"Sawdust and Ashes"

Milford knew he should leave the stage, but some internal demon kept him standing before the microphone. Was it his alter ego, named Stoney?

It's not me, said Stoney, in the Carlsbad Caverns of Milford's mind. And I don't mind saying you're embarrassing yourself, and, by extension, me. 

I empathize with your embarrassment, said Milford, silently, while taking a big drag on the reefer Jelly Roll had given him, but still I feel that I want to say more, even though I have nothing to say.

This is what the psychiatrists call narcissism, said Stoney. My dear Milford – mon semblable, mon frère! – I say this in all sincerity, and please don't take this personally, but no one cares what you have to say, no one in all the world, or even in the next world, if there is a next world, which there isn't – no one gives a shit, nor a flying fuck, least of all these people in here, who all have real problems of their own. I repeat, no one cares.

Milford took another good drag on the reefer, while Jelly Roll gently "vamped" at the piano, and the aforementioned people in the barroom laughed and chattered.

Do you see? said Stoney. Do you see all those people, ignoring you? They couldn't care one iota less about anything you remotely have to say.

Milford let the smoke out of his lungs, and watched it float away and merge with the myriad shifting clouds of smoke all about him.

Please try to get it through your thick skull, said Stoney. No one cares.

Yes, but I care, said Milford. 

Because, of course you do, you are a narcissist, said Stoney.

A female voice cut through the babble, and it shouted, "More, Murphy! More!"

Milford's eyes looked through the smoke and saw that nice lady Emily, sitting at the table with Addison and Miss Alcott and Mrs. Stowe and Mistress Bradstreet.

"One more, Murphy!" cried Emily, pointing a slim finger at him.

Well, Stoney, said Milford, to his alter ego, see? Emily cares.

Okay, said Stoney, so I was wrong. After all, I am you, or a version of you, so why shouldn't I be wrong, since you, that is I, have been wrong since first we drew breath?

Milford became aware that people were staring at him. He also became aware that he was still smoking the reefer that Jelly Roll had given him. He turned and addressed that gentleman at the piano, who was still tinkling the keys, no doubt waiting for Milford to, in the parlance of the common people, shit or get off the can.

"Mr. Roll," said Milford, "do you mind if I do just one more, oh, what shall I call it, a dithyramb? I promise to try to keep it short."

"I don't mind, brother," said Jelly Roll. "How about I play a sprightly little jump blues for accompaniment, with just a tinge of ragtime?"

"It doesn't matter to me," said Milford. 

"Then let's do it," said Jelly Roll, and he began to play, and, after half a minute, words emerged from Milford's mouth and into the microphone, from which they were transmitted booming into the barroom over the shouts and laughter of the revelers therein.

I have given my all,

perhaps I should have given less,

but I heard the siren call

of ridiculousness.

I have emptied my brains

of the garbage they contained

but they have filled up again

like a broken water main.

What is the meaning 

of these words 

that mean nothing?

What is the sound of 

a deaf man singing?

These are the questions 

that will puzzle me

but apparently not muzzle me

until I gasp my final breath

and sink into grateful death.

And so I bid a fond adieu

to you good people in this room.

I wish I could be a little like you,

not stumbling around 

in stygian gloom,

but laughing and shouting 

and raising a convivial glass,

not mumbling and pouting

and behaving like an ass.

I will now give you over 

to my acquaintance Jelly Roll

who, unlike me, possesses a soul.

Milford turned to Jelly Roll and nodded, and Jelly Roll, still "tickling the ivories", spoke into his microphone.

"All right, let's hear it for young, uh, what is it, 'Mufford'?"

"Milford actually," said Milford.

"Young Milfrid," said Jelly Roll, and a smattering of applause emerged from the crowd, as well as a few hoots and hollers.

Emily stood up from her table, and putting two fingers to her lips, let loose with a piercing, multi-toned whistle. 

Okay, said Stoney, inside Milford's head, quit while you're ahead, boy, and exit the stage, before they drag you off.

Yes, I suppose you're right, said Milford, silently.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," he said into the microphone. "You've been very kind, and –"

"Get off the fucking stage, honky!" yelled someone.

"Heh heh, yes, of course," said Milford. "Sorry! Heh heh."

"Thank you, Mumphrey," said Jelly Roll. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to sing you a little song called, 'I Got a Big Bottomed Mama'."

The crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

Yes, thought Milford, this is what people want: 'I Got a Big Bottomed Mama'.

And can you blame them? asked Stoney.

No, replied Milford, silently. He stepped away from the microphone stand and down from the shallow stage. His peacoat and burly fisherman's sweater lay on the dance floor there by the stage, where he had tossed them when he was ecstatically dancing the Black Bottom. Milford put Jelly Roll's reefer between his lips, picked up the coat and sweater, and with his hand he brushed off some of the coating of sawdust and ashes they had acquired.

Yes, the time of Dionysian ecstasy had come and gone.

Jelly Roll played his piano and sang.

I got a big bottomed mama

from the state of Alabama,

her name is Mary Lou

and she knows how to do the do…

Milford looked through the smoke at the table where sat Addison, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Alcott, Mistress Bradstreet, and Miss Emily, who still stood, clapping her hands, and shouting, "Well done, Mumphrey!"

Carrying his peacoat and his sweater over his arm, Jelly Roll's reefer still dangling from his thin lips, he headed over toward the table where the three ladies and his only "friend" Addison sat. 

In a sense, he thought, but in a very real sense, he felt his evening, and perhaps his life, was only just beginning.

It occurred to Milford that his alter ego Stoney was now silent. Had he disappeared? Or had he, Milford, merged at last with Stoney, becoming a better, a fuller and more manly version of himself?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, said Stoney. 

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}

"Go, Murphy!"

"There's a friend of mine sitting over there!" Milford shouted in Miss Alcott's ear.

"What?"

The music roared and wailed and hammered all around them, and Milford leaned his head closer to Miss Alcott's.

"I said there's a friend of mine sitting over there!"

"You have friends?"

"Well, only one really, and I suppose he's not much of a friend, but he's the only one I have. Look, he's sitting with those friends of yours, what were their names, Emily and Harriet?"

Milford pointed with his finger.

"The other lady is Mistress Anne Bradstreet," said Miss Alcott. "What is this friend of yours doing with Emily and Harriet and Bradstreet?"

"I have no idea," said Milford. 

He waved, and Addison in turn raised a finger in salute.

Miss Alcott also waved, and the three women waved back.

"This proves something," said Milford. 

"And what is that?"

"It proves that all mankind is connected, that we are all one, brothers and sisters!"

"I don't see how your seeing your supposed friend proves that."

"No, but it does!"

"I think all it proves is that you have smoked that reefer of Jelly Roll's in its entirety, and you are about to burn your fingers with it."

Milford looked down at the tiny butt of a reefer he held between forefinger and thumb.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Ow."

He let the stub fall to the floor, littered as it was with innumerable other butts of cigarettes, reefers, cigars and cigarillos on a scuffed layer of sawdust.

The music had stopped, and the man at the piano spoke into a microphone.

"Thank you, ladies and gentleman, and now we gonna move on to the jammin' portion of tonight's festivities. I see Mr. Jelly Roll Morton out there. Get your ass up here, Jelly Roll!"

"What's happening?" said Milford.

"They're going to have what's called a 'jam session'," said Miss Alcott. "Various people get up with the band and sing and play. It's ever so much fun. Last week Fats Waller came up and tickled the ivories, and it was what I believe you young people call 'a gas'."

"I want to have a gas."

"Dear boy, what do you think you've been having?"

"If I may paraphrase that noted naval captain John Paul Jones, I feel I have not yet begun to have a gas."

Jelly Roll had gotten up from the table where he sat with Miss Blackbourne and Mr. Whitman and was approaching the little stage with the combo on it. Milford floated over and met him.

"Mr. Roll, I should like to jam with you, sir!"

"Sure, Mumfort," said Jelly Roll, "why not?"

"Milford actually, not Mumfort, but no matter."

"What axe do you play, Milfrey?"

"By axe I assume you mean musical instrument?"

"I do indeed, Milf."

"I play a little ukelele, and some rudimentary piano, provided I have sheet music and the tempo is slow."

"Well, uh, I don't think we got a ukelele on hand, and I was actually going to play the piano myself."

"I wonder if I could perhaps vocalize?"

"You sing?"

"I should like to attempt to sing."

"What you want to sing?"

"I want to sing from the heart and the soul, from the heart of my soul, from the soul of my heart, and from the soul and the heart of the whole universe."

"Okay, reet, that sounds cool, just come up on the bandstand with me and we'll work something out."

In a blur of moments Milford found himself on the little stage, standing in front of a microphone stand. Jelly Roll sat at the piano, a fat reefer in his lips, and he had generously supplied Milford with one also, which Milford was now taking generous puffs from as Jelly Roll played notes like a rippling dark deep river behind him. The rest of the combo had "laid out" and were standing or sitting around with the rest of the crowd, drinking, smoking, chatting and laughing as great waves of smoke swirled and purled, obscuring the farther reaches of the barroom, although Milford could make out Miss Alcott now sitting with Addison and Emily and Mrs. Stowe and Mistress Bradstreet, and, at the other table, Miss Blackbourne and Mr. Whitman.

Milford spoke into the microphone, which was large and solid, like the chassis of a miniature First World War tank, and he heard his voice booming throughout the room:

Long have I been damned, 

since that first sad morning

when I emerged from my mother's 

womb, quite unwillingly,

howling in protest

and indignation,

long have I been steeped

in misery at having to face

another day trapped within

this pale pathetic body, 

forced to get out of bed

all those grim mornings,

  and go to school,

until finally, after being 

sent down from Princeton

in disgrace for conduct 

unbecoming, I was forced

to return to my mother's house,

because where else could I go,

refusing as I have always done 

to "work" at anything 

but my bad poetry –

and, yes, it's true, on my 

trust fund I could afford to

get a modest flat on my own,

but why bother, when my old

bedroom is so comfortable,

and I can sleep as late as I like,

and our Irish maid Maria will 

bring me tea and ginger snaps 

upon request – indeed, sometimes

I wonder why I leave my room at all

except of course to go to the bathroom –

and I know you're wondering,

good people, what is he on about,

that sounds like a pretty good

set-up, and I suppose it is,

or would be to any normal person,

but I, alas, am not normal,

and persist in being miserable,

who knows why, I have even 

thought so many times

of ending it all,

but I am a coward,

and so that's not going 

to happen, but tonight,

tonight, dear people, 

for the first time,

I got up on a dance floor

and felt the music surging 

through my corporeal host

and also through my brain

and, yes, dare I say it,

my soul, and so now I 

stand before you,

attempting to sing

although I cannot sing,

attempting to create poetry

although I lack talent,

attempting to live

although I don't know how,

and so, in summation, I shall 

only say, quoting the title 

of a favorite motion picture

of my strangely sad boyhood:

only angels have wings,

but still we must sing.

And so I sound

my final klaxon,

a pallid, weak, 

and stupid Saxon.

Milford had finished, having said all he had to say, and more, which still wasn't much, he knew. He looked out at all the people who had been staring at him, many of them with mouths agape. Jelly Roll must have sensed that Milford's "song" had finished, and so he rippled a series of decisive notes and struck a final resounding chord.

"Wow," said Jelly Roll, into his microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's have a big hand for young Murphy. Take a bow, Murph."

A few people clapped, a few hooted, most of the people stared silently or muttered to their companions.

Over at her table, sitting with Miss Alcott, Mrs. Stowe, Mistress Bradstreet and Addison, Emily rose up in her seat and, raising her delicate fist in the air, shouted, "Woo hoo! Go, Murphy!"

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}