Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken

by Di Filippo, Paul

  A round of shouts and applause greeted this announcement. Rory sat gapemouthed, disbelieving all he heard.

  “Lastly I have to inform you of a small but crucial change in the nature of spondulix. Simply put, we have decided to go off the sandwich standard. We have many reasons for this decision. It’s demeaning for a worldwide currency to be linked to a little New Jersey sandwich shop. And too many of our key employees are tied up slapping salami and bread together. Above all, this step is a natural one. Just as the dollar can no longer be redeemed in gold, so will spondulix be decoupled from any comestible. We are going fully fungal.”

  A disconcerted silence greeted this last remark, until Sterling offered an explanation. “That’s ‘fully fungible,’ Earl.”

  “Cool. Fungus rules.”

  Able to stifle himself no longer, Rory jumped to his feet. “No, I won’t have it.’ This is the final straw! As long as these stupid pieces of paper translated to something solid, I knew we had a loophole in the eyes of the law. But if we take the sandwiches away, then spondulix become nothing but—but money!”

  Erlkonig studied Rory with pity. “Man, it’s too late to worry about that. They already are real money.”

  Sterling stood calmly and set Cardinal Ratzinger down on the tabletop. “Mister Honeyman, I’m afraid you are overruled in this matter. The licensing agreement you signed quite clearly stipulates our rights to market spondulix exclusively as we see fit. If you re-read your copy, I’m sure you’ll find the clauses iron-clad. The issue is settled,”

  Defeated, Rory collapsed back into his chair. He laid his still-hungover head in his folded arms atop the plywood for a moment. Cardinal Ratzinger came over and licked his ear. Rory looked up. “What’s this mean for me then? Am I just supposed to close the store down?”

  “Not if you don’t want to,” said Erlkonig. “Of course you could shut it down for good and just live off your share of spondulix like the rest of us. We’d find some important work for you here. I’m sure. And I don’t mean answering mail. But everyone will understand if you want to keep Honeyman’s Heroes going, as a hobby like. We only insist on one thing: that you don’t accept spondulix for sandwiches anymore.”

  “Wait just one minute. I’m going to be the only business in Hoboken now that doesn’t take spondulix? Me, the guy who invented them?”

  “I know it’s illogical, moll, and generally I’m big on logic. But this has to be. It’s a symbol, like, of the new order.”

  Rory tried to wrap his brain around this looking-glass rationale, but failed. At that moment an origami frog fell from the sky and landed on the table. It began to hop across the board. Instantly the Cardinal batted at it and it died, unfolding into a one-spondulix note.

  Suki Netsuke entered the room, followed by Leather ’n’ Studs, who carried the promised refreshments.

  “Meeting adjourned,” declared Sterling, as the Beer Nuts dove on the food trays.

  Rory had no appetite. He made ready to leave, but Erlkonig stopped him. “Come with me just a second, moll, I want to show you something.”

  Rory dispiritedly followed the albino, who led him on a long trek, down corridors still untouched by renovation and up interior staircases to the ghostly Brewery attic. They climbed a ladder up through a trap door to emerge on the slippery slate roof. Gathering their balance, the two men straddled the center ridge, holding onto lightning rods for support. Erlkonig waved an arm out over the panoramic view of the Hudson and Manhattan. In a seductive, tempting tone he spoke.

  “Look at this, shell, the Big Apple and all the world beyond it. Its all ours, man! The whole enchilada. We started with nothing, down in the gutter, despised by all the stuffed suits and plastic people. Now every day they come begging to us for loans and a piece of the action. They get it, but not before they kiss my spotted ass. It feels great, man, better than sex. Look—” Erlkonig pointed to the lofty top of the Brewery chimney, where workmen were busy with his penthouse addition. “We put a spiral staircase inside the chimney. Every day I’m gonna climb up, fantasizing that each step is the face of some bastard who screwed me. And when I get to the top I’m gonna open a window and take a piss on the whole world.”

  Rory said nothing. Erlkonig seemed genuinely anxious for Rory to adopt this cynical, utilitarian view.

  “Man, don’t be sad, there’s absolutely no reason. You know, Rory, I’ve always liked you. You were never uncool, you fell right into the Beer Nuts mentality. You were even kinda like a father to me. Don’t blow it now. Go with the flow. Big things lie ahead of us. I can feel glory right down to the soles of my feet.”

  An unseasonably cold wind blew in off the river, causing both men to shiver.

  “I feel something too, Earl. But I just can’t be as sure as you that it’s something sweet.”

  Chapter Ten

  Taking the Big Dive

  The deep steam ovens gaped open, begging for nourishment, their interiors parched, their rubber gaskets growing stiff and cracking. Spoons and ladles cupped only dead air. Dust motes settled through the still atmosphere atop the counters, lightly coating the random rock-hard sauce stains. Bread had gone moldy and been tossed. Cold-cuts had slimed over in the fridge and been fed to the dumpster. The pressure in the C02 cylinders that supplied the soda machines was bleeding away entropically. Napkins in their holders yellowed with slow oxidation. Cobwebs festooned corners of the ceiling, and corrosion spotted the sinks. The cash register sat silently, its electronic display dark. The bust of Elvis wept. The plastic tub of pickles in its larger wooden barrel had been capped and donated to a soup kitchen. Potato chips and Cheetoes silently degraded in their bags, approaching their expiration dates with steady inevitability. All the stools but one rested upside down like roadkill with legs pointed skyward. Knives bred rust, aprons hung slack, and even the starving mice, rats, cockroaches and ants had deserted the premises.

  Intimations of mortality proliferated within these four walls. Honeyman’s Heroes stood empty, except for its forlorn owner.

  Rory sat on the lone upright stool at the original customer counter, chin cupped in his poised hand. His beard felt like a squishy Brillo pad, and he thought for the thousandth time about shaving it off, before returning to staring out the front window. The air inside the store smelled like a bag of garbage forgotten in a closet, contrasting with the delightful weather outside. Crowds thronged the sidewalks, people ambling or striding purposefully by. Not a single individual turned into the store, though the hour neared noon. The scene reminded Rory of the Hollies song that had brightened the radio during his high school years. “Look through any window, what do you see? Smiling faces all around, rushing through the busy town.…” Everyone smiling but him. Same old story. What else was new?

  Mid-September. Two weeks ago, Rory, reluctantly following Erlkonig’s orders, had posted new signage prominently at his bustling place of business:

  Spondulix NOT accepted here.

  Then he had scraped the spondulix decal off the window, every pass of the box-cutter blade making a cut in his heart.

  At first people thought Rory was playing a joke. But when, cringing, Rory remained adamant about not taking spondulix, the currency of his own devising, his customers grew angry. They stayed away in droves. Then someone organized a boycott. For several days thereafter, picketers had congregated. Their various protest placards read:

  Honeyman Hates Hoboken!

  what did Spondulix ever do to him?

  shred the traitor on his own cheesegrater!

  honeyman wants to ruin our prosperity!

  dip him in tiger sauce, put him up & take him out.!

  Rory wished he could tell everyone exactly what was going on. But Sterling and Erlkonig had enjoined him to silence.

  These obstreperous protestors effectively ended any patronage Rory might have continued to enjoy. Even upon their eventual bored dispersal, no customers dared return, Rory had assembled his staff of Beer Nuts and made official what they had already been promis
ed by Erlkonig in the earlier meeting: they were all laid off until further notice. A rousing and completely dismaying chorus of cheers greeted this announcement.

  Rory continued to open the sandwich shop daily alone, returning to his original one-man operating style. But business never resumed, and he had to admit the folly of his hopes, even while he continued to dream things might change. He really didn’t want to be here, but he had nothing else to do. Management had taken away even his task of answering mail. Now, the many employees of the Consumer Response division of Sponco handled all such letters.

  Financially secure, he felt ruined. He had never worried quite so poignantly even when he was broke. He had possessed a certain devil-may-care joie de vivre when penniless and up to his neck in bills, hadn’t he? So he recalled. But all innocent abandon had finally died with the banishment of spondulix from his store. Such emotions would never return.

  Yet maybe he was over-romanticizing his past. Surely he had been down before. After being expelled from the Olympics, when the Baroness had died.… And he had always recovered his essential spirit, gone on to explore new horizons. Surely he would do the same again. And this time he had Addie by his side. If she replied Yes to what he was going to ask her tonight— Well, his future would look bright, despite all commercial defeats.

  Rory stood up. No sense in hanging around here. He’d head home, check up on Hello Kitty’s eternal pregnancy, and catch a nap before picking up Addie.

  Rory lifted his butt off the stool and bent over to knot a dragging shoelace. The bell above the shop door tinkled, loud in the silence. A real customer? He straightened up eagerly.

  Tiran Porter, deserting his neighboring hardware store, entered. Today he sported a pashmina belted sweater, not his old acrylic garment. Everyone in Hoboken was movin’ on up.

  “Hey, Tiran,” said Rory hopefully, “you here for your egg sandwich?”

  Tiran answered without a trace of guilt. “No thanks, man, I done ate already. But listen, there’s something on the twelve o’clock news I think you should see.”

  “Okay. What channel?”

  “Four. I was watching my tv in the store.”

  Rory flipped on the big color television which he had added to the store during its heyday. An aerial shot of a swelling, milling urban crowd filled the screen, overlaid with the voice of a female newscaster.

  “—continue to pour into Crown Heights. Police have given up trying to contain the crowds around Seventy-seven Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitcher headquarters. Ever since the announcement this morning by the Lubavitcher’s new mystery spokesman, people have been surging into this neighborhood by bus, subway and on foot.”

  A photo of Ped Xing leaped onto the screen. “Uh-oh,” said Rory.

  “Just a few days after publicly meeting with the Dalai Lama during the annual ‘Change Your Mind Day’ in Central Park, this humble monk known whimsically as Ped Xing has done the impossible, uniting Tibetans and Ultra-orthodox Jews under one banner. What this new syncretism portends is not yet known. One minute—there’s some activity on the synagogue’s upper level—”

  Out onto the second-floor balcony stepped the resplendently robed Ped Xing, accompanied by several shaven-headed Tibetan and behatted Jewish figures. The officials spoke briefly to the crowd, but no media mikes were emplaced to pick up their words. Then several large canvas sacks appeared. Ped Xing reached in and scooped up handfuls of—rainbow spondulix! He tossed them out into the crowd, which went berserk, surging, roaring, leaping for the fluttering money.

  This chaotic live coverage dwindled to a pip image, while the main scene showed a male newscaster back in the studio. “As you know, Jessica, while Rebbe Schneerson was alive he maintained a long-standing tradition of handing out single dollar bills as a symbol of charity. But this wholesale giveaway of money is entirely unprecedented. Learning whether or not this is perhaps a Tibetan tradition will require some sharp investigative reporting. But in any case, the whole impromptu affair seems well on its way to becoming an utter riot.”

  “I agree, Peter. Judging from the behavior of the crowd, I don’t believe many people are sincerely interested in this bizarre new blend of religions. Everyone here today seems concerned mainly with lining their own pockets. And as for this enigmatic Ped Xing, Channel Four has just learned that his real name is Petal Zhink, and that he appears to play a part in that Sponco story we’ve been following for you. When we’ve confirmed a few details, we’ll be letting you know more.”

  “Excellent, Jessica. Meanwhile, we have a considerably more upbeat story for our viewers. A local Little League team, the Near-Beer Nuts, seems poised to clinch the national championship, thanks to their hard-playing, take-no-prisoners attitude—”

  Rory used the remote to flick off the set.

  “Pretty wild, huh?” said Tiran,

  Rory’s disgust tinged his reply. “The whole world has gone nuts! I hope all Earl’s schemes blow up in his face. I’m getting out of here before howling mobs descend on my poor little store.”

  Tiran left. Rory locked up, pocketed the key, then headed back to Jackson Street.

  Walking, Rory thought about what he had just witnessed on television. Evidently, Ped Xing had achieved his oft-stated dream: showering riches on his dual religions. All the work Xing had performed for Erlkonig had been loyally rewarded. Rory hoped Ped Xing was happy with the resultant madness. When Erlkonig had promised to fund any and all personal pork-barrel projects at the meeting that had decoupled spondulix and sandwiches, he apparently hadn’t been kidding.

  Rory wondered if he would be the only conspirator not to have his wildest dreams fulfilled. Quite likely. Because he couldn’t formulate his heart’s desire? No! He had finally put his aspirations into words, if only for himself. And his goals had nothing to do with money, bore no relation to a continuing flood of spondulix, and so could not be met by Erlkonig. At last he knew the one thing he wanted, the only outcome that would bring him happiness. And although his desires all centered on one other person, that person was not Erlkonig.

  Each day’s walk to and from work carried Rory past a bookstore on Washington Street. Today its window hosted multiple piles of just one book. The book’s yellow cover featured no illustration (a tactic, Rory knew, used by publishers when dealing with an unclassifiable work), just the title and author byline in bold black lettering:

  THE WRECK OF SHOCK IGNITION

  Hilario Fumento

  Rory stopped, dumbfounded. Fifteen stunned seconds passed before he could focus on the placard proclaiming author signing today. He went inside the store.

  A folding table dominated the main display area. Stacks of lemon-colored books on the table almost hid the seated figure behind them. Rory sidled up for a confirmatory view.

  Fumento wore, as always, his uniform of T-shirt and painters pants. However, he had added an enormous, curve-stemmed pipe to his look, as befitting his new authorial status.

  Roughly a dozen people clustered around the table, apparently hired flacks and negligible literary hangers-on: SoHo bohos and uptown tweeds. Rory pushed past them to confront Fumento.

  Bedazzled by the culmination of his dreams, the new author failed at first to recognize Rory and launched into his pitch. “Thank you for coming, sir. To whom shall I inscribe your personal copy of my controversial and revolutionary new book? Perhaps you’d like more than one? I can—oh, it’s you.”

  Rory picked up a copy of The Shock of Wreck Ignition and examined it. “Viking, huh? Quite a respectable publisher. And look at these endorsements. ‘The first new development in the novel since Genet,’ says Jean Baudrillard. ‘Succinctly captures the postmodern condition,’ claims The New York Review of Books. ‘A wild, tear-ass, jet-ski ride through the malarial swamp of urban Sturm und Drang’, Mister Tom Wolfe offers. How much did all this cost Sponco, huh?”

  Fumento had the grace to squirm. “Hey, Rory, c’mon, don’t bum me out, okay? All this means a lot to me.”

  “And what’s
with the pipe, Hilario? You never smoked a day in your life.”

  “Gee, Rory—” Fumento appeared on the verge of tears.

  Rory suddenly lost all heart for continuing the cruel confrontation. “Look, I’m sorry, Hil. Forget everything I just said, okay? I was just kidding. We all do whatever we have to do to get by. A little success never hurt anyone. C’mon, I’ll buy two copies, one for me and one for Addie. Write something nice in ’em, all right? To show there’s no hard feelings.”

  Sniffling, Fumento inscribed two books. Rory paid for them at the register with a fifty-spondulix note and some f-coins. Out of his pocket and into Earl’s. When he got outside and while he walked, he removed the books from their bag and studied the inscriptions.

  For my friend Rory: you always told me I could do it.

  For Rory’s friend Addie: I hope you’re as nice to Rory as he was to me.

  Now Rory felt his own sniffles coming on. What a sorry state of affairs, when old friendships and ethical principles met in a head-on collision. Oh, well, someday he would erase all the trouble he had caused in his life. One way or another.

  Rory turned left on Ninth Street. As soon as he made the corner he was confronted by a circus-like commotion. Ropes of car-dealer-style plastic pennants ran from a storefront up to a streetlight. A bunch of kids and their parents had gathered around an adult dressed in a furry cat suit who was handing out balloons and coupons. Advancing on the costumed performer, Rory was startled to recognize that the person inside the suit was Studs. She had whiskers pasted to her cheeks.

  “What’s happening, Studs?”

  Busy meowing in response to a child’s request, Studs merely waved with one paw toward the storefront. Rory read the sign above the door:

  Kittens with a Whip ®

  cat obedience clinic

  dominating bad cats since the turn of the century