Golden Throat

by James P. Alsphert

  “Forget it, kid.” There was a lively version of I’m Sitting on Top of the World being played by the orchestra. “Tell you what…we need to put some life into our step—not this morose romantic slush…let’s kick up our heels, young lady, okay?”

  She took my hand again, but as we got out onto the floor the fast song ended and immediately after the applause, a love song started up. This time it was Jerome Kern’s ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine’ from a wonderful musical play, Showboat. It was 1927 when it came out and I remember taking Amanda Baxter to see a preview concert version downtown at the Alhambra Theatre on Hill Street. The music was exhilarating, powerful, beautiful, and poignant—all the things good music should be. I thought it was Kern’s best work. I also remember sitting there in the dark with Amanda Baxter’s hand feeling up my leg toward my private parts. She was a sensual dame who had been sexualized by her incest-motivated father. But I didn’t know that at the time.

  Ginny broke me out of my reverie. “I love this song, I even know some of it. She began to sing in a breathy, warm voice into my ear as we slow danced on the crowded floor. ‘…he can come home late as can be, home without him ain’t no home to me, can’t help, lovin’ that man of mine…’ See? I do know some of it.”

  “Yeah, kid, that was fun! You’re pretty—pretty sexy when you sing, you know.”

  “I—I am…?” she stuttered, still a bit drunk. “Then, Mr. Denning, you should desire me—here and now—here—here and—hic!—now!”

  “Right here…on the floor?” I kidded her.

  “Yep. That way—that way I’ll have—hic!—proof that you made love—made love to me.”

  I laughed. “I like you, Ginny Fullerton.” I don’t know what got into me, but in the crowded darkness I moved my hand up Ginny’s leg to her crotch and squeezed. I could feel her body collapse in surrender.

  “Oh! What—what—hic!—are you doing, Cable? You’re going to kill me…aren’t you—with love? But don’t stop…I would never want you to stop.” She started breathing heavier. “Take me home, please. I’m feeling—feeling a bit, uh, dizzy…hic!”

  We rode toward Ginny’s rooming house pretty much in silence. She held on to my hand and wouldn’t let go for a second. When we got off the streetcar and heard it clang away down the street, she turned to me. She took a deep breath and grabbed my neck, bringing my head down to her lips. She forced them onto mine and the wet warmth went through me like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. “I—I have to tell you, Cable…my—hic!—my truth, Mr. Truth Man. I can’t let you go home without—without having you—and letting my body be filled with your—your…you know…”

  The cool night air sobered me up a bit. “Ginny…oh, Ginny. You see what a mess we’ve already created? I’m not—not as strong as you might—might think. I’m a sucker—a real sucker for a babe’s warm, wet kiss. So…there you have it…but you gotta send me…on…my way…”

  “I can’t, Cable, I can’t.”

  She took my hand and we walked toward her rooming house and climbed the front steps. When we got to the big front door I stopped her. “You have a ten o’clock curfew—and it’s—it’s way past ten, lady,” I said, fighting my growing desire.

  “Mrs. Murphy sleeps with…with toilet paper in her ears. She’s also hard of hearing. Girls bring their guys up all the time,” she said quietly. She led me into the hallway and we climbed a flight of stairs up to the second floor. She stopped at the third door at the end of the hall and used her key to open it. She took my hand and led me straight to her bed, which was a pull-down, now opened in the middle of the room. She smiled at me. “Women…women scheme…all the time, Cable. I’m like—like—hic!—the spider woman, luring you into—into her web.”

  “So I see,” I whispered.

  She immediately took my coat off, began unbuttoning my shirt. By the time she unzipped my trousers there was an active member already standing at attention inside my shorts. She got down on her knees and gently took it out, sucking it into her mouth. It was hard to believe this young woman was as inexperienced as she said she was, but maybe some things are just instinctive—and this was one of them. Soon she stood up and took my hands, placed one on a breast, the other on her crotch. “This is for you, Cable. I’ve—I’ve saved it for you…all this time. No one has touched me—or had me since—since that day at my aunt’s place.”

  I began to undress her in a frenzy and soon we lay on her squeaky little bed wrapped up in each other. As with the first time, there was no doubt Ginny Fullerton and I had a chemical animal response to one another. Maybe there was no other way to explain it, but she was so easy to make love to and her young, pulsing womanhood brought out all my primal instincts as I penetrated her. She began to yell, but I put my hand over her mouth to quiet her. She moaned and groaned until finally her voice grew higher and higher in pitch until she let go like the bursting of a dam whose waters had begun to overflow the dyke.

  Finally an hour or so later we lay spent in each other’s arms. I could tell her appreciation for the moment had overwhelmed her. Finally she whispered to me in the darkness. “Cable…I came…again…what is it about you?” By now most of the alcohol had worn off and her speech was less halting. “I had the funniest feeling…”

  “Yeah, what was that?” I asked, a little curious.

  “I could feel something—like, uh, a ‘click’ in me as you filled me with your beautiful love…like we were one for a minute and—and—never mind, just a woman’s feelings…”

  “Well, it sounds pretty special to me, whatever it was.” I freed myself from her body. “I hate to say this, but I hope you were safe—you know, we made love without—”

  “—it’s okay, Cable. I would tell you if—well, I wouldn’t want to put you through all that, with your getting married and all.”

  “I gotta go, Ginny.” She didn’t respond, but lay there in the dark, stretched out on the bed. I got dressed and bent over to kiss her good-bye. She was crying and I felt the taste of salty tears on my tongue. “What is it, babe? I thought this is what you wanted?”

  “Trouble is, I want it all the time,” she sobbed. “I don’t expect you to understand. I’m sure it’s a woman’s heart thing. I’ll get over it.” She sat up and put her arms around my neck. “Thank you, Cable. I’m—I’m sorry if I pushed you over the edge. I…I just didn’t know…what else to do, I wanted you so.” She tittered under her breath. “So you see, I can be selfish and thoughtless like any other woman. I didn’t mean to offend your relationship with your fiancée. But, God, Cable, sex is so powerful!”

  “Tell me about it. Look at me, doll. You can’t take all the blame. I jumped in there with both feet. But you know what, Ginny. In some crazy way, I’m glad I did.”

  “I’m very glad you did, big boy,” she said in a sultry tone. “Is there any chance of a rematch sometime? I know you like boxing. But wrestling can be just as much fun. But I guess that’s asking too much, isn’t it?”

  I winced. “I want us to be friends, Ginny. I really like you. And I want you to call on me if you need me for other things, like if you get in a tough jam or life wants to break you in two, or you need a friend to talk to.”

  There was a brief silence. “I love you, Cable,” she whispered.

  I hugged her once more and left, tip-toing past Mrs. Murphy’s door.

  The Horrible Dr. Schumacher

  It was already September 7, 1929. Time has a way of escaping through your fingers and one day you know you’re gonna wake up old. I was already feeling that at twenty-nine and my birthday was just around the corner on the 13th. I had slept soundly the night before and thoughts and feelings of Ginny Fullerton kept bouncing in and out of my brain like a ping-pong ball looking for what side of the table it belonged on. It was Saturday and I knew it would be a big night for Honey. So I decided not to call her since she told me she had a few new songs to get straightened out with her accompanist.

  I was fiddl
ing at my desk, trying to figure out how to tie together all the loose ends I had in my life. For a guy, it’s two things, usually. Work and dames. One keeps you sane, the other drives you crazy. Women were always a delightful mystery to me, as unlike a man as an oak to a redwood—but they were still trees. Somehow you had to make it work, but you couldn’t live easily with them, and you sure as hell couldn’t live without them. They presented that enigma in a man’s life when he has to make up his mind to be married and do his best to toe the line of fidelity, or fuck around until he can’t anymore and wake up old and alone. At twenty-nine, my balls were still restless and drove me into untenable situations for the sake of a fine, intelligent, good looking woman who happened to have a great body and was daring enough to live on the edge of eternity with me when we explored the unknown dimensions of the he and she world.

  Just then my office door opened and in walked a familiar face. I thought hard to place it. “Mr. Denning…Father Tortelli—do you remember me? It was Cable, right? We met that night at Dr. Penn’s hotel.”

  “Oh, yeah, come on in. Excuse me if I don’t call you ‘Father,’ but I ain’t religious, never have been. Come in…sit down.”

  “You can call me Carlo.” I reached for my Lucky Strikes and offered one to the priest. He took it. “Thanks, Cable.” I lit the cigarette for him. He sat back, took a deep drag from his smoke and looked at me. “May I ask you a rather personal question?”

  “Yeah, sure, go ahead, shoot…”

  “Do you believe in God, Cable?”

  I was taken aback. That question always put me on the spot. Try as I may, I could never quite get a clear picture. I knew I couldn’t accept the religious concept, the stereotypical mythology of some big guy on a throne in the heavens, doling out judgment from fire and brimstone. Or the clear-cut partialism this character expressed, as in ‘my people.’ The rest of us must be the expendable majority, then. “It’s a loaded question, Carlo,” I answered the serious priest. “Opinions about a ‘God’ in the universe are as varied as a babe going into a dress shop and trying to select a style and color that fits her best.”

  He laughed. “I never saw it that way, I must admit,” he said. “But it is true…most of the world’s population never heard of Jesus Christ.”

  “And that’s another whole can of worms,” I said, taking a drag on my cigarette and exhaling slowly. “Haven’t you left out Buddha, Mohammed, Lao-tzu and the rest of the prophets?” I snickered. “I was always a Moses fan as a kid. You know, some big bearded guy climbing a mountain, talking to a burning bush, God trying to explain himself with the ‘I am that I am’ statement and Moses aging fifty years as he receives the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Now, to me, that’s drama!”

  He laughed. “You’re right. There seems to be a lot of melodrama in the Bible, doesn’t there?” Then he drew serious. “Before they killed him, Father Damianos was coming around to the viewpoint of an ordinated cosmos, unending…nevertheless prescribed by intelligent design. He must have felt that the God of Our Fathers held that knowledge.”

  “I won’t argue there. So, what’s all this have to do with your visit?”

  “Well, truth be known, you have been under our surveillance, and we know someone from the Oculus has visited you—and most likely threatened you.”

  “Well, Carlo, why aren’t I surprised? Everyone else seems to be watching me, why not the Church?”

  “It isn’t intended to be malicious, Cable. We fear that the Tone of Creation you spoke of will be stolen with the golden capsule—and God’s world will be thrown into chaos.”

  “But isn’t that kind of the prophecy of your Bible? Chaos comes in and out as the king of the hour again and again in history, right?”

  “Yes, but not on this scale. This could threaten the entire human race.”

  “So what? I’ve never been that crazy about people anyway, Carlo. Personally, I think humans are parasites and take without giving because they’re out of balance with nature.”

  “What a cynical view for such a young man! How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine in a few days. And you?”

  “I’m forty-two. I’ve seen a lot more than you have, Cable.”

  “Have you? Have you seen the struggling masses, Carlo? I don’t mean in India or China or Africa, but right here on our soil—the poor lost and disenfranchised of the world? Broken down lives that dwell in the shadowlands of survival, with broken down brains and emotions, some that are nuttier than Aunt Martha’s Christmas fruitcake. The decaying old, the sick, the crippled, the panhandlers who day in and day out compete for the next dime someone will hand them, the toothless prostitute who plies her trade, her dirty, festering body passing on the diseases men have given her along the way. While all along, the millionaires high above this sewer of humanity sit and laugh with cigars and champagne, count their money and make a phone call to sell out their own mother for the next buck—because they’re diseased, too, Carlo, only their disease is an obsessive, addicted mentality bent on using whatever crooked scheme they can to feed off of the unsuspecting dupe who gives his few hard-earned bucks to the crooks who are happy to take it. Yeah, crooks and criminals, the ones who go free most of the time, because they wear a new pin-striped suit, men’s cologne and shiny new shoes. But you know, they’re rotten inside, they smell of corruption and their hands are dirty with the chaos they’ve created out of lack of concern for their so-called fellow man. Have you seen that, Carlo?”

  He fell silent, finishing up the last puffs on his cigarette. He bent over my desk and ground it out in my ashtray. He took a deep breath. “No, Cable, I’ve not seen that. The Church protects us and keeps us too busy to float among the masses. We leave that up to the parishioner priests.”

  “A pity. I would consider it a classroom must, like Humanity One. And so you see, that’s why I’m not crazy about humans. I think they’re a remnant race of beings, left over from some experiment gone wrong many thousands of years ago.”

  His brow furled. “Where…where would you get that notion?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Part of it is that I’ve seen things, Carlo. Taking that trip with Lei-tao to the land of the Cave of the Seven Truths, the tantric sex, some kind of teleportation—and how other dimensional creatures live—naw, humans just don’t add up. At least in their present state.”

  “I can’t tell you how impressed I am, Cable.” He looked around my disheveled, dirty office. “You, a common gumshoe eking out a living in a strange world of misfits—you should have experienced all this? And if I may, do you recall what the Seven Truths are, as the Chinese lady explained them to you?”

  I thought for a minute. “Yeah, one being we are mighty spiritual beings who deserve dignity and purpose. Second…let me see…we chose to come here from somewhere else. Oh, yeah, someone else chose us to be here, as if this wasn’t our native planet or whatever. We’re all gifted and wanted to be here now, the reason for which escapes me. Six, we existed before in some other world or dimension and seven, we will return one day to our native home and hopefully leave behind some kind of meaningful contribution here—anyway, that’s the best I can recall the way it went.”

  Father Carlo Tortelli’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Cable! That’s evidence of God if I ever heard it—but a modern explanation—may I write it down?”

  “Be my guest. I don’t know about the God thing, though. What if some incredible mind is simply having fun, creating all this diversity whether we like it or not—no choice—like being born…did you have a choice?”

  “Free will?” he asked as I gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. He asked me to repeat the Seven Truths…and so I did as best I could. He thanked me as I remained quiet, looking out my window at the traffic below on Franklin Avenue. “So, as I was saying, what if it’s free will that allows us to come here?”

  “Who in their right mind would wanna come here? Born in misery and poverty, maybe you gr
ow up to adulthood, screw or get screwed, reproduce your own brand of little rats, then grow old and die. That you’d wanna come here for?”

  “I think there’s something else. Isaiah Damianos told me once that he suspected that love was the instructor of choice for the earth existence. Here we were to learn love. All kinds. Then, when we have accomplished that greatest of all feats, perhaps we return to that native land you were talking about. It goes along with Jesus saying, ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions, I go there to prepare a place for you…' ”

  “And don’t return, I hope. I don’t know. It’s a hard sell. Even with love, not everything goes hunky-dory, you know. It can be pretty dark shit, Carlo. And I’m not sure there’s an answer to any of it.”

  “Well, to paraphrase you, you’re in pretty dark shit, too, just about now, Cable. Do you not think they will kill you in an instant as they did Isaiah? They’re bigger and more powerful than even we are.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, either. Maybe not as long as they think I can access the Fen de Fuqin.” I cleared my throat and lit up another Lucky Strike. “So, let’s get down to it. Really, why are you here?”

  “We know Nazar Ravna visited you. We also know he wants the capsule. He probably doesn’t know about the Tone of Creation, does he?”

  “I don’t think so. He wants the scribbling on the capsule itself—and the golden-etched tablet it contains, but maybe no longer does.”

  “What happened to that?”

  “A creature named Toggth, a friendly little genius, took it out when the Tone of Creation was restored to its rightful place.”

  “Hmmm….I see. So what are you going to do?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Carlo. Ravna’s ‘Order’ wants something I no longer have access to. He’s given me a couple of weeks to come up with it. Then I guess we can write Cable Denning off the books of the living. Got any suggestions?”