whatever was to come.
No customer tried to tender spondulix in payment that day. But the following afternoon a group of workers from the Stahl Soap Corporation came in at shift’s end, smelling sweetly of their product, like a newly opened box of bath salts. At first Honeyman couldn’t figure out why they had traveled all the way over from Park Street, down by the river, since it was quite a distance away. Then they revealed they had two spondulix among them, and wanted all twenty sandwiches.
While he was slapping the sandwiches together, with none of Nerf’s finesse, Honeyman tried to find out where they had gotten the spondulix. He couldn’t figure out what Nerfball had traded for, since he seldom bathed, there being no running water at the brewery where the Beer Nuts squatted.
“So, guys—where’d you get my coupons?”
A skinny fellow who seemed capable of consuming an infinite amount of “free” pickles spoke up around a mouthful. “Harry Lieberman—you know Harry, he drives the company truck—well, Harry hauled a bunch of stuff somewhere for those hippies that live in the old brewery, and they paid him with these. Harry gave ’em to me as payment for his bowling league dues. So I’m sharing them with the whole league.”
Honeyman nearly sliced the tip of his finger off. This was bad news indeed. The exchanges were getting more complicated. The spondulix were now circulating among third parties, people who, for some unknown reason, obviously trusted in them enough not to try to redeem them immediately. And others, fourth-parties, also seemed willing to accept the spondulix without first-hand knowledge of Honeyman’s honesty or willingness to make good on them. Wasn’t this property a known characteristic of real money? Didn’t economists have some complicated way to measure this circulation, the number of times money changed hands?
God, this was scary! Honeyman’s personal signature on dozens of napkins that were roaming out in the city of Hoboken like prodigal children, masquerading as money.… He had to abandon spondulix! But he couldn’t. His business would go under if he did.
Piling slices of tomatoes atop rings of Bermuda onions in a stack as tall as his worries, Honeyman wondered where this would all end.
And in the back of his mind was another worry. What were the Beer Nuts up to? First electrical equipment, then hauling—it had to be something dangerous.
When Earl Erlkonig walked into the shop during a lull the next day with Suki Netsuke on his arm, Honeyman knew, just from the expression on the man’s hereditarily blanched face, that his trepidations had a foundation in reality.
“Hey, Rory, my molecule, I’m paying a call to invite you to an Outlaw Party.”
So. Here it was, out in the open now. And it was just as bad as Honeyman had feared. Anxiety gave way momentarily to annoyance, as from the back room came the distracting honking of Nerfball, performing his hourly nasal irrigations.
The Outlaw Party was an institution of long-standing. Sans permit or permission, the Beer Nuts and other assorted fringe folks would take over a public location come nightfall on a specified day. Decorations would be strung up, kegs tapped, food laid on, and music unleashed. Invitation to the party was initially by word of mouth among a select group, although as soon as its noisy existence became generally known, it would be besieged by the hoi polloi.
The Hoboken police generally tolerated the occasional Outlaw Party, knowing that the motivation was sheer fun, not vandalism or riot. However, the rush of events sometimes went too far, and overstepped boundaries in a way the authorities could not ignore. Always implicit in the festivities was the possibility of chaos and anarchy breaking loose. There was the time, for instance, when the site had been the abandoned ferry building down near the PATH station, before that structure’s recent renovation and the reestablishment of ferry service to
No customer tried to tender spondulix in payment that day. But the following afternoon a group of workers from the Stahl Soap Corporation came in at shift’s end, smelling sweetly of their product, like a newly opened box of bath salts. At first Honeyman couldn’t figure out why they had traveled all the way over from Park Street, down by the river, since it was quite a distance away. Then they revealed they had two spondulix among them, and wanted all twenty sandwiches.
While he was slapping the sandwiches together, with none of Nerf’s finesse, Honeyman tried to find out where they had gotten the spondulix. He couldn’t figure out what Nerfball had traded for, since he seldom bathed, there being no running water at the brewery where the Beer Nuts squatted.
“So, guys—where’d you get my coupons?”
A skinny fellow who seemed capable of consuming an infinite amount of “free” pickles spoke up around a mouthful. “Harry Lieberman—you know Harry, he drives the company truck—well, Harry hauled a bunch of stuff somewhere for those hippies that live in the old brewery, and they paid him with these. Harry gave ’em to me as payment for his bowling league dues. So I’m sharing them with the whole league.”
Honeyman nearly sliced the tip of his finger off. This was bad news indeed. The exchanges were getting more complicated. The spondulix were now circulating among third parties, people who, for some unknown reason, obviously trusted in them enough not to try to redeem them immediately. And others, fourth-parties, also seemed willing to accept the spondulix without first-hand knowledge of Honeyman’s honesty or willingness to make good on them. Wasn’t this property a known characteristic of real money? Didn’t economists have some complicated way to measure this circulation, the number of times money changed hands?
God, this was scary! Honeyman’s personal signature on dozens of napkins that were roaming out in the city of Hoboken like prodigal children, masquerading as money.… He had to abandon spondulix! But he couldn’t. His business would go under if he did.
Piling slices of tomatoes atop rings of Bermuda onions in a stack as tall as his worries, Honeyman wondered where this would all end.
And in the back of his mind was another worry. What were the Beer Nuts up to? First electrical equipment, then hauling—it had to be something dangerous.
When Earl Erlkonig walked into the shop during a lull the next day with Suki Netsuke on his arm, Honeyman knew, just from the expression on the man’s hereditarily blanched face, that his trepidations had a foundation in reality.
“Hey, Rory, my molecule, I’m paying a call to invite you to an Outlaw Party.”
So. Here it was, out in the open now. And it was just as bad as Honeyman had feared. Anxiety gave way momentarily to annoyance, as from the back room came the distracting honking of Nerfball, performing his hourly nasal irrigations.
The Outlaw Party was an institution of long-standing. Sans permit or permission, the Beer Nuts and other assorted fringe folks would take over a public location come nightfall on a specified day. Decorations would be strung up, kegs tapped, food laid on, and music unleashed. Invitation to the party was initially by word of mouth among a select group, although as soon as its noisy existence became generally known, it would be besieged by the hoi polloi.
The Hoboken police generally tolerated the occasional Outlaw Party, knowing that the motivation was sheer fun, not vandalism or riot. However, the rush of events sometimes went too far, and overstepped boundaries in a way the authorities could not ignore. Always implicit in the festivities was the possibility of chaos and anarchy breaking loose. There was the time, for instance, when the site had been the abandoned ferry building down near the PATH station, before that structure’s recent renovation and the reestablishment of ferry service to
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