All I can do is render the events as they occurred. It was drizzling that fateful, shellfish day in 1958 in New York City, when 38-year-old Evelyn Gush stood on her 19th floor ledge, shouted something about Bishop Fulton Sheen, and then stepped off the edge, hurtling to the terminal pavement while onlookers screamed, including Ollie Ole Ule, who gasped more than screamed and then turned away before Evelyn’s splattery impact and returned to his work, moving along the sidewalk, searching trash receptacles for cigarette butts and morsels of food other, less poverty-mired pedestrians may have thrown away.
It was on 112th Street that Ule discovered his lunch twitching in a Dumpster in the back of a buffet seafood restaurant called Vinnie and Vickie’s Oceanic Cornucopia. The lobster was at least three pounds and twitching amid refuse, very much alive.
“Hey! Get outta there you tramp!” someone yelled and Ule grabbed the lobster and took off running down the alley. Vinnie Massaccio, owner (and executive chef) of the restaurant shook his head and then stormed back inside to yell at his staff for not securing the Dumpster lid.
Ule, the lobster tucked inside his jacket, made his way down the crowded street. He pinned the lobster against his body as it pinched and trembled and tried to flap free.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” Ule asked the lobster. He turned into Ray’s Bar just as the rain started to turn heavy. He sat at the bar. “Hey Ray, whaddaya say?” he said.
Ray was the manager and worked behind the bar during the day, taking deliveries and serving the lunchtime crowd who generally preferred libation to nutrition.
“I say, Scram deadbeat! Unless you’re prepared to settle your tab.”
“I am.” said Ule. “I have come to trade. You know, wampum!”
“Wampum huh?” said Ray. He folded his arms. “Whaddaya got? You get that old watch outta hock?”
“Better!” said Ule and he pulled the lobster out of his jacket like a magician and set it on the bar.
Ray looked from the crustacean to Ule. “Y’gotta be kiddin,” he said. “A lobster?”
“Yes! A lobster!”
“What the hell am I gonna do with a lobster?”
“Eat it, sell it, make a pet out of it. I don’t care. It’s gotta be worth something to you.”
“Actually no. It don’t.”
“Aw come on. Look at it. It’s a real beaut. It’s gotta weigh at least three pounds. You could make it into hors d’oeuvres and sell `em, make a killing.”
“Throw in the butter and lemon and you got a deal.”
“Aw, c’mon Ray. You know I ain’t got that stuff.”
“Then we have nothing further to discuss. Now kindly get that thing off my bar before it pisses all over the place.”
“It ain’t gonna piss, Ray. I don’t even know if lobsters piss at all. Do they?”
The door to the lady’s room opened behind the sound of a flushing toilet and Mamie returned to her customary table by the window. Ule tucked the lobster back under his jacket. “Okay Ray. Have it your way. I shall take my business elsewhere,” he said.
Ray ignored him and started wiping down the bar.
“Hey Mamie! How are you this lovely morning?”
She lit a cigarette. “Whaddaya want Ollie?” She was drinking a breakfast of bourbon on the rocks. Ule sat down across from her.
“I just thought I’d offer you a succulent lunch.”
“Succulent?”
“Succulent. And expensive.”
“Uh-oh. Look out. Okay, Ollie, what’s the catch?”
“You supply the aperitif and I’ll supply the lunch.”
She blew out a bank of smoke over his head and lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah? What? Where? When?”
Ule grinned. “Lobster! Here! Now!” And he pulled the animal out and held it up to her. It flapped its tail and reached out its claws. Mamie screamed and stood up, backing away. “Get that thing away from me!”
“What’s a matter? Don’t you like lobster?” he said, stepping toward her.
Mamie screamed again and ran back into the bathroom.
Ray came out from behind the bar and grabbed Ule’s arm. “Okay, lobster-boy, that’s it, get out.”
“Yeah but, yeah but…”
Ray urged him out of the bar, bending Ule’s arm behind his back. “Ow!” He gave him a shove out the door. Ule turned and faced him. “What the heck, Ray…”
“And don’t come back until you can pay your tab. With money. Not with crab legs. Not with scallops. Not with jumbo shrimp. With money!” And then he went back inside, slamming the door.
Ule shrugged, tucking the lobster back under his jacket. The rain was pouring down now. “Well, looks like it’s just you and me, Lobbie,” he said, moving down the sidewalk, wondering who he could borrow a pot from. He passed a man who was dressed in a rain-soaked tuxedo. The man was tall, with a pencil-thin mustache and panic in his eyes. He hailed a cab. A checkered taxi pulled over and he got in.
“42nd Street and step on it!” the man told the driver.
“Look buddy, I don’t want no trouble.”
The man pulled out a .38 and said, “You got it, brother. Now get going!”
“Y-yessir…”
The taxi pulled sharply into traffic, away from the sound of sirens.
Crumbling Asphalt 