In 1956 I lived in a Greenwich Village fifth-floor walk-up.

Cold water, cockroaches, a gas ring for cooking, and a 1930s Kelvinator with the coil on top that barely kept the milk from turning.

But it was two thousand square feet, the previous tenants having taken our walls between the apartments.

Windows stretched up to the twelve-foot ceilings and looked out over the treetops of Carmine street.

The radiators kept the place shirtsleeve-toasty all winter long.

I was a painter who disdained day jobs.

To make rent, we’d get some demijohns of Dago red and throw a basket party.

 

Friday Fictioneers

 

Best job I ever had was caretaker of the Grandmoor house.

At the time there was all kinds of talk about historic preservation since the family that built it were city founders. They owned the mill and the box factory, had all kinds of servants.  One was even the mayor.

The original grounds had seventy acres before hard times winnowed it down to the last three.

Still, it was a swell place with brick porticos and a pipe organ in the parlor.

None of the family are alive now. Some moved away when the money ran out.  So it goes.

 

Friday Fictioneers

“Where you been?”

“Sick. Real sick.”

“Yeah? Better off you’d died.”

“Why’s that?”

“Merton’s been hollering. Called the supervisor. He wants your ass, Jay.”

“That so? Well, last I checked we got a union. We got sick leave.”

“Merton said you didn’t call in. Nobody was covering your route. You see your case yet?”

“I just walked in.”

“Well, it’s a goddamn mess. You got at least six crates of rough-sorted, about two hundred pounds of junk mail, plus the packages.”

“Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night.”

“Jesus, Jay.  We’re talking the goddamned US Mail.”

“Is that so?”

 

Friday Fictioneers

 

First time she shot up it was like God had given her answers to questions she hadn’t dared to ask.

The meaning of life. The nature of love. The essence of self.

She fucking loved it.

Now it was all about avoiding that go-to-hell empty sickness that announced itself with chills and nausea, a town crier marching ahead of the invading army.

There hadn’t been anything close to euphoria for a long time,  but she still feels the magic power that she can banish the fiercest wolf of a jones in an instant.

If she can just find a bathroom.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Oh the Deacon was roaring that Sunday.

He paced and frothed, balled his fists, hollered like a hog in a gate.

But he wasn’t yet started, nosir.

He stepped down from the pulpit and called ol’ Satan himself to come up from the pit-fires and fight it out with him right there, told him to bring all the demons he chose to help him.

By then the whole front row was on their knees, eyes closed, some of them speaking in the tongues like they do.

It was all I could to get them to wait for the altar call.

Friday Fictioneers

Horst held the pistol to the lady anchor’s head.

“You are to read this the moment the cameras come on. Read it precisely, with no deviations.”

The lady anchor wore excessive makeup, her hair sprayed stiffly as though being blown by the wind.

She looked different than on television.

Older.

Moved by sudden pity, I called to her. “Our goals are peaceful, but our message is being suppressed. We are all citizens together. Do as we ask and no harm will befall you.”

She glanced up, pale, quivering.

Horst backed out of camera view, pistol steady on her.

“Remember,” he said.

Friday Fictioneers

 

‘Behold, I will save My people from the land of the east
And from the land of the west;
I will bring them back,
And they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.
They shall be My people
And I will be their God,
In truth and righteousness.’
– Zechariah 8:7

“This place ain’t what I was expecting.”

“Which was exactly what?”

“Well, you know. Like in the Ten Commandments.”

“The movie?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting there to be no cars here. And the people are different that I thought they’d be.”

“Different how?”

“Darker-skinned. More foreign-looking.”

“The people live here are mostly Jews.”

“Yeah, but I thought they’d be different. The people Pastor showed in his book us were more like us. And another thing…”

“Dear Lord. What?”

“Well, they ain’t all that friendly. I was expecting them to be happy we’re here. After all, we’re here to help them.”

Mike-Mike was sharp for a sixth-grader.

He knew to the penny what a Baby Ruth sold for at the Master Mart across from the school, figured how he could still scrape a decent profit by getting the candy in bulk from the Cash-and-Carry where his old man bought supplies for his restaurant.

“Just a businessman doing a perfectly legal side hustle.”

Kids would stop by his locker and he’d open it up like a salesman, display his wares.

M&Ms, Lifesavers, Hershey…all the name brands.

In high school, he moved into a riskier trade.

“More money means less legal,” he said.

 

Friday Fictioneers

I hear her in the bathroom, so I flip the sheets back and walk to the door.

I tap.

“Come in,” she says.

It’s steamy. She’s wrapped the generous hotel towel around her torso.

I admire the ripple of muscles in her smooth shoulder as she leans toward the mirror with the lipstick, the amazing whiteness of her teeth.

“Wow.”

“You like?” she says, turning.

“Stunning,” I say. “Even with the towel.”

“Dirty boy,” she says.

“Do you have to go?”

“I need to get this over with.”

“And you want to look good.”

She kisses me. “Yes I do.”

 

Friday Fictioneers

“Half the worst is that it wasn’t even that bad a storm.”

Squires leans on his oars and lets the skiff drift past the jetty.

“Look at the fuckin’ place. Bloody shambles.”

“Oh, I’ve seen worse,” says Skip. “The sea is a cruel mistress, after all.”

“You want I should put in? Stretch the legs a bit?”

“Aye, that’d be fine.”

Squires rows them to a half-submerged slip and ships the oars.  He steps neatly onto the dock and makes the bowline fast to a bollard.

Skip heaves himself out and climbs up after, the seawater splashing his trouser cuffs.

 

Friday Fictioneers

“