The Professor, and Other Tales of Coney Island

By Robert Lagerstrom

In this, his second published book set in Coney Island through the latter half of the 20th century, the author focuses primarily on an aging professor who has found sympathetic conditions of environment in which to ruminate on his experiences and destiny. He lives in a rundown hotel located in the heart of the amusement area, with ready access to secret places and intermittent encounters. A variety of Island transients and dreamers also appear in these dark tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 19, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465333780

Robert Lagerstrom

The author wishes to state that the current work is fiction, not autobiography. While his previous novel, The Coney Island Memoirs of Sebastian Strong, along with most of the portraits in the present tales, are presented in first-person format, there is no relation to the author’s own life. All was inspired by glimpses, overheard conversations, and incidents imagined from a distance. All is contrived illusion, just as Coney Island, too, is myth, vapor, and a substratum of beckoning possibilities.

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THE PROFESSOR,

AND OTHER TALES OF

CONEY ISLAND

ROBERT LAGERSTROM

Copyright © 2006 by Robert Lagerstrom.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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29849

Contents

FOREWORD

THE PROFESSOR–I

THE PROFESSOR–II

BILLY

THE PROFESSOR–III

NIGHT SHIFT INTO ISLAND DAY

THE PROFESSOR–IV

HELL GATE WAXWORKS

THE PROFESSOR–V

JEWEL

FRAN

THE PROFESSOR–VI

BENNY

THE PROFESSOR–VII

LUNCHEON AT THE LIGHTNING

THE PROFESSOR–VIII

THE PROFESSOR–IX

FOREWORD

Coney Island, South Brooklyn, New York. Technically not an island.

Touching its northern border is a creek that through the decades has gradually diminished in size and now remains a mere finger’s length of tenuous demarcation. The physical space of Coney continues in reduced form, framed by the Atlantic Ocean. As a Gargantua of amusement splendor, it once embodied compelling anarchy and offered mechanical inventions of potent seductiveness. In time, the old rides and indigenous folk disappeared or expired, constricting the fabrication to a residuum of several blocks: roughly Surf Avenue, paralleling the boardwalk and ocean, crossed by the slash of Stillwell Avenue, and a remaining inner promenade called the Bowery. Subway lines terminate on elevated tracks bordering Surf. The terminal itself was until recently a cavernous dark space of footsteps and echoes; arriving by train, one passed through Stygian dimness and emerged into the lights and noise of the Island proper. Today a glossy new subway terminal is the welcoming portal.

There are few traces of the Xanadu of a half century ago. The Island is now stained with stark spaces of emptiness and silence, along with high rises bearing no relation to the past, a disappointment to those searching for artifacts. The whorehouses have vanished. The glass Pavilion of Fun is now a baseball park. Retired midget clowns have mostly vacated the shreds of freak shows. The old Surf Hotel floats on in truncated shape, no longer configured by sausage and souvenir stands adjacent to its entrance. The shingles continue to rot and loosen; curtains in the windows are tied together in knots. Roomers seem still to occupy the premises, but there is no discernible sense of mystery or appeal for the vagabond and the lost.

What never changes is the surpassing ocean. A walk along the boardwalk brings to view a presence that has witnessed the Island in all its guises. Wordlessly, the ocean conveys its reaction to any dreams of Island renewal, reflecting the inescapable, that the glory days are finished and the long decline is at last reaching conclusion. There is talk of transforming the Island into a theme park or sports center, of reducing its former Dionysian appeal to zero. To this, too, the ocean will be spectator.

The following narratives assume their thrust of expression in the beginning years of major change, approximately the late 1950s, with the final pieces advancing to the present day. They are concerned with transition, both in characters and in circumstances of the evanescent Island, where momentary displays of vitality and hope are as perishable as footprints in the sand.

THE PROFESSOR–I

Towards five a.m. I awake, cross the room, and sit resigned beside

a window looking out to the Coney Bowery. I sense a strange illness moving surreptitiously through my body, but dismiss the practical idea of signing into a hospital to determine prognosis on the limitations of my mortality, and remain inert in the room’s single chair. I reach for a bottle on an adjacent table, pour a full shot, and drink with respect for alcohol’s alleviating strokes. So they are, those resulting vibrations, like a human hand roaming across the fur of an old cat’s back. The hand that slides dreamily across my body is a soft young hand, my vernal Apollo anticipating shameless satisfaction. I ponder the vague, brooding boys of earlier years. Predawn, an excellent time for carnal reflections. I pour a second whiskey and savor memories of vanished nights.

Through falling snow and scrim of spiky wire limning a fence below, I discern a hovering street lamp, an isolated milky Venus. No other shapes are apparent. Coney’s physical scribble has been effaced. There is no substantial realization of place. Really almost nothing.

He blew into my ear and ruffled my hair with his fingers. Not far off, a child laughed voluptuously. Perhaps the freak show fat lady had farted. Golden noon sunlight reached the bed. Our mouths pressed tightly in hunger. We were emaciated from prolonged absence of such food. No one should be so deprived.

I place an arm on the sill and listen to the radiator. A notable characteristic of the Surf Hotel, its heating system through each winter of my extended occupancy. I forget how many years. I was once twenty, and now—well, so it is.

Cigarettes lie at hand. Wait. Later, with coffee. At present I engage only with night and alcohol. At nine I will arise intentionally for day. My sleep is divided into passages. I think that very sensible. I stir at five to calculated whiskey break and gradually return to sleep. With whiskey I can do it. My key to such regularity is cheap liquor.

Come on he urged come forget it that nothing’s perfect easy what the hell’s love anyway not what you think trust me I did we went it was it lasted so long only over in an hour maybe escape flight left then with a few fragments that shone briefly as though impassioned glowing now indifferent however strange treasures in a museum case not so bright in the catacombs of night

There is no suggestion of dawn. In the room below, a catarrhous mongrel, half-blind, a sock of stinking bones, fed I believe by bilious old women, whines extendedly, knowingly, sometimes the first to detect change in the murky ether, before my own awareness of light. I stare harder, but nothing interrupts the darkness. Again the creature’s aria. Unsettling to hear. Troubled dogs disturb me profoundly. I could kill them for their oppressive articulations.

The dog is suddenly silent. His cries might have been reaction to someone peeing on his wretched head. Such accidents occur with the mindless old. Communal hotel toilets, situated in the hall, are sometimes occupied for unreasonable periods, even at five in the morning. Can’t expect a full-bladdered hag to eliminate water propped on a sink, unless she is lifted by another to the position and is not obese. Foresight would provide a large pot, within reach, preferably with a lid. The elderly are averse to such clarity of engineering. I am aware of my own increasing inattention to practical details. A falling off began once I reached fifty. Eventually my bladder, too, will inflate and behave badly, and it will be my ignominy not to provide a convenient device for catching the resulting mess.

I continue with whiskey, warming the glass between my palms. A bitter unrefined taste, no doubt the result of unprofessional fermentation in the tin vats of a provincial Brooklyn distillery. On the other hand, might have come from Morocco or Easter Island. Essentially a pleasing alcoholic rot. The fumes drench my skull.

I wear my usual bed attire, yesterday’s underwear and a purple nightshirt. My hands roam the leathery exterior of my body, searching for tumors, carbuncles, or worse. Nothing discovered. A scent of gardenia emerges from a handkerchief. My coveted gardenia, a cologne I scrupulously replenish. It guarantees I’m not yet entirely diminished, not so awesomely close to the end.

You smell good. Nice perfume. Gonna remember my nose in your special places and the flowers smelling everywhere. What’s it called, what you use? Tell me, puppy. For future reference, you know. I told him. He licked the back of my neck. Our kisses tasted gardenia and were very arousing.

I am in thrall to gardenia these years, as much as I am remote from what once could be defined as a life with connection to other lives. In earlier times, gardenia was always casually around. Now it is a necessity. I open my handkerchief and press it to my face. Nice, the way a fabric retains such fragrance.

In rented rooms, wherever those rooms might have been, a permeation of lingering scent. Chambermaids probably noticed and probably remarked, what the hell, takes all kinds, two guys, you know. Flowers in the air. Many empty coruscated bottles through many years.

Translucent shimmering vials lit brilliantly on drugstore shelves expensive necessary to maintain a strand trailing elusive returning implying something love statement inclination invitation vanquishing power opened scarab beneath emerald wings drops of orange pearl

Cold brushes my face. I fold a handkerchief with ceremony. The chair, with its detestable inhuman design, its lack of arm rests, its implied statement that it exists only to accommodate transient roomers, impels me to take a third drink and continue to stare at the night outside.

There is only unyielding vagueness. But of course it is always desirable to protract existing perceptions. Wasteful to suppress such rewarding opportunities. I must attack the scene passionately at the perimeters—at the edge, where the outline is established by the window frame. I must look for messages, for hints of meaning.

The mongrel in the downstairs cubicle again whines in extenuated phrases. Perhaps the beast has been washed in a second rinse of piss. Or worse. I seem to be absorbed with body wastes. Again, abruptly, silence follows.

I pour a fourth shot. The storm submerging Coney is excellent reason to drink. I suck more liquor. The view beyond the window goes a step further. The street lamp disappears.

I pull the cord of an overhead light. No light. The fingers of yellow that usually reach under my door from the hall have been similarly erased. I sit silently in blackness, holding to my glass.

There follows a sequence of varied sounds, conveyed through the walls and floor. Coarse muttering, a door slammed shut, a high-pitched laugh, a salacious sustained belch. Eventually, resignation prevails. The inhabitants close their yaps.

I move cautiously to the bureau, to locate the stub of a candle in a small drawer that holds razor blades, pencils, tape measure, tie clips, items of such distinction. My flashlight is irretrievable, lying in some illogical hidden place. I feel my way back to the table, combine a saucer, match, and candle in calculated manner and create light. It is a very small flame, just enough to illuminate the table, my bottle and glass, and a blue velvet quilt that lies elegantly across the bed.

Do we perform on the classy fabric? he asked. For a moment, I considered. The idea was inviting. But our bodies were already gleaming with sweat. Reluctantly I removed the precious material. The bare sheets beneath were hardly in the same category of refinement, but they accommodated us with a more appropriate playing field. Now we can go at it no holds barred, I murmured.

Candlelight does not soften the reality of the window. It exposes the rotting frame with its four panes secured in place by cheap cement plugging. A more insistent storm will easily dispose of the patching and hasten the entire window to crash inexorably to the floor.

The street lamp resumes its opalescent presence. I snuff out my candle. There are no grunts or exclamations to welcome electricity’s return to the Surf Hotel. The dog below is mute.

Snow increases. Icy orchidaceae and translucent violets spread magically across the window. Finally a smear of silver light in the distance, where the horizon squats and waits. I catch it, realizing there are others, somewhere, who also wait and watch. There are other observers grasping for the guarantee of day again. Could I fasten to my body the wings of Icarus and rim the sun’s horrific fires, to melt into the source and be done with it all forever? Finished at last with anticipation? Terminal absorption into a desired object, that would please me.

. . . … … .

Hours later, I peel away the quilt and emerge. The underwear I slept in is warm and agreeable and is therefore not removed. Next, I utilize the basin for a steaming pee. Followed by scouring powder. Will not tolerate a foul basin. Followed by flannel shirt, in green and black tartan, black jeans that have survived ten years of Chinese washings, a lumpy black sweater, old engineer boots with circular buckles and square-cut toes. From bed to pissing to dressing. Within minutes I’ve performed the essentials.

Respecting the beard on my face, I shrug. Nevertheless, I examine what is there. Mirror reflects gray hair verging on white. The abundance of invading whiteness is suddenly suggestive of nursing home corridors with the almost-dead in wheel chairs.

She’ll be happy here, make new friends, there’s bingo every day, television, evening sing-alongs.

I listened to the prattle as I observed my mother. A white knit shawl floated along the angles and shards of her tiny, resigned body.

The nurse shook the links of a cheap costume bracelet to emphasize her ballyhoo.

I take a brown cosmetic pencil and darken my sideburns. Short, thick strokes define my eyebrows. The face avers it is ready for breakfast. An unlit cigarette dangles as I gather up wallet and keys.

The hallway is empty. Yeasty music from radios crosses through the dank space. The toilet door is shut, as expected. A shovel and galoshes stand outside the hotel manager’s room. Tributaries of snow melt on the worn maroon carpet. I’m always impressed when hotel staff noticeably engage in the legitimate responsibilities of their jobs. I will later remind the elusive manager, a Mr. Holly, that the heating system requires a determined shove, and would he kindly call an obliging repairman to make that adjustment.

There are eight rooms on the second floor, most merely small closets such as mine. A few are expanded suites with stove and refrigerator. The floor above is of similar layout. On the ground level, however, a combination of oddities has developed.

The Surf Hotel entrance is an inconspicuous door opening to a narrow street called Confluence Lane. The hotel confronts the rear exit of the antiquated Hell Gate Waxworks, a grim structure with a long-defunct dance hall on its second floor. There have been few architectural embellishments evident at Coney in recent years.

The Island is decomposing as it awaits inevitable conclusion. Once it is eliminated, which seems likely on some unknown day, my problems will increase. This, you see, is where I live, this is it. I can’t imagine Coney hanging on much longer, but my first allegiance, I admit, lies exactly here, in this density of rotting