{"id":937,"date":"2020-08-15T17:10:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T00:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/?p=937"},"modified":"2020-08-15T17:13:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T00:13:41","slug":"sheltering-in-place-at-the-magdalena-arms-episode-xv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/2020\/08\/15\/sheltering-in-place-at-the-magdalena-arms-episode-xv\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheltering in Place at the Magdalena Arms: Episode XVI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In previous episodes, unemployed coiffeur Angelo gave Lon a clandestine trim–only to be accidentally discovered by the almost all the occupants of the Magdalena Arms. At the end of his financial rope, the frustrated stylist demanded a rent reduction on his closed salon “Angel Hair” from landlady Dolly. Later that night, his neighbor Millie spots him coming home…drunk?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missed the earlier episodes? You can find them all\u00a0here<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0Or start from the beginning with\u00a0<\/em>Episode I<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>and use the \u201cnext\u201d button at the top the screen to move between episodes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angelo Has A Headache<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three cocktails was two too many, Angelo realized, as he managed to lock his studio door. The usually gay apartment seemed full of sinister wavering shadows as he stumbled across the room to the bathroom. The bullfighter poster menaced him from the wall and he barked his shin on the edge of his travertine marble coffee table, while his couch-bed, still wearing its daytime dressing of oversized raw-silk pillows, brooded in the corner. In the dark, the eggplant-colored upholstery turned black and gave it a somber air. It was as if his lovingly-decorated apartment was mirroring his own mood.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The happy-go-lucky hairdresser had never been a heavy drinker. Not for Angelo the easy escape of alcohol, even in times of hardship. But tonight, when he\u2019d met Phil and Javier in Phil\u2019s garage for a clandestine cocktail, he\u2019d overdone it. Maybe Phil poured with a heavier hand than the bartender at the Knock Knock Lounge, their usual meeting place. Maybe Angelo had gulped his gin fizz faster out of nervousness. Certainly, the whole atmosphere had fueled his unease\u2014perching on a rickety folding chair around a makeshift table of plywood on sawhorses, surrounded by shelves filled with anti-freeze, old paint cans, broken fans, odd bits of wood and other building materials. The whole shabby hodge-podge was lit by a single bare bulb from the low ceiling, and it all made Angelo feel like some sort of counter-culture conspirator, when he merely craved some male companionship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, he loved the Magdalena Arms girls, he enjoyed his status as the only boy in the building, a sort of brother to a dozen sisters; but ever since the shutdown cut Angelo off from his nights out and the male companionship he’d always found essential, the situation had begun to sour. Even his favorites at the Arms had started to irritate him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Jackie\u2014she\u2019d been his best friend since they met in the Meyer Method acting class almost a decade ago. She was the reason Angelo was even at the Arms, wangling him a room back when the boarding house was still women-only\u2014officially anyway. Without her he\u2019d have been on the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet these days he dodged back into his studio when he spotted Jackie moping down the hallway. Yes, it was awful her show had closed, and her career had ground to a halt. But didn\u2019t she realize that was everyone\u2019s sad story? Didn\u2019t she see how lucky she was, having no money worries? Ramona would keep a roof over Jackie\u2019s head and brown rice in her pot (Jackie had gone macrobiotic), not to mention all the joints a girl could smoke and still be standing. Compared to many, she was sitting pretty!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While his situation\u2026Angelo turned on the bathroom light and splashed cold water on his face. Dolly had hemmed and hawed when he blurted out his demand earlier, and said she’d “let him know.” Even if Dolly agreed to the rent reduction for the salon, he\u2019d still have no money coming in, and it was a race to see which would last longer, unemployment benefits or the city\u2019s shutdown. He, for one, wasn\u2019t inclined to put his money on benefits beating confinement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, He could give Jackie an earful about having your career come to a screeching halt. He\u2019d been secretly thinking of expanding, and had even inspected a shop on the edge of the developing Dockside district that was for sale. He\u2019d figured he could swing the payments by renting half the chairs. But now, instead of exponentially increasing the heads of hair he styled, he was pounced on by those self-appointed pandemic police, Phyllis and Laura, for giving one<\/em> friend a basic trim!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose\u2014those bureaucrats!\u201d he burst out, shaking his fist and glaring at the ceiling, as if his glower could penetrate to Laura\u2019s studio overhead, and Phyllis\u2019s, two floors up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His glance fell on his reflection in the mirror, holding a toothbrush and toothpaste, a grimace contorting his face. The image was a stranger\u2019s. He peered more closely. Had the pandemic aged him already? Where were the boyish good looks that had secured his popularity at the Knock Knock only a few months ago? Where was the cherubic smile that made some men pinch his cheeks and often led to much more pleasurable pinching? Was he going to lose his ability to attract male attention on top of everything else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angelo scrubbed at his teeth, drank a full glass of water, and donned his pajamas before at last falling into bed. Only to struggle back up, when he landed on the eggplant cushions. Sitting up, he lobbed the cushions at the ladderbacked chairs on the other side of the coffee table, then leaned over to pull his sheet and blanket from the antique \u00e9tag\u00e8re\u2019s drawer. Flapping them open over the couchbed as best he could, he lay back down without even attempting to tuck them in.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room spun dizzyingly around him before finally slowing and steadying. The sheets twined around his legs like seaweed, but after a futile kick or two, he gave up, too exhausted to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhausted, yet wide awake. A jumble of images from the day played in his head like a family slide show sped up: Lon\u2019s head underneath his scissors, as he carefully trimmed her cowlick. The way Dolly\u2019s eyes had darted away from his when he demanded a rent reduction. Phil\u2019s bald pate reflecting the bare bulb as he shook the silver cocktail shaker in the shadowy garage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil had been bald for years, but thinking of him reminded Angelo of an article he\u2019d seen in Hair Today<\/em>, about the run on electric clippers, and how many men were simply shaving their heads completely as a solution to this personal grooming problem. What kind of future was there for a hairstylist in a world gone bald?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angelo\u2019s own head was pounding, as if lice with metal clogs were dancing the fandango just where his cranium came to a point. It felt like no hangover he\u2019d had before. A bad headache\u2014wasn\u2019t that an early sign, a symptom of the dread illness?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if Phyllis and Laura were right, and he\u2019d risked his health to give Lon a haircut?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, Lon was hardly a model of adherence to health department guidelines. Confinement was foreign to her nature. More than once Angelo had spied her through the filmy curtains that hung in the salon\u2019s streetside window, on her way out of the Arms. She’d come down the steps, looking both ways as if fearful of being followed. And she always had a bulky bag slung over one shoulder. Holding what? Angelo didn\u2019t think she was shopping. She\u2019d be gone for hours at a time and when she returned Angelo could swear that her hair was damp, still showing the tell-tale marks of a comb. He\u2019d have sworn she was swimming somewhere, but how was that possible with all the pools closed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if not Lon, what about Javi? Angelo\u2019s old friend had confided to the schnockered stylist, as they left Phil\u2019s and walked the dark empty streets together, that one of his cousins had been stricken with the virus. Angelo had made shocked, sympathetic noises, but he\u2019d forgotten to ask if Javi had been in contact with this afflicted cousin. And unlike Angelo, Javi still saw his family, at least once a week\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angelo put his hand on his forehead. It felt hot. He sat up, and the room swirled around him again, like an oceanliner in a storm. Unsteadily, he swung his feet over the edge of the couchbed and felt for his slippers, then shuffled to the bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was out of aspirin, and he couldn’t find his thermometer. He pushed aside aging bottles of cough syrup and pepto-bismal, tins of bandaids and ointment for bee stings. His thermometer had to be somewhere<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breathe<\/em>, the increasingly anxious beautician told himself as he rummaged the medicine cabinet. Just breathe<\/em>. He breathed in deeply, and something caught in his throat, provoking a spasm of coughing. Staggering out of the bathroom, he fumbled at the front door, tugging the doorknob with increasing agitation before remembering to turn the bolt. Jackie and Ramona would surely loan him some aspirin, and perhaps allay his fears. They were old friends enough that they wouldn\u2019t mind him waking them\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the quiet of the dim hallway he heard the stairs creak, and turned, trepidatious. Who else would be up when all the Arms were asleep? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relief flooded him as he spotted Beverly, tiredly trudging up the stairs at the end of her nursing shift at Bay City General. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeverly!\u201d He whispered loudly, tiptoing towards her. \u201cCan I borrow some aspirin? Also, how long does it take\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStop!\u201d Beverly flung out a warning hand. \u201cI\u2019m sick!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSick?\u201d Angelo repeated stupefied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next: In the Night Kitchen – Part 2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millie tries to cook up a midnight batch of salt pork and is interrupted by an unexpected intruder.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In previous episodes, unemployed coiffeur Angelo gave Lon a clandestine trim–only to be accidentally discovered by the almost all the occupants of the Magdalena Arms. At the end of his financial rope, the frustrated stylist demanded a rent reduction on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[224,222,254,255,73,215,211,253,239],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serial-siping-at-the-magdalena-arms","tag-angelo","tag-beverly","tag-confinement","tag-covid-19","tag-gay-2","tag-lesbian-career-girls","tag-magdalena-arms","tag-nurse","tag-pandemic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}