September 21st. Day came up to the cool, clean offices of G.R. Glacy, the advertising house of whores and horrors, to meet me for lunch. I introduced her around the department to the few people I get along with, and definitely not those vicious copy-slingers who spread rumors about me. I also showed her my little corner of commercial artistry, including my latest project. “Oh, that's lovely,” she said when I pointed out the drawing of a nymph with flowers in her freshly shampooed hair. “That's really nice.” That “nice” remark almost spoiled my day. I asked her to look closely at the flowers mingling freshly in the fresh locks of this mythical being. It was barely noticeable that one of the flower stems was growing out of, or perhaps into, the creature's head. Day didn't seem to appreciate the craftiness of my craft very much. And I thought we were making such progress along “offbeat” paths. (Damn that Briceberg!) Perhaps I should wait until we return from our trip before showing her any of my paintings. I want her to be prepared. Everything is all prepared for our vacation, at least; Day finally found someone to take care of the cat who shares her flat.
October 10th. Good-bye diary. See you when I get back.
November 1st. With ecstasy and exasperation, I here record a particular episode from Day's and my tropical sojourn. I'm not sure whether the following adventure represents an impasse or a turning point in the course of our relationship. Perhaps there is some point that I have failed to entirely get. As yet I am, not surprisingly, in the dark. Here, nevertheless, is a fragment from our escapist interlude.
An Hawaiian paradise at midnight. Actually we were just gazing upon the beachside luxuriance from our hotel veranda. Day was bemused by several exotic drinks that wore flowers on their foamy heads. I was in a condition similar to hers. A few moments of heady silence passed, punctuated by an occasional sigh from Day. We heard the flapping of invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness. We listened closely to the sounds of black orchids growing, even if there were none. “Mmmm,” hummed Day. We were ripe for a whim. I had one, not knowing yet if I could pull it thoroughly off. “Can you smell the mysterious cereus?” I asked, placing one hand on her far shoulder and dramatically passing the other in a horizontal arc before the jungle beyond. “Can you?” I hypnotically repeated. “I can,” said a game Day. “But can we find them, Day, and watch them open in the moonlight?” “We can, we can,” she chanted giddily. We could. Suddenly the smooth-skinned leaves of the night garden were brushing against our smooth-skinned selves. Day paused to touch a flower that was orange or red but smelled of a deep violet.
I encouraged us to press on across the flower-bedded earth. We plunged deeper into the dream garden. Faster, faster, faster the sounds and smells rushed by us. It was easier than I thought. At some point, with almost no effort at all, I successfully managed our full departure from known geography. “Day, Day,” I shouted in the initial confusion and excitement. “We're here. I've never shown this to anyone. It's been such a torturous secret, Day. I've wanted to tell you for so long, and show you. No, don't speak. Look, look.” Oh, the thrill of seeing this dark paradise with new eyes. With doubled intensity would I now see my world. My world. She was somewhere near me in the darkness. I waited, seeing her a thousand ways in my mind before actually gazing at the real Day. I looked. “What's wrong with the stars, the sky?” was all she said. She was trembling.
At breakfast the next morning I subtly probed her for impressions and judgments of the night before. But she was badly hung over and had only a chaotic recall of the previous night. Oh, well.
Since our return I have been working on a painting titled “Sanctum Obscurum.” Though I have done this kind of work many times before, I am including in this one elements that I hope will stir Day's memory and precipitate a conscious recollection of not only a certain night in the islands but all of the subtle and not so subtle messages I have tried to communicate to her. I only pray she will understand.
November 4th. Stars of disaster! Earthly, and not unearthly asters are that fill Day's heart with gladness. She is too much of a lover of natural flora to be anything else, I know this now. I showed her the painting, and even imagined she anticipated seeing it with some excitement. But I think she was just anxiously waiting to see what kind of fool I would make of myself. She sat on the sofa, scraping her lower lip with a nervous forefinger. Opposite her I let a little cloth drop. She looked up as if there had been a startling noise. I was not wholly satisfied with the painting myself, but this exhibition was designed to serve an extra-aesthetic purpose. I searched her eyes for a reflection of understanding, a ripple of empathetic insight. “Well?” I asked, the necessity of the word tolling doom. Her gaze told me all I needed to know, and the fatal clarity of the message was reminiscent of another girl I once knew. She gave me a second chance, looking at the picture with a theatrical scrutiny. The picture itself? An inner refuge, cozily crowding about the periphery of a central window of leaded glass. The interior beams with a honeyed haze, as of light glowing evenly through a patterned tapestry. Beyond the window, too, is a sanctuary of sorts, but not of man or terrestrial nature. Outside is an opulent kingdom of glittering colors and velvety jungle-shapes, a realm of contorted rainbows and twisted auroras. Hyper-radiant hues are calmed by the glass, so that their strange intensity does not threaten the chromatic integrity of the world within. Some stars, coloured from the most spectral part of the spectrum, blossom in the high darkness. The outer world glistens in stellar light and also gleams with labyrinthine glare inside each twisted form. And upon the window's surface is the watery reflection of a lone figure gazing out at this unearthly paradise.
“Of course, it's very good,” she observed. “Very realistic.”
Not at all, Daisy Day. Not realistic in the least.
Some uncomfortable moments later I found out she had to be leaving. It seemed she had made girl plans with a girlfriend of hers to do some things girls do when they get together with others of their kind. I said I understood, and I did. There was no doubt in my mind of the gender of Day's companion this evening. But it was for a different reason that I was distressed to see her go. Tonight marks the first time, and this I could read in her every move and expression, that she was truly possessed a sure knowledge of my secrets. Of course, she already knew about the meetings I attend and all such things. I've even paraphrased and abridged for her the discussion which goes on at these gatherings, always obscuring their real nature in progressively more transparent guises, hoping one day to show her the naked truth. And now, I think, the secret has been stripped bare. Whether she believes them or not, which doesn't make any difference, she has as clear a notion as Clare ever did of the fabulous truth about me and the others. She has positively gotten the picture now.
November 16th. Tonight we held an emergency meeting, our assembly in crisis. The others feel there's a problem, and of course I know they're right. Ever since I met that girl I could sense their growing uneasiness, which was their prerogative. Now, however, all has changed; my romantic misjudgment has seen to that. They expressed absolute horror that an outsider should know so much. I feel it myself. Day is a stranger now, and I wonder what her loquacious self might disclose about her former friend, not to mention his present ones. The secretness we need for our lives could be lost, and with it would go the keys to a strange kingdom.
We've confronted these situations before, and I'm not the only one to have jeopardized our secrecy. We, of course, have no secrets from each other.
They know everything about me, and I about them. They knew every step of the way my relationship with Daisy. Some of them even predicted the outcome. And though I thought I was right in taking the extravagant chance they were wrong, I must now defer to their prophecy. Those lonely souls, mes freres! “Do you want us to see it through?” they asked in so many words. I consented, finally, in a score of ambiguous, half-hesitant ways. Then they sent me back to my unflowered sanctum. I'll never do this again, I thought, even though I've made this resolution before. I stared at the
razory dentes of my furry sculpture for a perilously long while. What that poor girl saw as tonguelike floral appendages were silent: the preservation of such silence, of course, is their whole purpose. I remember that Daisy once jokingly asked me on what I modeled my art...
November 17th.
To Eden with me you will not leave
To live in a cottage of crazy crooked eaves.
In your own happy home you take care these nights;
When you let your little cat in, turn on the lights!
Something scurries behind and finds a cozy place to stare,
Something sent to you from paradise, paradisically so rare:
Tongues flowering; they leap out laughing, lapping. Disappear!
I do this to pass the hours. Only to pass the hours.
November 17th. 12.00 a.m. Flowers.
The Chymist (1981)
First published in Nyctalops #16, 1981
Also published in: Songs Of A Dead Dreamer, The Nightmare Factory.
This version taken from Songs Of A Dead Dreamer.
Hello, Miss. Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am looking for some company this evening. My name is Simon, and you are… Rosemary. Funny, I was just daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism. Never mind. Please sit, and watch out for splinters on your chair, so you don't catch your dress. It appears that everything around here has come to the point of frays and splinters. But what this old place lacks in freshness of decor it amply makes up in atmosphere, don't you think? Yes, as you say, I suppose it does serve its purpose. It's a little lax as far as table service, though. I'm afraid that in the way of drinks one must procure for one's self. Thank you, I'm glad you think I have a nice way of talkin'. Now, can I get you something from the bar? All right, a beer you shall have. And do me a favor please: before I come back, you will already have taken that wad of gum out of your mouth. Thank you, and I'll return shortly with our drinks.
Here you are, Rosie, one beer from the bar. Just don't belch and we'll get along fine. I'm pleased to see you've gotten rid of your gum, though I hope you didn't swallow it. The human stomach should probably remain ignorant of what it's like to accommodate beer and bubble gum in the same digestive episode. I know it's your stomach, but I'm concerned about what gets mixed up inside any human vessel. No, I said vessel, not that anatomical cavity to which you smuttily refer: Man's hole is not his vessel. We're talking about things in which other things may be contained.
That's right, like that dirty little glass in your immaculate hand, now you're getting it. My glass? Yes, you do see a lot of red in there. I like red drinks. Created this one myself. A Red Rum Ginny, I call it. White rum, gin, pale ginger ale, and, ideally, cranberry juice, though the bartender here had to substitute some undistilled maraschino solution, which has neither the rich red color nor a fraction of the tartness of your smile. Would you like a sip? Go ahead, take a good belt. If you don't like it, say so. Yes, different is the word for it, the wellspring of its interest, as you've observed. I wonder, though, in whose mouth it tastes more different—mine or yours? We'll never know. Even adhering to the same mixological formula there's always some difference in taste, if only you have the sensitivity to notice it. In general, I think, there are always those varying factors that make every moment of our lives unique and strange to every other moment.
I have a high tolerance for diversity myself. You're smiling at my emphasis. You think you know something about me, and perhaps you do. Sharp girl! Of course, the imp of perversity in your thoughts is only one of the many offspring of the imp of the diverse. And diversity is the soul of life, or at least of life's amusement.
Pardon me? Yes, I have created other drinks. There's another red one I've pioneered that's actually just a variation on a standard number, but I like it. The Sweet and Sour Bloody Mary, made with high-test vodka, sugar, a lemon slice, and ketchup. It does sound like a meal in itself at that. Very fortifying. No, sorry to spoil your joke, my fondness for red drinks does not extend to the vampire's neck-drawn nectar. Besides, I'm quite able to work during daylight hours.
Where? Well, I suppose I can tell you, sub rosa, that I'm employed by a pharmaceutical company not far from here, near that run-down warehouse district. I'm a chemist there. Yes, really. Well, it's nice the way you could see right off that I wasn't no average guy just comin' round after work lookin' for some fun. Perceptive girl! However, I did in fact come directly here after working a little overtime. I noticed while I was at the bar that you were eyeing and toeing the briefcase I brought in with me and set so discreetly under the table. Yes, there are papers in there relating to my work, among other things, never mind just now about that. But you're right that it would be foolish to leave anything important outside in one's car in this neighborhood.
Well, I wouldn't say that this part of town is simply a pit. It is, of course, that; but the word doesn't begin to describe the various dimensions of decrepitude in the local geography. Decrepitude, Ro. It has your pit in it and a lot more besides. I speak from experience, more than you would believe. This whole city is a pitiful corpse, and the neighborhood outside the walls of this bar has the distinction of being the withering heart of the deceased. Yes, I've gotten to know it over the years. I've gone out of my way to note its outlandish points of interest.
For instance, have you ever been to that place not far from here called Speakeasy? Well, then you have some acquaintance with the beautiful corruption of nostalgia, the putrescence of things past. Yes, up a flight of stairs from a crooked little street facade is a high echoey hall with a leftover Deco decor of silvery mirrors and sequined globes. And there the giant painted silhouettes of bony flappers and gaunt Gatsbys sport about the curving ballroom walls, towering over the dance floor, their funereal elegance mocking the awkward gyrations of the living. An old dream with a shiny new veneer. It's fascinating, you know, how an obsolete madness is sometimes adopted and stylized in an attempt to ghoulishly preserve it. These are the days of second-hand fantasies and antiquated hysteria.
But there are other sights in this city that I think are much more interesting. Not the least of which are those storefront temples of dubious denomination. There's one on Third and Snoville called the Church of the True Dividing Light, not to be mistaken, I presume, with that false light which dazzles so many searching eyes. Oddly enough, I've yet to see any light at all shining through the windows of this gray dwarfish building, and I always look for some sort of illumination as I ride by. I tell you, no one worships this city as I do. Especially its witticisms of proximity, one strange thing next to another, adding up to a greater strangeness. One of the more grotesque examples of this phenomenon occurs when you observe that a little shop whose display window features a fabulous array of prosthetic devices is right next-door to Marv's Second Hand City. Then there are, those places—you've noticed them, I'm sure—that are freakishly suggestive in a variety of ways. One of them is that pink and black checkerboard box on Bender Boulevard that calls itself Bill's Bender Lounge, where a garish marquee advertises Nightly Entertainment. And if you stare at that legend long enough, the word "Nightly" will begin to connote more than the interval between dusk and dawn. Soon this simple word becomes truly evocative, as if it were code for the most exotic and unspeakable entertainments of the infinite night. And speaking of entertainment, I should cite that establishment whose owner, no doubt an epicure of musical comedy, gave it the title of Guys and Dolls, Inc. What a genius of vulgarity, considering that this business is devoted solely to the sale and repair of mannikins. Or is it really a front for a bordello of dummies? No offense intended, Rosalie.
I could go on—I still haven't mentioned Miss Wanda's Wigs or a certain hotel that boasts a "Bath in Every Room"—but maybe you're becoming a bit bored. Yes, I can understand what you mean when you say you don't notice that stuff after a while. The mind becomes dull and complacent. I know. Sometimes I get that way myself. But it seems that just when I'm comfortably mired in complacency, some good jolt comes along.
The Collected Short Fiction Page 3
