Free Hop Alley by Scott Phillips Page B

faint, more like the memory of the stench than the thing itself. The sensation was almost pleasant, calling to mind long-ago Ohio mornings puzzling apart the most rudimentary of the classical texts before the curiosity-killing drudgery of the school day began.
    Now I sat browsing through the Rocky Mountain News in the angular light that leaked down through the cracks between the rough pine boards of the shabbily constructed outhousearound that time of day. When I had finished I put the paper into the rack I had fashioned for storage of reading materials and pulled from it that morning’s already perused Bulletin , whose front page, with its account of the shooting of Lem’s Pa, I tore into strips and rendered illegible.
    My schedule for the afternoon was clear of obligations and appointments, and my plans vague. I didn’t relish the thought of languishing in the gallery, ordering the boy about and waiting for clients who likely would never materialize, but I hated the thought of missing any who might unexpectedly wander in. I stepped out squinting into the last white light the courtyard would receive that day, and my thoughts went straight to the prints languorously revealing themselves on the rooftop: a sweet elderly lady brought in by her granddaughter for her first photograph, shriveled as a dried-out apple and peering into the lens as though into Satan’s eyeball with an expression wholly unlike the kindly one she’d worn upon entry; a glum lad of sixteen or so trying to make himself out as a dandy, who had required assistance in knotting his silk cravat and in combing his shaggy hair into a poet’s wild mane; and finally one of the broomstick madam’s young ladies, who had come in with her patroness wanting to have a portrait made for the parents of a young client who had taken a strong liking to and wanted to marry her, one that would make her look like a lady. As I began to ascend I looked upward to find Lemuel peering anxiously down at mefrom the edge of the rooftop, and I assumed he was waiting for his turn to go down and void his bladder.
    “Hold your horses, I’ll be up in a moment,” I told him, but when I reached the top he didn’t take the ladder.
    “A man brought a box by and he’s waiting to be paid.” This simple turn of events completely stymied him, and the thought of paying the man from the cashbox never entered his inch-thick blond skull. I took a moment to check on the progress of the prints, which to my satisfaction were about exactly far along as I’d calculated, then climbed down the other ladder into the foyer and found a very angry messenger waiting on the piano bench. He was the size of a stevedore and spoke like a fallen schoolmaster.
    “I hope your bowel enjoyed a satisfactory evacuation,” he said, “having cost me as it did goddamn near a quarter of an hour.” An enormous moustache like a horse brush covered his mouth completely, and just above and below it on the left side could be seen the ends of a gruesome scar the lip cover was doubtless meant to hide. Like Lemuel he had only one useful arm, his left; the right was lost entirely. Idly I pondered whether its severing had been concurrent to receiving the scar on his mouth, and I ignored his insolent tone in favor of providing the boy with a valuable lesson.
    “You see, Lem?” I said, gesturing at the empty sleeve. “This fellow’s down to one arm permanently, and he hasn’t let it slow him any.”
    Lemuel stared with mute terror as the man stood, scowling at me, and recited bitterly the price owed on delivery. I paid him from the billfold in my vest and took the package. The messenger left without further comment, and before I had a chance to open the package the street-side door opened again. A pair of drunks stumbled up the staircase and into the foyer, laughing.
    “I would like to get my picture taken with my bosom chum, here, Mr. Schuster,” one of them said. He was the bigger of the two, but they were both big.