Gathered Dust and Others

by W. H. Pugmire

  Of course, this valley could never be my home. I protested to Simon that I need a sense of the past in which to dwell – the ancient buildings and lanes and secrets of New England. He scoffed at me and said that such things were modern compared to the agedness of this valley and its forest. He said that the secrets of antique Boston, which were merely a construct of mankind, could not compare to the enigmas of this place. Bah. I’ll admit that Sesqua Valley is rather weird. I don’t like the smell of the air – it has a cloying sweetness that sticks inside my throat. And there isn’t anything sinister, that I can perceive, in the fresh green shadows of the woods. I long to return home, however lonesome Boston has become. The last of my friends dropped me after that final exhibition – but I had a hunch that they would; and, really, that was part of my intention, to shock the community by finally showing some of my secret canvases, the things I had until then kept sequestered in my North End studio. Roberta suspected the kind of reception the paintings would have, which is why she allowed me to display them in her gallery. She prides herself on being Bohemian, although most of her pals are merely surrealists. Well, it tickled her to display my canvases, and I delighted in the demonstrations of shock and dismay, which indeed helped to fuel my hatred for humanity.

  Simon was something unsuspected, and at first I loathed his keen interest. But his suggestion of a temporary escape from everything, in this remote corner of the world, interested me. And, let’s face it – the paintings no longer sell. So I packed some gear and drove us up here in my jalopy, and that in itself felt rather wonderful, the thrill of sudden flight, the fun idea of my mysterious evaporation from the Boston scene, and the long drive itself, through unfamiliar country. I relished it. Simon proved an amusing companion, and I loved the reaction to his persona when we stopped at the motel. He laughed when I called him ‘beast’ and said that I was not the first to do so. I don’t quite understand what’s wrong with his face. It doesn’t seem like birth defect, but rather some kind of racial thing. And I’ve noticed, in the small time I’ve been in town, others who share this queer hereditary stain, so it must be some inbred thing associated with this place. Rather like one finds in the clans of Innsmouth. I love painting him, as it gives me an excuse to study his freakishness. There is indeed something purely bestial in his cruel features. At times his mug reminds me of a wolf, or a frog. It’s his eyes that absolutely captivate, with their silver sheen, like pale nickel; and I’ve noticed, in certain light, a grouping of queerly colored particles floating on the surface of his eyes. And, yes, as I mentioned above – they are malicious eyes, malignant in a haughty sort of way. You get the idea that he is plotting on how best to hurt you.

  I had Roberta use my camera to take a series of snaps of myself, close up, just my face. I like working from photographs. I like the way they can reveal things that mirrors cannot, how things are captured, subtly. I’m using them to work on my final . . . Why I insist on thinking of this self-portrait as my final work I cannot fathom, but the word comes continually to mind. Maybe it’s just a hunch that my days as an artist in Boston are at an end.

  Simon mentioned that a group of aesthetic folk meet at some kind of arty club or saloon in town tonight, and he thought it might amuse me to comingle. I doubt it, but what the hell, might as well see what the locals are like. It’s weird and rather stupid, to have grown so hateful of humanity, and yet to fight against a kind of cosmic lonesomeness. The mind of man – who can comprehend it? Mine remains a mystery. Take your sketchpad, Richard. Some of the folks you’ve seen share Simon’s curious features, although none as outlandish as his own. You may find a slew of future portraits among the happy villagers.

  III.

  It was not a lengthy walk from his room to the hostelry where the locals congregated, but the artist took his time in strolling to the place. It was true that this valley town did not have those charms that had so captivated him in Boston, that sense of hoary past; and yet Sesqua Town had her own special appeal – that of an old and isolated haunt. The sidewalks, for example, were made of planks of solid wood, and none of the roads were paved. So yes, there was a feeling of the past in this place, but not such a one as could compare to that of New England. What Sesqua Valley did suggest was the timelessness of nature – and this was something that Boston, with its bricks and warehouses and cobblestone lanes, lacked. New England’s past was that of man – this valley’s agelessness was outside human design. He stopped in his walking to look at the titanic twin-peaked mountain, the white stone of which seemed to soak in a quality of the light that shone from the quarter moon, reflecting that light on its shimmering surface of majestic rock. The artist was utterly captivated by that mountain, for he had never seen such peaks, lean and curved and rising over the mountain at great height, resembling to imaginative souls fantastic wings extending from a daemon’s shoulders.

  A wind arose and pushed against his eyes, and as he continued to gaze at the mountain the artist was suddenly overwhelmed with eerie sensation. He thought that he could detect within the wind a subtle sound, like a distant siren song that would enchant him toward devastation. An element of wind seemed to sink inside the surface of his eyes and alter their perception, and he swore that the colossal mountain moved, lazily, and stretched its peaks. He was overwhelmed with an ache to march to that mountain and climb so as to sing beneath the shadows of those peaks. Richard began to move toward the thing of shimmering stone, until a hand clutched at his arm and turned him around. Protesting, he tried to shake free of the fellow and peer toward the peaks once more, but his sudden companion would not allow him to do so.

  “No, you don’t want to stare at that white stone. Ignore its call. You’re the artist everyone has been chattering about, the beast’s new amigo?”

  Richard shook his head as if to clear it, and then he extended his hand, which was clasped by the stranger. “Richard Pickman, of Boston. Yes, Simon lured me here to paint his portrait.”

  The fellow moved a little nearer, and the artist curled his nose at the stench of booze. “Justin Geoffrey. Come on, join me in the pub. I’m celebrating my sudden demise.”

  “Your what?”

  “My happy extinction!” The artist did not protest as the odd man dragged him down the sidewalk planks and into an establishment. The talking in the room silenced as all eyes peered at the two gentlemen, and Richard noticed that some few pairs of eyes were of an uncanny silver hue. His companion burst out in laughter and saluted the room with a loud unruly shout. “Greetings, fiends and friends! I bring another outsider into your propinquity! And he is intimate with the first-born beast, so treat him well!” The outrageous fellow turned to smile at the artist, and Richard studied the handsome if emaciated face, the curls of dark Byronic hair, eyes of palest gray. The well-formed and sensuous mouth grinned at him and then hailed a woman who arose at one table and motioned that they should join her. Justin playfully placed an arm around Richard’s shoulder and bent to speak into his ear. “That girl’s a great fuck,” he said, winking at his new acquaintance. He then rushed to the table and gave the woman a passionate kiss on the mouth, and picking up someone’s half-drained glass of brew he grinned widely at the crowd and shouted:

  “I’m told the tale of some sequestered vale

  Where shadow weaves and worms itself between

  The spaces of dark trees of ancient girth

  Deep-rooted in the supernatural sod.

  I’ve stepped between the spaces of dark trees,

  My silhouette rooted to secret mud,

  And tasted shadow woven of strange stuff

  That spills into my mouth and finds my brain

  And warps the very marrow of my bone

  And freezes ev’ry element of blood

  And pumps my heartbeat to a slower pace

  Until my pulse is quiet and I pose

  As denizen of tomb.”

  The artist was astounded at the force and musicality of the voice that chanted poetry, a low clear voice that command
ed attention and respect. It hadn’t been mere performance – Justin Geoffrey had spoken the verse intimately, as if it were something to which his psyche was irrevocably wed. Although the poet had seemed, upon first acquaintance, mildly intoxicated, his face had taken on an air of sobriety as he spoke, as if some portion of his sleepy brain had been suddenly awakened by the magick of the spoken lines. But then the elfin playfulness returned to his eyes and he roared laughter, thumping the drained beer glass onto the surface of the table again and again, and joined in this action by others in the room. Justin motioned for Richard to join them at the table, and then he addressed the onlookers again. “I present Richard Pickman, late of Boston, here to paint the portrait of our first-born beast.”

  “It’s almost finished,” Richard said as he sauntered to the table and was offered a chair by the still-standing young woman. They sat together.

  “You’re staying above the antique shop?”

  “Yes – a curious place, that, with a strange assembly of esoteric stuff.”

  “Leonidas, the owner, is a fine fellow to know,” Justin informed him, “with a goodly supply of rare narcotics. Do you imbibe?”

  The artist shrugged. “Now and then – but I prefer to depend on dreams and exploration for my art.”

  “Then you’ll find substance here, in this furtive valley, among these children of shadow and lunacy.”

  “You’re drunk, Justin.”

  “Not drunk enough, my girl,” and he smiled as the barkeep brought a fresh round of amber fluid. “Don’t forget, I’m celebrating my sudden and spectacular release from mortal clay.” He laughed at the confused expression on the artist’s face. “I’ve been confined in an asylum for some time. Simon and William have mastered my escape, which has utterly perplexed and scandalized those in charge of my far-off penitentiary. To discourage outrage, it has been reported that I died while raving about mine delusions. Rather sweet, the entire comedy.”

  “Simon and – William?”

  “William Davis Manly, my fellow poet. No, he’s not among us. He rarely leaves his little hut in the woods. You’ll not see him.” He pointed to the young woman beside Richard. “That’s Hannah Blotch, the imagist poet. We’ve been trying to convince her that that particular movement has been dead for years, but she is insistent.”

  “I don’t belong to any damn movement – and all good poetry is timeless.”

  “Then are we all immortal,” Justin slurred, finishing another glass of beer.

  The others looked up as someone entered the establishment, and Richard turned to see Simon advancing toward their table. He was fascinating by the shift of mood and energy in the room: everyone seemed more alert, and perhaps a bit uneasy. This made him smile – he liked sinister energy. The beast stopped at their table and peered at Justin Geoffrey, who regarded Simon with a sloppy smile. “Sit and join us, beast,” the poet invited, “and I shall summon poesy in your honor.”

  “Nay, sirrah. Your verse annoys me; it has such a diversity of voices.”

  “I have a plethora of devils in my skull, each of singular expression.”

  “I prefer consistency of voice and vision. But no matter, I have a small surprise for you, in honor of your escape from that Illinois den. Come – follow me.” His eyes, shadowed by the brim of his wide hat, seemed to shimmer with a kind of inner glowing.

  Richard was surprised to see that everyone else at the table arose before the poet did, and he stayed seated until Justin finally stretched and indolently vacated his chair. Simon stayed where he stood and took his black pipe from its inner pocket, and the tune he played stirred Richard strangely. The tone was very low and soft, a whisper of melody; but it contained a kind of compelling force that made one’s soul ache with longing, and the artist lifted himself out of his wooden chair and followed as Simon finally turned away and exited the place.

  IV.

  (From the Journal of Richard Upton Pickman)

  It was strange – I felt as if I had fallen into an eerie dream, of which I was a part and yet none of which I understood. Like the Piper in Robert Browning’s poem, Simon lured us with his music, out of the old building (and it looked very old, that pub, and I will have to return to it anon and smell its secrets) and down the hard dirt road; and in my imagination I thrilled at the idea that he was leading our pack to the mountain and would take us to its secret entrance, where we would encounter a realm of unsurpassed wonder. Although I had been in this uncommon valley for but a few days, and had spent most of those days transfixed in working on my portrait of the beast in his small dwelling just outside the main section of Sesqua Town, I felt a growing kinship with its astonishing inhabitants. I relished the idea, after suffering the growing contempt of friends and family in Boston, that I had stumbled upon a society wherein I felt as one. Simon especially delighted me, for he did not conceal in any way his contempt for all humanity, and I was mesmerized by his sinister aura, by the sense of delicious and playful danger that was triggered at all times in his company. Being in this crowd, now, and tramping into the woods of the valley, felt like being in a wondrous dream, a dream that had aspects of vague familiarity and aroused an ache to remember some forgotten knowledge. Simon’s music, for example, as it filtered through the air that night, was like nothing I had ever heard – discordant yet mesmerizing, resembling in its jarring sound an aspect of his personality. The woods through which we tramped were very dark, and I could not investigate some of the more peculiar trees which seemed so bizarrely twisted and malformed, and on some few of which I could just make out, in places where dim starlight illuminated bark, disturbing patterns of moss that almost resembled semi-human faces.

  The fabulous darkness of the woods was like a shroud of shadow, and I wanted to tighten it around me; and so I was disappointed when we came to an end of the forest and stepped into a rising field, and I wondered at the way Simon’s music softened and became still more strange, as if it were coming from some distant portion of the vaulted sky. I stopped to gaze at that sky and its stars, but then Miss Blotch linked her arm with mine and pulled me back into the bunch. I heard Justin Geoffrey utter an odd exclamation as a lean black column some thirty-seven or so inches in height came into view. At the same time a youngish fellow was coming from another part of the field, pulling a dogcart, and I recognized him as being the owner of the curio shop above which I had my room, a young man named Leonidas. He took to dressing in Victorian attire that seemed to suit him, and on this night he wore a black Inverness cloak. His glossy shoulder-length black hair fell from beneath a top hat that was made of beaver fur or some such thing. Coming to a stop, he held one hand to the quarter moon and made to it an esoteric sign, his sunken eyes flashing with keen expectancy. A number of people gathered around the cart and took up the queerest looking instruments I had ever seen. Simon chose a mammoth coiled horn-like thing that looked incredibly heavy, an instrument that reminded me of a shofar blown at Jewish holidays, but it didn’t come from any ram of earthly existence. Shutting his eyes and pointing the instrument at the moon, he blew on it and filled the valley with what sounded like the death-throes of a bull.

  My attention returned to the drunken poet, who had fallen to his knees before the column and was muttering to himself. I went to kneel beside him and watched as he ran his fingers over the unfathomable symbols or alphabet that had been chiseled into the stone of the black column. The thing itself was newly made, judging from the high polish of its smooth surface – and yet the object exuded an aura of unearthly antiquity. I tilted nearer to Justin to hear what he was mumbling. “It hasn’t been defaced like the one in Hungary. See, see – they are all there! Nothing marred or blotted out. Look at it! Gaze and gaze! What a curious chimera it is, with its hint of semi-transparency – as if it were not wholly of terrestrial realm!” He then turned to me and clutched at my hair, pulling my face closer to the black stone. “Gaze on it, Richard, it aches for light of mortal eyes!” His fingers were tightened in my hair to the point of pain – a
nd yet I did not mind the discomfort, for I had been bewitched. Just as earlier I had been captivated by the sight of the white mountain, now I was completely enthralled with this spectre of smooth sable stone. I did not want to look away, and I grumbled when some valley folk lifted me to my feet and dragged me into their clamorous dance; for they moved about me now like fools on drugs, banging metal implements together, or pounding queer drums, while Simon continued to rupture the night with his heinous bellowing horn. It was a din of madness, efficacious in its ability to rupture one emotionally and imaginatively. My eyes played tricks on me as I looked upward, to the moon, and watched that quarter disc become obscured by nebulous clouds that were not clouds at all, but sprites that billowed evilly above us and wound tendrils between the spaces of the stars. And then a darker cloud-like shape began to form in a place high above the octagonal black column, and as it coalesced I thought it took on such an outline of some monstrous malformed amphibian. I felt its shaping of itself upon and beneath my eyes; and when at last the poet, who was staring at the same delusion, stretched his mouth with awful baying, I howled too, like a lunatic, as around us the silver-eyed children of Sesqua Valley continued with their terrible tumult. I returned to kneel once more beside the lonesome poet, and we curled our fingers into each other’s hair.

  A naked figure came into my view – Hannah Botch, striped of clothing and dancing like a heathen around the column. Leonidas then came into view, naked as well, his body firm and muscular, and in one hand he held a bunch of long fir switches that had been bound together. He clutched the woman’s hair as Justin had clutched mine, and then he began to lash her naked back with the switches that he bore; and she screamed with a mixture of ecstasy and pain, and then she escaped him and spun with amazing speed in a dance that caught exactly the crazy rhythm of the surrounding clamor. She spun, and then seemed almost to float toward one figure who, as he stood, bent low and dug his talons into earth. And then the figure rose and spilled particles of soil over the woman as she fell prostrate before him; and I was shocked to see how the beast, now hatless, had transformed himself, so that as he stood erect and the starlight fell on him I could see how his head had altered and reformed, looking now like a huge wolf’s head horribly compounded of elements both human and bestial.