1920: THE ROARING ANTHOLOGY
1920: THE ROARING ANTHOLOGY
EDITED BY:
Ron Perazza
Peter Timony
STORIES BY:
Julia Druk
Dave McCullough
Ron Perazza
Matthew Petz
Peter Timony
UNION COMBINE
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The Introduction copyright © 2013 Julia Druk
Trenchers copyright © 2013 Ronald J. Perazza, Jr.
Comedy Is Pain copyright © 2013 Peter Timony
Poltergeist copyright © 2013 Matthew Petz
Dearest Delilah copyright © 2013 Dave McCullough
Illustrations © 2013 Daniel Govar
1920: The Roaring Anthology, Union Combine, the Union Combine logo and related elements @ 2013 Union Combine. All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any form or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and appropriate creators except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
The Introduction
by Julia Druk
Trenchers
by Ron Perazza
Comedy Is Pain
by Peter TImony
Poltergeist
by Matthew Petz
Dearest Delilah
by Dave McCullough
The Introduction
I always imagined my life differently. I imagined being surrounded by gaiety and art, and all sorts of glittering, fascinating people. Visions of nightly dances and intellectual debates, smoky cafés, green-tinged cocktails, the haze of tobacco smoke, sax notes, all swam tantalizingly in front of my mind. Yes, I imagined that sort of fame, even if a diluted or reflected fame, or at the very worst, renown.
I catered to it by purchasing a velvet smoking jacket and a few jazz records from a departing senior, and posing at my dormitory window in the evenings to gaze out from what I envisioned was a lonely writer’s aerie.
Nonsense. It was all utter nonsense of course. But in the clutches of these vague imaginings I gathered enough courage at the end of my senior year to make a telephone call which set off a chain of events so decisively and irrevocably that it still holds itself firmly in my mind.
“I want to go to New York and try my hand at writing,” it began.
The line was silent. Among the crackling, I could hear one of my father’s heavy sighs, containing to my ear the sum of long-standing disappointments, of which this was only the last. It swept over my grade school days of mediocre marks and benched games, the failed youthful courtships, the years spent at study toward an undistinguished diploma at a school neither in Boston nor New Haven, the whole of it being a son that in his twenty-one years in this world had left not a single mark, and now – this.
“Your mother wouldn’t like it,” he said at last.
My late mother had been faint and timid, a gray sparrow who in life had never once ventured to express an unfiltered opinion, but had now become the first and last resort of all arguments, the most forceful of women.
And so I steeled myself to counter with all the thrust of youthful enthusiasm, “only I’ve got it all figured out, you see. For the first few months I’ll need to rent a room and get situated, just before I get published, but then, you’ll see, I should be able to take care of everything on my own, and I –” I spoke too fast, and here I stumbled, before finishing rather lamely,
“– I would just like the chance.”
This was the most that I had ever said to my father all at once, and it had perhaps embarrassed him enough to reply, after another sigh, “All-right, six months.”
And that was that.
* * * * *
And so, in the bloom of June 1919, I arrived, as everyone arrives, on the doorstep of a city that wanted nothing to do with me.
My first impression was noise. Yes, the sheer, overwhelming noise of it. The cars and trams and porters just outside the station, and then people, people, people everywhere – in the cars, and cabs, and on foot, walking four abreast, an overpowering cacophony of summer suits and straw hats.
I stood frozen just inside the station doors until – what luck! – I saw a familiar face passing quickly through the crowd.
“Bink!” I cried, frantically waving my arm and half-running to catch him up. “Bink!”
Brian Hastings, known simply as Bink in our friendly circles, paused and turned around. He wore a slim-cut gray suit, maybe a shade dark for June, and one of those straw hats you saw in all the pictures. Here was that elusive introduction to the city! Bink glanced me over quizzically, and said “yes?”
“He- Hello Bink,” I stammered, a little out of breath, “I’ve just arrived! So good to see a familiar face. What are you doing here?”
Bink didn’t reply at first, still looking at me with a somewhat puzzled expression, then said, “I’m sorry – but do I know you?”
I was so surprised that I actually took a step back, and after mumbling a hasty apology to a woman behind me, I turned to Bink and said, “I – well, it’s me, Bink. You know, we took Crockford’s class together and I think Greek too –” I paused, now unsure, “Don’t you remember me?”
“Oh, yes, of course –” Bink said slowly, “yes, yes, yes, yes, sorry about that. You were that… You must have been that… quiet fellow, wasn’t it? Didn’t you write that, what was it now…”
“Yes! It’s Wally – Wallace Pendleton.” I said quickly. He remembered!
“And now – you’ve just arrived, you say?”
“Yes, I’ve decided to try my hand at writing, you know. This is where everyone goes to do it, isn’t it? I’ll get a couple pieces in the New Yorker and it’ll be up and up from there, I suppose.”
I paused as Bink looked down at his watch, then ventured as casually I could, “Say – you wouldn’t want to get a drink, would you? Help me settle in?”
He frowned slightly. “Wally, is it?” He looked me over once again, surely taking in the outdated jacket and trousers, the travel creased shirt, the unseasonable hat, “No… sorry, Wally. I’ve really got to run, old boy. Work, you know. It was great catching up, though, and – good luck!”
He turned on his heel, and with the air of someone who has just narrowly avoided some minor misfortune, took off into he crowd.
In desperation, I yelled after him, “if you change your mind, look me up, Bink!”
And then I stood still for a long silent moment.
And that was that.
* * * * *
I won’t bore you with the details of June-October. Suffice it to say that after a hectic search, I found adequate lodging by the Fuller on 23rd – a furnished white room and two solid meals on week-days, both equally bland. I bought a desk – this took a lot more care as it was to be the chief wellspring for my inspiration – and a typewriter. I bought and consumed a lot of cigarettes, and spent many hours in my smoking jacket, staring out over the elevated on Sixth Avenue toward a hazy metropolis.
I wrote three short stories, and sent them off to the right places, expecting each day to bring good news. At night, I went down to the Golden Swan or the White Horse and ordered an old fashioned or a cobbler, enjoying privately the charm of being a nearly-published author.
It was a glorious time. The only sour note in
my otherwise contented life was that I searched in vain among the bar crowds for those with whom I could spend hours drinking wine and dissecting the latest editions of the Smart Set and McClure’s, or dancing in step to a mellow band, murmuring something romantically indistinct but profound into a perfumed ear.
Instead, I found myself the victim of a kind of musical chairs, edged out steadily by arriving couples and growing gatherings of friends until – after the requisite of courses and not a problems – I would find a remote perch at the far reaches of the bar, and lose myself in watching their evenings grow animated and gay, pass with enviable ease from flirtation to boldness, and wind their way through toasts and peals of laughter toward what I imagined would be a happy close.
It was only that they did not know me yet, but it would be just next week, or next month, and they would all want to know me.
In late November, I received three letters.
“We are sorry to inform you that due to their overwhelming quantity, we are no longer accepting un-solicited materials…”
“The Editors regret to inform you that the enclosed materials are not suitable for our current needs…”
“As you enter your twenty-second year of age, your Mother and I – for I am sure in spirit she is with me – have found no sufficient reason to continue furnishing your allowance.
We believe that rendering it necessary for you to find your own way in the world is our only chance to instill in you a…”
Panic. Doom.
* * * * *
As the air around me grew cold and festive, and the city came out for the holidays with gilded invitations flying to and fro, to balls and parties and comings out, I sat shrouded in a lonely misery and counted money. It would last until Christmas.
I then made up my mind to place another telephone call, and so on Christmas morning my father condescended on the city.
Methodically, he surveyed my room – the bare walls and spartan furnishings, the overflowing ashtrays, the piles of notes and papers and loose change among old cups of coffee and wine glasses and remnants of dinners, and finally perched gingerly on a corner of my bed with one of his sighs.
“Your mother raised you better than that,” he said.
“I know.”
“It won’t do having you at loose ends like this. How do you plan to support yourself?”
“I’m still writing, you know. I just sent a new piece to the The Dial, and it’s a rather – ”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’ve found you a position.”
“A position?” I was instantly on edge. This meant the end of everything, the end of all hope. It couldn’t all just end like this, pushing paper in some airless office, when I was so damned close.
“It’s not a permanent placement. But it’s something, Wally. I called Rogers today. He’ll take you on in the Census Bureau, making the rounds.”
“The census? You mean going around people’s houses and collecting names?”
“That’s the idea,” he said, encouraged by this expression of interest, “You can make some money there if you apply yourself.”
“I have been applying myself – ”
“You should be thanking me.”
Caught in his angry stare, I took a minute to think this over. It wouldn’t do to upset the man, not when I needed the money. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. This census lark would only last a few months, after all, and it might prove to him that I could do something useful. And in the Spring, we could see about reinstating the allowance…
“I’ll see about it… Thank you, dad.”
“Now that’s the spirit, Wally,” my father said more kindly, and stood up. “You start in three weeks.”
“Merry Christmas.”
* * * * *
“Don’t worry – it’ll only take a moment of your time, ma’am.”
“It’s for the government, ma’am. We are going door-to-door this month, on a survey of the whole country. It’s for voting purposes, and to know who lives where.”
“Oh no, it’s got nothing to do with – Yes, here are my papers. You see – it says Enumerator here. ”
“Yes, thank you. It will only be a few minutes.”
“Let’s see here - have you been living here since January the 1st, ma’am?”
“And what is your name, ma’am?”
“And who is the head of the family? I see… has he also been living here since January the 1st then?”
“Can I ask how old you and the Mr. are?”
“And, forgive me, you are 30 years old exactly? Only it’s got to be exact, you see.”
“Thank you, ma’am. And who else lives here? Any children?”
“Can you tell me their names, oldest to youngest, please?”
“And is your family from around here, ma’am?”
“What year did you come over, ma’am?”
“Was it the entire family, then, that came over?”
“Are you all citizens, then?”
“I see – And the little ones that were born here, ma’am, are they in school now?”
“It’s only a standard question, ma’am –”
“No – you see, it says right here on the form, ‘attended school any time since September 1919’ –”
“It’s alright then, I’ll just mark it down as yes, ma’am. No need to worry. And what is your husband’s trade, ma’am?”
“Is that a salaried position?”
“Oh – they don’t tell me why they need to know – why don’t we say yes. Alright then, ma’am.”
“And do you work as well, ma’am?”
“And the older children?”
“And do you all know how to read and write, ma’am?”
“Of course – no, I don’t mean anything by it – we just have to be thorough, you see – ”
The new year came and went, and with it the country went mad and dry, and my consolation prize was the enumerator’s badge and papers, and the daily quotas of questions, and the rounds of doors, some friendly, most hesitant and anxious and persuaded, and a few resolutely shut despite the hasty, furtive sounds inside.
I think I had the worst of it – the old Five Points – where I quickly found that English hadn’t been spoken as a first or second language since Lord & Taylor fled in ‘58.
I got into the habit of taking a morning walk down Fifth, laid wide and clear with a view of statuesque downtown, accompanied most days by a few bleary-eyed party stragglers in evening tails. How I envied them! But then I’d shortcut through the manicured wilds of Union Square, and head down the Bowery, losing myself in visions of the old days you hear about, of mansions and galleries and elegant ladies dressed for the theater. And each of them so pliable and open, and willing to be led by a gloved hand, and loved.
In reality, I descended into a cramped and foreign chaos. I wound my way through unkempt snow banks to rows of anonymous tenements and crumpled awnings with strange alphabets, trying to decipher house numbers in the early-morning commotion of delivery carts, wagons, tradesmen, workers, laborers, do-gooders, dirty children, school children, newsies, Jews, Italians, Orientals, trams, and cars with frantic sounding horns.
And then I had to catalogue it all, this vast tangle of humanity all reduced to lines on paper. They did not want it. No, they wanted none of it. They were pitiful and sick and afraid. And it was only the specter of our great national uncle – still looming out faded and torn from the bulletin boards – whose badge I happened to carry, and whose threat cowed them into opening their doors.
For lunch I’d escape to Ratner’s on Delancey for an onion roll, and by evening I usually had to take something stronger. Someone had told me that the Landmark up on 46th was still open, and so most nights I took the trek to their second floor, and quietly sipped an old fashioned or a cobbler in the conspiratorial air, thinking on how I would one day turn all this into an excellent piece, fit even for The Strand.
* * * * *
The Friday b
efore St. Valentine’s I woke up late. I had stayed up the night before listening to Chamberlain on the radio lament our new dry era that added “to the miseries of the world” a global sugar shortage. Americans would replace vice with vice, I thought, and imagined fondly the tabloid headlines I would see tomorrow: America’s a Sweetheart!, Ladies Long for Lollies!, and so on.
It was too late to do anything about work, so I lay in bed for a while looking out the window at a white sky, snow falling thick and quiet. My thoughts drifted to the next day, which I decided had to be the most maudlin of holidays. Half the world would wake up in someone’s arms, the other half would look forward to balls and parties and the chance to meet someone new. And again you would be alone, apart.
After the maid stopped by with lunch and coffee, and I ate silently at the desk for another quarter of an hour, looking out over the empty city, I decided that I could spare the money for a telephone call.
I stood at the booth downstairs, trying to think of something clever, then gave up and had the girl at the exchange open up the line.
“Hello, dad,” I said, “happy upcoming.”
“Same to you, Wally. Shouldn’t you be making plans with your sweet-heart?”
“You know I don’t have one.”
An embarrassed pause.
“Ah, well. How’s the job going?”
“It’s nothing to write home about.”
“You’re not enjoying it?”
Somewhat bitterly, “you knew I wouldn’t.”
“For Chrissakes, what do you want? It’s an honest day’s work. It builds character. I don’t know what to do with you. First, this writing business. Now… Well, why are you phoning anyway?”
“I – I just wanted to wish you a happy Valentine’s, dad.”
“Well stop wasting money ‘til you’ve got something to say.” And he hung up.
I stepped outside.
* * * * *
It was cold and clear with a hint of sweetness, a far-off bakery smell. The snow had tapered off, and the streets lay under a thick white sheet, tantalizingly pristine. It felt like the New World all over again.
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