WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE, THE BABY BOY MADDOX STORY Options

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WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SIX: PART EIGHT: BIG TROUBLE

Footnote:
I had thought, back in 1986, that Maddox’s stories about the long reach and corrupt influence of the Stolas clan were the wildly imaginative delusions of a deranged hobo. But some 20 years later, in 2005, I read the following dossier—about the grandson of this notorious clan—an account which sent a dull chill through my cold bones.

STOLAS, RICHARD
The 60ish Richard Stolas has been, for the past 30-odd years, the head of the Citywide Improvement Association. In his expensive suit, custom-tailed shirt, and conservatively-cut all-silk foulard he is by all appearances a respectable citizen of substance and means. Nobody looking at Stolas dozing by the fire in his usual comfortable chair in the wood-paneled Cherry Room at the Soho Club in Old Town would suspect that this jolly 300-pound personage with the receding hairline and brown beard flecked with white is a man whose name is spoken of in whispers and used to scare small children. A sort of sinister anti-Santa, those who have crossed his path have received for their temerity not presents, but a world of pain, for Stolas, formerly a higher-up in a secretive government agency, is said to have dabbled in virtually every form of mind-control, from those involving hypnotism, sensory deprivation, drugs, and medical procedures to others, nameless and perhaps unnamable or at least better left unmentioned. This enigmatic bachelor, a serial monogamist whose partners have all either died prematurely or gone insane, has been known to make grown men quake with just a cross look. It is said that a political endorsement by Stolas is a Faustian bargain at best; although his candidates always win their contested races, they are almost invariably forced to resign their positions in disgrace before the end of their terms. Nowadays, savvy pols tend to steer clear of "The Man", albeit in a diplomatic way which they fondly hope will not give him undue offence. For his part, Stolas wields his enormous power in city politics with quiet firmness. Those charities he deems superfluous soon relocate; those fundraising organizations which fail to meet with his approval soon disband. Nevertheless, he himself refuses to serve on any boards, but prefers to make his preferences known through more clandestine means. Those who have the poor judgment to defy him have a tendency to suffer episodes of delirium and erratic behavior which are often headlines in the next day's local paper. It is said he can make himself invisible; can make a man bark like a dog; can predict what will happen before it occurs. This is palpable nonsense; a testimony not to his true powers but to the power of public credulity. However, he himself was once quoted as saying: "Who cares what stupid people think? I do. The beliefs of stupid people drive the world." (The reporter who was foolhardy enough to attribute this saying to Stolas was found trudging, naked and weeping, on the Shanty Street off-ramp of Route 299 in Anytown Lower Falls. He has been committed and now permanently resides at the Arcadia Nursing Home, even though he is only 27. The paper hastily printed a retraction in the afternoon edition.) Stolas is known to enjoy horseracing and casino gambling; aside from these minor vices, he has no other known hobbies or avocations. His is, however, said to have a curious tattoo, though nobody can agree as to what it represents; some say it is a dragon, and others have variously reported it as a star of David, a crown, a crucifix, a lion, a bearded man, a sphinx, a corpse, a heart, a dagger, a globe, an all-seeing eye, a phoenix, a bell, a spider, a tiger wearing an army helmet, a bear on a unicycle, three lengths of chain, a skull in a cobra's basket, a mermaid, a coiled rattlesnake, or a pair of circling sharks.

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WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART ONE: THE PLAN

It was late April of 1986, and colder and wetter than usual for that month. Shrubs and trees were budding still, but crocuses were wilting and buttercups had briefly flowered then withered. Baby Boy Maddox sat up on my dusty brown futon. His head was shaven—he was on one of his Spartan kicks—and he was feasting on some three-day old hamburger I had put under the broiler for him. It was about 9pm and although I had to go to work early the next morning, I contrived to stay awake long enough for him to resume his tale of the run-in between Cadger Tandy, his hobo mentor, and Cokey Stolas, the Big Man. Every so often the rumble of big trucks would interrupt the steady roar of traffic proceeding down the main street which ran directly below my second-floor slum apartment.

“Listen Yob,” said Maddox, “Like I said before, the world mought be round, but it’s hung at crazy angles, and is crooked all the way around. Now, Cadger Tandy may have been a bum, but he was no dog meat tramp. He was MY Bum. And so I paid close attention to the story he told me about the mad crew that ran Noxtown.

“Tandy said that even as a lad he was bound to get his revenge on some truly bad guys for what they done to the Prosty, Red Mary. He was taking on a wrong crew. Jim Whitey, the loony killer Joey. A murder man with smiling eyes. Mad Tom Stocking, the fast-talking morphodite and thespian. Some said he gave the best head in the show business. Jerry the Rigger, carny lush, a cracked actor who looked like an evil Uncle Sam. And worst of all that crew--Uglyface Smash Conklin, drunken bully and washed-up pug, who hated Red Mary like the pox and hated me even worse, like the black bottle poison.

“And running the whole show you had some other fellers too, like Judge Rance Sniffle the bent vice lord, and Cokey Stolas, The King of the Rackets. The only two Yellofs I had on my side were Dr. Peter Ketman the medicine show man, and Tipsy Smith the barkeep, who feared and hated Smash Conklin. Tipsy, I knew, was how I was going to get back at Uglyface. And how I was going to do it was to use him to put Smash in Dutch--with the Big Man. Only I never could dope out just how.

“I already done told you about Cokey Stolas. Some say he sold his soul to the devil. And those were his friends. His enemies swore he was the devil his own self. He was like Judge Rance Sniffle multiplied by ten—a big-bearded, square-rigged fancy-pants oaf with a big head and a bloated body like a South Seas whale—and he never went anywhere without his mahogany walking-stick. The handle was the head of a skull with rubies in the eye sockets. They say he used it once to beat a poor drover half to death as was whipping his horse—not because he felt sorry for the poor dumb brute but just out of sheer cussedness. That was his sense of humor, you see—you beat the horse, so I’ll beat up on you.

“But he DID like horses. ‘Horses understand me,’ said he, ‘Because they know I am their friend.’ Stolas, y’see, was a well-known horse-player, and a high-up member of the Fancy. He liked to wager big on races and was always to be seen at the track and a lot of the time he won, too—I don’t know much about gravity or other scientifical stuff, but it seemed like all kinds of good fortune just kinder naturally flowed in the Big Man’s general direction and it was bad cess to you if you got in the way of him or his luck. THAT was the kind of backing Smash Conklin had; THAT’s what made him so proud to strut his stuff like the ruff-tuff creampuff he actually was. I suppose one reason the Big Man took a shine to him was because in the not so distant past he had won many a sou from wagerin’ on Smash Conklin in the prize ring.

“Not that Cokey Stolas was exactly what you’d call grateful to any man. I don’t believe that devil ever had such a human feeling in him. You could rescue his brat from the kiddie-snatchers one day, and yet, if you dast to cross him, why, the very day they’d find your headless body on the slag heaps. And, like as not, your hands would be chopped off and hung on a rope around your neck. On any pretext at all—look out for a screamer—Cokey Stolas would have it hot and short with you and, right after you backed away, he’d make an arrangement and his boys would do ‘the big job’ and Mr. Deathy would end your gripe and you’d be a-goin’ to the Lordy. Nobody ever said The Big Man was a softy. He was King of Noxtown. Wise Gees called him the Bee Eye Gee, as if to even say his name out loud was likely to get you into Dutch.

“Some of them Wise Gees didn’t even go that far—when talkin’ of ‘im, they would hold the flat of their palms over their heads, and didn’t say another word, as if to signify ‘The Big Man’. Say what you will about him, but he did his business with a big spoon. They called him Cokey, I heerd, because he had the ass-mer and so he was always snuffing from the white remedy he kept in a little bottle. In his later years, he wasn’t a drinking man much, except for gallons of lager taken with large meals—he was a great stodger, him--a greedy grizzle-guts and trencherman of the size and shape of Mr. Diamond Jim. He never kept company for long with squirts and dandies; he had great pull; only other big men could keep up with him; and even THEY were afraid that at any time he might call them out. He never stood long for driveling fools and idiots, or old bricks and pantaloons. He lorded it over with a kind of contemptitude on men who weren’t up to his mark. You never knew when the Bear might stand up on his hinder legs, but, whenever he did, it was Katy Bar the Door.

“And this was the man—and there was me, a lowly runt—errand boy for a Prosty--and this was the man I was going to somehow use to get back at Smash Conklin. I surely had my work cut out for me.

“Like an ant--trying to steal a whole loaf of bread--fresh bread--'midst a driving rainstorm.”

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WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART TWO: THE PLAN

Early on the morning of May Day of 1986 I awoke at about 9am from a listless sleep, my stiff fingers balled into clawed fists. A nearby denizen of the housing projects near my apartment had seen fit to drive past my building and blast loud obnoxious music at some ungodly hour and I had had a hard time falling back to sleep.

You know how sometimes, when you haven’t had enough rest, you sometimes have a peculiar insight? My insight upon waking on the morning of that day was that the ominous three story towers of the projects, constructed in concrete made to look implausibly like stucco, were so poorly designed that they were virtually guaranteed to turn the residents into heedless delinquents, whose sole productive activity was acting out. I thought that, truly, architecture is frozen morality.

It was therefore through a mist of sleepy incredulity that I listened to Baby Boy Maddox as he renewed his tale of the dying Cadger Tandy and his delirious account of how he had sworn to get back at Smash Conklin.

“What is a kiddie, after all?” Tandy said to me. “A kiddie is just a very small person standing atop a great big pile of everybody else who’s grown—a pile that could tip over at any moment, and it’s better if you don’t forget it. A child’s bad mood is like a runaway horse—takes a strong person to master it. If a kid knew how precarious life was, it would turn him to brooding. Lucky thing that most kiddies are in no wise thoughtful, unless they have to be. “

“Having no money is normal for a kid where it can drive a grown man mad; the kid doesn’t feel being poor as keenly as a man who once had lots of cash but is broke, owes money, prospects none. Anyway, a modest campfire is better than a burning manse.”

“Sure and it was a foul day when I set out for the House of Never. It was crazy for me to think I could cross the river, sit under the trees, and dope out a way to queer Smash Conklin’s pitch, but a small boat can cross a shallow stream; it’s only when the big boats get in the Big Muddy that you got to watch out.”

“Older and wiser heads would have told me how I might go about it, but you can’t teach a young pup old tricks; I had my own ideas about the matter; nobody can force you to take good advice; ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ is the explanation of a fool. Besides—even a little Yellof knows that the devil knows many things--simply because he has seen it all.”

“But don’t send the devil and don’t send Jesus; send God; this is no job for a boy. It was a man-sized task, Yob, and no job for a youngster, but a kid will take on a chore that a grown man would balk at, provided it was all his idea in the first place and nobody’s trying to force it on him. I could maybe forgive Smash Conklin in time, if he’d of behaved like a white man, but I could in no wise forget. Claw me, Yob, and I’ll claw thee. It was my turf he had spoiled, and I was like a lion on my own turf. Know this, Yob--there is no piece of turf so small that it can’t be fought over.”

“You can only die once, after all, and a kiddie in no wise understands what it means to be dead because he’s hardly even started to live and that’s why so often he’ll do foolish things. You know a person is a child forever by the foolish things he says and does. Smash Conklin was like that. Walked around—strutted, more like—as if he did not give a good goddamn. A bragging fool with a hell of a nerve who talked for buncombe and swilled the loafers with bumbo. Nothing makes a Yellof madder than the hoarse loudmouth blabber of a lazy blodger. Every crow thinks he sings like a nightingale. But he had rats in his attic, him. Listen: If you can’t stand the kitchen, stay away from the sun. The man that fears long ladders should not go climbing up the sides of tall buildings.”

“Now, I did promise myself and the whole world wide that, come hell or water high, I would get even with that blodger, no matter what. Every dog has his day. You can’t eat promises, though. They say that Kiddies must not play with sharp axes. Oaks may fall where reeds bow down. But it was going to take more than one stroke of the axe to fell that oak. And doping out how to do him in would be the hard part; once The Plan was in place--that would come the easy part. He who hesitates is last. Besides, look at a blodger long enough, you become a blodger yourself, filled with blind hate and powered by spite. People who have never once been hungry tend to be fussy about trifles. Who has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet. But it takes all kinds. Ill talkers eat dirty suppers. The scalded dog fears milk. But small boys can kick up lots of dust. To get what I was after, I was bounden to pull the devil himself by the tail if need be. Because I have kept company with the wolf and knew well how to bark—and when.”

“Listen, Yob--in your dreams you’re biggity but you soon find out that in reality you are very very small, a puny sprat, you can’t make any difference and you never have no influence over nothing at all. Until the day that all of a sudden, you do.”

“And that’s the day ye ken that things ain’t always what they seem. When you’re a kid you allus think ye mought grow up to be a cowboy or a doctor or maybe a street-car conductor. Or a magician or a reporter or a cop—or a cornet player. You never think you’re going to wind up a mugger or a vagrant or a castaway or a convict.”

“Now, like I said, as a kiddie, you’re very much taken in by mokes who blow themselves up big and have a hell of a nerve and talk for buncombe and mix everything up together and make with the soothing verities and roar like a lion and call on God Almighty to bless these undertakings and mostly spread themselves thin—very thin--and give themselves airs. As a grown ‘un, Yob, you yourself will be no different, I suppose.”

“But mark: You can allus flatter a man to do your bidding if you take into account that, just as boys do, most menfolk dream themselves bigger’n they really are and fancy they’re a sport as will someday be at the top of the heap—king of the whole rotten mess--when this world catches fire. Lots of men is bent on their own amusement and get sulky when they haven’t had none in a spell—women too, but womenfolk tend to be more stoical, ‘less’n they be spiled rotten. That’s human nature the world over. It’s all a game of squabble. And all a Yellof can do is snuff the breeze and try to figure which way the wind is blowing and whether there’s blood on the moon.”

“Always remember, Yob—a hook who’s about to be lagged will always tell a lad to play it on the square and not to do what he has done. Fear of the rope makes swell gooks out of us kiddies. But a fly cove who will rob anybody will never play the square head--and HE will sing you a very different tune.”

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WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART THREE: THE PLAN

The Plan, said Cadger Tandy--with his old fashioned lingo--to Baby Boy
Maddox, "proceeded apace." But first we pause, he told Maddox,
"for a word about my Cat's Paw--Tipsy Smith."

"It was well known," said he, "that Tipsy Smith was sweet on Red Mary
and would do anything for her and though I was a Boy and didn't
understand such things, I was old enough to know how to turn his
feelings about her to my advantage. And I swore I was going to figure
out some way to use him to get back at Smash Conklin. To put a spoke
in his wheel."

Back in his own laughing days Tipsy Smith was a suds-puller who didn't
need to quiff the bladder with a floppy hat, as he did in later times,
when he lived on scrambled eggs and squirrel brains in the deep piney
woods of the back country. No, back in his salad days he had more hair
than sense and would gulp down bodacious coffin varnish as was strong
enough to float an egg--not because he was on a drunk, but just on
gen'ral principle, to prove he was one of the boys--to demonstate, in
other words, that he could belly up to the bar with the very best or
worst of them and he warn't back'ard none and didn't put on airs and
demand only the Top Shelf.

His background was mysterious. Some say he came from old
money--Scottish, or Scotch-Irish-- and that his father had lost
everything in the Panic and though he still owned a little land he was
cash poor and sent Tipsy out at a very early age to earn his own crust
and make his own way. Still, there was that once-upon-a-time money in
his background, and you always got the distinct impression that he was
a cat whose tastes outran the world.

Tipsy was a shrimpy feller, but stocky and stroppy, too--a former
feather-weight boxer, and a good one at that. But he warn't a petunia ner a
shrinking violet; no. He was a stumpy brute, hairy in the fetlock, but
when working behind the bar and at most other times as well he kept
his thick handlebar mustache well-waxed, and his hair slickered down
with some sort of bear grease--or Parker's Hair Balsam when he could
afford it--and he always wore a starched white shirt, a celluloid collar,
a bow tie--black while he tended bar, polka dotted for the after hours, when
he was feeling festive--a red tuxedo vest--don't ask me where he came
by such an item--and trig suspenders--as black as melted midnight--to
hold up his neatly pressed and sharply creased black tuxedo trousers.
He always looked as if he had just stepped out of a band box.

You would have laughed to see him presiding over The Seven Stars
Saloon. Standing hinder what must of been the sorriest-looking bar in
all creation. Presiding over a gin mill palace as what must of been
one of the the ugliest holes in Noxtown. The bar was throwed together
out of old barrels and planks. And the sawdust on the floor, he liked
to say, was "yesterday's furniture."

The Seven Stars Saloon was a basement drinking hole of the lowest
repute, and the back rooms of this dirt-floored cellar dive, with
stone walls that sweated, were used as a dossing house for the
lurkersmen, beggars, footpads, low men and drunkards who liked nothing
better than a lush at Freeman's Quay--in other words, a free drink, or
several--followed by sinking into the hard floor of the back room if
they was lucky, and the cobblestones and trash of filth of the back
alley, if they warn't. All the gugglers and guffins, all the molls and
moochers and molly-heads, all the gallows-birds and
rotgut-buzzards--every class of low squatter, poxy madge-cove,
and gutter-lane mahogany-topped mamsell could be found there
--in that dismal set of rooms.

The bar room itself was not much larger than the hallway of a cheap
boarding house, with dim electric bulbs that flickered and glimmered in
the smoky gloom like a weak stammer amid a circus of drunken
hoo-raw.

And the smell! It had the same aroma you'd find in any low dram shop and knock-out joint the world over--a stale odor of brick dust, sour beer, horse lineament, foul tobacco smoke, burnt meat, and damp paper. A stunning smell--enough to knock a yellow Parson into a three-cornered hat.

It was sartin no fitten place for a milk-faced Yob to hang his cap,
and Red Mary told me, and more'n once, that she'd skin me raw if she
ever heerd I was habituatin' that particular establishment.

But now, as bad a place as The Seven Stars Saloon was, Tipsy Smith had no truck
for rough-housing in his joint. He always walked with his hands behind
his back--as though he was used to having people to hold his doors
open for him. More often than not, however, it was he as opened doors
for others--and threw them out right on their faces, when they started
in to acting "cute."

When the loafers got out of hand, he would wallop 'em with a special
cudgel made of "good solid and honest Slippery Elm." He called it his
"Stingaree" and the very mention of it by him was enough to gentle
down all but the most inebriated sot.

Just as Cokey Stolas was known as "The Big Man" (among other honorific titles), so Tipsy Smith ruled the denizens of Drunkdom as the unsalaried Mayor of Liquortown. Some Bohunks and Greenies even took this title literal and called him Mayor Smith--a ceremonial title that old Tipsy never objected to.

Anyway, that cudgel of his'n was what you might call a Sledgehammer argument. By the way, Yob, have you every swung a sledge to earn your daily bread? Hm. Thought not. If you ever get ambitious that way, remember--fifteen minutes of heaving a sledge will learn you more about The Blues than fifteen years of study from afar--and that's no Harvard Lie.

Well, Sir, once Stingagree was produced it was known to crack many a nut. Many an upright sneak and budge and snick-fadge had also felt the sting of his famous cudgel and were dead sartin to ply their trade elsewheres. Posthaste. To more hospitable climes.

On any given night the Seven Stars Saloon was filled with Yekkmen and their Priggs--they were avid partakeners of Tipsy's Special Mix--which, rumor had it, was the rawest of half-distilled corn squeezin's with just a drop or two of ether and maybe also a soupcon of rock oil. It would straighten your hair in a New York Minute. Many of them blodgers and their doxies worked a parson's week, meaning they lived in riotous abandon from Monday morning to late Saturday night and earned most of their spending dosh on The Lord's Day, via various and sundry nefarious schemes, such as--get this--prowling the houses deserted by churchy folks, or breaking into various business establishments as was closed in honor of the Sabbath and cracking open their strongboxes and safes. Or, often, just plain flat out highway robbery.

Now, Tipsy Smith didn't approve; ner did he play the judge. He was The Mayor of Liquortown, after all, and he didn't give a hoot in hell--just so long as the yaller boys weren't snyde.

Hanging around that place, a Yob learned the way of the world both up and down--and in a right smart hurry, too.

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WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART FOUR: THE PLAN

Cadger Tandy, as related by Baby Boy Maddox, resumed his tale of the Seven Stars Saloon.

Tipsy Smith took great pride in overlooking the cavemen in his acrid basement dive and, with the help of Stingaree, his favorite slippery-elm club, keeping the peace at that vile snuggery.

It warn’t much, but it was one-quarter his’n, or so he was promised by the real owner of the joint, none other than Judge Rance Sniffle, the crooked barrister—also known as Judge Fixit of the Honorable Court of Noxtown. Tipsy Smith had the help of worn-out cinder drab named “Growly” Bet, who got into a scrape with none other than the legendary Hellcat Maggie and was later replaced by a sloppy and unkempt cleaning lady named “Lousy” Louisa who, rumor had it, used to work for old Joe Kennedy himself. In exchange for his quarter share, Tipsy Smith kept the place open at nearly all hours—you’d often see him fall fast asleep in the middle of wiping a filthy glass with an even filthier rag. He worked for what amounted to over 100 hours a week, all told, closing only between the hours of 5 and 11 am—Rounders hated the high sunshine like pisen—and all day Sunday.

But, as I said, he was young, and furthermore, he had certain ambitions to someday run his own place 100 per cent, and then retire at an early age to a little cabin deep in the piney woods, where he would never again have to hear the jabber of jockeys and gamblers, boxers and mobsters, firemen and constables, and all the bent and semi-bent members of the demimonde, to say
nothing of the underworld, with its jockers and rounders, plungers and trollops, safecrackers and gorillas; its muggers and its bummers and its men who were more than willing to do the Big Job for the price of a bottle of cheap rotgut or sometimes even just a snap or two at the jug.

But before Tipsy Smith blew town for good, he wanted one thing more than anything—he wanted the tender regard and genuine embraces of Red Mary—whore though she may be.

Funny how some menfolk love their womens all the more when they’re in their high dudgeon. You often see old married couples where the only palaver between the two long-sufferin’ parties is when Hubby does or says something stupid just to provoke a response from Wifey—he bathes in her scolding—you can see the old rascal grin from ear to ear as Wifey makes with the tongue lashing—I can’t tell you how many times I seen it with my own eyes, Yob.

I’ll tell you again that the not-so-distant past was a strange world full of old people with weird stuff in their heads. Crazy notions that just wouldn't wash no more, only they just didn't realize it. Because they just didn't get it. Because they just didn't have room in their tiny little heads.for none of it. Thirty years of taking care of screamin’ mewling bairns and tellin’ off their tomcattin’ sons and sluttish daughters had done taken all the starch out of ‘em. They was all done in. So in their golden years the two of them together is like two scorpions in a bottle a pinchin’ and a lungin’ at each other like mindless things.

Like, I’m strolling through the Park in Harmony, and this is what I see. Long-married Wife and Hubby in an evening out on Hicktown. Nothin’ fancy—they’s frugal; ain’t got much spending dosh; they allus eat th’ Early Bird Special at the same tired old chophouse as has been dishing out the same old cheap slop since God was a pup. An all-starch diet; filling, yes, but nothing else. White food. Yellow food. Cheap saltines, mashed potatoes, flour gravy, canned corn. Chicken-fried steak that even the lowest dogmeat bum would turn up his nose at. They don’t order a drink; they order ‘a water’. And it’s all in the way they say it—“Waiter--Bring us a water.” Like their shit don’t stink. For dessert, maybe they’ll splurge, and buy a gumball from the vendin’ machine. And then they count the tip out in pennies and go their merry way. And, mind you, this is climax of their big night.

But next, Wifey is got to promenade the town, her Man in tow. For starters, they stop and stand in front of the brightly lit shoe store on the main drag. At the corner of First and Main. Place is done up like a jewelry store. All manners of ladies shoes on pedestals in the front display and in the recessed bay windows to the left and right that she has to stop and gape at before she goes through the dusty outdoor vestibule into the store proper.

Hubby hates watching his wide drool over expensive footwear like he hates having to drink ice cream punch at a party over-run with screaming brats. He has his own hobbies and interests, y’see, that the Wifey cares nothing about; and none of ‘em involve shoes. Mostly drinkin’ and laughin’ and carrying on and talkin’ stupid nonsense about sports and local politics and other nothin’ topics in a loud tone of voice with a bunch of other loudmouths in some smoky gin mill.

Hubby would rather have his eyeteeth pulled than accompany Wifey inside that musty leather shoe-brothel dominated by an obsequious clerk with frayed knees on his pants from kneelin’ down and touchin’ ladies’ tootsies. She wants to go in; he opts to stay outside. Maybe grab a quick snort at a local rookery. Nothin’ doin’. Wifey insists and he knows full well she’ll make his life a livin’ misery—she’s studied her whole life just how to do it too—if he don’t cave in to and humor her obsessive whimsies.

So he goes into the shoe store, lined with boxes of toggery, but he makes sure her stay, and his own misery, is brief--mostly by dropping strong hints that she’s “only lookin’”.

What can make a measly shoe clerk more surly than the thought that he works like a slave and crawls on his hands and knees for pennies per hour?

The thought that none times out of ten, he’s forced to go groveling around on the sales floor on the whim of some fatuous old biddy as don’t know what she wants, don’t like anything you show her, can’t make up her mind about one damn thing, and has no intention of buyin’ anything anyway, so that the whole edifyin’ spectacle is nothing more than a power grab. Hubby treats me like shit, but I’ll sure give this young shoe-clerk the runaround, and that will ease my ache and shame.

So they’re finally in and out of the shoe store and go strolling down the boulevard of the one-horse cheapjack tank town looking for divertissement. There ain’t none to be had, and well they know it, too—they been living in the town their whole life through and know every hidden corner of it and they ain’t been anything new there since the time Jenny Lind the Swedish Nightingale made a s’prise visit back in 1863.

So they walk down the street and Wifey reads out loud every ad in every shop winder. Drives Hubby wild, this habit of hers. What’s with all the talk talk talkin’? After fifty years of wedded bliss, she’s said enough, he’s heard enough, and some peace and quiet would sure be nice, if only for a change of pace. But no—she’s got to go yak yak yakkin’, and he is got to bear it in silence—like a Man. But when he ventures to say something in that low phlegmy rumble of his’n, she ain’t listenin’ no how. Her hearin’s gone bad from all the screamin’ bairns and she’s too vain to tote an ear trumpet. So she gabs, he grumbles--and somehow they get by.

The sun is low and the moon is high and they go strollin’ through the park—the same park where first they sparked and courted nearly fifty years gone. Same stone wall; same old oak tree, same winding path, same acorns underfoot.

And then they shuffle home and wait for yet another dawn.

Anyhoo, I contrived to bring them together--Red Mary and Tipsy Smith. By hanging around the Seven Stars—no place for a little Yob like me—Red Mary expressly forbade it--and letting the word slip out—accidental on purpose, like—I made sure that Red Mary would catch me and it was worth taking a licking and enduring her cold stares at suppertime. It was all according to plan. Tipsy Smith did get a good gander at her in all her delightful wrath—and it was love.

And so…time it was to put my plan in motion.

[dimenno]

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART FIVE: THE PLAN

Cadger Tandy had far more to say about the rough men as made their base the Seven Stars Saloon.

“Tipsy Smith, as was in love with Red Mary—well, he didn’t know it at the time, but he was bounden to be cheated out of his share of the Seven Stars Saloon.

It was hard cheese, but facts was facts. Old Judge Rance Sniffle was part owner and he was a slippery chap; a loocher of the lowest kind; a graft-happy skin-flint as would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes. And laugh it up. He stole loose change from the blind news-vendor, and scyped apples from the goofy Eye-Talian fruit-peddlar, who would stomp up and down and roar at him in fractured English--but could do nowt. The Judge had connections.

T’was a low dive, the Seven Stars, with low patrons. Few reputable heads were ever seen there. The stench alone would gag a maggot. As matters stood, Tipsy was bound to make his crust solely on the pennies as was begged, borrowed or stolen by his regulars.

THERE was a crew. Here’s a roll-call of them loafers. Hardly fitten company for a broth of a boy. Such as they was—a sorry lot—they was also Tipsy Smith’s very own Revenge Incorporated. His hired muscle. I should snicker.

Sots such as the squinny-eyed Adam “Happy” O’Day—the court jester—every hellhole has one—of the premises. Wit, poet, mimic, singer, orator, and facialist. He was a pee-culiar creatur—fat faced—grinning—sharp fangs-- with teeth as yaller and black as an ear of Indian corn--had a slickered-down patch of thick hair as black as greasepaint—and he looked out at you with black, lonesome, faraway eyes. Had but one tattered suit of swell clothes which he wore into patches. Allus laughin,’ as if he was on to some great joke as only he knew what was so funny. When he was vexed he could swear like a cutter but mostly, he was a one as to cut up didoes—he could ‘personate a Dutchman, a Johnny Chinaman, Ikey Moe the Jew Pedlar, or even a Red Injun about to go to his Happy Hunting Ground. He did not have a happy ending, him.

His head was too big to support his neck, if you get my drift.

Then there was his paw—Count “No Count” O’Day—self-styled-- bald, frowning, rumbustious—smelled always like cabbage—dressed in rags--said he owned an estate in Ireland—purest piffle—always barking orders that nobody ever paid much never mind to—as dour as his son was cheery. He could cut up nasty if he saw that folks was goosin’ him—‘Cut that,’ he’d snarl, and folks would hop to—he was a mean one with a pig sticker—and bein’ an old ‘un he must of felt as he didn’t have much to lose—proud—like so many of them border Irish—would rather die than be disrespected—HE was a real Jack Nasty as would claw out your glims in a heartbeat. Didn’t have a job. He would sometimes sweep the old sawdust from one corner of the room to the other, and Tipsy would feed him the slops—the leftover drinks—which all got poured into a metal bucket at the evening’s end—and was like to eat a hole right through that very same bucket. Tanglefoot, it was called—the remains of drinks that was anyway made with raw alcohol, burnt sugar and chewing tobacco. Think I’m putting one over on yuh? Nix. To this very day, in some low dives the top shelf could be anything from the real goods to low grade rotgut made from bad hooch that had some turpentine, ammonia and cayenne pepper mixed in-- for flavorin’. Old “Count” O’Day never et much—had nary a good tooth in his head, so he couldn’t chew no wise—so he got most of his calories from slops—but he was never drunk—much—either that, or he was always drunk—nobody could really tell.

One day he vanished and was never seen again. Some say he went back to his estate. More likely, he was transferred straight from a ‘nonymous slab in the Country Morgue to a shoveled out hole in the Potter’s Field out there on Mistake Island.

Then there was Jack the Painter—I dinna ken whyfore they called him that—never saw him with a paintbrush in his dukes—he lived in one of the back warrens of that basement saloon—Tipsy Smith said he was his ‘handyman’—he was a gray-headed rascal as kept his hair long in a sort of rat-tail, like a Jack Tar, and he was grim as any penitent—never cracked a smile—kept his own counsel, him—shoulders always in a kind of slump--always looked cross-wise and peevish when you hailed him or deigned to ask him a question—so it was hard to tell when he was really cross—only when he gritted his teeth, and then you knowed for sure.

You could hardly blame him for bein’ full of the glooms—he performed nearly every dirty job in the place—no joke—washed the glassware, rolled in the barrels of beer, took out the rubbish, swept up the broken glass, threw out the exceptionally depraved inebriates as had bepissed and beshat themselves--and who knows what all else besides.

I heerd as he later became a copper’s nark—a grassman—a snitch. Went from the rookery to a swell jailhouse bunk with three hots and a cot—who knows where he is now—and who cares? Can’t stand a stoolie--nohow.

Then there was Jimmy Ragmop—a ginger-headed lout with the makings of a skimpy beard such as you’d see on old pictures of Mephistopheles. Kind of dull-witted—slow on the up-take--an ee-jit, as they called ‘em back then—and Tipsy put him to work when the bar was crowded—toting mugs and shot-glasses back to the kitchen—and mopping the tables with a filthy rag—hence his name—nobody knowed his real name. Nobody ever even asked.

He was a cheerful dunce—I’ll give him that much—hard to put him off his feed—not a hopeless drunk—more like a hopeful, red-eyed drunk—stuck mostly to beer—he’d attack the free lunch with gusto—a dedicated eater--knew what was in the hot dogs; didn’t care—was actually seen to take a drink of water on occasion—unheard of in them parts—most of them sots avoided the aqua pura like poison. Friendly fella, him, and folks would tease him—accuse him of things he hadn’t done and couldn’t of done—bizarre murders and the like—make him out to be the goat.

One fine day many years later he went nuts and cut his own fingers off. No one could figure out way. The loochers said it was on account of his deplorable habit of drinking uncut water.

And we also had Mick Ninny—or Nick Minny—who knew his real name?—an old coot with fishy breath and a beaky nose and a pointy head, as had a pissy old man smell to him. They also called him Musky Dan—he sure did smell—smelt of fish and mildew--and yeck.

He never moved. Nary a muscle, unless he had to. Planted himself in the same corner for 18 hours at a stretch. I’ve known some lazy bummers in my day, but Musky Dan made even the most broke-down Hobo look like a Captain of Industry. You’d swear he was a tree.

That man could drink, though. He could also talk. They say I have the gift of blarney, but that Yellof made the likes of Georgie Jessel come off like a chump. He would bloviate on any subject and sub-subject you could think of, but sooner rather than later his little talk would always come round to how things was far better in the olden days, by which I suppose he meant right after the War Between the States, when he was but a little shaver. You know—the days before all the damn immy-grants with their gibble-gabble, and O, the thieving rookers, he’d bellow, they’re a bunch of rolling kiddies every last Man Jack of ‘em, as would steal the halo off a plaster saint—even through Musky Dan was known to pick a pocket or two his self, back in his day, before his fingers got all clawed up from the rheumatiz’.

Many a man there was who’d tell me--Watch out for that cove—sure and he’s a Spiv as would gladly fatten his purse--by riflin’ through your’n.

He seemed to have it in for the Bloody British—even though he looked for all the world like a spavined Limey his own self.

What happened to him? One day his daughter came in, all full of gumption, and dragged him out of that den by his ear, and we never saw him since.

It just goes to show. Nothing like a meddlesome old hag who stinks of sour milk to queer the lushman’s pitch!

[dimenno]

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART SIX: THE PLAN

“Listen, Yob,” said Tandy to Baby Boy Maddox, on that long-ago day —“I dinna ken how many times I can tell you how different a world it was, in Noxtown, back when I was a green Yellof, back in the short-pants days.”

Take your breakfast sausage. Right now you can buy your 100 per cent pork sausage all lined up in a neat little package or even in big plastic wrapper from one of them newfangled supermarkets, but back in the olden days your sausage hung from the ceiling of a butcher shop and was likely made from a pig’s snout, a hog’s eyebrow, and any other ground up part of the sickly beast as would fit snug in the see-through casing, which was made out of his gut. The butcher wore a white apron with black stripes, as was useful to hide the blood, which got to be everywhere.It was no job for a cream-puff inhaler—the butcher man wielded a mean cleaver and had to be strong enough to drive a knife through the thickest bone, which is why the job would often go to a roughneck.

Your fire department was manned, not by clean-shaven professionals, but by young toughs who like as not would battle each another for the privilege of aiming the hose, all the time ignoring the fire, and sometimes you would watch as your house burned clean down to the frame while they knocked each other on the head with clubs and axe-handles. There was never enough water pressure, especially in the summer months, and the patched-up hoses would sometimes only deliver a thin trickle instead of a powerful spray. The only protection you had agin a fire was to keep your own staff at the ready to form a bucket brigade, and that, of course, was only if you were one of the rich folks as lived on Snob Hill.

Cleary the Baker was a fat Yellof and his wife was a sallow wench who looked out into the street from her shop window and dreamed of all the pretties she mought have bought had she married the banker’s son. All for the want of an ‘N’! All in all, the baker was a good Yob who didn’t ladle too much plaster or alum into his bread—just enough to keep abreast of his rivals. You didn’t mind paying an extra half-penny for a good loaf. That’s what Red Mary told me when she’d send me to his shop a few blocks away. A word to the wise.
The blacksmith—big Yellof with a thick black handlebar mustache--also doubled as a harness-maker--he would chase me away from his shop—it was dangerous with all the chemicals and the flyin’ sparks for a little Yellof to be standing ‘round—but he wouldn’t pay me no never mind if I watched him doing his work from a distance. That blacksmith—I disremember his name--was my ideal. What could be a better object of admiration for a sprout than to watch a big strongman with muscles the size of small boulders--with his tongs and his mallets and his chisels--striking sparks from a big anvil or wrassling a hoss to fit him for a shoe? Mister, I says to that blacksmith, How does it feel to be you? It feels swell, little fella, says he—it feels swell.

I was afraid of the funeral home—but fascinated—drawn to what I dreaded, like many a lad before and since—and I feared the undertaker—him always dressed in black, with his starchy white shirt and his thin black necktie, and black bags under his eyes as if he never slept--never smiling but never really frowning either—you’d see his eyes light up in their sockets and become alive mostly when folks walked into his funeral parlor, but never would his poker face betray a human feeling. You’d see a faint smile curl up his lips only when he managed to sell a coffin made of slippery elm and manage to get the price of a coffin made of oak.

There was many a business establishment that you don’t see much of today.

The stout woman who made pastries and also had a line in wedding goods—spun sugar fantasias on top of creamy frosting and good honest cake. Makes my mouth water to this day.

The thin yaller wretch who sold priests outfits—store always smelled like musty candle-wax.

The oyster bar, with sawdust on the floor and fellers swallering shellfish the size of a puny baby.

The fat cheesemonger with his sweaty wares wrapped in pure white cloth.

All gone the way of the wind—done blowed away by progress.

On the dusty streets—dusty with the smell of dried horse shit-- you’d see puchcart vendors you don’t see the likes of any more—the knife grinder—the vegetable pedlar—the watermelon man—the old clothes buyer—the ice man. They’d fill the streets with their cries: WATTY—WATTY-MELON—CLO’ES—OLD CLO’ES-- ICE—ICE-Y—GETCHER ICE!

There was endless entertainment for a green mite who was out on the town on a summer day, with nowt to do but look and listen. You could go to a hardware store and hear the big men talk shop. The hardware store was full of shiny things a small boy could stare at and treasure up—if only in his memory--saws, axes, knives, and hammers. You could earn a penny or two by hanging around the baker’s or the druggist’s or the butcher’s and delivering a package for ‘em. Never occurred to ‘em that you might scoff the lot. That would of queered the pitch of the other small Yellofs, and it just wasn’t done. Back then, I noticed, everybody promoted themselves all the time. The butcher would burn his mark into the ham, the baker would have a raised brand in the loaves he would send out, and the druggist had his name and address stenciled on the bag.

The sign-painter was a big man in Noxtown. Business people always needed window dressing to promote their wares, and crumb-crushers and slack-jawed loafers would allus love to gather round to see the sign man ply his trade. He was a vagabond, who traveled light, with only his brushes and sometimes his paints, but he could whomp up a window glass sign, a placard, or even paint an entire billboard or a side of a building, and he’d make a pretty penny off it—and then would go and drink it up. Painters and cooks is mostly drunks—must be the fumes. But the sign painter was welcome anywhere, because he was a skilled man and could make art that the everyday people could understand. To this very day is a Tom Tucker Ginger Ale sign that I first saw painted back in ought-nine. Back then they used a certain kind o’ lead paint that wouldn’t wash away come hell ner water high.

On the fourth of July and especially on election day we young ‘uns would get up to all manners of devilment, what with hauling outhouses away and swiping empty wooden barrels and burnin’ ‘em up right there in the middle of the street—you can well imagine such a thing not flying today—you got to remember that even the main streets was paved with cobblestones--traffic back then was horse-drawn—not even the trolleys was all-electric. We would go wild with firecrackers and cherry bombs and other dangerous toys and many a tom-fool got his thumb blowed clean off, acting the smart-aleck with dangerous ‘splosives.

Some say we should bring back the stocks to punish thieves and tramps, and mischief-makers, and maybe even bring back the forty lashes. I can’t hold with that line of thinking, Yob. That’s the thinking of a born punk. Know this well: A caning can sometimes serve to simply fill a felon's heart with a bitterment, rather than a resolve to hew to the straight and narrow.

And never you mind going to the law for justice in a case of fraud. If you was to lash all the dishonest tradesmen there ever was, that might be a good start, but it will never happen—never has and never will--only the poor are made to take their lumps—the well-off, with their clubby pals and secret handshakes always get off scot-free, or with forty lashes with a wet feather.

And know this well, Yob—then as now--it still be the Way of the World.

[dimenno]

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART SEVEN: THE PLAN

It was right before he faded from this mortal plain and shambled off to the Big Rock Candy Mountain that Cadger Tandy the dying hobo told Baby Boy Maddox exactly what was what.

“Back in my day it was a musty planet, Yob, a yellow tintype orb full of fumes and dust, but one as set the pattern for these so-called modern times. We still breathe shit, Yob, and eat it, too—all of us--only now we call it ‘Progress’.”

And, then as now, things warn’t always what they seemed.

Life was for the young; it is for the young; it always has been for the young. The lady folks is chatty and the men is strong and silent. In general a lad only needs to know how to say two things: ‘Jazz Me’ to a Frail and ‘Back Off’ to a Yegg. The rest is buncombe.

And the old folks—then home folks—they is allus left to set a rockin’ on their porch to reminisce about how they did back when they was young.

But let me pull your sleeve, Yob—being young is also the time when you is got to get in all your accidents and make all your big mistakes, because being that you’re young is the only reason you can bear ‘em. You don’t stay innocent for long. And knowing what is what means that you are walking a big step away from stupidity and madness and are taking the man-sized step that leads you to a peaceful grave. Lying six feet under the short grass—that’s your heaven. T’was ever thus. What monkey wouldn’t long to live forever in a safe old hidey-hole? There’s your paradise right there.

Only a fool will ever make moan over how he’s been missing out. Keep your eyes open. Stop, but never stay in one place for too long. Look, but never touch. Listen, but don’t talk. That’s the best advice there is, and you can take that to the bank.

Love is a sticky wicket. You love her, she don’t love you. Boo hoo hoo. Or you think you love her and she thinks she loves you and the two of you spoon and call each other Googy Wa Wa. That there is sickenin’ to everyone but the two parties involved.

Anyway, all too soon she’ll find you dull. She’ll look for new horizons. If she’s a bad ‘un, and turns out to be a lady of easy virtue, then the twitchet will involve you in a deadly game of choice and chance with evil strangers. She will dance for criminals and hard men; she won’t dance for you. She’ll make your life a living nightmare, and if you try to unhitch her, she’ll take you for everything you’ve got. Or you’ll turn to solace to a lovely barfly who’s nothing but trouble. Her boyfriend is a big man who will break your legs, if you’re lucky. Or she’ll clean you out and laugh in your face. Your friends can’t help you here—nobody can help you here. They’re all tired, anyway, of hearing about your financial embarrassments. You brought them on yourself, with your reckless behavior. You’ll be faded, fucked, and forgotten.

Or say you hew to the straight and narrow and work yourself to death to give her everything she wants. It will never be enough. Every hope you cling to will become another trap. She’ll cry that she wants some kiddies to brighten up the home. Soon you’ll have some children. Ungrateful children, who will break your lonely heart. Don't you get it? The second you have a child you are already a dead man. A child is a trap. Even a child can tell you that. You are easy prey for your children--who will always wrong you. Always. When your children are youngsters you will be a God to them. But what kind of man takes pride to being a big shot in the eyes of a small boy-- and nobody else? When you laugh you embarrass them; they despise you for your weakness when you cry. By the time they are grown and on their own, to them you are an old-fashioned relic of days that are better forgotten. You will be lucky if they even talk to you. And you can bet on one thing--you will never be forgiven for the pain you caused them. They will stop caring about you long before you die. Time will come when they will look in your eyes and see a dead man. You won’t die easy. You will go kicking and screaming into that good night. And when you’ve breathed your last, they will dance at your funeral--and sell tickets.

So let them old gummers set rockin' on the porch and reminisce about the days back when Paw was Courtin’ Maw. Hay Rides, husking bees, barn raisings, and all that other sad bib-overall-starin’ –at-a-mule’s-ass farmer-boy fol-de-rol.

Country Younkers as had never strayed more than twenty miles from their back forty would find themselves drunk and naked and bleeding from multiple clouts to the head and lying in a puddle of their own filth and that’s why they all had good reason to be feared of and hate the Big City. Next time I bring the crop to harvest, says Farmer John to his self, I’ll not treat the boys at the saloon to a snifter—why, I’ll just buy me half a pint of skull-varnish and sleep in the wagon yard with Betsy, my faithful rifle, to provide me with my need for good fellowship.

That’s how the countryman saw the City—as a hell overrun by devils. Who’s to say he was dead wrong?

But the biggest mistake you can ever make in life is thinking that folks is very different from one place to the rest.

Hell is found the world over, and you don’t have to be no fallen angel to sniff it out.

What is Hell, anyway, but having to do the same thing over and over, and for no reason? The myths of olden days was spot on when they talked of fellers rollin’ up them boulders to the top of the yonder hill and watchin’ them roll back down and then having to pick up and start all over. It is no myth when every day you see some game Yellof tied to a stake while eagles tear away at his liver. It is the human condition, Yob, and you don’t need to be a smarty to know that Hell can be hard and Hell can be soft, but it’s only a matter of your perspective.

Because it’s all Hell.

[dimenno]

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER SEVEN: PART EIGHT: THE PLAN

It’s all Hell, said Cadger Tandy to his wild young acolyte, Baby Boy Maddox.

Look over yonder at the scene that will meet your eyes in any small town the year round.

Look hinter the olden customs and you’ll see it—do I have to come right out and say it again?—it’s all Hell.
Now, I reckon ye ken the start of Winter is when the devils come out in full force. You see, Yob, there is a thin scrim—very thin indeed—that separates the normal world from the lurking hell that lay in back of it. Christmas and New Year’s Eve in particular was ever and is always simply a portal into license and the staving off of slow decay. Leave your liver at the door!

But in reality and fact, it is all hell the year round. Winter and spring, summer and fall.

In Spring you see evil old men with bitter twisted mouths settin on benches in front of the court house, their heads full of unfinished business. Hoping to ruin things not only for today, but also for the folks who will live on long after they are dust. And for all times. For example, you will always see them schemin’ to get rid of the newly-arrived young minister doing Good Works at the local Church of God and Gold Almighty. Who the Devil does he think he is--Him, and his newfangled ideas about God’s mercy and His forgiveness? No—give them the old time Preacher Man, and his pissy little hellfire sermons every time--he keeps the youngsters ready to toe the line.

In the Springtime you’ll run across the sour old biddies with triple chins and loose corsets, all spruced up in black funeral dresses on Easter Sunday, setting on stools in the ice-cream parlor, coolin’ off their poison tongues with banana splits and sody water—you can almost hear the water sizzle in the throats of them old busybodies as they gulp it down. They gulp and gab and blabber about the doin’s of the young mothers and their kin and it’s like you’re staring down a black smoke of hatred and spite as you hear them squawk “My Word!” and “Well, I never—“ and “The very idea!” Yut yut yut yut yut!

In Spring, look ye well upon that old man buying day old bread at the bakery window. He’s Pinch Warburg--rich as Croesus from bleedin’ the poor by sellin’ ‘em bogus insurance policies, and yet the old sinner wouldn’t give so much as a dime to save a starving Prince. All his life he’s acted on the principle of What’s in it for me, and he’s druve away all human companionship with his penny-pinching and twisted ways.
In Summer ye can go to the general store next to the post office, where the storekeeper—a pucker-faced snapping cove—will gladly take a hungry tramp to the back room and beat him near to death for trying to slip a can of sardines in his tattery coat pocket.

And what of the farmer in his sour apple orchard, three teeth in his rotting head, and a shotgun loaded with gravel and rock salt? The old devil looks like Lucifer himself, only in bib overalls, with boots caked in pigshit, to hide his cloven hooves, and he likes nothing better than blistering the ass of a starving ‘Bo who picks a wormy piece of fruit from off his land.

You can see the devil and his evil everywhere ye care to look, and in more’n a few places you wouldn’t expect. In Summer there’s the white-handed pasty-faced old Pastor back in his church, attendin’ to the bawling sheep in his congregation—talking smooth words of soft solace to ease the tired souls of the afflicted and trodden down, but all the time himself seething with hidden lust for good food and strong drink and other, more forbidden pleasures of the flesh.

Being a tramp is a hard road, and I wouldn’t commend it to a living soul, but you can look hard and long at the Yellofs who act the Square John, and what do you see?

In Autumn and all throughout the year, if you got eyes to see ‘em you can glim the old broke down former factory workers in their dirty old work togs, gap-toothed and slack-jawed, deafened from working with machinery, too used to getting up at 6am on every day of their lives to ever sleep in—you can see them sittin’ there on park benches, starin’ glassy-eyed, wonderin’ where their next square meal is coming from, having spent their monthly pension checks on the 25th and sold all their furniture many moons ago. Living hand to mouth in a filthy boarding house overrun by bugs. Fishin’ for half-eaten sangwiches in the trash can behind the chophouse.

In Autumn, and the year round, you’ll see the old banty-legged consumptive railroad worker with a caved-in chest reduced to being a Flag Man and waving the red rag at the railroad crossing, working in all kinds of weather—freezing in the winter, broiling in the summer, eaten alive by skeeters in the rainy season, barely paid enough to keep alive, living on a crust and a prayer, and no shelter from the elements ‘cept a sad tarpaper shack—they also make him act the Railyard Bull even though he can barely walk, and he feebly chases off the bums and tells ‘em to get away from the railroad switches, but he himself is hardly got a better go than the best of ‘em.

In Autumn you’ll see the old sales lady as spends seven hours a day standin’ on her feet on Labor Day and smilin’ through the red mist of her constant pain until the day her heart gives out and she’s crawling on her hands and knees.

Come Winter. The gardener—an old Mustache Pete—poisoned by bug spray—spent his life tending to rich men’s flowers and lawns; spends his final days as blind as a bat in a charity hospital ward unable to eat or drink or do anything for himself, coughing out his lungs--and then he dies. On Christmas Day! No flowers for him!

In Winter--the old man in the barber shop—another Mustache Pete—eighty-nine years old--smells like pomade---shuffles like a man who’s dead but doesn’t know it—his world is his shop with the red striped pole and the baseball scores—makes with a line of glib chatter—gives a discount to veterans--knows everybody’s business—a spy for the police—thinks Mussolini had a lot o’ good ideas.

And when the frost is deepest and the ground is hard, in the iron season when the moon is full--that is also when you’ll find the crazy drunks screaming off their D.T.’s in the police station basement, swatting away at the imaginary maggots.

There’s more, far more—but I dinna ken as ye need to know the world’s full horrors, as you’ll find ‘em out for yourself, Yob, and soon enough.

Just about every man not born into money, every man who hasn’t got a way of finding some, will work his fingers to the bone until the day he dies. He lives for the weekend and the holidays, and what kind of life is that? He’s got nothing but the shirt on his back and what he’s managed to pick up along the way; he thinks nothing other than what he’s told to think; he thinks he’s nothing—and so he is nothing.

Me, I never wanted no part of none of that. That there is why I allus mostly kept to myself.

Now Yob, I’m a dead man and I know it. So let me learn you a few things I wish I had known sooner. Here’s my fond words of advice.

Sooner say goodbye than hello.

Sooner say too little than say too much.

Better to be a strange hermit than a violent jailbird.

And know ye this, and know it full well—behind and back of every seeming heaven is a burning hell.

Back of ever so soft-hearted a man or woman there lurks a devil with iron claws.

Stay far, far away from the seeming goodly men and women of this world--they is mostly devils in deep disguise.

Look at any two people together.

Two scorpions trapped in a bottle, they is—and the one will always sting the other one to death.
Two crabs in a bucket—claws out to always drag his brother down.

It’s a truth as old as Aesop, Yob--and older.

And if ye don’t care to be dragged down with them—if ye don’t care to be burned—by them or by nobody else-- you will heed the words of a dying Yellof–and heed them well.

Harden your heart, Yob—make it hard as iron. Harden your heart. That there is the only way you navigate. Where? There—there--in the burning pit.