tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 113: "The Lawn's Lament"

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo* 

illustrations by danny delacroix and rhoda penmarq

*Associate Professor of Romance Literature, Assistant Life Coach, Olney Community College; editor of Mrs. Biddle’s Bequest and Four Other Novels of Intrigue by Horace P. Sternwall, with an Afterword by Oscar Levant; Olney Community College Press. Made possible in part by a generous grant from Bob’s Bowery Bar on the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “Serving fine beers and cocktails from 7am to 4am daily. Featuring Bob’s Bowery Bar’s World Famous Nickel Hot Dogs, with Mom’s Sauerkraut. ‘I’ve lived off Bob’s nickel hot dogs for years now.” – Howard Paul Studebaker, poet, author of Aubades of the Old West and Cowboy Villanelles. 

Welcome to Bob’s Bowery Bar, home away from home to the damned, the doomed, and the dead of spirit. Seamas McSeamas, the Irish poet, pulled himself up onto the cracked leather seat of the bar stool and laid a five-dollar bill on the bar. “Quod erat effin’ demonstrandum,” he said. “I told ya,” said Howard Paul Studebaker, the Western Poet. “What’d I tell ya?” “Lovely as a summer’s goddam day,” said Frank X Fagen the nature poet, staring at the five-spot as if it were a beautiful flower or some sort, he could never remember the names of flowers. “Bob,” said Seamas to Bob, the eponymous proprietor of this dank and dark hellhole, “’tree more Rheingolds for me and me companions, and ya better line up ‘tree more shots of Carstairs whiskey as well, and take it out of this fiver right here.” Seamas tapped the five-dollar bill with his filthy finger. Not twenty-eight minutes later (and despite the fact that at Bob’s a mug of Rheingold only cost fifteen cents and a shot of Carstairs only fifty cents) only forty-five cents remained from Seamas’s five dollars. “We’re runnin’ low, boys, dangerously low,” said Seamas. “Your turn, Frank X.”  Frank X Fagen the nature poet lifted his emaciated body off of his bar stool. “Save my seat, fellows,” he said. He stubbed out the last quarter-inch of the Old Gold he had been smoking. “And wish me luck.” “Just hurry back, for Christ’s sake,” said Howard Paul Studebaker.  “I’ll be as quick as I can,” said Frank X. “God speed to ya, Frankie me boy,” said Seamas. Frank X staggered over to the table where sat the two failed hipsters, Landon “Rooster” Crow and Alice “Sniffy” Smith.

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