Lies & Ugliness

by Brian Hodge

  Of course, on the matter of satire, you can see how totally off the mark I was in the late ‘80s. Really, what was I thinking — who could’ve ever believed such a thing to come as wildly successful prime time game shows involving bloodletting, abject cruelty and humiliation, and million-dollar prizes?

  Past Tense. During my first several post-college years, I hung out a lot with some friends who worked at a radio station, one of whom got tagged with the nickname Weasel. It was no reflection on his character; he just liked to use the word a lot to refer to other people. During his own final year of college, Weasel lived in what sounded like a terribly unhygienic house with a few other guys, who one night acquired a mannequin in an operation that seemed to fall somewhere between salvage and outright theft. They named her Livvy. For the rest of the year she stood festooned with goofy hats and ammo belts and other indignities. When it came time for graduation, they decided to share joint custody and, in a gender-switch on the Egyptian myth of Osiris, broke her into pieces that they divided up and took their separate ways. Weasel’s share was a hand and a lower leg. When later he moved to Hawaii, and had limited room to pack his stuff, he bequeathed Livvy’s leg to me.

  Shortly thereafter, her truncated presence inspired this early story. Having to an extent grown up as a writer on a number of anthologies edited by Charles Grant, most notably his seminal Shadows series, I was tremendously gratified when he took the story under his wing, properly pointed out some places where it needed trimming and shaping, then accepted it for the final volume of that series.

  Cut to a few years after the ballroom scene with John Skipp. By then I was on the other side of the autograph table. This was at a time when fierce, partisan debates raged about the relative merits of the graphic approach to horror, as typified by Skipp & Spector, versus the subtle approach exemplified by Grant. Even then I tended to think it was a non-issue, and threw my hat in with Oscar Wilde, who said that books are either written well or written badly, and this is all that matters. So there I sat behind my nameplate when a fellow approached for a few signatures. He held up copies of Book of the Dead and Final Shadows and said something like, “The fact that you’re in both of these really demonstrates the kind of range you have.” I don’t know who it was … but whoever you were, if you’re still out there reading, that meant more to me than you probably ever realized.

  Our Lady of Sloth and Scarlet Ivy. One of the most unsettling things I’ve ever read comes courtesy of one Dr. Augustin de la Pena, who is or was on the faculty of the University of Texas Medical School. While not denying the role of biological and environmental factors, he proposed a theory some time back that cancer might also be the result of prolonged depression and “information underload” … what the rest of us call boredom. In extreme cases, “carcinogenesis is the body’s mode of providing ‘information novelty.’”

  I encountered this in an essay by the never-boring Colin Wilson about the life and, more pointedly, the death of H.P. Lovecraft, a lethargic homebody who seems to have sprouted with rampant carcinomas shortly after his writing dried up and he was thus deprived of his one real outlet in life. For a few years I idly presumed there was a story in this theory, if only there was a proper scenario to plug it into. This summer, thanks to — directly or indirectly, who for sure knows at this stage? — the furtively philandering Congressman Gary Condit, I finally had it.

  As I write this, the All-Chandra-Levy-All-The-Time media saturation has strained its last gasp due to oxygen deprivation and done a quick nosedive below radar level. “Enough,” we’ve all said. “What else have you got?” Prior to having arrived at this point, there were more than two months to linger on the puzzle of what happens to people who just go poof.

  [Update: “What else have you got…?” 9/11 is what we got. It was six weeks or so after I wrote the above that the planes hit the World Trade Center. A few people joked at the time that Gary Condit was the only one relieved. The following May, a year after her disappearance, Chandra Levy’s skeletal remains were found in a remote area of the park that was the subject of her last Internet search. Her murder was finally solved near the end of the decade, although without the definitive stamp of DNA or witnesses.]

  The Last Testament. On the one hand, I’m with Caitlín Kiernan, who awhile back suggested that a ten-year moratorium on new vampire stories wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. On the other hand, editor Stephen Jones’ invitation to pitch in on a massive anthology celebrating the centennial anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula seemed like a special occasion. You’ll notice that I at least never once used the V-word. The hardest part was figuring out something new to do with the grand old fellow. Then, inspiration: “How’s the Vatican for a V-word? We’ve never seen him there before.” Something I find intriguing about the popes at present is that according to the medieval Irish prophet St. Malachy, who during a trance saw a procession of all the remaining pontiffs, we are, with the how-much-longer-can-he-last John-Paul II, down to the final three or so, after which time will end. It’s an ominous prophecy, so who better to bat cleanup than Vlad? Plus, shortly before doing the story, I’d read Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods and was fascinated by his relaying of Charles Hapgood’s theory (endorsed by Albert Einstein) of crustal displacement, and thought it added a lovely backdrop of global calamity.

  The Alchemy of the Throat. There I go again, obstinately refusing to use the V-word. And I’m almost positive this one even predated Cait’s pronouncement. From the very outset I approached this with the intent of exploring a completely different kind of feeder/supplier relationship, which Poppy Z. Brite, wearing her editor’s hat for the first time, wholly supported, may the gods love her. Aesthetically, I wanted the trappings to be as baroque and the story arc as operatic as the music itself.

  Unfortunately, there is a secret shame involved here: For the story’s original appearance in the anthology Love In Vein, I committed the unforgivable flub of referring to Spartacus and his revolt in such a way as to have them defeated by Imperial Rome in 71 A.D., rather than Republican Rome in 71 B.C., the way it really happened. And it’s still selling this way, because I still get royalty checks. Yes, it’s been corrected here, but I can only console myself this way: 142 years from now, who’s going to care? Even so, Kirk Douglas should kick my ass for that.

  This story spawned a sequel of sorts, when Poppy wore her editor’s hat for the second time (I’ve seen it — it’s actually more of a propeller beanie, with tassels). By then I’d gotten a bit better acquainted with the unsavory gaggle of characters who drop in for a quick romp in the middle of things, and so the Sisters of the Trinity got their own novelette, “The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins,” which quite surprised me by turning into a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. I’ve kept threatening to do more stories in this particular cycle, and even know what the next couple should be, but for some reason they just haven’t yet dropped into the head-down position to wait for the contractions.

  [Update: They have since. “When the Bough Doesn’t Break,” which spun off from “Wineskins,” found permanent lodging in my fourth collection, Picking The Bones. Short novel World Of Hurt stands entirely on its own. All four have been gathered together in an omnibus edition called Worlds of Hurt, and more are in gestation.]

  Come Unto Me, All Ye Heavy Laden. This was done under the pressure of having people peering over my virtual shoulder the whole time. David Silva — esteemed founder of the defunct and still much-missed The Horror Show and for the past few years esteemed co-founder of the still-thriving weekly Hellnotes — asked if I would be interested in participating in an experiment, an online version of the old stunt Harlan Ellison used to pull: writing a story while stationed in a bookstore window. Except, insofar as I know, Ellison never dragged things out for a month and a half, although if he did, I’ll bet he was awfully gamey by the end. The notion was to take readers through every stage of the process, from the initial seed of the idea to the final revisions. E
ach Monday I would send in the progress made on the story, and, after a pit stop for HTML coding, the installment would find its way onto the Web. A part of the bargain was maintaining a running commentary on what I was doing. Hah. As if I knew. Behaving otherwise was half the fun.

  In the interest of completeness, here it all is. The first couple parts now strike me as stuffed with way too much self-indulgent blather. I suspect, with no story to present yet, I was overcompensating.

  • WEEK 1 — IN WHICH WE WONDER JUST EXACTLY WHAT WE’VE GOTTEN OURSELVES INTO HERE •

  There’s an old cautionary saying that you may have heard, concerning sausage and law, proclaiming that anyone who likes them is better off not watching them get made. This same warning might well apply to fiction, but since some of us have heads so thick that brick walls cringe at our approach, we’ll have to find out the hard way.

  What we have planned here is a look behind the printed page, into the toy shop of the imagination where any number of elves toil away at something that one hopes will, once it sees the light of day, give readers pause to think, entertain them, move them, or outrage them to the point of calling for a burning at the stake. Generally I’m happy with any of these reactions.

  At the end of six weeks, the plan is to have a completed story that I’ll not be aghast to have my name attached to. In the interim, you get to watch me sweat the process through. Depending on how things progress, you get to see me grapple with an idea and wrestle it into submission, or smoothly channel a story that feels as though it already exists and merely needs a conduit, or repeatedly bash my skull into the monitor for having agreed to this exercise in naked humiliation in the first place. I am your dancing bear in the tutu.

  At this moment, I have no clue where our proposed story will begin or where it will end. All I have is a raw seed that had lain quietly in the back of my mind for several months, then surfaced when Dave Silva approached me with this proposal. Oh, his timing was vicious and splendid. There I was, at the end of a four-day binge, laid up with two hookers, a burro, and the last of several bottles of homemade absinthe. I only said yes because Dave was threatening to call the vice squad, ATF agents, and the ASPCA. He’s an evil, manipulative man. Fear him.

  Story ideas are usually innocuous things and rarely do us the favor of arriving with trumpets and fanfare, which is probably a merciful thing after all, because if you believe the movies, a writer’s life is just one long sequence of hangovers. Absolutely true. Dipsomaniacs, every stinking one of us. It’s not our fault. The muse must be courted and the liver must be exercised. We blame society.

  So. My brand of the instant: Road Dog Ale. On the stereo: an acoustic medieval/folk CD by a band of Norwegian misanthropes called Ulver, whose title translates as Evening Songs, and I can’t understand one single lyric. Exploited and blackmailed, I am as low at this moment as a human being can go.

  Let us begin.

  The idea that will be watered with the blood of the guilty and innocent alike dates back to last year, to a day-trip taken one weekend by my lovely mate Doli. She’s a photographer, and you may have seen her work, as she did (by accident) the cover for my collection The Convulsion Factory, and (on purpose) the cover for the new one, Falling Idols, which keeps threatening to appear any day now. She will periodically disappear with her camera on what are essentially freeform field trips, and her return always entails arduous, noisy sessions in the darkroom characterized by blasting CDs that she’s mooched from me, and occasional scorching bursts of profanity which seem integral to the technical process.

  One of the pictures resulting from the trip in question was taken in a cemetery: a statue looming a monstrous eight feet tall over some poor sod’s grave. Doli theorized that it must’ve been a relative’s amateur work, because no professional stonemason with eyesight and pride could’ve produced work this grotesque. The statue is, by all indications, supposed to be Jesus. His arms are outstretched to welcome this deceased soul back to paradise. But trust me, if this was your doorman, you’d be checking into your other options.

  The hands. The hands are blocky, chunky things, with mutant, non-opposable thumbs that look as long as the fingers, all the digits splayed as though they’ve been given a thorough working-over by a goon squad. The robe. It’s bunched in such a way that the lord of hosts appears to have a saggy, off-center pair of teats. The face? Grimmest thing you ever saw, with just a hint of insouciant expectation in those beady eyes, like he’s daring you to run away. And, finally, the skull itself. This is the capper. The brainpan is flattened, and the forehead bulges out with an apex just right of center.

  I took one look at this and dubbed him “The Patron Saint of Cranial Deformity.” In time, it was obvious that he’d have to be the focal point of a story someday. Only a question of when.

  I had a good long debate with myself, wondering whether I should send Dave, that Machiavellian taskmaster, a copy of the picture to scan and post along with this text, just to show you what’s kicked off all the creative fuss. In the end I opted not to, and yes, while I can register your disgruntlement, and sympathize, there is solid reasoning behind this decision: It’s for your own good.

  And how like an annoying parent I sound. But really, it is. For one thing, forcing you to use your imagination will help the statue remain more sinister than it actually is. If you have the picture to refer to, it’s something you can get accustomed to and even come to think is sort of cute, like an ugly little dog you eventually feel sorry for. For another, I’m almost certain to take liberties with the statue’s details. Writers are just that way. We embellish. We lie. We have to. Real life just isn’t good enough for us, and frankly, even God could use a good editorial revision now and again.

  All right, so we have a story seed. Next, setting. I didn’t see the cemetery where this sad, giant Jesus presides, but probably would’ve tossed it out anyway. Because I’m thinking of another one, closer to both my heart and my former home. We have a good bit of history between us, this other boneyard and I. It’s a few miles out of town where I used to live, canopied with trees and full of aged graves and reasonably remote at one time, although rural civilization has since encroached upon it some. Its official name is Old Shiloh, but for some unknown reason, when I was a kid, everybody called it Peckerwood. It was the officially designated site of that recycled legend about the parking couple who run out of gas. Not the hook story, but the fingernails-across-the-roof story.

  The last time I was there was Thanksgiving. I hadn’t been there for many years and, knowing I’d be moving before long, felt drawn by the prospect of a final nostalgic look, so I rode out on my dad’s motorcycle and parked on the same spot where years earlier I’d expended a good deal of hormonal energy. Despaired a bit at a new house that had never been there before, close enough to be hit with one good stone’s throw, and maybe it deserved it for its violation of a past I was remembering fondly but would never want to go back to, and as dusk closed in that Thanksgiving, I knew this place would make it into a story someday too, because I’d never thought to take a picture when it mattered.

  So, setting. No new houses required, although I’m remembering another fixture from another area I ran across long ago. A weathered old clapboard building that local rumor had pegged for a devil-worshipping church. I never believed it even then, because it was too good to be true, and anyway, the reality seemed creepier. In front of this dour, ramshackle edifice, around which I never saw one single human being, stood a tilted sign, hand-lettered in black paint, that read: PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CHURCH. Haven’t thought about this for years, but suddenly it seems like it wants in.

  Now, thematically. I always like to have a solid grasp on what a story’s characters are going to be grappling with, both on the surface and just below it, those things that I consider to be the story’s primary reasons for being written at all. And clearly, with our sacred, immortalized-in-lumpen-stone icon, this lends itself to a favored topic of mine, the perils and follies of western religious do
gma. On a more intimate level, I’d like to use this story as an opportunity to reflect upon the turmoil that arises for a family when an elderly member begins to behave in ways that alienate him or her from those on whom they’re most dependent.

  Now, for the intimidating question: How is all of this going to fit together into one coherent, cohesive package? Hah! Good one! I’m only two rungs up the tightrope ladder now, and the highwire is still being stretched between the poles. No nets. Just the beginnings of an inner ear infection.

  Back in another seven days, with hostages.

  • WEEK 2 — GETTING BULLISH ON CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT •

  Have PowerBook, will travel. This week’s preliminary installment, before getting into the story proper next week, is coming to you from Pamplona, Spain, which makes it fully tax-deductible for Doli and me to sit here in the shade of an umbrella table at an outdoor cafe, creating a glass forest out of empty sangria bottles and shoveling hubcap-sized platters of paella down our capacious American gullets. And I need tax deductions; it’s a great year. Yet I want you to realize, all of you, that I am willing to go to the other side of the globe for you, if that’s what it takes to give your voyeurism into the creative process an extra goose in the ass.

  And I know what you’re asking already: “Hey. Why Pamplona? Why now? Didn’t they already run those bulls a few weeks ago?” Yes. Yes they did.

  Although we’ve since lost touch due to divergent lives and geography, for many years I was friends with a guy who looked a bit like the actor Jeff Daniels and whose name was Keith, which also happens to be my middle name. It’s Welsh for “wood dweller,” and I can’t speak for Keith’s father because he was no longer around, but because of that little-known semantic origin, mine used to call me the “termite,” or at least he did until I took a twelve-inch aluminum alloy knitting needle from my grandmother’s bag of yarns and jammed it up my father’s nostril, breaking through the thin wall of sinus cavity and piercing the underside of his frontal lobe. “So, whose infrastructure’s getting chewed up now?” I demanded of him, and as he jittered and twitched and lost all sphincter control, he promised never to call me this again.