Freak Wharf, pt. 14

“Why’d you go and do that, mister? It was only a lousy fuggin’ radio!” The kid's sobbing.

I reach out to console him and he shrinks back. As he does, his box slips out of his hands and onto the floor of the Torpedo, which I don’t even notice at first. But then a thousand things stolen spill out of it and it’s all indescribable.

And what’s indescribable is: No suffering, no eternal sorrow, and no world afire or lonely apartment, either. It’s Coney Island lit up and the screaming kids of the Cyclone; neon lights; tough old birds and wiseguy kids; It’s sir and ma’am and the best of luck and the baby's all right, too. Under every boardwalk a hundred pairs of lovers and a bright face in every seat on the Wonder Wheel. Throw a ring! guess your weight! Hero prize fighters in Adonis poses; comebacks eternal; nuns and gangsters and blue-assed Venus with honeybees and don’t you know that all the freaky freaks are gods here and a little lizard Jesus and two-headed Mary are smiling down on us all from jazz heaven?

And it is so because I say so. And who am I? I'm Cap'n Ellie. And who's Cap'n Ellie? He's your friend.

So I pick the kid up, straighten out his jacket, and help him get his box back together. And as he rounds the corner of Stillwell, we can both make out the rise of sirens, though still distant, and the hum of helicopters on the horizon.

“The jig will soon be up,” I say to nobody in particular. And as the leaves fall I ease into my coat and start back home, burning.

{FIN}