Morton's Alley

Morton's Alley
Morton
A half-smoked cigarette dangled from his dry lips. His white fedora hung low over his eyes. Just high enough for him to see the people looking, walking, acting across the street, and just low enough for them not to see him looking. They were different people, but all had only one thing in mind. There was the old lady with the bad, crooked back, whom Morton had known for quite a while. She went for the witty, cop ones. Old cop school, detectives and the sort. There was the new woman. A little posh, always afraid that someone would stare and her face would crack. Morton's face never cracked. Morton used extra-special-moisturizer-balm. His mother had given it to him as a gift, when he was one or two years old. His mother had been wise and kind. But foremost wise. His mother would approve of him. How she would dote. No, that's taking it a bit too far. Then there was the dark gentleman, another newcomer. He wore a suit, a company man most probably. Law-school man. There was much money to be made in law, if you knew how to avoid it. Morton had been a law-school man himself. He knew the same tricks anyway. Only instead of talking it, he was doing it. The last in the horizontal queue was the kid, whom again, he knew. Or he thought he knew. No. Morton was wrong. It turned out he did not. He would soon, though.
He played with the rope, pulling the loaded trolley and then pushing it away with his foot, which he balanced off the building, in order to move the cart. He stopped though, thinking that the old blanket might slip, revealing the load. He hadn't bothered with hiding his dough. The cops knew what went on... All they had to do was look under. The best one's in plain sight. They didn't hit him all at once. Too suspicious. A crowd always draws attention because a crowd is more often than not doing something illegal, and if it's not illegal now, it will be, and we can't encourage future crime, or what would this world go to. First came the woman, who walked straight to the motherload and who was, apparently, completely new to the game. The others seemed to know the spiel and scattered. The old bent woman went into a store to buy a loaf. The guy in the suit asked for directions. The thing about staying out of sight for fear of being remembered was complete bullshit. Don't abide by it. Ever. The kid, the little punk, let fly a skateboard. It wasn't one of those modern things, which always made Morton scowl. Those invisible skates, or blades, or whatever they were, that only appeared when you set your foot down on them. Morton didn't like invisible things. Too much was invisible. Government was invisible. Eyes were invisible. Invisibility is anonymity. And anonymity only has one purpose.
The boy skated away, right by Morton, not giving him the time of day. Perhaps Morton had been wrong about the kid after all.
The woman. With her little dog. What was it? Morton glanced at it, but hadn't the faintest idea. He'd never been into that sort of thing. He couldn't tell cars' make by looking at them. He couldn't name wines. But wines weren't what they used to be. Wines smelled and tasted of industry these days. Dogs, to Morton, were either black or white, good or bad, big or small, ugly or not so ugly. She wasn't pretty. Not to Morton. She was sad. And frail. She tried to impose without imposing. She wasn't really fake, just misplaced. She had nice eyes. Small and brown, like one of those old starlets his granddaddy used to love. He idolatrized that one with the mole, and the other. Yes, this woman reminded her of the other. Not the fat chick, the skinny one. Small and delicate. He couldn't remember her name, only her eyes, which seemed ever more vivid looking at this woman. She wore a trench-coat. Does she think she is a spy? Morton wondered, then, Is she?. Probably not. Spies usually don't look like spies, but maybe she knew that too and was trying to throw him off-balance. He wasn't afraid of strangers. The job didn't permit it. So he looked at her straight, from under his hat.
"You looking for someone, ma'am?" he inquired, sucking deeply on his cigarette.
"A friend, I was supposed to meet him at the...um..." She laughed, she had an easy laugh and it came out perfect. Of course it did, she worked on it every night. "I keep forgetting that damn name, let me see, it was...the...mm...the 'Highway Albinum' was it?"
"The only place I know that sounds like the 'Highway Albinum' is the 'Highway Asylum'. Is your friend with the Asylum, ma'am?" Because people were no longer in the Asylum, they were now with the Asylum, like it was some rock-n-rolla band.
"No, he...he works at the brewery, and we were supposed to meet at the cafby the brewery?" It came out as a question, as if Morton ought to know this woman's plans for the day.
"The brewery is that way, ma'am." He said, pointing to her right. "It's two or three blocks, but I've never heard of such a caf"

"I must've heard it wrong. The telephone is sometimes awful, isn't it?" she confided. He liked the way she pronounced the word 'telephone', it had an old, quaint ring to it and he wondered if she practiced that too. "Anyway, thank you. For your help."
She blushed and he nodded. She lingered, trying to peer discreetly under the blanket.
"I don't think your friend's in there, ma'am. Definitely not an entire salon. But I can check if you like." He smiled softly. This would be her cue. Morton's life wasn't like an old spy movie, where some guy would go "The cuckoos in Moscow are crazy" and the other would reply, with a nod "More even than the Berlin pandas". Because life wasn't like that. Frankly, Morton had never seen the appeal of those movies. They were simply too unrealistic to interest him. He couldn't believe a guy who used that sort of line. No, there was no set text, no discussion pattern that should be followed.
But she didn't want him to check, another giggle, and thank you, I'll be on my way.
Goodbye, little girl.
Next came the hag, trotting with her fresh little bun. She accosted him for a smoke, he said he had an unopened pack in the cart, if she'd be so good as to bend down and grab it from under the covers.
"If I could bend, I wouldn't need them smokes, you ignorant little..." Morton smiled in spite of himself. He grabbed the Agatha Christie, it was new and he knew she'd enjoy it. He also grabbed a Brown, and he paused, momentarily between a Galbraith and a Nesbo. He glanced back at the woman and took them both. When he turned back, she stood with her crooked back to the street and held in her hand some newspapers and the bun. He put down the books, gently, in her outstretched bag and she hid them with the newspapers and the bun. She nodded and walked away. He smiled quietly to himself, watching her walk away.
The dark man came next and complained about the rain. Terrible, wasn't it? He was old, Morton noticed, probably in his fifties, if not older. Then he started blabbing about how it wasn't like that in the olden days. Morton offered an umbrella, it was, he admitted, a modest trade, but it put bread on the table for his two little ones. And on the man who was fond of the olden days went, perhaps a little fuller than when he came.
But the dark man was not the last of the lot, for a lonely skateboard drifted into Morton's alley.

Felicia
She had been too afraid to go through with it. She had come so far, and then, poof. Typical, she thought, and she was very angry with herself. She had known she couldn't do it. She had been so sure, yet, that she could. She chickened out. She knew the man was not a cop. But she wasn't sure. She never was. She needed someone who'd make all the big decisions for her. Who'd walk all her heavy steps. But no one did, and she often found herself stuck in her little match-box apartment, deprived of fresh air. She was so alone. She had always been. But she used to have so many friends. And they were tall and short, sad and laughing, loud and silent, wise or foolish. And in a way, they had all been a part of her. A different little part, because if you look at it through the pages, you often find you have many personalities, that sometimes overlap. But she had been a little girl, before they had taken her grandfather. Lorick had loved the little girl as if she were his own. Even more than his own, because Lydia was gone. Lydia, Felicia's mother, had died of pneumonia, they said, when Felicia had been two. And how she'd wailed for her mother. Weeks after weeks, they wept together for Lydia, one in silence and one, indeed, very loud. But grieving only goes so far. Actually, she thought, that's not entirely true. Grief goes on forever, if you don't tell it to stop. Oh, grandfather had had a wonderful library. Large, in which she could read with complete abandon. There were two wicker chairs, in which they'd sit. One in each chair. And sometimes he read to her. And sometimes she to him. And more often, each to himself. They gave all their time to books, because books were all they had. Books had been going ever since Grandpa was a child, but the world had been too young then. They had been riotous. They weren't ready then to let go. But they grew ready. And the mass-technology was only part of it. They just couldn't juggle books anymore. And when they started coming in less, no one said anything, they just accepted it. And when they stopped coming at all, they said okay to that too. They had plenty of books, they said. And they were wrong. They had been passive, and that's always a terrible thing. They lost books because they were too afraid to riot, and when they did think to act on it, it was far too late. There was no prison sentence for those who did riot. There was just death. The army shot them down. They had staged a book-burning in one city, trying to remind the government what had happened to someone else who had banished books. But instead their dead, bleeding bodies fell in the fire and roasted, alongside their beloved books. There hadn't been much rioting done since then. The police were not fooling around. That much was clear. Apparently, the people on the hill had realized that some things are worth the risk of imprisonment. Things that make you unruly and defiant. No, no no, suh, that just won't do.
They -the government, the authorities - had confiscated books, raiding every household and giving a stern warning to the people they could find. And when they wanted to find people, they made sure they found them all. Each and every one had learned, somehow, about books and about how very wrong it might appear to be in possession of them. Send the wrong kind of message about what good citizens you all are. But, unlike those people in that book-burning city, the government didn't burn them. Or at least, Felicia didn't think they did. Books, after all contained information. Books were powerful. And they knew just how powerful they were. No, the books were probably stacked on neat little shelves in a storage rooms or a huge, fantastic library, which Felicia sometimes liked to imagine. Rows after rows. Books of every size and on any topic imaginable. When she had been a little girl, she, as most little girls do, wanted more than their library at home. And she dreamed of how she might slip unnoticed on one of the mandatory (although it didn't say that on the sign-up sheet,oh,no) school trips to the governmental buildings. How she could maybe stay behind. Turn left, instead of right. And how she'd find herself in a never-ending room stacked to the ceiling with stories. Then, when she felt really bored, which often happened, she pictured a security guard suddenly coming, or yes, indeed, the President himself. And how she'd hide among the shelves, or under the metal carts.
And she had been brave then. But only when she dreamed. Only in her fantasy, because every time she actually was inside, on one of those trips, she stayed close to the group and close to her teacher, Mrs. Whooley. She had dared herself, many times, to stay behind, not necessarily go anywhere, just wander for a minute or two. But she couldn't. Just like she couldn't go through with it this afternoon. The man had seemed nice enough. Willing to help her. And she felt so silly now, in her safe little apartment, about not looking under the blanket.
Next time.
Next time...




Duncan
Duncan Moore was happy in his little treasure nest. He tried to bring new treasures in as often as he could, but he had to remain inconspicuous, stay 'under the grid', as they sometimes say. He frequented many book-dealers. He still remembered how, in the olden days, those words had meant a different thing. And not often. He knew three guys, old guys, whom he tended to trust more. They had lived back then. They were his generation of men. Surely, they could understand better than the young. But still you couldn't bet on it. So he went around to each every three or four months, trusting that they wouldn't recognize him. He had even tried to disguise himself. A fake moustache which had made him look ridiculous, and he threw it away. Sideburns, which were more him, but still uncomfortable. Dark glasses, which made him feel watched. One 'dealer', and older, amiable short man, had told him, in a secretive tone, that he should ditch the disguises since they gave him a funny look. Probably drew more attention than they diverted. Duncan had done so, setting them all down, neatly, in a bin bag. But he had a change of heart, at the last minute, and kept them. You never know when they might come in handy. He hadn't gone back, though, to that particular 'dealer'. Because Duncan was a very paranoid man and there was always the possibility that the man was just trying to make his own vermin job easier, by seeing Duncan straight.
He tried not to be memorable, to be just another face. To the passers-by, as well as to the dealers. He had liked the young man, whom he'd never visited before. He seemed to understand. There had been an unspoken bond, a love of the past that was hard to find this days. It had lifted Duncan's spirits, seeing there were still people like that. The underworld web of book lovers was secretive, shady and mighty complicated. You had to be careful. Trust no one. Spies could easily gain access and send you into a trap, to a fake dealer. And even if he wasn't a fake dealer, he could very well be under surveillance. So Duncan preferred not to risk it and rarely accessed the spider-web. And even when he did, he didn't trust the people on it. He made his own research, he watched potential dealers for a while. Gathered info about them. He was indeed, very careful.
He was happy with his loot. The book he favored most was the one about the fall of an empire, a general study. Aimed, he thought, at America, when it had been written. But America had defied the author by staying alive and thriving. Duncan wondered what the American troops had thought when they confiscated this little manuscript. The books were all rather ragged and some pages were torn, but, overall, they were usually in good shape. Duncan Moore began to read, and later on he even dared to dream.
The Old Hag
Unlike Duncan Moore, whom she did not know from Adam, the old hag wasn't paranoid. And only had one constant dealer. The young man who called himself Morton. They'd met some years back, when he'd been just a pup and she'd still been an old hag. Solid kid. She liked him because he knew what she liked and he was a smartass. And the world was criminally low on smartasses these days. Not those shitheads in a suit who liked to give you lip jus' because you didn't have your own nice little suit. Plenty of those to go around. Morton was a true smartass, street-wise, like her, and clever too. Well-read, which had recently turned into an accusation rather than a compliment.
She enjoyed the Agatha Christies he provided, although they had gotten a bit tiring after the third read. He seemed very proud when he handed them to her. See what I got you? The hag didn't want to tell him that she'd read them before. These books had been hers. She had owned them for most of her life. These and many others. Still, seeing his trolley full from afar filled her with hope and excitement, as if she were a child. She no longer thrilled at the prospect of new books, but simply at the prospect of books. The promise of having something to read, that maybe she hadn't read in quite a while. She often wondered what would happen when her generation died. And the next one. And the next. These young kids hadn't been raised on books. They weren't part of their daily diet. Not even a monthly snack. Few parents risked themselves by frequenting dealers. Better safe than sorry, the government always says. What would happen? Would they forget books altogether? And if so, what would happen to books in general? Would they ever resurface? Would the government give them back eventually? This one? Certainly not. Nor the next. Or the next one. But one day, the people in charge will be the children of today, and their grandchildren after that. And they will have forgotten the power in those books. They will not understand what those written pages can do to man, and they will release them. Fearing nothing, when they have most to fear. And, the old hag desperately hoped, one day a child would stumble upon one of those books. And when that day comes, that child will have started a revolution.
She set her watch on it.
The old hag's books were behind the cupboard in the kitchen. An easy hide. If they came lookin', they'd find them in no time. But the hag was too old to care. Let them find the books. At least it would be a quick death...

Maurice
Maurice didn't like his name. It was a girl's name, he said. Or rather, that's what the kids at school said. And he sometimes gave in. These were the thoughts tugging away at his mind, one cold afternoon as he skated away from his school. He crossed the street. He had often watched the man and he'd figured out his game. He wanted in. He wanted them all. He wanted the books, simply because they were different. They were new. Actually, they were too old to be remembered, so they seemed new. He'd read them, quietly, in his bedroom, under the covers, at night.
Since you can't get anything else going down there, might as well... Robin Johnson would sneer. Well, Maurice thought, fuck Robin Johnson. Fuck him and everybody else.
Finally, when there was no one around, Maurice let his skate drift slowly into the alley, as if to make sure there wasn't a hidden trap. He followed. He went after it, passing the man with the hat and his cart. Once his board was safely tucked under his arm, he turned to the guy.
"Let me guess" the voice said, taking him in, "M-Dog or something equally dumb."
"I didn't know you needed ID for this sort of thing."
"What thing is that, kid? What do you know of what I'm doing in this alley?"
"You were looking for blowjobs and got lost, it's on the other side of the street."
The man grinned, but his eyes didn't. His eyes were hard as stone, giving Maurice a pretty clear warning that he better watch his lip.
"Hey, I ain't judging. Good for you you know what you want. I, myself, ain't so decided."
"Pity." The man crouched, pulling the cart to himself. "I got something here, maybe it'll make you change your mind."
The man's back was to the street now.
"You a pimp?"
The man stood up, holding an old, worn cover that read The Count of Monte Cristo. Maurice had never heard of it.
"Might be" Morton said and winked.
Morton
Morton dragged the cart really late at night. It was half empty by now. He was taking it home, to load up for the next day. Tomorrow was his last day this month, probably. He didn't want to seem suspicious, being there too often.
He thought about the kid, M-Dog, with some distaste. Oh, foolish youth... he thought and grinned.
His apartment was on the fifth floor. It was a low-down apartment. With a wooden door, yet nobody messed with him. He wondered why. Indeed, ever since he moved here some four years back, no one had even tried the door. Maybe they were grateful for his service to society.
He sat down at the kitchen table and drank. Water. He didn't like strong drinkers. Morton didn't like a great many things.
He went to his room then, and left the cart there. Later, he would study the endless rows of books and decide what he'd sell tomorrow.
Meanwhile, he'd sit back down at the kitchen table and bring out his typewriter. And he would type his nightly report of exactly what went on in Morton's alley.
See, Duncan had after all been wrong. There were eyes on Morton's alley.
Morton's.