The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders

by Peter

  “Yeah, right,” echoes Edgar, the debate over anatomical correctness clearly having put him off his stride ... and he also now feels like he needs to pee. “What are you,” he asks McCoy Brewer, “some kind of optometrist?”

  “Uh uh,” says McCoy, “I’m a mortgage clerk, you know that. Only, I lost my job today ... so now I’m nothing.”

  “You lost your job?” says Jim, his face slack and concerned.

  As McCoy starts to respond, Edgar bangs the table with his right hand. “Hey, we telling stories here or what?”

  “Sorry,” says McCoy.

  “Sorry,” says Jim Leafman.

  “Can you believe this guy?” Edgar asks McCoy, nodding in Jim’s direction.

  “Just tell the story already.”

  “Okay. So, where was I? See, I can’t even remember where the fuck—”

  “The British,” Jim says softly. “They decided it was for the woman’s pleasure.” He looks like he’s about to do the trick with the fingers and the hand-hole but instead he reaches for his glass.

  “Yeah, right,” Edgar says, and he chuckles. “So, the Poles...” Now he gives a real snort. “They decide they want to do their own research, cos, you know, they don’t agree with either of the other two.

  “So, they start their own survey study, you know ... and they spend ... they spend a couple of days and a few...” He pauses and looks across to the bar, sees Jack Fedogan polishing a glass while he watches them.

  “Jack,” Edgar shouts across, “Poles. What do they spend?”

  Jack Fedogan squints and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “What do they spend?” For a second he wonders if Edgar is having him on, asking him something so he can make him look dumb. He rubs one callused hand across his chin and, with the other, carefully sets the glass down on the bar counter.

  “Yeah, what do they use for money?”

  Jack shrugs, says, “They use the same as everybody else does, leastways they do in my bar.”

  Edgar waves his arm. “No,” he says, “in Poland for Chrissakes. What do they use when they’re at home in Poland?”

  “Pesetas?” Jack suggests.

  McCoy sniggers.

  “Is it drachma?” Jim ventures, looking first at McCoy and then at Edgar. “I think I heard something about drachma. I thought maybe it was rubics but that was the guy that made the cube. Did you ever have one of those?” Jim Leafman says to McCoy.

  McCoy nods. “When they first came out I bought one.”

  “Me too,” says Jim. “Almost did it one time. Two squares out.”

  “Okay,” Edgar says, impatiently, “we’ll go for drachma. So, they do this research, right, takes about two days and costs around fifty drachma—” He shrugs and raises his eyebrows. “In other words, not very much, you know what I’m saying here? Anyway, they come up with the answer.” He leans forward and lowers his voice a little.

  “The Poles, they figure a guy’s dick is shaped the way it is so that your hand doesn’t fly off and hit you in the face.” He slaps the table in tune with the word ‘face’ and leans back in his chair guffawing.

  McCoy laughs in spite of himself, feels some of the pressure lifting from the back of his head, unsure whether he’s laughing at the joke or whether he’s just starting to feel the effects of the martini.

  Jim Leafman has a big dumb smile on his face, wants to laugh but just can’t quite tie everything up to allow him to do so.

  Edgar repeats the last line, making a jerking-off movement with his right hand and then hitting himself in his face with it.

  “Oh, right,” Jim says, laughing now but the laughter sounding a little forced and unreal, echoing around the empty room.

  Outside on the street the sound of this merriment distils the intensity in the air and wafts along with occasional exhaust fumes and the smells of roasting chestnuts and hot dogs and catsup, wafting and diminishing with each foot and each yard it travels until, a few steps either side of The Land of the Working Day, it fades completely as far as normal people are concerned, normal folks hurrying home or rushing out on dates or to dinner parties, moving through the drift of silent laughter like it wasn’t there, arguing about this and that or lost in thought cultivated and even approved by the City.

  But though it is now silent, this laughter, still it exists and still it moves, drifting in all directions ... up towards the Empire State, down to Washington Square and Greenwich Village, and east across Madison Square and on to Gramercy Park. It will continue, this sound, moving across all barriers, fading and fading until it is the ghost of a ghost of bygone laughter, but it will continue to retain some residue of itself and of why it came about. For though there is always something special about any laughter, there is something doubly special – almost divine – about laughter that needs to be, laughter that, through the simple process of coming into being, releases and repairs.

  And out in the night-time City, out there amidst the trees and the trashcans and the lonely alleyways, beneath the ever-present hum of siren, engines and human breathing, there are people closer to the Heart of the City than everyday normal folks. And one of these, a man, hears the sound on the breeze like tinkling bells, wind-chimes fashioned out of coral shells and plastic cord. This man on this night is closest of all to the Heart of the City. He is the custodian of its welfare, though this is not a post he has sought.

  On other nights and at other times there will be others, men and women, boys and girls, whose unsought and un-asked-for responsibility will be to restore the balance of the streets. But for some nights past and for some nights still to come, it is this man’s responsibility and his alone.

  As he hears the sound he chuckles to himself, sitting on a bench in Gramercy eating the remains of a tuna niçoise sandwich that someone has discarded earlier in the day, cocking his dirty head to one side and lifting the earflap of his conical hat, he discerns the direction from which the sound has come to him, then turning, almost as though he can see it travelling on away from him, away to Stuyvesant Square and then to the East River and then across to Brooklyn ... which some might say is in most urgent need of the ministrations of laughter (but only those who do not live there).

  He wraps the remains of the sandwich in the dirty greaseproof paper and thrusts it deep into an old coat tied colourfully around his waist. Then he lifts from the floor by the bench an old satchel fashioned out of soft leather and upon which are strange runic symbols that he has carved over the years, and he faces diagonally across Park Avenue South, sniffing the air and smiling.

  Then he starts to walk.

  Back in The Land at the End of the Working Day, the jokes and the stories are coming thick and fast, thicker and faster as the drinks are replenished. And, strangely – strangely because Jack Fedogan’s bar is a popular establishment – no more people have come in on this particular night and no one who was already in the bar has left, as though the single room, with its softly whirring air conditioning and a steady stream of faint piped jazz music put out from Jack’s CD player, had become the room in the old Bunuel movie where people simply cannot leave, though for what reason they are never sure.

  “Okay,” says McCoy Brewer, sensing that it is his turn and taking advantage of the natural lull in story-telling, “so, the Pope comes to New York, right? Pays the Apple a visit.”

  Edgar Nornhoevan nods, playing the table-top like it’s a piano, joining in with the sound of Bill Evans playing ‘My Melancholy Baby’ out of the old speakers on either side of the bar, shaking his head like he’s living the notes and the chords, forgetting for a while that he needs to pee.

  Jim Leafman nods too, and takes a drink, whispering the punch line from Edgar’s last joke, “No thanks I’ll smoke my own,’... heh, heh ... I like that, I really like that ... heh, heh...” He dribbles beer down the front of his shirt because he’s still talking as he drinks.

  “So,” McCoy continues, “the Pope, he’s finished his visit – he’s done all the touristy things, you k
now, been up the Empire State, got mugged in Central Park, bought a slice to go from Ssbarro ... the full works – and now he’s about to head home for Rome and the Vatican. Anyways, this huge limo picks him up from the hotel – he’s staying at the Waldorf, right?”

  Edgar nods his head, half-closing his eyes in agreement and momentarily giving in to an increasing feeling of disorientation and general drunkenness. “So where else would the Pope stay?” he says, pronouncing it ‘elsh’ and ‘shtay’.

  “Right,” says McCoy. “So, the limo picks him up and they set off for the airport.” He takes a sip of martini, savouring the taste, and then continues.

  “So, as they’re driving, the Pope picks up the intercom to the driver. ‘Hello driver,’ he says,” says McCoy, holding his empty right hand up to his mouth like he’s talking into something. “‘This is my first time in the United States and I have never, I mean ever, been in a car like this before. Do you think it would be okay if I drive it for a while?’ Well, the driver, he’s a little taken aback. I mean, nobody has asked him this before, right?”

  Nods from Jim and Edgar. Glancing to the side, McCoy sees that Jack Fedogan is leaning across the bar trying to listen, having shuffled closer and closer during the last couple of stories. “You with it so far, Jack?” McCoy asks.

  Jack stands up and, for a second, looks a little hurt.

  “Whyn’t you come over, Jack,” Edgar shouts.

  “How about me, too?” shouts Rosemary Fenwick, the lady from the Jim Thompson book, who, McCoy thinks as he turns around to see who’s asking, looks like Barbara Stanwick from the old movie with Fred McMurray where the two of them get together and throw Barbara Stanwick’s husband from a train. “I could use a little laughter tonight,” she says, the words blending in with the click-clack of her heels as she walks to the table without waiting for an answer.

  “Sure,” says McCoy Brewer, “let’s all of us gather around this table.”

  “I’ll bring some more drinks,” Jack Fedogan shouts, looking happy now, like a child who’s just been allowed to play with the big boys. “On the house,” Jack says.

  “Then I’ll have a double,” says McCoy.

  “Make mine a double Bud, bud,” shouts Jim.

  And everyone laughs while Jim Leafman pulls over another couple of chairs, and stands while Rosemary Fenwick joins them.

  Pretty soon, they’re all at the table, fresh drinks lined up in front of them, five lost people in the greatest city in the world, enjoying life unexpectedly.

  “So, where was I?”

  “Hey,” says Jack Fedogan, “this table feel strange to you?”

  “How’s come strange?” asks Jim Leafman.

  Jack places his hands palm down on the table. “I dunno ... strange like ... like there’s some kinda current going through it.”

  “Current like in electricity-type current?” says Jim, pushing his chair back a ways.

  Rosemary Fenwick places a hand on the table and lifts it quickly, then places it down again, leaving it there this time. “I can feel something,” she says. “Like some kind of vibration.”

  McCoy Brewer says, “Didn’t feel anything before,” saying it carefully, considering the validity of the statement.

  “Until there were five of us,” Edgar says around a hiccup, pronouncing it ‘ush’.

  “Until there were five of us? What the hell’ – pardon my French,” Jack says, glancing across at Rosemary Fenwick, who has now introduced herself to the others who have, in turn, introduced themselves to her. Rosemary shakes her head, and Jack continues while Rosemary smiles and uses two slender fingers to pull a cigarette from a crumpled and sorry-looking pack of Marlboro Lights.

  “What’s that got to do with the price of beans?” Jack asks, feeling like it’s his fault that the table is shuddering ... because, dammit to hell, it is shuddering.

  “Must be the subway,” Jim says, nodding slowly at his own wisdom.

  “Right!” says Jack Fedogan, relieved.

  McCoy places his hands gingerly on the edge of the table. “Doesn’t seem so bad now,” he says.

  “Prob’ly a train passing,” says Edgar.

  “Okay.” McCoy takes a long slug of beer and then a sip of his martini. “So back to the story.”

  “The Pope just asked if he could drive the limo,” Rosemary says, lifting her Manhattan in salute to Jack, who nods like it was nothing but who flushes kind of pink around the gills.

  “Right,” says McCoy. “So the driver considers who’s asking and he decides, hey, what could be the problem, right? The car will be safe enough and so he agrees. The Pope jumps into the driver’s seat and straight away floors the acceleration pedal throwing the driver onto the floor at the back.

  “The limo screeches up Broadway like you wouldn’t believe, running red lights, scaring the bag ladies and the muggers and the pimps, doing nearly one hundred miles an hour. Anyway, pretty soon this prowl car sees them come by and pulls out in pursuit. After a lengthy chase that takes them almost up into Harlem, the prowl car flags the limo down.”

  “One hundred miles an hour up Broadway! Shee,” says Jim Leafman. “Can you imagine that?”

  “That’s fast,” says Rosemary Fenwick.

  “That is fast,” agrees Edgar, saying ‘fasht’.

  “So,” says McCoy, “the cop gets out of the car – there’s only one cop in there – and he knocks on the driver’s window. The Pope sheepishly lowers the window ... at which point the cop takes one look and then goes back to his own car and radios the precinct. ‘Er, this is Car 16,’ the cop says, ‘I think I’ve got a problem.’

  “‘Problem?’ says the guy at the precinct. ‘Yeah,’ says the cop. ‘I’ve pulled over a VIP.’ ‘Who is it?’ comes the reply, ‘not the Mayor again?’

  “‘Nope,’ says the cop. ‘More important than him.’

  “‘Not the Senator?’ says the precinct house.

  “‘Nope, more important than him,’ says the cop.

  “‘The President? Tell me you haven’t pulled over the President,’ says the precinct.

  “‘Nope,’ says the cop. ‘It’s even more important than him.’

  “‘More important than the President of the United States?’ comes the reply. ‘Who could be more important than that?’

  “The cop says, ‘I dunno, but he’s got the Pope as his chauffeur.”

  The laughter mixed in with Herbie Hancock’s ‘Maiden Voyage’ and the hybrid sound of cymbals and piano and pure good times rings out in the dimly lit barroom and washes against the walls and over to the steps leading up onto the street, spilling out into the night air like a beacon.

  And it is a beacon, of sorts anyways.

  And it has been noticed.

  For out in the wintry night sidewalks of New York City there is one more soul adrift in the night. And he is following the sound like it’s a clarion call and, staring into the dark skies awash with reflected colours, he senses the direction of the sound and adjusts his own path – not by much ... maybe by only a few feet – and he crosses over the street.

  “Yeah,” says Jim Leafman, “I love a good joke.”

  Jack Fedogan nods and glances towards the stairs.

  “Jack?” Edgar Nornhoevan follows Jack’s stare. “Something wrong?”

  Jack shakes his head like he’s coming round from a punch to the face. “No, just thought ... just thought I heard something.”

  McCoy looks around at the stairs and sees the darkness of the streets lying at the top, curled up away from the overhead lights on the stairs and, for a second, it reminds him that the world is waiting for him. Reminds him that the funny stories are only down here, down here in Jack Fedogan’s bar, and that up there he doesn’t have a job. Up there, funny stories are strictly for people who are in work. “Can’t see anything,” he says and looks back down at his beer and his highball.

  “Hey, you’re thinning down, Ed,” Jack says, changing the subject. “I hadn’t noticed that before,” he adds,
patting his own stomach and nodding to Edgar Nornhoevan’s. “You lost a little weight. Looks good on you.” He nods and takes a slug of beer. “You working out?”

  Edgar pulls in a long sigh. “Tumour,” he says, letting out the air.

  “Tumour?” says Jim Leafman. “That some kind of diet?”

  Grimacing, Jack says, “It’s cancer, you dumb fuck,” hissing it. He turns to Rosemary Fenwick and adds, “Pardon my—”

  “I know,” Rosemary says, “pardon your fucking French.”

  McCoy Brewer reaches across and pats Edgar’s arm. “Where?” he asks.

  “Prostate. Me and Timothy Leary.”

  “Turn on, tume in and drop out,” says Jack.

  “Oh, that was awful,” says Rosemary.

  “Leave him be,” says Edgar. “He’s just trying to make me feel better.”

  “He’s just a comedian, he don’t mean nothing,” says Jim Leafman, filling his glass from the pitcher, filling it right to the brim and watching the froth turn into beer and slop down the sides onto the table.

  “I guess we’re all comedians tonight,” says McCoy.

  “Yeah,” Rosemary says, “it feels special alright. You feel that? Can you feel something special about everything?”

  “How special?” Jack slides his hand across the table and shakes one of Rosemary’s cigarettes out of the pack, then lights it.

  “I thought you quit?” says Edgar.

  “I did.” Jack takes a pull on the cigarette and blows smoke, smiling.

  Rosemary shrugs. “Dunno. Just special.”

  “It’s cos we’re telling jokes,” says Jim, “cos we’re comedians, like Mac said.”

  Jack Fedogan says, “What was it Lenny Bruce said about comedians?”

  Grunts from everyone. Nobody knows what Lenny Bruce said about anything.

  “He said something like a comedian is someone who makes up his own material, not someone who just repeats other folks’ stuff,” says Jack, remembering hearing Lenny interviewed by Studs Terkel on WFMT back in ’59, when he lived in Chicago. “They’re just echoes.”

  McCoy turned to him. “Lenny Bruce said that? Echoes?”