Oh, it's been a long life. I've written a whole shelf of novels. Plus a few screenplays, a bunch of short stories, some essays and books of what I like to call cultural history, literary biography and criticism. Biblo and Tannen would call it Literature.
That night we got to Alice Ryter's apartment and she made up a bed for me on the couch and gave me a cup of cocoa to drink before I went to sleep. I wish she'd been my stepmother instead of the woman my father married. I asked if I could stay up and read the Poe story and she said sure, why not, it can't do you any harm.
I turned on a standing lamp and sat on the couch with my feet up and pulled the blankets around myself. I took the typescript out of the envelope and started to read.
Jan. 1—1796. This day—my first on the light-house—I make this entry in my Diary, as agreed on with De Grät. As regularly as I can keep the journal, I will—but there is no telling what may happen to a man all alone as I am—I may get sick, or worse . . . .So far well!
The story went on from there, a wild adventure about the narrator, oy! I can almost remember his name, it's on the tip of my tongue. It'll come back, don't worry.
There was something lurking in the underground foundation of the lighthouse and people hiding out from a place called Norland. There was a wonderful dog in the story, too, named Neptune. Why can I remember the dog's name and not the man's? Anyhow, Neptune was big and friendly and nothing like the spoiled, pampered creature that my stepmother brought with her when she married my father. And there was something about an "aerial caravel" piloted by De Grät. I'm sure I finished reading it before I fell asleep.
In the morning Alice woke me up and gave me breakfast. I said I had a headache and she laughed at me and said, "Your first hangover, congratulations." She sent me home. I left the Poe story next to the couch.
Nineteen-fifty, the spring was beautiful. David Garfinkel came to work, spent the morning sitting in his chair, went out to lunch, came back, sat down in his chair, put his chin down on his chest, and died. Died in a bookshop. I think I'd like to go that way, not lying in a hospital bed with needles in my arms and tubes up my nose.
Jack Tannen retired to Florida, couldn't stand the boredom, and became curator of a rare-books collection for the rest of his life.
Alice Ryter moved to Los Angeles to care for her aged mother and go to Mass without having to worry about snow and ice. She lived to a ripe old age.
Jack Biblo was the last to go. He was well past ninety, still buying and selling used books, bless his soul. He was more of a father to me than my father ever was.
I know what Heaven is going to look like. When my time comes, if I pass muster with Saint Peter, he'll point the way for me. I'll push open the front door at 63 Fourth Avenue and there will be both Jacks and David and Alice and a building filled with thousands and thousands of old books. I'll walk in and one of the Jacks will say, "Come on, kid, where have you been? There's work to be done." But then David will grab me and ask, "Did I ever tell you about those great dime novel detectives, Old Sleuth and Young Sleuth? They were wonderful."
Then Jack would interrupt. "Never mind all that. Here's here to work, not to talk about all that nonsense."
Alice Ryter will be there, and she'll say, "Leave the boy alone, can't you? For heaven's sake, he's only twelve years old. How can he be in two places at once?"
And it will be like that, forever.
Did I tell you that Jack Biblo was the last to go? I repeat myself these days, I know. It goes with the white hair and the stiff joints. Jack was still married, and when he died his wife, Frances, telephoned me to tell me the news. I said I was so sorry, and I was sorry that I hadn't stayed in touch all those years, and she said it was all right, they'd always followed my career and were always proud of me and told their friends that they'd helped me get my start with books when I was twelve years old.
We had a nice talk. I'm afraid I cried more than Frances did. I didn't want to hang up, I felt that there was still a link there and once I hung up it would be gone, all gone, all dead. But finally I told Frances that I loved her and Jack and she said she knew that, she'd always known that, and thank you for saying it at last.
I wiped my eyes. I felt like a fool. My turn is coming soon. I thought about all those good times, and I smiled when I remembered moving those heavy boxes and the famous schnapps party and sleeping on Alice Ryter's couch. I remembered the Poe story, as much of it as I could. Was it real? Was it really all Poe, or did one of those others complete Poe's fragment and try to pass it off as a great find?
But what if he had? What if the version of The Lighthouse that I read at Alice Ryter's place was a collaboration, was part Poe and part Cornell Woolrich or part Poe and part Samuel Loveman or Lovecraft or John Dickson Carr?
Idle speculation. Idle speculation. I stood up slowly—stiff joints, you know—and found the battered Complete Poe set on my shelf and pulled down the volume of short stories. Yes, there was The Lighthouse, the fragment, the same fragment that Woodberry first published in 1909.
I started to read. Jan. 1—1796. This day—
I read to the end of the fragment and then I tried to remember the rest of the story, the version I had read, wrapped up in a blanket, woozy from my first encounter with alcohol, sitting on Alice Ryter's sofa.
There was something about an underground room and something about a flying machine. I remembered imagining that I was there with De Grät and the narrator, I can almost remember his name, and there were clouds around us. What was that fellow's name? I can almost remember it . . .
Sergeant Ghost
The trouble with most ghost stories is this: the experiences the narrator describes are purely subjective. Your friend Mabel MacGillicuddy collars you and says, "I had a supernatural experience last night. I woke up in my darkened room and felt a chill in the air. I looked around and saw a glowing figure. It looked like my dead ancestor, Lady Clarissa Chalmondley. The figure raised its shrouded arm and pointed a skeletal finger at me and said, 'Beware, beware, your fate awaits you, you are going to die!' Then Lady Chalmondley floated through the wall and was gone."
Well, of course we're all going to die sooner or later, so forget about that. But what about the chill, the glowing figure, the frightening message? Nobody can deny that Mabel actually felt and saw and heard everything that she claims. But also, Mabel can't prove that it really happened, either. So what do we do with it? I guess we just write it off as an intriguing unexplained event and go on with our business.
But this is my ghost story, and I can prove that it's true. Stick around for a while and hear the story, and then I'll show you the proof.
But—where to start? When to start?
How about Fort Benning, Georgia, summer of 1954. I was a very young soldier, just a teenager, going through basic training at the US Army Infantry School.
Up at the crack of dawn—sometimes earlier. Calisthenics, hearty breakfast, cleaning barracks, field exercises, map-reading courses, weapons training. After a while I could take apart an M-1 rifle and put it back together blindfolded, as could all my fellow trainees.
The Cold War was in full swing. Some historical revisionists have denied the reality of the challenge of those days, but we took it seriously. We trained against mock units wearing Soviet army uniforms, carrying Soviet weapons, and speaking Russian.
We had a lot of instructors, but the one I remember most vividly was Sergeant John R. Tessein.
Sergeant Tessein had served in the Second World War. During the Battle of the Bulge, ten years before I encountered him, he had been severely wounded. A piece of shrapnel had torn a gash in his forehead. More seriously, he had been struck in the chest by a chunk of flying metal and very nearly killed.
Evacuated to a hospital in France, then to a rehabilitation facility in England, he had recovered miraculously from his injuries. The gash in his forehead healed, leaving a scar that turned crimson when he was stressed. The chest wound nearly did him in. He lost one lung. He was thus
condemned to a lifetime of limited breath.
He was offered a promotion, a medal, an honorable discharge from the army, and a lifetime pension. But Corporal Johnny Tessein loved the army. He told his superiors that he was happy to accept the promotion and the medal, but he didn't want the honorable discharge or the pension. He wanted to stay in the army.
Over the months that followed he fought the military bureaucracy to a standstill. He finally got what he wanted. He was permitted to stay in the army. But there was one proviso: he would never again be certified as combat-qualified. He could serve at desk jobs, as a recruit trainer, work in a weapons depot or a motor pool, or in any other capacity. But he would never again see combat.
By the summer of 1954 he had a couple of rockers under his sergeant's chevrons. If you don't know what that means, you could look it up. He was assigned to duty as a recruit trainer at Fort Benning.
Most such noncommissioned officers are known for getting pretty tough with recruits who fail to perform as required. Oh, you've seen this kind of thing in a zillion movies. Sergeant stands with hands on hips, glaring into face of recruit. Shouts a question. Recruit quails and stammers a reply. Sergeant gets louder. Recruit shakes in his boots. And so on . . .
Not Sergeant Tessein.
If you screwed up, Sergeant Tessein would get a hurt look. He would grow pale. He would start to hyperventilate. His face would become deathly white. The scar on his forehead would begin to glow. He would struggle to pump enough air through his one lung to remain conscious.
His platoon of trainees would stand at attention, terrified lest their drill sergeant drop dead on the spot and they somehow be held responsible for his demise.
In most ways Sergeant Tessein was very old school. In the blazing Georgia sunlight he wore a set of khakis that had been laundered so many times they were almost white. His trousers showed a knife-edge crease. The brass insignia on his shirt-collar were polished to the brightness of miniature suns.
He believed that there were three ways to do anything: the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. If you were in his platoon you quickly learned the difference and you quickly learned to do things the Army way.
For instance, for bayonet drill he taught us the Army way to fix and unfix bayonets on our M-1 rifles. To fix (attach) the bayonet you placed the butt of the weapon on the ground between your boots, trigger guard away from you, and held the weapon at a 45 degree angle. You held the bayonet by its grip, point upward, and slid it down onto the bayonet lock on your rifle. To unfix the bayonet you reversed this process.
It was easier, Sergeant Tessein explained, to perform these operations with the rifle placed vertically, but that was not the Army way and he'd better not see any of us doing it.
At the end of any lesson, Sergeant Tessein's parting admonition was always, "Don't make me ashamed."
After a while, nobody wanted to make Sergeant Tessein ashamed.
One afternoon we were conducting a bayonet drill and one of my fellow trainees—I'll call him Jimbo Jenkins, not his real name—decided to attach his bayonet to his rifle the easy way rather than the Army way. That worked fine, so at the end of the exercise Jimbo decided to remove his bayonet the easy way rather than the Army way. He stood the weapon on its butt, muzzle (and bayonet) upright, and gave the bayonet a good tug. Propelled by Jimbo's considerable arm strength the bayonet disengaged from the bayonet lock, sped straight up, and plunged into Jimbo's throat.
After that the surviving members of our platoon really paid attention to Sergeant Tessein's instructions. Nobody wanted to make him ashamed.
Well, I got through basic all right, had a not-unpleasant career in the peacetime army, actually earned a commission and emerged as an officer. Thence to my civilian, professional life.
Fast forward thirty years or so. Shift the scene to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The occasion is Bouchercon, aka the World Mystery Convention. Along with a couple thousand other mystery writers, readers, and collectors, I'm in town with my Beloved Spouse to see old friends, have a pleasant time, and maybe transact a little business.
One of my editors, Dennis Weiler, is at the convention and has decided that it would be fun and instructive for some of us to get in a little weapons experience. Dennis called for volunteers and a dozen or so conventioneers piled aboard a rented van for a magical mystery tour. I was one of them. Beloved Spouse was another.
As the bus rolled through the lovely Minnesota countryside Dennis lectured us on the history and technology of the Thompson caliber .45 submachine gun, familiarly known as the Tommy Gun.
By the time Dennis's lecture concluded the van rolled up to an unobtrusive, low, gray building. Everyone piled out of the van and followed Dennis into the building.
It was a weapons firing range. I knew about these places from my army experience, and this one was well laid out and activities there were meticulously conducted. Safety was a prime concern.
While most persons who used the range for target practice brought their own weapons, the range could also provide rental weapons on an hourly basis. The range owned a Tommy gun in pristine condition. They even paid the federal license fee—reputedly $5,000 a year!—for the right to maintain the weapon as originally built, not modified to prevent its being fired on full automatic.
Dennis announced that each of us would be permitted to buy a magazine of ammunition and participate in target practice. Of course my macho rose and I quickly joined the party. We were offered a choice of targets including a traditional bull's-eye or an alternate version depicting a murderous fiend threatening the life of an innocent victim. The idea was to "shoot" the fiend without harming his victim.
A word about the Tommy gun.
With the exception of special arms such as sniper's rifles, most modern military weapons are designed for lightness and rapid rate of fire. They're stamped out of light metal and plastic and they aren't expected to have a long service life. The term for their use is "area fire."
Back in the day this was not the case. The M-1 Garand that I used at Fort Benning was a carefully crafted weapon with a heavy wooden stock and a heavier steel barrel and action. It weighed nine-and-a-half pounds and when you fired it, it kicked. It kicked pretty hard.
Sergeant Tessein taught us how to deal with that kick. "Think of the weapon as your sweetheart," Sergeant Tessein told us. "Hold the butt plate tightly to your shoulder. Press your cheek snugly against the stock. Draw a deep breath, then let half of it out, hold your breath briefly as you gently squeeze the trigger and you won't even know when the weapon is about to fire. You'll feel a hard thump on your shoulder but it won't really hurt and you won't be injured."
Fair enough.
"Don't be afraid of the weapon," Sergeant Tessein went on. "If you hold it away from your face and your shoulder, then the kick will hit you hard. I've seen men with black eyes, cracked cheek bones and broken collar bones because they wouldn't follow my advice about holding the M-1."
Everybody remembered the bayonet incident, so everybody paid attention to Sergeant Tessein's lecture on holding the rifle. No black eyes. No broken bones.
The Tommy gun—still in production, believe it or not!—is very much an old school weapon. It's made of beautifully polished wood, I believe walnut, and carefully machined steel. It's heavy—weighs almost 20 pounds, twice the weight of the Garand rifle. And it fires a .45 caliber round. That's a bullet with a diameter of nearly half an inch. That round packs a hell of a wallop. But, surprisingly, the weapon hardly kicks at all, although it does tend to climb a little bit under sustained fire.
Well, people in our party took their turns firing the Tommy gun. Dennis announced that there would be prizes for best marksmanship, worst marksmanship, and a couple of other categories.
When my turn came I picked up the weapon and looked it over. I'd selected to fiend-and-victim target. I'd never fired a Tommy gun, hadn't fired any weapon in several decades. Further, my eyesight is not the world's greatest. I wear bifocals and my ophthal
mologist had warned me that I had the beginnings of a cataract in my right eye. That's the sighting eye, of course.
I picked up the Tommy gun and sighted on the target. I set the control on safety and dry-fired a couple of rounds just to get the feel of the weapon. When I felt comfortable with it I took off the safety and set the control on single-fire. I sighted in for real, now, and hesitated.
Above me and off to the right I saw a glowing, cloud-like nimbus. I felt—something. I looked up and saw a figure in the cloud. It was Sergeant Tessein.
His uniform was spotlessly clean and the creases were as sharp as ever. The brass insignia on his collar, "US" on the right tab and crossed rifles denoting infantry on the other, glistened as brightly as two miniature suns.
"Remember what I told you," Sergeant Tessein urged me in his characteristic, whispery voice. "Treat the weapon like your sweetheart. Take a breath, let out half, hold, squeeze."
I felt that chill. I nodded my understanding.
Sergeant Tessein whispered, "Don't make me ashamed."
I fired one round. Then another. After a few I reset the control to full automatic but continued to fire single rounds just to see if I could do it. I could. I couldn't see the target as well as I'd have liked to. Certainly not as well as I'd seen targets at Fort Benning thirty years before. But I remembered Sergeant Tessein's instruction. I fired a couple of bursts. The weapon performed beautifully.
And then my ammunition was exhausted.
The range officer wound the target in and Dennis and I examined it. Twenty rounds fired. Twenty holes in the fiend. In his head, in his torso. Twenty. His would-be victim was untouched.
I returned the Tommy gun to the range officer, who handed it to the next conventioneer. When we piled onto the van to return to the convention hotel I had my prize—a little enamel bull's-eye—pinned to my jacket.
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