Dr. Pongtree
(Originally posted 11/16/22 at joecsmolen.com)
An A-frame sidewalk sign said a “Doctor Pongtree” was dealing in “Art, Antiquities and Firearms.”
It was a nice sidewalk sale in the sunshine. Excerpted apparently from historic buildings, some of the Doctor’s vendables were actual brick arches and parts of sublime, old colonnades that spanned over the sale sidewalk, all illuding shoppers that they were passing down a grand aisle or hallway - entering. All beautiful and, well – odd - Pongtree’s artfully-staged merch looked as if it had been prepared in a dishwasher. I wondered how selected, massive parts of brick buildings had been transported intact to the sale – how they would be transported hence. I didn’t want any of them.
Odd women were passing haltingly in pairs. At the street side of the sidewalk, there was mysteriously presented for sale at eye level, the head of a poodle. The nose was pointed. I couldn’t find the price. It was done artfully in paper and black, gloss spray enamel – producing the effect of a wet nose.
But as to what was odd about them – the pairs of women: they were smallish, crumpled, silent – dressed in browns, greys and drab mostly – as if from a Kazimir Malevich painting depicting peasant women of the early Soviet period - hands hidden in huge pockets, as if forcing by will, their few worn kopeks to remain. I couldn’t see their faces.
But see here. I’m falsely coloring myself some sort of artistic roadie, a hanger-on, a dilettante. Pongtree’s sign said “Art, Antiquities and Firearms.” I was drawn only by the latter. Too late, I was vexed. In a massively-framed, glass-topped, locking wooden case, Doctor Pongtree’s firearm offering was limited to a collection of grotesque Webley pistols – and even though a little, carefully-typed, framed sign explained that a Webley had often accompanied Dr. Watson of 221B Baker St., London, UK – I found the collection the most ungainly, clunky, assemblage of iron side arms extant. My opinion mind you.
As if to obtain his apology for being misleading, I couldn’t find Pongtree. I couldn’t find anyone. There was no one from whom to enquire. In fact, the only persons seeming to linger like merchants were the odd pairs of women and I saw these phantoms only momentarily.
To get at my Webley disappointment, without paying attention, I had passed out of the sunshine and inside a non-descript building, through two dim doorways and made a left(or was it a right?) into a gloomy area displaying mid-century modern furniture. This inventory was grudgingly lighted by two small, not-opening windows squeezed inaccessibly up against the ceiling. A magnificent Horace Lamson teak dining table – as if to protect the entire set from being shop-lifted – was provided only, and inexplicably, with a single sample Moller chair of the same elevated quality. Beyond, a pair of the odd women appeared momentarily in shadow at a door. How many of these duos were there? What did they suspect me of? The dim light forced me to bend closely to inspect the seat caning of the sample chair. I heard a shuffle. When I straightened, both amorphous women were gone.
I had become a little jacked at having been duped by Dr. Pongtree; the case containing the infernal Webleys was my land-mark and I sought to pass it as a step in exiting the deceptive premises. Hastening to reverse my steps, I spun. I dashed straight back out of the furniture room. Unexpectedly, instead of remaining level, now the floor descended down a long hall, whose walls I realized too late appeared to diverge. When I had spun and dashed, I had been sure I had burst into a straight hallway, but glancing behind me, I no longer saw indication of any such sort of - passage. In the darkness right and left, occasionally I saw crawling, squirming, contorted bursts of the type of static lightning generated by a Van de Graff device. Except for my own racing pulse, there was no sound whatever. Yet, somehow penetrating my skull or already existing inside it as some primordial memory, a strange – no. It was most frighteningly telepathic – a language – seeming to count in ordinal numbers thus, “Fthathm, fthathmagath, fthathmset…”
Watch for your chance to inspect a limp, over-circulated dollar bill of the type that feels slightly, unidentifiably damp as if grease or hair tonic had been dripped on it by a derelict, short-order cook. Cautiously elevate the bill to your nostrils; that is the unpleasant odor I became aware of – that same strange, acrid dollar bill mustiness as the floor - on which I was then treading, as if I were passing beneath something large - began to rise.
Presently, my dark-adapted eyes were half-blinded by a feeble, purplish light sifting from above. I found myself shut in a steel cage. Impulsively, I grabbed ineffectually at the unyielding screen. I saw three buttons arranged vertically. Anxiously, I stabbed at the top one. Somewhere, an electric motor whined alive. Like a freight elevator, the cage began to elevate. The ceiling cracked open above me. As the black-painted cage rose to ground level, I was absolutely blinded by disorienting, incandescent light. My extreme confusion was given a view across an empty street. I saw re-assuring silver parking meters glittering in sunlight. Immediately, I recognized a denuded, empty park. I knew the abandoned place. I was standing in the shadow of the Pittock Block. SW Park and Washington.
I fully expected the ubiquitous, strange pairs of odd women. I didn’t see any women at all. I scanned in every direction for what I remembered as downtown women. I’m a veteran of “Downtowner” lunch hours, coffee-break flirting and elevator-riding friends who taped small mirrors atop the toes of their wingtips. Excitedly now, I glanced up and down the sidewalk for women in glistening high heels and practiced magnificence and glamourous smiles.
Checking up Park Avenue, I spotted only one woman – about a block away – standing outside a tall building’s entrance – in a security guard uniform. The opposite direction, an A-frame sign announced a small convenience-store,
“Pongtree Market. Smokes, Kratom. Oregon Lottery.”