This month's excerpt is another from Spencer's Spirit, a new novel, which will be available from Anubis in trade-paper and Kindle editions in May of this year.
The mist appeared to be getting denser, swirling in through the doorway and further dimming distant sights, though he began to see more lights as the train seemed to enter an urban scene at a now sedately pedestrian pace, the rails running down a concrete street lined with buildings, shops and stores. He wasn’t sure whether his vision was hazed by the mist or alcohol – most likely a combination of both -- but the lights all around seemed different somehow, oxymoronically brighter yet dimmer than any he’d seen before in the city. There were a few colored neon signs, but…
He looked up at a street lamp as they rolled by and saw it was an incandescent, a brightly-burning filament bulb, as were most of the lights in the buildings. There were no softer shades of fluorescents in any storefront or window. Also oxymoronic were the figures of people on the sidewalks; normal enough at a passing glance, if seemingly a bit out of focus, yet also somehow different, possibly in modes of clothing, and everyone – men, women and kids -- wearing some kind of hat… though maybe just dressed for the weather. He noticed a street sign: SHATTUCK AVENUE.
Dodger lay a hand on his shoulder. “You’re looking a little curious, if I may presume.”
“Never been in this part of Oakland. …Oh, this must Old Oakland, huh? The part of the city they kept preserved?”
“That’s a perspective,” said Dodger.
“This is cool!” Spencer scanned around. “Is that a Model-T?”
“1920 Auburn. And that truck is a ’21 Reo Speedwagon.”
“And the hearse in front of that funeral parlor?”
“1919 Buick.”
“I heard about this place but I’ve never been here before. …Is this the surprise you were talking about?”
“The universe is full of surprises.” Dodger leaned out and looked down the street. “Hang on to your hat and jump.”
Spencer laughed. “Can I fly yet?”
“A small leap will suffice at this time.”
Taking the bag, Dodger slid out and landed lightly on the pavement, Spencer ungracefully following, landing a light-year from lightly, his belly plunging earthward as if attempting to smack the street. He stumbled but Dodger grabbed his arm to keep him on his feet. Spencer recovered and looked around as the rest of the train went rumbling past tailed by a caboose with a ruby light, and saw they were on a corner of Shattuck and Alcatraz Avenues. An overcoated middle-aged woman topped with a floppy faux-flowered hat and retaining a big shaggy dog on a leash seemed to have seen their arrival; and Dodger tipped his cap to her, offering a “Good-evening, ma’am,” and nudging Spencer, who doffed his derby as seemed appropriate.
The woman shook her head but smiled. “Boys will be boys.”
She continued on her way after her dog had anointed a lamp post, and Spencer donned his hat. “Didn’t know it went this deep… like some sort of theme park.”
“You seem in comfortable character.”
“’When in Rome…’”
“Indeed, Antony.” Dodger glanced down Alcatraz, which like Shattuck had rails in the middle, and Spencer saw a streetcar approaching, the classic kind he’d seen in old movies. Dodger took his arm again. “Our next entrance into an egress.”
Spencer laughed. “Do I have to ride in back?”
“Oakland is a bit more enlightened than many other parts of this country, though, unfortunately, you may encounter prejudice which, though officially unlawful, is still considered acceptable by those with less-enlightened souls.”
“That hasn’t changed much,” said Spencer, “since whenever this was.”
The streetcar arrived and stopped for them, its doors opening with a hiss and clatter. Dodger led Spencer up the steps and dropped two nickels in the box. The interior was illuminated by yellowish bulbs that flickered a bit as the car continued on, the laboring tone of its motor suggesting it might be climbing an upgrade. Above the windows were advertisements, some for things that were still around, like Coca-Cola and Hershey’s chocolate, others for items he’d never seen, like Bixby’s ShuWhite and Black Cat Stove Polish, along with archaic cigarette brands. The varnished wooden seats were unpadded, and there were brass poles and overhead rails for a standing crowd, but only a few people aboard, and all of them in costume; the motorman wearing a uniform appropriate to the period – which Spencer assumed was the 1920s from what he’d seen so far – a mother, maybe forty or so, in ankle-length coat, severe-looking shoes, a hat drably decorated with feathers that might have come from a crow, and some sort of pin on her lapel displaying the letters WCTU. Her son, possibly seven or eight, was clad in white shirt, gray tweed jacket and knee-length pants, long wool socks, clunky oxfords, and of course a cap. There was a portly man in a suit, topped with a fedora and puffing an aromatic cigar while perusing a newspaper. Spencer tried to read the paper’s date as he followed Dodger up the aisle, but the lights went out for a moment as the car jolted over a junction.
As they came back to life, he noticed a girl of maybe fourteen possessed of a winsomely pixie-like face, her lips enhanced with lush cherry red, who might have been a junior model for one of the Whiz Bang flappers -- though here in living color instead of black-and-white -- wearing a blue satin thigh-length dress and a short cream-colored, fur-collared jacket, her shapely legs in white silk stockings, her feet in moderately high-heeled shoes, her raven hair bobbed like a page-boy’s beneath a blue felt helmet-like hat. She also sported a long string of beads, pretty but unabashedly glass, and was smoking a cigarette in a possibly Bakelite holder. The only flaw in her costume – at least in Spencer’s opinion – was that it understated her breasts, which though not as lavish as his, were doubtless deserving of better display.
It wasn’t surprising she smiled at Dodger, who was doubtlessly drop-dead handsome even though clad in what would have been lower-class garb in these times; but her big brown eyes remained just as warm as they inspected Spencer and gave him an equally charming smile, which gave him a pleasant tingle of warmth. Then she glanced at Dodger’s Gladstone:
“In the undertaking profession?”
“I’ve varnished quite a few coffins,” said Dodger.
“How much for embalming?” asked the girl.
“A Tom for a pint. Care for a toot?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Dodger presented the flask from his coat, the girl first daintily taking a sniff like a kitten offered questionable cream, followed by a cautious sip as if anticipating icky. Spencer expected her pert nose to wrinkle, but she smiled again. “This must be the real McCoy I’ve been hearing about since my dollie days.”
“It’ll coat your casket,” said Dodger, and lay a hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “But my friend perfected the formula.”
“Worth twice the price,” said the girl, reaching into a little purse. “But don’t get any ideas, Rockefeller.”
Dodger nudged Spencer, who opened the bag and offered a flask. The girl wisely took a sip from that before passing a two-dollar bill to Dodger.
“May I know my embalmers?”
“Dodger,” said Dodger, bowing a bit. “And my protégé Spencer.”
“Dodger and Spencer,” said the girl. “No offense meant, gentlemen, but it sounds like a vaudeville act.”
“Did I ever mention,” said Dodger to Spencer, “a man with a wooden leg named Smith?”
“I don’t recall,” returned Spencer. “What was the name of his other leg?”
The girl laughed again. “Annie,” she said, her eyes, unless Spencer mistook it, giving him a twinkle. “Though I’m not an orphan. But with my bluenose mom and pops and I often wish I were.” She flicked the stub of her cigarette out of the holder onto the floor and snuffed it under a heel. “I’m out on the lam tonight when I should be entombed in my room drearily studying Laughing and Grief.”
“What about Reeling and Writhing?” asked Spencer.
“And Ambition,” said Dodger.” Distraction, Uglification, and of course Derision.”
Annie laughed again. “There’s more to you two than just handsome faces and actually drinkable gin. Do have seats.”
Another surprise to Spencer was Annie making room for him while Dodger took a seat ahead and lounged sideways to face them. The woman in the feathered hat was looking prudishly disapproving, her son observing with interest until she snatched his ear and turned his face away.
Spencer had thought a lot about girls since he’d turned thirteen – girls of all colors, sizes and shapes in very eclectic profusion – but this was the first time in his life he’d been in close proximity in any physical way. Annie smelled nice, a bit like jasmine, with just enough hint of tobacco to make her seem wise enough to the world to not be considered a babe in the woods yet still qualify for a ride in the forest on a unicorn. He supposed it was only natural – a survival-of-the-species thing – that he felt a rudimentary urge to somehow compete with Dodger for the young lady’s attentions… which of course was ridiculous since Dodger, in no matter what culture, or clad in skin of any color with hair of any genetic origin or eyes of any alternate hue, was a perfect example of perfect young male.
Spencer had also occasionally – generally when involved with himself and pleasurably plying a finger and thumb -- pondered the problem of his “equipment” buried beneath all his belly blubber and softly surrounded by fat; which meant, though sufficiently endowed for most young males of his age, there wasn’t a lot available to put to one of the primary uses nature had intended. In short -- as he’d wryly surmised -- there didn’t seem much of a chance he’d be disqualifying young maidens from riding mythical mono-horns. Still, since the time when such an event seemed far in the indiscernible future, it hadn’t been of much more concern than applying for Social Security. …And, he thought now, meeting a pretty girl on a streetcar, even if she seemed to like him, didn’t – or maybe shouldn’t have – brought that potential problem to mind.
He glanced at Dodger, nothing his shirt was two buttons undone, probably from his recent exertions, displaying his perky pecs to advantage, his hair all awry beneath scruffy cap, an urchin-like smudge of soot on a cheek, probably acquired on the train, while he smelled very earthy; and wondered why -- even if their intimacy of the afternoon hadn’t happened -- he was still intrigued by him on some cosmic level he couldn’t define.
“Going up to the Claremont?” asked Dodger, offering a Fatima, which Annie inserted into the holder, and Spencer fired his lighter for her.
“Much too swanky for my taste, even if I could afford it.” Annie exhaled a ghost of smoke, took a ladylike sip from her flask and offered it to Spencer.
“Thanks, but you just bought it,” said Spencer. “And we have a lot.”
“Fun is for sharing,” said Annie. “Go on, wind your watch.”
“This is really cool,” said Spencer, his silly urge to compete with Dodger fading like a ghost into fog. “Like, you get to interact.”
“An interesting term,” said Annie. “But, what else does it resemble?”
“Huh?” said Spencer.
“Why is it only ‘like’ interacting instead of whatever it may be?”
“Oh,” said Spencer. “It’s just an expression.”
“Seems a bit confusing,” said Annie. “If something is only similar to what it may actually be.”
Dodger added, “Also not quite of a muchness to what it actually may not be.”
“My, a philosopher,” said Annie.
“…Um, yeah,” said Spencer, taking a sip while trying to work that out. “Guess they didn’t say cool either.”
“’Holmes was as cool as ever,’” said Annie, also taking a sip when Spencer passed the bottle back.
“Oh, yeah,” said Spencer. “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.”
“Written in 1911,” said Annie.
“And I seem to recall,” said Dodger. “A ‘you are very cool, Mr. Holmes’ in another of his stories.”
“Yeah, but it kinda meant calm,” said Spencer.
“Only ‘kinda?’” said Annie, with a mischievous look. “As in something is only kinda-like whatever it actually may be?”
“Or may not actually be,” said Dodger.
“Which makes it be twice not actually,” said Annie.
Spencer laughed. “A be by any other name…”
“I be, therefore I am,” said Annie. “Even if only kinda-like.”
“To be, or not to be,” said Dodger. “Or kinda-like being, but not, actually.”
“Or inversely,” said Annie. “Not quite actually kinda-like being.”
“Things are of two natures,” said Dodger. “Either being what they appear to be as opposed to what they actually aren’t, or not being what they appear to be as opposed to what they actually are.”
“But throw in kinda-like,” said Annie, “and nothing will ever actually be whatever it actually is.”
“Or inversely,” said Dodger, “whatever it actually may not be.”
“I be confused,” said Spencer.
“Try some more kinda-like gin,” said Annie.
“Substitute swell in most cases,” said Dodger, “and you’ll be actually cool.”
“Though not amongst swells,” added Annie. “Or they won’t think you’re actually either in their state of being.”
Spencer shook his head. “This sounds like a Thorne Smith conversation.”
“As in The Jovial Ghosts?” said Dodger. “One of the last books I read.”
“I’ve just read it,” said Annie. “My parents forbade me to, of course, which actually made it be all the more swell.”
”I’m reading it now,” said Spencer. “But I’m starting to feel like I be in it.”
He looked up at a street lamp as they rolled by and saw it was an incandescent, a brightly-burning filament bulb, as were most of the lights in the buildings. There were no softer shades of fluorescents in any storefront or window. Also oxymoronic were the figures of people on the sidewalks; normal enough at a passing glance, if seemingly a bit out of focus, yet also somehow different, possibly in modes of clothing, and everyone – men, women and kids -- wearing some kind of hat… though maybe just dressed for the weather. He noticed a street sign: SHATTUCK AVENUE.
Dodger lay a hand on his shoulder. “You’re looking a little curious, if I may presume.”
“Never been in this part of Oakland. …Oh, this must Old Oakland, huh? The part of the city they kept preserved?”
“That’s a perspective,” said Dodger.
“This is cool!” Spencer scanned around. “Is that a Model-T?”
“1920 Auburn. And that truck is a ’21 Reo Speedwagon.”
“And the hearse in front of that funeral parlor?”
“1919 Buick.”
“I heard about this place but I’ve never been here before. …Is this the surprise you were talking about?”
“The universe is full of surprises.” Dodger leaned out and looked down the street. “Hang on to your hat and jump.”
Spencer laughed. “Can I fly yet?”
“A small leap will suffice at this time.”
Taking the bag, Dodger slid out and landed lightly on the pavement, Spencer ungracefully following, landing a light-year from lightly, his belly plunging earthward as if attempting to smack the street. He stumbled but Dodger grabbed his arm to keep him on his feet. Spencer recovered and looked around as the rest of the train went rumbling past tailed by a caboose with a ruby light, and saw they were on a corner of Shattuck and Alcatraz Avenues. An overcoated middle-aged woman topped with a floppy faux-flowered hat and retaining a big shaggy dog on a leash seemed to have seen their arrival; and Dodger tipped his cap to her, offering a “Good-evening, ma’am,” and nudging Spencer, who doffed his derby as seemed appropriate.
The woman shook her head but smiled. “Boys will be boys.”
She continued on her way after her dog had anointed a lamp post, and Spencer donned his hat. “Didn’t know it went this deep… like some sort of theme park.”
“You seem in comfortable character.”
“’When in Rome…’”
“Indeed, Antony.” Dodger glanced down Alcatraz, which like Shattuck had rails in the middle, and Spencer saw a streetcar approaching, the classic kind he’d seen in old movies. Dodger took his arm again. “Our next entrance into an egress.”
Spencer laughed. “Do I have to ride in back?”
“Oakland is a bit more enlightened than many other parts of this country, though, unfortunately, you may encounter prejudice which, though officially unlawful, is still considered acceptable by those with less-enlightened souls.”
“That hasn’t changed much,” said Spencer, “since whenever this was.”
The streetcar arrived and stopped for them, its doors opening with a hiss and clatter. Dodger led Spencer up the steps and dropped two nickels in the box. The interior was illuminated by yellowish bulbs that flickered a bit as the car continued on, the laboring tone of its motor suggesting it might be climbing an upgrade. Above the windows were advertisements, some for things that were still around, like Coca-Cola and Hershey’s chocolate, others for items he’d never seen, like Bixby’s ShuWhite and Black Cat Stove Polish, along with archaic cigarette brands. The varnished wooden seats were unpadded, and there were brass poles and overhead rails for a standing crowd, but only a few people aboard, and all of them in costume; the motorman wearing a uniform appropriate to the period – which Spencer assumed was the 1920s from what he’d seen so far – a mother, maybe forty or so, in ankle-length coat, severe-looking shoes, a hat drably decorated with feathers that might have come from a crow, and some sort of pin on her lapel displaying the letters WCTU. Her son, possibly seven or eight, was clad in white shirt, gray tweed jacket and knee-length pants, long wool socks, clunky oxfords, and of course a cap. There was a portly man in a suit, topped with a fedora and puffing an aromatic cigar while perusing a newspaper. Spencer tried to read the paper’s date as he followed Dodger up the aisle, but the lights went out for a moment as the car jolted over a junction.
As they came back to life, he noticed a girl of maybe fourteen possessed of a winsomely pixie-like face, her lips enhanced with lush cherry red, who might have been a junior model for one of the Whiz Bang flappers -- though here in living color instead of black-and-white -- wearing a blue satin thigh-length dress and a short cream-colored, fur-collared jacket, her shapely legs in white silk stockings, her feet in moderately high-heeled shoes, her raven hair bobbed like a page-boy’s beneath a blue felt helmet-like hat. She also sported a long string of beads, pretty but unabashedly glass, and was smoking a cigarette in a possibly Bakelite holder. The only flaw in her costume – at least in Spencer’s opinion – was that it understated her breasts, which though not as lavish as his, were doubtless deserving of better display.
It wasn’t surprising she smiled at Dodger, who was doubtlessly drop-dead handsome even though clad in what would have been lower-class garb in these times; but her big brown eyes remained just as warm as they inspected Spencer and gave him an equally charming smile, which gave him a pleasant tingle of warmth. Then she glanced at Dodger’s Gladstone:
“In the undertaking profession?”
“I’ve varnished quite a few coffins,” said Dodger.
“How much for embalming?” asked the girl.
“A Tom for a pint. Care for a toot?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Dodger presented the flask from his coat, the girl first daintily taking a sniff like a kitten offered questionable cream, followed by a cautious sip as if anticipating icky. Spencer expected her pert nose to wrinkle, but she smiled again. “This must be the real McCoy I’ve been hearing about since my dollie days.”
“It’ll coat your casket,” said Dodger, and lay a hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “But my friend perfected the formula.”
“Worth twice the price,” said the girl, reaching into a little purse. “But don’t get any ideas, Rockefeller.”
Dodger nudged Spencer, who opened the bag and offered a flask. The girl wisely took a sip from that before passing a two-dollar bill to Dodger.
“May I know my embalmers?”
“Dodger,” said Dodger, bowing a bit. “And my protégé Spencer.”
“Dodger and Spencer,” said the girl. “No offense meant, gentlemen, but it sounds like a vaudeville act.”
“Did I ever mention,” said Dodger to Spencer, “a man with a wooden leg named Smith?”
“I don’t recall,” returned Spencer. “What was the name of his other leg?”
The girl laughed again. “Annie,” she said, her eyes, unless Spencer mistook it, giving him a twinkle. “Though I’m not an orphan. But with my bluenose mom and pops and I often wish I were.” She flicked the stub of her cigarette out of the holder onto the floor and snuffed it under a heel. “I’m out on the lam tonight when I should be entombed in my room drearily studying Laughing and Grief.”
“What about Reeling and Writhing?” asked Spencer.
“And Ambition,” said Dodger.” Distraction, Uglification, and of course Derision.”
Annie laughed again. “There’s more to you two than just handsome faces and actually drinkable gin. Do have seats.”
Another surprise to Spencer was Annie making room for him while Dodger took a seat ahead and lounged sideways to face them. The woman in the feathered hat was looking prudishly disapproving, her son observing with interest until she snatched his ear and turned his face away.
Spencer had thought a lot about girls since he’d turned thirteen – girls of all colors, sizes and shapes in very eclectic profusion – but this was the first time in his life he’d been in close proximity in any physical way. Annie smelled nice, a bit like jasmine, with just enough hint of tobacco to make her seem wise enough to the world to not be considered a babe in the woods yet still qualify for a ride in the forest on a unicorn. He supposed it was only natural – a survival-of-the-species thing – that he felt a rudimentary urge to somehow compete with Dodger for the young lady’s attentions… which of course was ridiculous since Dodger, in no matter what culture, or clad in skin of any color with hair of any genetic origin or eyes of any alternate hue, was a perfect example of perfect young male.
Spencer had also occasionally – generally when involved with himself and pleasurably plying a finger and thumb -- pondered the problem of his “equipment” buried beneath all his belly blubber and softly surrounded by fat; which meant, though sufficiently endowed for most young males of his age, there wasn’t a lot available to put to one of the primary uses nature had intended. In short -- as he’d wryly surmised -- there didn’t seem much of a chance he’d be disqualifying young maidens from riding mythical mono-horns. Still, since the time when such an event seemed far in the indiscernible future, it hadn’t been of much more concern than applying for Social Security. …And, he thought now, meeting a pretty girl on a streetcar, even if she seemed to like him, didn’t – or maybe shouldn’t have – brought that potential problem to mind.
He glanced at Dodger, nothing his shirt was two buttons undone, probably from his recent exertions, displaying his perky pecs to advantage, his hair all awry beneath scruffy cap, an urchin-like smudge of soot on a cheek, probably acquired on the train, while he smelled very earthy; and wondered why -- even if their intimacy of the afternoon hadn’t happened -- he was still intrigued by him on some cosmic level he couldn’t define.
“Going up to the Claremont?” asked Dodger, offering a Fatima, which Annie inserted into the holder, and Spencer fired his lighter for her.
“Much too swanky for my taste, even if I could afford it.” Annie exhaled a ghost of smoke, took a ladylike sip from her flask and offered it to Spencer.
“Thanks, but you just bought it,” said Spencer. “And we have a lot.”
“Fun is for sharing,” said Annie. “Go on, wind your watch.”
“This is really cool,” said Spencer, his silly urge to compete with Dodger fading like a ghost into fog. “Like, you get to interact.”
“An interesting term,” said Annie. “But, what else does it resemble?”
“Huh?” said Spencer.
“Why is it only ‘like’ interacting instead of whatever it may be?”
“Oh,” said Spencer. “It’s just an expression.”
“Seems a bit confusing,” said Annie. “If something is only similar to what it may actually be.”
Dodger added, “Also not quite of a muchness to what it actually may not be.”
“My, a philosopher,” said Annie.
“…Um, yeah,” said Spencer, taking a sip while trying to work that out. “Guess they didn’t say cool either.”
“’Holmes was as cool as ever,’” said Annie, also taking a sip when Spencer passed the bottle back.
“Oh, yeah,” said Spencer. “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.”
“Written in 1911,” said Annie.
“And I seem to recall,” said Dodger. “A ‘you are very cool, Mr. Holmes’ in another of his stories.”
“Yeah, but it kinda meant calm,” said Spencer.
“Only ‘kinda?’” said Annie, with a mischievous look. “As in something is only kinda-like whatever it actually may be?”
“Or may not actually be,” said Dodger.
“Which makes it be twice not actually,” said Annie.
Spencer laughed. “A be by any other name…”
“I be, therefore I am,” said Annie. “Even if only kinda-like.”
“To be, or not to be,” said Dodger. “Or kinda-like being, but not, actually.”
“Or inversely,” said Annie. “Not quite actually kinda-like being.”
“Things are of two natures,” said Dodger. “Either being what they appear to be as opposed to what they actually aren’t, or not being what they appear to be as opposed to what they actually are.”
“But throw in kinda-like,” said Annie, “and nothing will ever actually be whatever it actually is.”
“Or inversely,” said Dodger, “whatever it actually may not be.”
“I be confused,” said Spencer.
“Try some more kinda-like gin,” said Annie.
“Substitute swell in most cases,” said Dodger, “and you’ll be actually cool.”
“Though not amongst swells,” added Annie. “Or they won’t think you’re actually either in their state of being.”
Spencer shook his head. “This sounds like a Thorne Smith conversation.”
“As in The Jovial Ghosts?” said Dodger. “One of the last books I read.”
“I’ve just read it,” said Annie. “My parents forbade me to, of course, which actually made it be all the more swell.”
”I’m reading it now,” said Spencer. “But I’m starting to feel like I be in it.”