Toyland
by
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Fitzroy rests as best he can perched high on a backless barstool just inside the open doors. His right hand holds a smoking cigarette between thumb and forefinger. Head turning, he watches people leave, passes others in. He flips the filtered cigarette butt away. It hits the sidewalk, bounces, rolls toward the gutter, stops and smolders under the streetlight. Red neon signs in the windows flicker and hum. BUDWEISER. MILLER. GENESEE. Ten o’clock. Too quiet, but at least the work is easy. Fitzroy looks at his watch again. 10:05. Tracy Campbell, short, effervescent, enters. "Hi there!" she says, pausing in the doorway. "What’s happening?" "Not much." He knows who she is, even if he can’t think of her name. Age about twenty, twenty-one. Been around, hanging out, a couple of weeks. Fitzroy rises from the stool, stretches. He looks out the door. "See you in a few," the girl says. "Sure." He moves the stool, spins the seat with a finger, looks at his watch. Tracy, whose first name he now thinks of, has, he believes, disappeared into the society of the long, dark interior. And just as well, too. "Here!" "Huh?" Tracy has returned, pokes him with a glass she holds. She has another glass in the other hand. "Scotch and water," she says. "Here!" "You bought it?" "Yeah, I bought it. Take it. It’s John A. Walker." What can he say? "Thanks." The glass, loaded with ice, is comforting, cold in his hand. Sincerely grateful for the drink, and not wanting to alienate a regular customer, particularly a not unattractive female customer, he can hardly pretend he is preoccupied by the action at the door. Attentive to her conversation, he listens, he responds. "What," he asks, "is the A for?" "The A?" "You said John A. Walker." "Oh. That’s for asshole." With one of her hands now free, she gives him a little feel up around the waist while they talk. He fears for a moment she might, like a T-town whore, grab his pecker, but she keeps the insinuating hand at the waist or above. "Yeah, I know," he says. "Too much flab." "You’re just big," she says. As men go, Fitzroy, as he understands it, is not really big, just larger than average. Who knows, maybe this is just her thing, an autonomous tease; maybe she offers nothing. But even around here he does not get so much he can afford to turn it down all the time. She steps forward, shoves her tits into him. The tits, hitting below his ribs, if real, are pointed like artillery shells, and substantially firm. It has occurred to Fitzroy to introduce her to Sabitini, but Sabitini is at the bar amid a group of people, and he is with a tall, lanky girl he has picked up someplace. She is standing, leaning against the bar, an elbow on the seated Sabitini’s shoulder, monopolizing Joe’s attention. Fitzroy wonders if he could somehow move toward them, perhaps steering Tracy, as he has been hoping to shortly join the group. For one thing, he would soon need another drink, second of the evening now, over the bar. The lanky girl with Sabitini looks young, probably just out of high school. Maybe eighteen or nineteen¾
old enough to drink legally. In New York State you could legally do them at seventeen, but you couldn’t legally buy them a drink until a year later. Of course a lot of these young chicks now, Fitzroy thinks, have been using dope since they were in grade school. The tall girl has a joint out of her shoulder bag and almost lit before Sabitini gets it away and tells her you don’t smoke dope in public bars. The girl, whose white shorts reveal a great set of long legs, is very pretty in a way you would not immediately notice. Her hair is frosted in streaks, and chopped in what Fitzroy considers an ugly hairdo. A gangly girl, flat chested, like an ungraceful mannequin. Six foot tall in sandals, she is a reasonable female match in height for Sabitini. But there is something vulnerable about the girl; she is a victim. A whore maybe, but a victim. In a few years, Fitzroy imagines, she would be fu----- three or four different guys and have them all in love with her, with her tragic persona, and then she would make sure they all found out about the others. And then what? Some nutcase she has incited will strangle her.
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About the Book
Dig the bar scene! With the passing of the sixties, we find a society which, while sometimes extravagantly comic, is too often characterized by banality, greed, and duplicity. The climate of the republic seems to be one of political decline, moral decay, debauchery, and random violence . . . up to and including murder . . . while soldiers dwell on war. Travel to TOYLAND, resort of heart’s desire, terminal of the American Dream. At the beginning of the summer season in a resort town, the saloon known as Mitty’s Adirondack Hotel is busy hustling custom. Hugh Fitzroy, proprietor, a juicer of note himself, presides. An unpopular war continues interminably in distant Southeast Asia. Of a summer, many young girls pass through the bar. When the body of one of these is found by the side of the road, the police investigation leads to Mitty’s. When Marco Rigo, a young Vietnam Veteran and small time marijuana dealer, is charged with murder, Fitzroy believes the police have the wrong person. In the face of his own admonitions to the contrary, he feels compelled to look into the case. He learns, among other things, it may be politically expedient to convict Rigo. After another girl is murdered, his quixotic attempt to take the law into his own hands results in the novel’s explosive climax. This syncretic novel also explores a young black man’s relationship with white folk, and examines some aspects of the roots of racism in America. In developing this theme, the narrative temporarily shifts to the historical past, including a unique perspective on the cataclysmic Battle of Saratoga." Toyland is a complex, multi-layered novel populated by a large cast of colorful, vividly drawn characters who speak in dialog that rings of authenticity. The atmosphere of a saloon, central to the story, is vividly conveyed, but this literary work is about an entire community. In examining the ethical matrix of the archetypal warrior-hero, the novel may raise more questions than provide answers.
About the Author
The author, a quondam U.S. Marine, has operated several saloons in upstate New York. He has been associated, either as employee or patron, with many other barrooms throughout North America and the Caribbean. A devout disciple of Asatru, he is recognized as a high priest of the God, Tyr. Known as a shape-shifter, he is able to assume the form of various animals, including wolves, bears, and so on, if meteorological conditions are propitious. On several occasions he has even assumed the shape of a powerful automobile.