This month's excerpt is another chapter from Spencer's Spirit, a new novel, which will be available from Anubis in trade-paper and Kindle editions in March of this year.
“Time to change,” said Annie, pulling the signal cord as the car approached another corner where a signpost read: COLLEGE AVENUE.
The mist had morphed into a feathery drizzle, further obscuring distant sights and giving the pavement a shimmery sheen as they disembarked and took shelter under a storefront awning. Annie flicked her cigarette stub away and slipped the holder into her purse. “I hope we won’t be late.”
Gavin consulted his White Rabbit watch as another streetcar came humming down College. “Right on time, as always.”
“Sounds like you come here a lot,” said Spencer.
Gavin pocketed his watch. “This is the first time in a long time I’ve had such spirited company.”
“You’ve both raised my spirit,” said Annie, offering an arm to Spencer, who gentlemanly took it, Gavin taking the other as they boarded the car.
They had only traveled a few blocks when Gavin pulled the cord and they stepped into the street again in front of a movie theater, its brightly-lit sign proclaiming CHIMES, its marquee displaying The Phantom Of The Opera.
“This is swell!” exclaimed Spencer, scanning the posters on the walls as they strode arm-in-arm to the ticket booth. “The original starring Lon Chaney.”
“I should hope it’s original,” said Annie, “not just kinda-like.”
“Seems apropos,” said Gavin.
“I hope it isn’t too scary,” said Annie, regarding a NOW SHOWING poster. “I have a rather low threshold of fright when it comes to spooky things.”
“I’ll hold your hand,” said Spencer, before he had time to consider it might sound a little forward, but Annie gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m sure that will strengthen my spirit.”
At first Spencer thought the girl in the booth, looking possibly seventeen in a frilly-fronted dress, might be an old-time automaton dispensing penny fortunes, but she gave the trio a wistful smile as if wishing she might have been part of their party as Gavin bought three tickets at twenty-five cents apiece. Spencer pointed to a poster as they continued to the doors:
“There’s an Our Gang matinee on Saturday afternoon; The Sundown Limited and Seein’ Things.”
“The trains run every day,” said Gavin. “We can return whenever you wish.”
Annie asked, “You gentlemen from out of town?”
“Just up in the hills,” said Spencer.
“Princes playing paupers?”
“We turn back into mice at midnight,” said Gavin.
A man in a stiffly high-collared suit, resembling H.P. Lovecraft though looking a lot less benign, was tearing tickets at the door and gave the group a gimlet eye. “Peanut gallery,” he snapped, snatching the tickets from Gavin and ripping them like Jack. “One little peep and you’re out on your ears... and check that bag in the parcel room.”
“Was that because of me?” asked Spencer, as they proceeded toward a snack bar across a palatial lobby with sparkling chandeliers on the ceiling and cushy carpet on the floor, in which most of the older people were formally dressed as if for a ball, the eldest men wearing top-hats, the women clad in long dresses and gowns, though all looking slightly hazy to Spencer, who, probably due to the kinda-like gin, was still seeing things as if through a mist where details more than a few feet away wouldn’t quite come into focus. There seemed to be many figures around him, but like the shapes on the sidewalks and streets they gave the impression of movie extras only populating the background and not taking part in the plot. There was a murmur of conversation, but melded into a sort of white noise like the ambiguous rush of the brook.
He also still felt a bit out-of-body – the only description that seemed to fit -- in a pleasantly careless way but notable since, for obvious reasons, he was usually well aware of himself, especially when ambulatory… there being inertia to maintain, shifts of mass to counterbalance and clearances to be gauged ahead, not to mention retaining his jeans. And then for just a moment he felt a sort of slipping sensation like partly awakening from sleep, perhaps slipping out of a dream, with a feeling he might have forgotten something, even if only as minor as taking out the garbage or checking the fridge for midnight snacks. Or, it might have been better described as being intensely absorbed in a book but having his mind interrupt the story by feeling he’d missed some essential detail that should have been logically obvious.
“Nah, we’re all flaming youth,” said Gavin, drawing Spencer back into the scene. “Shamelessly flaunting our lack of morals and blatant disdain for social norms… many of which we regard as abnormal if not downright disgustingly wrong… dancing and drinking in wild abandon, petting, necking, French-kissing in public, frolicking naked in fountains and such.”
“Does a pond rate the same as a fountain?” asked Spencer, forgetting whatever he thought he’d forgotten including what he might have missed.
“Oh, do tell,” said Annie.
“Actually just swimming with Gavin; I’ve never tried to frolic.”
“I’m sure you’d be very good at it, having so much to frolic with; but I picture a Norman Rockwell scene of boys being boys at ‘the ol’ swimmin’ hole,’ idyically suitable for Boy’s Life.”
“You read Boy’s Life?” asked Gavin.
“I’ve sneaked a few peeks in the library before the librarian caught me, but I’d hoped a boy’s life was more exciting than Pee-wee Harris prudery and roasting hapless marshmallows on sticks while singing Tenting Tonight.”
Gavin laughed. “Pee-wee Harris would faint dead away if his manly companions suggested something more stimulating around a campfire.”
“Oh, double do tell,” said Annie.
“Let’s say it involves a circle, but you won’t find it mentioned in Boy’s Life.”
“When adults write about boys,“ added Spencer, “they never mention what’s usually an important part of their lives.”
“Do you think it’s any different,” asked Annie, “when adults write about girls?”
“Guess not.”
Annie sighed. “No doubt there are many things in this world which even an entire year in Miss Penelope’s finishing school has not prepared me for.”
“I’m sure you learned something useful,” said Gavin, “if you ever find it necessary to balance a book on your head.”
“I must catch up on my reading to be informed in these modern times in regard to young manly activities.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Gavin.
“Mind your manners, Buster Brown.”
“I’m pretty advanced for my age,” said Spencer.
“Possibly too far for this one,” said Annie.
“I don’t think I could dance,” said Spencer. “But the other flaunting stuff sounds swell.”
Annie squeezed his arm. “I’d enjoy seeing you frolic.”
“I don’t think Norman Rockwell would have.”
“More’s the pity.”
“Don’t get out much, do you?” said Gavin.
“’Yet still she strains the aching clasp…’”
“Now whose manners need minding.”
“Let me pay for the popcorn,” said Spencer, as they reached a glass-fronted counter displaying many candy bars, of which some, like streetcar ad things, would still be around in what part of his mind was starting to think was the future – Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Hersheys of course, and Bit-O-Honey -- but also Love Nest, Goo Goo Clusters, and, intriguingly, Chicken Dinner.
“Hey, it’s only five cents a bag instead of five dollars.”
“Who without birds on their aerial,” said Annie, “would pay a fin for popcorn?”
Spencer dug in a pocket, but Gavin stayed his hand. “Your money’s no good here, this is my treat.”
“Okay, Diamond Jim,” said Annie. “What besides popcorn goes well with gin?”
“Maybe a Chicken Dinner?” said Spencer.
“Call me a cat,” said Annie.
Each now equipped with a bag of popcorn generously drizzled with actual butter, along with Chicken Dinner bars, they approached the theater doors, where slouched a cartoonishly pot-bellied boy of possibly Gavin’s age clad in a bell-hoppish blue uniform. He had tomcat green eyes and red porcupine hair, the latter bristling electrically from under a silly pillbox hat, his face like Mickey’s in Our Gang, very fluently freckled, equipped with bottle-opener teeth, and was armed with a brass torpedo flashlight.
“Let’s see them stubs,” he commanded, and added when Gavin presented them, “Peanut gallery, an’ no peeps.”
“Seems to be an echo in here,” said Annie.
“Didn’t see any peanuts for sale,” said Spencer.
“Make too much noise an’ mess up the carpet. An’ don’t get wise with me, bub; I got no grudge against you people… got a good friend of your persuasion… but the boss won’t have no shenanigans upsettin’ all the swells. …An’ you gotta hock that bag.”
Gavin undid a buckle and stealthily offered a pint, which the boy just as stealthily stashed in a pocket.
“Let’s see them stubs again. …Oh, my mistake, you got loges, c’mon an’ I’ll assort ya.”
He ushered the trio to comfortable seating just as the lights went down, and Spencer and Gavin flanked Annie. “But, hey, no silly stuff, huh, or it’s my neck, y’know?”
“We came for the movie,” said Gavin. “We can be silly for free anywhere.”
The boy patted his pocket. “An’ this is decent hooch? Ain’t gonna make me get naked an’ howl at the moon or nothin’?”
“Probably not,” said Annie. “Though I wouldn’t mind seeing that scene.”
“Hey, you’re okay.”
Annie un-pursed her bottle, and the boy took a nip.
“That’s the elephant’s eyebrows! …Name’s Mickey, just ask if you need anything.”
“Let me know when you’re going to get naked and howl.”
“That clasp must really be aching,” said Gavin, as the screen curtains parted and a live organist played an overture.
“Oh, hush and pretend you’re a Rover Boy.”
“Want me to rover all over?”
“Want to learn to play dead without playing?”
The mist had morphed into a feathery drizzle, further obscuring distant sights and giving the pavement a shimmery sheen as they disembarked and took shelter under a storefront awning. Annie flicked her cigarette stub away and slipped the holder into her purse. “I hope we won’t be late.”
Gavin consulted his White Rabbit watch as another streetcar came humming down College. “Right on time, as always.”
“Sounds like you come here a lot,” said Spencer.
Gavin pocketed his watch. “This is the first time in a long time I’ve had such spirited company.”
“You’ve both raised my spirit,” said Annie, offering an arm to Spencer, who gentlemanly took it, Gavin taking the other as they boarded the car.
They had only traveled a few blocks when Gavin pulled the cord and they stepped into the street again in front of a movie theater, its brightly-lit sign proclaiming CHIMES, its marquee displaying The Phantom Of The Opera.
“This is swell!” exclaimed Spencer, scanning the posters on the walls as they strode arm-in-arm to the ticket booth. “The original starring Lon Chaney.”
“I should hope it’s original,” said Annie, “not just kinda-like.”
“Seems apropos,” said Gavin.
“I hope it isn’t too scary,” said Annie, regarding a NOW SHOWING poster. “I have a rather low threshold of fright when it comes to spooky things.”
“I’ll hold your hand,” said Spencer, before he had time to consider it might sound a little forward, but Annie gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m sure that will strengthen my spirit.”
At first Spencer thought the girl in the booth, looking possibly seventeen in a frilly-fronted dress, might be an old-time automaton dispensing penny fortunes, but she gave the trio a wistful smile as if wishing she might have been part of their party as Gavin bought three tickets at twenty-five cents apiece. Spencer pointed to a poster as they continued to the doors:
“There’s an Our Gang matinee on Saturday afternoon; The Sundown Limited and Seein’ Things.”
“The trains run every day,” said Gavin. “We can return whenever you wish.”
Annie asked, “You gentlemen from out of town?”
“Just up in the hills,” said Spencer.
“Princes playing paupers?”
“We turn back into mice at midnight,” said Gavin.
A man in a stiffly high-collared suit, resembling H.P. Lovecraft though looking a lot less benign, was tearing tickets at the door and gave the group a gimlet eye. “Peanut gallery,” he snapped, snatching the tickets from Gavin and ripping them like Jack. “One little peep and you’re out on your ears... and check that bag in the parcel room.”
“Was that because of me?” asked Spencer, as they proceeded toward a snack bar across a palatial lobby with sparkling chandeliers on the ceiling and cushy carpet on the floor, in which most of the older people were formally dressed as if for a ball, the eldest men wearing top-hats, the women clad in long dresses and gowns, though all looking slightly hazy to Spencer, who, probably due to the kinda-like gin, was still seeing things as if through a mist where details more than a few feet away wouldn’t quite come into focus. There seemed to be many figures around him, but like the shapes on the sidewalks and streets they gave the impression of movie extras only populating the background and not taking part in the plot. There was a murmur of conversation, but melded into a sort of white noise like the ambiguous rush of the brook.
He also still felt a bit out-of-body – the only description that seemed to fit -- in a pleasantly careless way but notable since, for obvious reasons, he was usually well aware of himself, especially when ambulatory… there being inertia to maintain, shifts of mass to counterbalance and clearances to be gauged ahead, not to mention retaining his jeans. And then for just a moment he felt a sort of slipping sensation like partly awakening from sleep, perhaps slipping out of a dream, with a feeling he might have forgotten something, even if only as minor as taking out the garbage or checking the fridge for midnight snacks. Or, it might have been better described as being intensely absorbed in a book but having his mind interrupt the story by feeling he’d missed some essential detail that should have been logically obvious.
“Nah, we’re all flaming youth,” said Gavin, drawing Spencer back into the scene. “Shamelessly flaunting our lack of morals and blatant disdain for social norms… many of which we regard as abnormal if not downright disgustingly wrong… dancing and drinking in wild abandon, petting, necking, French-kissing in public, frolicking naked in fountains and such.”
“Does a pond rate the same as a fountain?” asked Spencer, forgetting whatever he thought he’d forgotten including what he might have missed.
“Oh, do tell,” said Annie.
“Actually just swimming with Gavin; I’ve never tried to frolic.”
“I’m sure you’d be very good at it, having so much to frolic with; but I picture a Norman Rockwell scene of boys being boys at ‘the ol’ swimmin’ hole,’ idyically suitable for Boy’s Life.”
“You read Boy’s Life?” asked Gavin.
“I’ve sneaked a few peeks in the library before the librarian caught me, but I’d hoped a boy’s life was more exciting than Pee-wee Harris prudery and roasting hapless marshmallows on sticks while singing Tenting Tonight.”
Gavin laughed. “Pee-wee Harris would faint dead away if his manly companions suggested something more stimulating around a campfire.”
“Oh, double do tell,” said Annie.
“Let’s say it involves a circle, but you won’t find it mentioned in Boy’s Life.”
“When adults write about boys,“ added Spencer, “they never mention what’s usually an important part of their lives.”
“Do you think it’s any different,” asked Annie, “when adults write about girls?”
“Guess not.”
Annie sighed. “No doubt there are many things in this world which even an entire year in Miss Penelope’s finishing school has not prepared me for.”
“I’m sure you learned something useful,” said Gavin, “if you ever find it necessary to balance a book on your head.”
“I must catch up on my reading to be informed in these modern times in regard to young manly activities.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Gavin.
“Mind your manners, Buster Brown.”
“I’m pretty advanced for my age,” said Spencer.
“Possibly too far for this one,” said Annie.
“I don’t think I could dance,” said Spencer. “But the other flaunting stuff sounds swell.”
Annie squeezed his arm. “I’d enjoy seeing you frolic.”
“I don’t think Norman Rockwell would have.”
“More’s the pity.”
“Don’t get out much, do you?” said Gavin.
“’Yet still she strains the aching clasp…’”
“Now whose manners need minding.”
“Let me pay for the popcorn,” said Spencer, as they reached a glass-fronted counter displaying many candy bars, of which some, like streetcar ad things, would still be around in what part of his mind was starting to think was the future – Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Hersheys of course, and Bit-O-Honey -- but also Love Nest, Goo Goo Clusters, and, intriguingly, Chicken Dinner.
“Hey, it’s only five cents a bag instead of five dollars.”
“Who without birds on their aerial,” said Annie, “would pay a fin for popcorn?”
Spencer dug in a pocket, but Gavin stayed his hand. “Your money’s no good here, this is my treat.”
“Okay, Diamond Jim,” said Annie. “What besides popcorn goes well with gin?”
“Maybe a Chicken Dinner?” said Spencer.
“Call me a cat,” said Annie.
Each now equipped with a bag of popcorn generously drizzled with actual butter, along with Chicken Dinner bars, they approached the theater doors, where slouched a cartoonishly pot-bellied boy of possibly Gavin’s age clad in a bell-hoppish blue uniform. He had tomcat green eyes and red porcupine hair, the latter bristling electrically from under a silly pillbox hat, his face like Mickey’s in Our Gang, very fluently freckled, equipped with bottle-opener teeth, and was armed with a brass torpedo flashlight.
“Let’s see them stubs,” he commanded, and added when Gavin presented them, “Peanut gallery, an’ no peeps.”
“Seems to be an echo in here,” said Annie.
“Didn’t see any peanuts for sale,” said Spencer.
“Make too much noise an’ mess up the carpet. An’ don’t get wise with me, bub; I got no grudge against you people… got a good friend of your persuasion… but the boss won’t have no shenanigans upsettin’ all the swells. …An’ you gotta hock that bag.”
Gavin undid a buckle and stealthily offered a pint, which the boy just as stealthily stashed in a pocket.
“Let’s see them stubs again. …Oh, my mistake, you got loges, c’mon an’ I’ll assort ya.”
He ushered the trio to comfortable seating just as the lights went down, and Spencer and Gavin flanked Annie. “But, hey, no silly stuff, huh, or it’s my neck, y’know?”
“We came for the movie,” said Gavin. “We can be silly for free anywhere.”
The boy patted his pocket. “An’ this is decent hooch? Ain’t gonna make me get naked an’ howl at the moon or nothin’?”
“Probably not,” said Annie. “Though I wouldn’t mind seeing that scene.”
“Hey, you’re okay.”
Annie un-pursed her bottle, and the boy took a nip.
“That’s the elephant’s eyebrows! …Name’s Mickey, just ask if you need anything.”
“Let me know when you’re going to get naked and howl.”
“That clasp must really be aching,” said Gavin, as the screen curtains parted and a live organist played an overture.
“Oh, hush and pretend you’re a Rover Boy.”
“Want me to rover all over?”
“Want to learn to play dead without playing?”