Sugar Toes. F.U. Tineman's Demented Backstory

By S. T.

He lost his Sugar Toes. And so he became "The Saint of Suffering." Bronx-born F.U. Tineman survived the Great Depression, the Nazis, dating, the mysterious death of his father, being poisoned, the fall of New York City, dementia in the suburbs, and, worst of all, being F.U. Tineman--only to lose his Sugar Toes all over again. Suffer along with Tineman as he searches for his long-lost love in the rubble of his demented backstory. Genealogical horror show. Noir riddle. Historical tragicomedy. This unauthorized memoir by Tineman's son is either a last ditch attempt to forgive his father or the hatchet job of the century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Cartophile Imprint
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393611981

Book preview

Prologue

WHITE LIGHT IRRADIATES the operating theatre. The students trundling down the aisle cast no shadow. Their green smocks glow blue once they are on the stage. ‘Why does the viscera glisten?’ one asks. ‘The light,’ replies the teacher. ‘Some theatres are just brighter than others.’ She tightens a retracting clamp, then another. ‘Think of it as spittle for the insides.’ Before cradling the liver away she meets the questioner’s eyes. ‘No technical term. Just lubrication.’

January 30, 2013

Portland, Oregon & Spring Valley, New York

I WANTED TO NO-SHOW his death. My sister suggested otherwise.

‘Come, Uey. It’s a chance to get things off your chest.’

She knew the mountains and plains couldn’t intervene enough. I would sit vigil on either coast and lose one more waiting game, even after his death took.

‘He won’t even know who you are.’

Dementia wouldn’t matter, though. His or mine to come. We would always be connected by void. The distances within our distances within our distances. The Curse of All Tinemans.

So the no-show ghosted his old man’s room at the hospital. And then plummeted backwards. To pose another riddle about our history.

Judgements from somber experts. Optimistic technicians in blue. The procession of those giving a damn professionally. Beeping in the absence of beeping.

Mechanisms, strange and frightful mechanisms.

‘. . .sugar. . .oh. . .grrrf. . .hee-hee-hee. . .ow. . .’

The hospital he had us birthed in. A ‘Jew hospital’ then. His term from less distracted days. ‘The best value in the county.’ The Hebrew over the entrance no more galling than the graffiti covering Metro North and as illegible. An invoice written in ‘God’s Own English’ anyway. These Catholic nurses just as good-gilled as those Jewish ones.

‘. . .shuggy-shuggy. . .ooooh. . .hoo-hoo. . .c’mere. . .’

Double-uniformed women ministering to his unraveling, dosing his veins, providing unseemly comforts.

‘. . .ooohoo. . .sugar toes. . .flrrp. . .sugar. . .foof. . .shuggy-shuggy. . .’

My sister Penelope also fending his gropes, unamused, jetlagged beyond irony, too back-tight from the red-eye to recoil and put a solid box of air between them, the gore-and-metal cloud of breath enveloping her as the dying man claws her collar. 

‘. . .shuggy-shuggy. . .ah-wooo!. . .’

Slappy footfall from the corridor. Eighty-nine rooms occupied, nine being painted, six between customers. Community swimming pool ambiance. Green air captured by curdled cream walls. Beeping in the absence of beeping. A daughter on the death watch.

‘What? No. It’s me. Penelope.’

Graduated from the waiting room, there being no such thing in hospitals, only substations of horror, a window view if you’re lucky, seated next to a gardened slab of furniture, considering the insect townships buried within, the microscopic digestions, a supposedly less emotional world. Then enough. Away to the opener atrium airs. A liberation of motes. Chasing down her suicided cousin’s lines with a butterfly net

O to live and care

as nothing but dust and air

no raccoons

no catastrophes

an eachness  

unnoticed

until summoned to the compartment reserved for watching the old man’s body and mind die.

Mostly hours of willed coma. Vended to, accepting politeness. The odd ablution. Swapping technology for a dim television on a swivel, grateful for blunter things, swearing low once when a blue uniform obscured her company of less subtle pixels.

‘No, that’s okay. It’s not like anyone is fucking watching that.’

Wincing, confused by her rudeness. Then remembering the man in the bed.

None of this is what Penelope is going through. Nor is what Penelope thinks she is going through what she is going through. For the old man is elsewhere. While thought-blasted and marooned in the clinical sense, he remains an entirely otherwise someone, his existence forever hidden, the dry music looped in the spiracles of a beached and plundered shell; foreignly empty, unrelatable, abandoned to undiscoverable motives. He has never been of any world she has construed and so is unreachable in a way she cannot imagine.

In the layman’s: Your fellow imposter.

So when she stutters a regret or two, takes a stab at forgiveness, she experiences the balms of speech only, the sounds she makes as meaningless to him in that Catholic hospital room as they were when she screamed her way into the Jewish one. A man long in the business of being nobody’s business, including his own. A shell of the shell, just alternately inhabited now.

In the layman’s: Ghost-born. Full of hot-air. The negative space in the smallest of those shrinking Russian dollies. 

If anything, his dementedness is a boon. No last shots across the bow from the old so and so. Just impersonal lunacies. We all deserve such mercies, wed to our suffering as they are, easily our better halves and the sole companion for our lone inevitable victory over the waiting game.

So when, once or twice, he winces through his fog and appears upset by her upset, they share a mismatched emotional moment together, there in the green-cream airs of their lives’ suffering and just as they had throughout their time on Earth together; nostalgic for what it would have been like if things had been different and mercifully ignorant of one another.

An unknown man awakens on a sofa in the back row of a small theater. There is no movie or floor show, nor even a stage, only a surround of empty seats facing inward. He is thinking there had better not be a surcharge for using the sofa when he slumps over and starts channeling another man’s life. He could be under hypnosis or dead in heaven. Or maybe he is some kind of medium on loan. It makes no difference. This indistinct man will wake each time as though he has fallen asleep during the first feature and is early to the next. He will not remember that he has channeled and so cannot know if he is the recipient of a unique gift or an awful curse. He will silently move his mouth, a strand of drool puddling on the floor, his hands balled into fists, as he becomes the man in the cell.

December 26, 2012

Spring Valley, New York

I AM A BEING HELD PRISONER. Fog creeps under the cell door. I pull the sheets over my head. . .shiver. . .wait. . .until someone in a blue coat rips the sheet away and holds me down so someone else in a blue coat can push a sharp instrument into my neck. I don’t know why they are doing this to me but such treatment is typical. I don’t know how I know this treatment is typical. I just know.

The pain becomes the fog.

I watch my suffering fill the room.

Shouldn’t someone come for me? That how this works, right? A prisoner has visitors. They try to convince him others on the outside still care. That nothing’s the same without him. But I cannot imagine who would come. And visiting hours are limited, what with the blue coats’ frequent treatments. While my confinement is typical, it still seems unjust. And when I shout for a lawyer they put a gag in my mouth. And when I ask if this torture will ever end they also put a gag in my mouth.

I start to learn what passes for typical.

And now they have moved the painting. I can no longer see the green hills of Toledo, Spain. The castle on the cliff. The fleeing peasants who will think I have abandoned them. The king’s agents closing in. A massacre in the marshes. All over some goddamn back taxes. Typical. Just typical. The shysters are always out for their pound of flesh.

Yes, this is roughly what I’m thinking there in that torture chamber.

The shysters are always out for their pound of flesh.

I feel my way through the fog. When I find the painting, I will return to bed and hide it under the covers. The peasants and I will plot their escape. Someday we can meet on the other side. Invite some women, buy some liquor. But the fog has become a column of darkness. The source is this strange ceiling fixture; pointed at the bottom then cylindrical, disappearing into the night sky. I turn around looking for the light switch then turn around again. The column widens. The walls disappear. My feet go cold. . .numb. I have forgotten my slippers again. I lose my footing and am submerged. Is this what swimming is? If so I’m no good at it because I haven’t reached the far wall and will soon freeze to death or drown.

But what business did I have at the far wall? Have I misunderstood my situation? Could I have escaped out the window during the night and took to the mote? Is it too late to join the peasants? Who knows. Hopefully, there will be better treatment on the far shore. The first thing to request is a razor. There is no better measure of someone’s humanity than their willingness to lend you a razor or not. I don't know how I know this. I just do.

But when I feel for my beard there is no face. And so when I cry out no one hears. I panic, gasp and flail, am drowning. . .but never quite drown. A cold substance holds me. I can still breathe. There is still time to understand what the hell I am doing in a cell in Toledo, Ohio.

As the man on the sofa channels, he manically kneads the air or claws his hips or puts his hands around his throat. Sometimes he finds blood on his fingers when he awakes. But when he looks around the theatre there is no one there. Who could he have wounded? Where are they hiding? Does some enemy kneel behind a seat on the other side of the theatre. . .watching? He trembles. . .faints. . .channels. . .kneads the air. . .claws his hips. . .chokes himself. . .

December 5, 2012

Spring Valley, New York

MY INTERROGATOR PAUSES in the doorway. Sunlight divides her face. She wears what she calls ‘denim.’ Her visits typically go something like this:

She crosses the cell calling softly. I pretend to sleep. She touches the blankets then takes my hand. Even in the no-light of my cell I can see her wincing. The old ‘I feel your pain’ tactic. As she leans in to whisper, the perfume she drowns herself in makes me gag. ‘I’m glad you’re awake’ or some such. She looks to the window. A notion forms from the white sky. Her mouth moves in this strange lizard way. Strange lisps and hiccoughs gradually become simple English nonsense. Then, without warning, her face becomes disfigured and she starts bellowing like a wild animal. I bellow back in terror, thrash and kick, completely lose control. The blue coats race in to pin me down. Everyone is shouting but I’m the only one suffering. Then more disfigured faces close in as my vision blurs and I have the heart attack I have always said was coming.

‘No more pretending, Pop. We need you awake.’

She starts by tapping my nose this time. It’s one of her many bizarre methods.

‘Just leave me alone, will ya.’

I turn over to face the painting. Black clouds gather over the marshes. Crows scatter in the wind. The sea batters a distant cliffside. Another storm. The peasants take shelter in the forest where the king’s agents lurk. If only I could warn them somehow.

‘Come on, Pop. Turn over.’

We struggle. My body isn’t my own. I say things I don’t understand.

‘Carve your pound of flesh from someone else, lady.’

‘Feeling pretty ornery today then aren’t we.’

I am easily overpowered. The shame feels typical.

‘The witch’s teeth are crooked. Her breath smells like death.’

She smiles in that terrifying way of hers.

‘Dying doesn’t give you the right to be nasty, you know.’

I pump the device which is supposed to make everything disappear.

‘Stop that. We need you to not be so out of it today.’

We struggle. We don’t disappear. She takes the device. We breathe at each other.

‘So, can you tell me your name today?’

‘After cocktails. The peasants are thirsty.’

She winces hideously. Wincing comes before bellowing. I tremble or shiver or possibly piss myself in fear.

‘So, Pop. Your name?’

I squint at the board next to the painting.

‘Frederick Ulrich Tineman.’

‘Very good. Now tell me my name?’

Always with the same impossible question. I enter a stupor. I make myself drool.

‘I am your daughter, Penelope Tineman.’

She throws her arms around my neck. Fire explodes from my throat. I bellow like some animal.

‘Christ! She was the only one of us worth a damn!’

When the man on the sofa wakes up he is sweat-soaked, dizzy. The theatre is dark but for the dingy glow of orange footlights leading up the four directional aisles. He braces himself on the seat backs to stagger down his row. Black walls and a black ceiling enclose the theatre. At the top of the aisle he feels around for the exit and finds a doorknob that does not turn. Then so at the top of the other three aisles before, exhausted, he returns to his sofa. It does not occur to him to wonder if he is a prisoner or guest. He only concludes the ushers are cleaning up in the lobby and restocking the refreshment stand and do not want to be disturbed. 

November 17, 2012

Spring Valley, New York

MY TENANT HIDES BEHIND a newspaper. I am relieved to see her. A man beyond rehabilitation would not be expected to endure the visit of a horrible woman. The blue coats are testing me. They want to know if I have progressed enough to see through her little mind games. I speak into the machine I am attached to.

‘The woman still owes back rent.’

‘Hello, Fred. How are we feeling today?’

‘I’ll waive the balance once she stops poisoning me.’

She scribbles in her crossword. Luckily, they get the Post here. If she were doing the Times puzzle I would be stuck with her all day. 

‘It will cost-sum quite nicely if she cooperates.’

‘I hadn’t realized you’d taken up women’s programming.’

She waves her pen at the tiny women seated on sofas and chairs who watch from inside the television.

‘Funny how some things don’t seem to matter in the end.’

The tiny women look sideways, smirk, burst into laughter.

‘But they probably understand you better than I ever did.’

She clicks her pen and writes in the Post. 

‘Listen. Just so we’re clear? I saw through her scam ages ago.’

‘The scam, Fred? Is that what we’re calling our marriage now?’

‘She should know by now that I won’t sign anything. Ever.’

‘Goodness, I think we need the nurse, Fred.’

She holds her pen up and clicks it.

‘The injections make you more civil.’

‘My will is sacrosanct. Members of The Greatest Generation don’t just sign away their legacy to loose women.’

She clicks and re-clicks. The tiny women become serious. 

‘I’m warning you, Fred. You might never see me again.’

‘Her comments are-’

‘Typical, Fred? Is that right? Just typical?’

She has long been under orders to be the bane of my existence. It’s a nasty feeling but less painful than having a sharp instrument shoved in my neck. I should try to be cordial.

‘So does Madam, er. . .’

‘You know damn well what my name is, Fred!’

‘Yes. This is my oversight.’

When I bow in apology a tube pops out of my arm and fills my lap with warm liquid. This is also less painful than having a sharp instrument shoved in my neck so I don’t make a fuss.

‘Yes, I definitely mean that.’

‘So then tell me my name, Fred.’

She lowers the Post to glare one of her typical glares. 

‘Dear god!’

She is painfully hideous. Thin white hair and wrinkles. Bloodshot eyes with blue smudges in the middle. Just looking at her makes me feel like I am choking on something.

‘Aaaghk! So I. . .er. . .Aaaghk! Aaaghk! So I take it Madam is enjoying her stay then? Aaaghk-Aaaghk-Aaaghk.’

‘My stay, Fred?’

‘Aaaghk! Yes. Her. . .um. . .her tenancy.’

‘Right. Of course. My tenancy. I forgot.’

‘Yes. Aaaghk. I hope she has enough closet space.’

‘You terrorize me and then ask about closet space?!’

I avert my eyes, stare out the window. In the white sky there are no structures to remind me of other structures, no memories of anything besides this cell and the strangers who sometimes come out of the fog. I would like to disappear into the whiteness until my sentence is completed. But if I want to convince the blue coats to parole me I must prove that I am a capable landlord.

‘Yes, help me help her.’

Tears appear in her eyes. I try to think what someone with tears in their eyes might need to hear in order not to no longer have tears in their eyes.

‘I wish there weren’t tears in her eyes.’

She throws the Post in my soaking lap and limps to the window.

‘Truly, I mean this.’

She winces, returns, reaches under the bed, then drops the painting in my lap.

‘What the hell is that doing on the floor?!’

‘I brought it from home. We thought it might help your memory.’

I can’t comprehend her. My mind spasms. There is that feeling of shame.

‘Help? You’re the one who needs all the goddamn help!’

One of the tiny women slaps her knee. Another falls out of her chair.

‘I mean she does! You all do!’

I reach out to shake her.

‘But some people just don’t know how to be helped.’

We struggle. I am humiliated. She straightens her clothes and leans in close. She smells like. . .oh god it’s too disgusting. . .like sulfur or dead mouse. I’m suffocating. . .choking. . .

‘Aaaghk! Aaaghk! Aaaghk!’

I pass out before I can make out what she says.

‘You could help me, Fred, by dropping dead already.’

The person he is channeling becomes sympathetic or at least more familiar. A shorthand for the tumult in his counterpart’s mind develops. Increasingly, he can directly quote the man. Sometimes his counterpart says and does things which make no sense or offend but he cannot interrupt because his sensibilities are too logey and clogged, the flood of channeled impressions leaving deposits in his synapses as the remainder spurts past to the arrhythmic chug of his counterpart’s mind. Occasionally, though, the chassis of his own mind bucks against the seizure, insists there are other habits to pursue besides channeling. A ghost of a suspicion gathers in a little used region of his brain and transforms his face into a wince.

October 29, 2012

Spring Valley, New York

‘SUGAR TOES?’

She has a man’s haircut and wears a denim dress. I’ve been looking for her for years. Apparently, she was hiding in plain sight, disguised as a ‘modern woman’.

‘It is you isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s Penelope again, Pop.’

She taps my nose for some reason.

‘Your daughter.’

‘I didn't recognize your shoes.’

‘Look. You need to listen today.’

‘The buckle is fat and complicated like on the pilgrims’ shoes.’

‘There are things to decide.’

She takes my hand. She isn’t wearing the jewelry I got her for our anniversary.

‘You look strange, Sugar.’

And for some reason they have made her up like a man.

‘They should let you dress like you used to.’

‘Listen, Pop, just pretend you are dying today. Can you do that for me?’

‘I