quickly took the enormous glass in both hands, lifted it, brought its brim to his lips, and drank. Yes, he was in paradise. When he laid the glass down, one-third of it now empty, he turned to his new friend. "They call me the Professor," he said. "My name is Doktor," said the man with canvas-colored skin, and he spelled it out. "I am also a doctor, of philology, therefore I am known as Dr. Doktor." "May I clasp your hand in donnish good fellowship, sir?" said the Professor.  "It would be my pleasure, Professor," said Dr. Doktor.  The fingers of his right hand had been touching the stem of a partially-emptied martini glass, but now he disengaged them, and he took the professor's proffered hand. Dr. Doktor's hand was thin and bony, the Professor's hand was fat, but the two mismatched appendages embraced, briefly, with neither trying to overpower the other, and then they separated, with a faint husking sound. "I can envision us having many long and in-depth conversations," said Dr. Doktor. "I also," said the Professor.  "Because what is life but the wagging of tongues, the pretending to listen to the blatherings of others while one waits for one's own turn to blather?" "Fueled by the alcoholic beverage of one's choice," said the Professor. "Of course," said Dr. Doktor. "And let us not forget cigarettes. Speaking of which –" He lifted a pack of cigarettes from the bar top. "May I offer you a Husky Boy?" "Don't mind if I do," said the Professor. And soon the two gentlemen were smoking and drinking and gabbing like old friends, neither of them listening to the other, because what did it matter what anyone said? It was the talking that mattered, not the words that were said. At last the Professor had found his place in the universe, and, as Dr. Doktor droned on about dangling participles and the subjunctive mode, the Professor could feel in his bones the great droning boredom of all the other people in this enormous bar, talking, not listening, drinking, smoking, talking some more about nothing and everything, repeating the same old phrases ad infinitum, and, yes, this, this was heaven, at long last. "Don't you agree, Professor?" said Dr. Doktor. "Oh, yes, entirely," said the Professor. "It reminds me of something Pope Innocent III once said. Would you like to hear it?" "Yes, of course," said Dr. Doktor, and now once again it was his turn to let his mind wander where it would, and to enjoy his martini and his cigarette while the Professor's voice droned on, blending with the voices of all the other bores in this heavenly establishment

"The Albigensian Heresy"

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

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

This episode brought to you by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

"Is there any more satisfying moment than that which we experience when lighting up the first Husky Boy of the day?" – Horace P. Sternwall, author of the "stunning"* new novel Hobo's Holiday 

*Flossie Flanagan, The Federal-Democrat

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"All right, Professor," said Hector Philips Stone, the doomed romantic poet, "take a hike." "I beg your pardon?" said the Professor. "You heard me. Unless you're willing to buy a round, beat it." "Well, I never –" "Scram, Prof," said Lucius Pierrepont St. Clair III, the Negro Poet. "How dare you," said the Professor.  "Hitch up your pony and ride, Professor," said Howard Paul Studebaker, the western poet. "Am I to be attacked on all fronts?" said the Professor. "Stand not upon the order of your going, Prof," said Frank X Fagan, the nature poet. "But go at once." "I have never been so insulted," said the Professor. "Make like a breeze, Professor," said Scaramanga, the leftist poet, "and blow, daddy, blow." "Bolshevik!" cried the Professor. "Ah, feck off, Professor" said Seamas McSeamas, the Irish poet. And turning to Angie, the retired prostitute, he said, "You should pardon my language, Angie, but sometimes harsh words are necessary." "Don't apologize to me, Seamas," said Angie, "I can't stand this tinhorn bum." "And you a common trollop," said the Professor to Angie. "Professor," said Father Frank, the whiskey priest, "that is no way to speak to a lady." "I shall speak to her any way I please," said the Professor. "You be nice to Angie, Professor," said Gilbey, the demented mystic. "Jesus don't like it when you ain't nice." "But why must I be exiled from the table?" said the Professor. "I don't see Angie and Father Frank or Gilbey offering to buy a round." "They're not obnoxious know-it-alls like you," said Hector Philips Stone. "Now hop it." "Oh, very well," said the Professor, and he heaved his round body up from his chair. "I won't linger where I'm not wanted. You can all go to hell as far as I am concerned." He waddled over to the bar and found an empty stool, and Bob came over. "Bob," said the Professor, "I wonder if I might have a glass of your excellent basement-brewed house bock." "You got a nickel?" "In point of fact, Bob," said the Professor, "I am temporarily financially embarrassed, but if you would let me have a glass of bock 'on the arm' as they say, I should be most obliged." "No," said Bob. "Very well, that is your prerogative as the proprietor of this fine establishment, but let me ask you then if I may start a tab. I am expecting a check tomorrow, and as soon as the post arrives I will hurry here at once, and–" "You're a professor, right?" said Bob. "Retired, yes," said the Professor, which sounded better than fired.  "So you can read." "Of course," said the Professor. "You see that sign?" said Bob, and he pointed with his thumb to the placard on the wall behind the bar, the one that said NO TABS. THIS MEANS YOU. "Oh," said the Professor.  "Now get out," said Bob. "Just one glass?" said the Professor. Bob rapped his Marine Corps ring against the bar top. "Next time I rap this ring it's gonna be on your nose," he said.  The professor had seen Bob rap his ring on men's noses, the blood gushing, the tears cried. But still he couldn't help himself. "It's snowing out," he said. Bob raised his mighty fist. This would not be a backhanded rap, no it would be a straight right to the button, and the Professor had seen Bob's straight right before as well, huge dockworkers sent sprawling backwards to the sawdust and cigarettes on the floor. He climbed off the stool. "So be it," he said. "I shall leave, and –" "Good," said Bob. "And don't come back." "What?" said the professor. "You heard me," said Bob. "Get out of my bar and don't come back."  "You mean ever?" "That's right." "But why? Because I requested to have one small glass of bock on credit?" "No," said Bob. "Because you're the most annoying motherfucker I've ever met." "Well," said the Professor, "as the young people say, 'Wow.' That's all I can say." "Out." "I don't think you're being very fair." Bob didn't say anything, but even the Professor, as dense as he was, possessed enough of an instinct for self-preservation to know that he'd better accept defeat and beat a retreat in silence and with at least a semblance of dignity. He turned and shambled slowly toward the exit, through the smoke, through the shouting and laughter and the music of Bob's recently installed juke box. Why did everyone treat him so? He made it to the door and opened it, the heavy cold snow falling down harshly from the uncaring dark heavens, and he went out into it. It was so unfair. Life was so unfair. That it should come to this. And he, an educated man, a scholar, author of a published monograph on the Albigensian Heresy!  It was a two blocks' walk to his room in the Parker Hotel. Two blocks, but it might as well have been two miles, because he suddenly felt weary, weary to his soul, if he had one, and he wasn't sure that he did.  To the left of Bob's was a dark alley, filled with garbage cans and discarded boxes on which the Professor had sat on fine evenings, drinking from a bottle of muscatel, or, if he was in funds, Taylor port. The alleyway seemed to beckon him, and he went in and sat down in the snow, his back against the brick wall, the fat snowflakes falling down all around him, and on him. I'll just rest here a moment, he thought, a brief rest, and then I'll get up and go home to the hotel. He closed his eyes, and his head sagged forward, and he fell into oblivion.  When he awoke he was standing below a enormous gabled mansion on a hill, and he followed the winding brick path up to a broad columned porch. He floated up the steps, and St. Peter, dressed in a faded canvas jacket and smoking a pipe, sat at a table. "Name?" "They call me the Professor." St. Peter ran his finger down the page of a great book. "Oh," he said. "You." "What does it say about me?" "Irritating. Boring. Opinionated. Not funny. Shall I go on?" "No, thank you." St. Peter wrote something on a pad with a quill pen, ripped the sheet of paper off the pad and handed it to the Professor. "Go in, cross the big hall, follow the corridor to the very end, then go through the last door you see and show this slip to the doorman. Can you remember that?" "Yes, I think so." "Good. You can go in now." "Thank you." St. Peter said nothing, but picked up a paperback book and began reading it. After what seemed like endless days and nights the Professor came to the last door. He opened it and inside was what appeared to be a cavernous smoky barroom, filled with the low murmur of voices. A man sat on a stool by the doorway, chatting with another man, and they both looked at the Professor. "I was told to show this slip to the doorman," said the professor, proffering the piece of note paper.  The man took the paper, glanced at it, then handed it back. "Fine," he said. "Sit anywhere." The Professor made his way through the smoke and the babble of voices to the bar.  Perhaps here he would find someone to whom he could explain his theories on the origins of the Albigensian Heresy.>

"The Undiscovered Country"

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

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

This episode sponsored by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

"Husky Boys are not just for boys!" – Hyacinth Wilde, actress and memoirist, currently starring in Whither the Moribund Soul?, the smash new drama by Artemis Boldwater, now playing at the Demotic Theatre (group rates available)  

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It was amazing how fast you could spend money even in a joint like Bob's Bowery Bar, which had the reputation of being the cheapest saloon not only on the Bowery but in the entire country, this "land of liberty" as Gerry called it, "a land where all men are free to take liberties, within reason". Exactly forty-eight minutes ago, Gerry "The Brain" Goldsmith, gentleman philosopher, man of leisure, and cheerful tippler extraordinaire, had come back into Bob's with the mighty windfall of nine dollars and seventy cents, which he had relieved from the wallet and pockets of the anti-alcoholism crusader known as Smiling Jack, whose snow-covered corpse Gerry had found leaning against the lamp post down the corner at Bleecker and the Bowery. Apparently Jack had frozen to death in the thick falling snow, willingly or not, no one would ever know, except for God, if there was a God, the existence of whom, or Whom, was one of the many questions Gerry attempted to "delve into", tentatively, in his magnum opus in progress, currently titled Pensées for a Rainy Day, which he had been "working on" for, lo, these past two decades and more. Had Gerry hesitated to take the money from the deceased crusader of sobriety? Perhaps he had, but only for a fraction of a moment, because he had heard (or imagined he had heard) Smiling Jack's genial voice saying, "Hey, help yourself, pal," after all the money wouldn't do Jack any good now, nor would the tarnished old Zippo lighter and the almost full pack of Lucky Strikes Gerry also helped himself to. Jack's leather satchel with its collection of his cheaply-printed self-penned pamphlets (Are You a Drunkard?), Gerry left hanging on its strap across the poor man's chest. Perhaps these small volumes would be buried with Jack in the potter's field on Hart Island. But now all but one dollar and seventy cents of Gerry's windfall was gone, thanks to rounds of pitchers of bock bought for the poets at the big round "poets' table", namely Hector Phillips Stone (the doomed romantic poet), Seamas McSeamas (the Irish poet), Howard Paul Studebaker (the "western" poet), Lucius Pierrepont St. Clair III (the Negro poet), Frank X Fagen, (the nature poet), and, last but no more least than the rest of them, Scaramanga (the leftist poet). (It should be noted that Gerry was not, nor did he claim to be, a poet, but he loved to "hang out" with poets.) The prices at Bob's were so cheap (only fifty cents for a large pitcher of Bob's basement-brewed bock), that one would think that eight dollars would last longer than forty-eight minutes, but word of free bock gets around quickly in a place like Bob's, and the poets' table had been invaded by Father Frank (the defrocked "whiskey priest"), Angie (the retired prostitute who now sold flowers from a street cart), Gilbey (the deranged mystic who claimed to have seen God,  whom he called "the Big Fella"), and the fat old man everybody called "the Professor".  Gerry could put up with a lot (after all, he was a philosopher), but the Professor was just too much even for him. The Professor would think nothing of correcting your grammar or your choice of words in mid-sentence, never ceased to bore you with his familiarity with all the great books, and there was nothing he seemed not to know all about and to have an opinion on. The one thing he didn't know was how annoying he was. He was also a shameless moocher, and for the past half hour he had been sitting squeezed in tight right next to Gerry, and driving him up a wall with tedium. "You know you're wrong about Joyce, Gerry," said the Professor. "Not as wrong as you are about Kant, but nearly so." "That may be true, Professor," said Gerry, "but I just can't with Kant, although I do rejoice in Joyce." "Buy us another couple of pitchers and I will explain why you're wrong," said the Professor, completely oblivious to Gerry's bons mots. Fuck you, thought Gerry, as loudly as he could think, but in so-called real life he merely said, "Some other time, Professor. My humble cot is calling me." "Oh, but don't go, Gerry," said the Professor, who had never bought a round in his life and wasn't about to start now. "Sorry," said Gerry, "but 'sleep, gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse' calls me." The Professor said nothing, but looked discomfited, not just because the source of free bock was leaving, but because he couldn't identify Gerry's Shakespearean quote. And to hell with you, Professor, thought Gerry, rising from his chair. He was about to put the last dollar bill on the table as a tip for Janet the waitress, but he didn't trust the Professor not to snatch it, and so he handed it to Hector Philips Stone and asked him to give it to Janet (with whom Hector was rumored to have had concupiscent relations with). A smattering of goodnights and even a few thanks, and thus Gerry staggered over to the door and outside into the freezing cold snow falling as hard as ever. Well, at least he still had seventy cents in his pocket, which was seventy more cents than he'd had the last time he walked out of Bob's. It occurred to Gerry that he had not eaten since fourteen or fifteen hours earlier, when he had had a cinnamon bun with his morning bottomless cup of coffee down the street at Ma's Diner. Seventy cents! If Bob's was the cheapest bar in the country, Ma's might well be the cheapest diner, and seventy cents would be enough for the All-Day Deluxe Breakfast, and he would still have twenty cents left over for a tip!  Gerry knew just what options he would go for: two eggs "sunny side up", hash browns instead of grits or home fries, scrapple instead of bacon or "country ham", and baked beans rather than the succotash. Or should he rather go for the Johnnycakes Deluxe Special, a tall stack, slathered with fresh butter and drowned in maple syrup, and criss-crossed with a half-dozen rashers of "country bacon"?  Or what about a great bowl of Ma's Hobo Stew, with a few thick slices of fresh-baked black bread?  Or – but, wait, what was this? Gerry had reached the corner, and its streetlamp, its light pale and yellow through the thick falling snow, but where was the deceased Smiling Jack, his snowman's body propped against it? It was gone, he was gone.  Had a policeman in a passing patrol car seen the unfortunate corpse, prized it free with a tire iron from the pole, and taken it to the morgue? Yes, that's what must have happened. Just another dead drunk on the Bowery, probably nothing unusual for the men in blue at the Ninth Precinct. They probably picked up a half dozen dead men every night of the week.  Well, thought, Gerry, this was good, that Smiling Jack hadn't been left out in the blizzard all night long, not that Jack would care, being beyond all care for all eternity. "So long, old friend," he said, silently, "I'm glad you're out of the freezing cold and the snow, even if it is only to be taken to a slab in the morgue. Thanks again for the nine dollars and seventy cents, for the Lucky Strikes, and for the lighter, and every time I use that Zippo, I shall think of you, and your bright smile." With no further ado, Gerry hated long goodbyes, he trudged through the snow to the curb, and, after waiting patiently for the green light, even though there was no traffic this time of night, he tramped across Bleecker towards the blood-red neon sign that said MA'S DINER and the smaller sign that read "Where the food could not be finer". Imagine Gerry's surprise, when, on the opposite snow-piled sidewalk, he looked through the frosted plate-glass window, and saw, sitting alone at the counter and smoking a cigarette, none other than Smiling Jack himself! So, thought Gerry, this it. A genuine miracle, and a frozen solid dead man brought back to life. Now he must revise the whole section of his work-in-progress that concerned the supernatural, and the existence of God, or, if you will, a Higher Power.  But, first things first, which was what God himself must have said on that first First Day, and Gerry slogged through the snow to the entrance door, having changed his mind again and decided on corned beef hash, topped with two fried eggs, with a hot cross bun on the side.

"Falling in Love Again"

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

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

This episode brought to you by Husky Boy™ cigarettes

"Whether alone in my study, or with my pals down at my corner 'local', or strolling the streets of the city or the back country roads, my constant companion is a smooth yet strong Husky Boy cigarette!" – Horace P. Sternwall, author of the "stunning"* new novel A Dame Without Shame

*Flossie Flanagan, The New York Federal-Democrat

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For perhaps the next thirty minutes Milford existed as a very small child does, or a very senile old man, or a dog or a cat, experiencing to the full each moment and then forgetting each moment in a moment's time, but suffice it to say that he began to exist in a more usual fashion when he became aware that he was staring at a surface of wood one inch from his eyes and that something was patting him on the back. "I say, Milford, rise and shine, young chap," said a woman's voice. Milford lifted his face away from the wood, which he saw was a table top, and he turned to see a beautiful dark-haired woman's face. "Hello?" "Drink this, you'll feel better," she said. "Poor little guy, he's all tuckered out," said the big man with a beard. "Stoned to the gills," said the smiling Negro man in the porkpie hat. The woman was proffering a chipped floral teacup. "Go ahead, drink it," she said. Milford took the cup in both hands and sipped. The tea was hot, milky and sweet. He gulped, swallowed, gulped and swallowed, gulped and swallowed greedily again. "There's a good lad," said the big man, and Milford remembered he was Walt Whitman, or at least claimed to be so. "He's comin' round, he's young, ready to start up all over again," said the Negro man, what was his name? Pork Roll? "Delicious, isn't it?" said the lady. "Would you like some more?" "Yes, please," said Milford.  The lady took the cup from Milford's fingers. What was her name? There was a blue and white floral teapot on the table, and she lifted it and poured a light brown steaming liquid into the cup. "Milk and sugar, darling?" "Yes, please," said Milford. "Nothing like a nice cup of fresh-brewed tea," she said, adding a dollop of white liquid from a small pitcher into the cup, "and not that dreadful stuff that comes in bags. This is good strong Assam tea, fragrant, rich, and possessed of a certain resuscitative je ne sais quoi, and all I know is that it's just the thing when you have a drop too much partaken." "I don't think it was a drop too much partaken, Miss Margaret," said the Negro man, and he brandished a fat cigarette, "it was one of these bad boys!" "Shame on you, Jelly Roll," said the lady. She pointed to a little bowl with a tiny pair of metal tongs sticking out of it. "One lump or two, Milford? I put two in that last cup." She had called him by his correct name! Milford felt suffused with a feeling that he knew to be none other than love, true love at last.  "Take your time deciding, dear boy," she said. "Two please," said Milford. She tonged two cubes of something white from the bowl and into the cup, and then she took a spoon from the table top and stirred the mixture. "It feels good to be taking care of a man," she said. "Even one so barely a man." She handed the cup to Milford, and he took it again in both hands and drank. "Thank you," he said, after a gulp and a long sigh. This would have been his twelve-thousandth-and-twenty-eighth sigh since dragging himself from his comfortable bed the previous morning which now seemed like another lifetime ago, but he may have lost count of his sighs during the previous half hour or was it an hour when he was more in the world of dreams than not. He looked at her beautiful face. "Oh, no," she said, "I know that look." "Abject worship," said Mr. Whitman. "Head over heels," said the Negro man, was it Egg Roll, or Jello?  "The look of love," said the woman. "Are you in love with me, Milford?" "Yes," said Milford, putting down the cup onto a saucer that was there. "And I would like to propose to you. If it's not impertinent of me." "You poor boy," she said.  "I feel somewhat ashamed even asking you to marry someone like me, without talent or gainful employment, and who still lives at home, but someday my mother must die, and when she does I should inherit our house on Bleecker Street, as well as all her money and stocks and savings bonds. Unless she disinherits me, as she has often threatened to, and leaves it all to the St. George's charitable society." "Well, I hope she doesn't do that!" said the lady. "So also I," said Milford. "However, I'm afraid I have something embarrassing to say." "Even more embarrassing than what you've already said?" "Yes." "Then there's nothing to be done but just to get it out. Think of me as a female priest in a confessional who has heard it all, to the point not only of indifference but boredom." "I feel so ashamed." "Out with it." "I can't remember your name," said Milford. "I just said her name," said the Negro man. "What was it?" said Milford. "Miss Margaret," said the Negro man. "Miss Margaret," said Milford, and he turned to the lady. "I love you, Miss Margaret." "You'd better call me Miss Blackbourne, Milford, at least until we get to know each other better, and I'll tell you when." "Miss Blackbourne," said Milford. "I love you." "Now that's quite enough of that," she said. "That's Jelly Roll's cigarette talking, that's what that is." "You want another toke, sonny?" said the Negro man, Jelly Roll, that was his name. He held out the fat cigarette. And suddenly Milford remembered smoking the cigarette while standing at the urinal, and his head turning into a universe of dreams slipping into oblivion as soon as they were dreamt. Milford looked at the Negro man's cigarette,  almost as big as a cigar, a tendril of thick smoke rising up from its tip. He started to reach for it, but then stopped his hand in mid-air. "Go ahead, boy," said the man called Jelly Roll. "I got a whole pouch in my poke." Milford lowered his hand, but reluctantly, because he wanted those fleeting dreams again. "No, thank you, sir," said Milford. "Call me Jelly Roll," said the man. "Jelly Roll," said Milford. "Ah," said Mr. Whitman, "this, this is what it's all about, is it not, friends?" He raised a large metal tankard. "Friends, stout and true, both black and white, male and female, united in good fellowship!" "Oh, Walt, will you cool it?" said Miss Blackbourne, lighting a black cigarette with an ebony lighter. "You know what your trouble is? You've always got to talk about how great something is while it's happening. I'll bet you're the kind of guy has to talk nonstop while you're making the beast with two backs." "Guilty as charged," said Mr. Whitman, with a smile through his beard, his moustaches dripping with foam. "God, you know me like a book, Margaret!" "A very tedious book," said Miss Blackbourne. "Boom!" said the man called Jelly Roll. "Maybe I should go," murmured Milford. "Nonsense!" said Mr. Whitman. "We just getting started, Wilfrid," said Jelly Roll. "It's Milford," said Milford, "and I'm sorry, but I have drunk alcohol, which I shouldn't have, because I am an alcoholic, and also I have smoked marijuana and hashish, and as well I have eaten the sacred mushrooms of the American Indians, and then I smoked that cigarette in the men's room –" "My special blend," said Jelly Roll, "made up for me by a conjurer lady down in New Orleans by the name of Madame Marie, consisting of Bull Durham tobacco, Acapulco gold and Panama red, jimson weed, John the Conqueroo, ayahuasca, and laudanum." "Yes, that," said Milford, "and I think it was that which really pushed me over the precipice, and so now I think I should find my way home." "I thought you were in love with me," said Miss Blackbourne. "Yes, I am," said Milford. "So do you think I should stay?" "Listen, Milford," she said, "I'm going to tell you something very important." She took a drink from a highball glass, and then she looked into Milford's eyes. "You only get one crack at this game called life, my boy. So you can live your life like a scared little rat, or you can live it like a man. Now what do you want to do?" "Live it like a man?" said Milford. "Hear, hear!" cried Walt. "My man," said Jelly Roll. Miss Blackbourne nodded. She took a drag from her black cigarette. "Good," she said. "Now do me the favor, Milford, and take all this talk about going home. Wrap it up in a ball. And then toss it over your shoulder." Milford paused, and then, unwillingly, he found himself making the motions with his two hands of rolling a snowball, rolling it, packing it tight, and when it was hard and tight and round he tossed it over his shoulder. "Hurrah!" cried Mr. Whitman. "Bully for the boy!" cried Jelly Roll. "Good lad," said Miss Blackbourne, and she took another drag from her black cigarette, and then slowly exhaled a great cloud of fragrant smoke in Milford's face, which he greedily inhaled as much of as he was able to, and he fell in love all over again.  It occurred to him that this must have been the fourth or fifth or sixth time he had fallen in love during the past eighteen hours, which felt like eighteen months, but why stop now? It wasn't as if he had anything better to do with his time…