Encounters with Enoch Coffin

by W. H. Pugmire

  (From the article Ghoulish Legacies: The Art of Donovon and Enoch Coffin, by Joel Knox)

  I’m sure I never would have been driven to investigate the matter of Enoch Coffin’s family had it not been for his hostility about the subject, at the scene of his exhibition. The next day I returned to Prince Street, but this time to interview the gallery’s owner, Marie Lavoria. I met her over espresso in her small but noteworthy restaurant, Ristorante Lavoria, next door to the gallery. Owing to the shocking (yes, I said it, shocking) quality of Coffin’s work, I was curious as to why this wholesome-seeming woman should be such a supporter. When she spoke of him in glowing -- bordering on gushing -- terms, I suspected that the attraction might extend beyond the art to the artist himself. Ms. Lavoria didn’t seem to be so intimate with Coffin as to possess great detail on his upbringing, but there were a few tantalizing tidbits she had learned in conversation with her newfound friend, and in her enthusiasm she innocently gave them up to this fellow “fan” of her hero’s work.

  She said, “When I told Enoch my father was a mason who dabbled in sculpture, thus inspiring my own interest in art, he told me his father Donovon Coffin was a very gifted stained-glass artisan, whose work could be found in churches and private homes throughout New England. He also crafted beautiful glass lampshades in the fluid Art Nouveau style, but also the more linear and symmetrical Art Deco style. He was a great admirer of the stained glass work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Enoch said his father was always experimenting with style and technique, and achieved some very striking and original effects.”

  “How fascinating that the senior Coffin was also an artist, then,” I replied, “but one who pursued more beautiful modes of expression. I wonder what went wrong with the son that he took on such a darker outlook.”

  “Well,” said Ms. Lavoria, as if hesitating to add to her revelation, “Donovon’s church work was always praised for its execution, but there was some controversy about the subject matter he chose, which was apparently often a bit gruesome. John the Baptist’s severed head presented to Herod on a platter…St. Bartholomew flayed alive, with his own skin draped over his arm…St. Sebastian almost erotically pierced with arrows…and of course, explicitly bloody depictions of the Savior in His sufferings. Enoch said that children looking up at some of these artworks burst into tears and thereafter refused to return to church, and even some adults complained at being unnerved the way light would glow weirdly in the eyes of various figures. There were even complaints, maybe unfounded but maybe not, that there was hidden imagery -- I guess you might compare it to subliminal imagery -- such as demonic faces leering from seemingly innocent designs. More than once Donovon was asked to remove and substitute one of his creations, and as his reputation started to become tainted, increasingly his artworks were outright refused. Finally, he stopped getting church commissions, making just enough of a living off his other work.”

  “How fascinating. I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, after all. So where did the elder Coffin grow up and ply his trade?”

  “Oh -- in the very same house on Charter Street that Enoch lives in today.”

  III.

  (From the personal journal of Donovon Abraham Coffin)

  I am home again, after my demeaning incarceration. If there were any chance of me fashioning windows for a church in Massachusetts again, my arrest has exploded it.

  Fools. They of course thought I meant to rob that grave in the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, across the street from my own abode. Rob it! Rob it of what? A handful of dust? But I couldn’t tell them the truth, could I? That there are tunnels below the graveyard, a whole ant’s nest of tunnels through this area of the city, in which those hungry others dwell. I couldn’t reveal the truth about that old blue slate, with its image of a winged angel of death seated on a block bearing the words Memento Mori, a scythe in one hand and the other pointing downwards. Yes, pointing down there -- a hidden sign, like those I incorporate in my own glasswork, so as to communicate with the perceptive and sensitive explorers of this world who are not satisfied by the spiritual pabulum they feed the sheep, those sheep I terrify with their own blood-drenched faith! No, I knew that figure pointing at the earth was a signpost left by a kindred soul. I knew that there was no body in that plot to be robbed! Had they not interrupted me, I would have revealed a hidden trapdoor, perhaps taking me into a section of the tunnels walled off from the rest, with steps leading down further…maybe even leading me to what I seek!

  A door into the Dreamlands.

  No, I had to lie, of course. I told them I sought a skull to use as a model in my art, for a piece portraying Mary Magdalene contemplating a skull after the manner of Gustave Doré. Ha. They seemed to buy my explanation, though it didn’t enhance their feelings toward me, and they warned that if I were caught at such activities again I’d be shipped off to Danvers State Hospital.

  This is why I must resist my compulsion to locate a secret passage in the cemetery again. I must at least wait until a sufficient period of time has passed, as frustrating as that may be.

  But ah! I am making progress with my very own Dream Lens, I feel, and may not need a prosaic trapdoor at all. If my efforts are rewarded, I will be able to see into the Dreamlands at will!

  And not only see, but in seeing, part the veils and open a portal -- so that I might pass bodily into that other realm as the Ghouls themselves do.

  IV.

  (From the personal journal of Enoch Donovon Coffin)

  It was a beautiful afternoon for a stroll in the graveyard, with the lowering sun glowing through the overhanging autumnal foliage, painted leaves scuffed up by our feet and swirling about our shoulders like fiery infernal ash. Marie Lavoria must have felt it was quite the romantic setting indeed. I kept my paws in the pockets of my suede jacket lest she try to hold my hand.

  We stopped every now and then to read the inscription on this or that slate, tilting in their rows in the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. Marie smiled and reached up to me, and I nearly flinched away, but she merely plucked a leaf that had alighted on the brim of my slouch hat. She then squatted down before a headstone so as to read its engraved script.

  “Sacred to the memory of Miss Mercy Jones…Aged 20 and 6 months.”

  “How specific. But when you die at so young an age, I suppose one need be grateful for a few extra months.”

  “Yes -- so young. I wonder if she ever got to experience love.” Marie rose and again smiled up into my face. “How about you, Enoch? Have you ever experienced love?”

  “I experience love every day.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “The love of my art,” I went on. “I’m afraid it leaves me little room for other forms.”

  She looked a bit crestfallen, and said, “But I’ve seen you in the company of a number of different people in my restaurant.” She was polite enough not to mention she had observed me in the company of both genders, and then some.

  “My name is Enoch, not Eunuch, my dear.” I winked. “When one is hungry, one must dine. A restaurateur must understand that.”

  Marie blushed a little and looked away, but she was also smiling again. “I understand that hunger,” she admitted, no doubt still holding on to the hope that she and I might share a special feast of our own one of these days.

  We continued strolling, and she asked, “What about your parents? You never felt the urge to marry, as they did? Surely your father loved your mother.”

  “He did indeed. He loved her so that it split his heart.”

  “Really?” My companion came to a halt again, intrigued. “Is that why you’re afraid to love?”

  “I said nothing of fear. But perhaps I’m reluctant to be distracted by the pain or pleasure of such conventional pursuits, when I have my calling to attend to.”

  “But how was your father hurt? Did your mother pass away at a young age?”

  “Lebanah Coffin was a beautiful creature. He portrayed her in his glasswork numerous times, and she
even graces a few churches…as an angel. She was an albino, with flowing white hair and skin white as a blank canvas, and uncanny eyes with pink irises. Her feet were deformed, however. They could be said to have resembled the feet of Chinese women who had bound their feet tightly for too many years. One might say they were even…hoof-like.”

  “Oh! From an injury?”

  “A congenital deformity,” I replied. “Yes…something in her genes.” Ah, if only my innocent friend understood the full ramifications of such a genetic lineage!

  “So what happened? Did she leave him for another man?”

  “She did leave him, yes, but to follow her destiny. It was time for her to change.”

  “Change? You mean, she felt she needed to discover herself?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But she left you, too! Her only child!”

  “She had no choice. She didn’t want to hurt me, or my father.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I began walking again, and Marie was forced to hurry to catch up to me. “I suppose I seek her in my art at times,” I mumbled. More to myself, really. “But it wasn’t enough for my father to immortalize her beauty in his own art. He sought to find her again. His dream was that he might join her somehow.”

  The key word -- the word that surely escaped poor mystified Marie -- being dream…

  V.

  (From the article Ghoulish Legacies: The Art of Donovon and Enoch Coffin, by Joel Knox)

  I was very happy that I returned to Ristorante Lavoria for lunch after another visit to Enoch Coffin’s latest exhibition, in the course of researching this article. Not only was the fare excellent, but I met Marie Lavoria again and she had some fresh material to share regarding her favorite artist’s childhood. The sad matter of his abandonment by his mother when he was just a wee sprout, and the father’s apparent obsession with her.

  “Sounds like maybe she had some issues,” Ms. Lavoria confided in a whisper, tapping her temple with a finger. “Oh, but please, don’t quote me on that…I wouldn’t want to hurt Enoch.”

  “Of course,” I assured her.

  I was more intrigued than ever, and now determined to interview Coffin again before I put this piece together. To that end, I phoned the man via the number Ms. Lavoria provided. Even though she cautioned that the artist shunned the telephone, he picked up when he heard my voice. I asked him if I might interview him in his own home, so as to view his studio and more examples of his art.

  “Of course,” Coffin said. “When would you like?”

  “Well, you live on Charter Street, correct? I’m just a short ways away, here on Prince Street. I could walk right on over if you’re available.”

  “Certainly, please do. I’ll put a pot of coffee on.”

  VI.

  (From the personal journal of Donovon Abraham Coffin)

  Many have fleetingly and flittingly visited the realm called the Dreamlands -- naturally, in dream -- but did not remember afterwards, or did not appreciate what they had experienced if they did retain a fragment of remembrance. But there are those adepts who have reached the Dreamlands purposely, intentionally questing, by projecting their essence while in a hypnotic state or meditative self-entrancement. They descended the seventy steps to the cavern of flame. And I have tried to find those steps…oh yes, I’ve tried. Yet my talent doesn’t lie in lucid dreaming, or astral projection. My talent lies in my love of art, a love I have sought to instill in the mind of my young son. He is all I have left of my darling wife. I will not be content with that, however, so long as my art might serve me.

  My Lebanah was more knowledgeable in arcane matters than I, more attuned to them, but we had learned some things together, and since her departure I have furthered those studies on my own. Driven no longer merely by a sense of curiosity as an artist -- an artistic curiosity as scientific as it was mystical -- but now by a desperation of the spirit. So I have learned what I could, wherever and however I could, with a kind of violence of need.

  Oh, I would be lying if I said I only want to find my way again to my beloved’s side. I am forever an artist-seeker. How could I not dream of creating artworks modeled -- from life -- after the blank-faced wheeling Night-gaunts…the strangely leaping Ghasts? And in the background, the looming Tower of Koth? Those oversensitive hypocrites who no longer want my work casting its multi-hued light into their silly hovels of worship have no idea that if I had my way, those windows would not portray tortured saints but Gugs with fanged vertical grins! Titanic, winged Shantaks!

  Yes, as a pilgrim of the Dreamlands I know my Lebanah has changed…transformed as does the butterfly to fulfill her true nature. But though her beauty has altered, I am sure it has altered to a beauty of another sort. A terrible beauty.

  Yet I have not sought her by literally venturing into the tunnels below these streets, where the dangers are too acute and the rewards too limited. That nesting place is only the intermediary zone between here and the Ghouls’ true home. And it is that place of wonders I seek.

  In my seeking, I had encountered rumors that in the Sesqua Valley, in the Pacific Northwest, there was a Dream Lens secreted in the basement of an old home, a lens that had been guarded by generations of one family. A great lens that allowed one to peer directly into the Dreamlands. Yes! This I must see, and duplicate with all my skills! So I ventured to that strange valley, to the town situated in the shadows of twin-peaked Mount Selta, a town where the veils are thin the way they are in a place like Arkham or Dunwich. But my quest proved fruitless. The weird locals with their silvery eyes and, often, suggestively deformed countenances mistrusted me…professed to know nothing of any such Dream Lens. I begged, bribed, even threatened, all to no avail.

  I did not return to Massachusetts with a sense of defeat, however, but only a new determination.

  If I could not copy the alleged Sesquan Dream Lens, then I would design one all my own.

  VII.

  (From the article Ghoulish Legacies: The Art of Donovon and Enoch Coffin, by Joel Knox)

  Coffin greeted me quite cordially at his door facing onto the old North End street, and admitted me into his narrow little home. Not unexpectedly, I was immediately struck by the décor, though to go into it at length would require another article all its own. Suffice it to say I was surprised to find that the grotesque -- though certainly in evidence, and very grotesque -- did not outweigh the beautiful, and he really does seem to be a man of diverse, eclectic tastes. Though how much of the décor could be credited to him, as opposed to the parents who owned the house before him, I couldn’t then gauge.

  Noting my fascination and occasional revulsion as I took in my surroundings, he proceeded to conduct a little tour for me. In the comfortable parlor with its leather furniture and overflowing bookshelves, amongst his own paintings hanging on the walls -- some of which I can’t imagine any gallery in the city would consent to display, nor any sane person wish to purchase -- I spotted a painting that was unmistakably the work of Richard Upton Pickman. Unsurprisingly, it presented a number of ghastly nude figures with distended dog-like features, white-skinned and blotchy with greenish mold or infection, clambering out of a freshly dug grave in what was clearly the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. The title, I read, was A New Doorway. I grinned at Coffin. “I see a Pickman here, but nothing by any of those other heroes you listed for me at the gallery.”

  “Actually, it was my father who acquired that piece,” Coffin revealed.

  “And he must have done these, himself,” I observed, sweeping my arm toward the room’s two windows, both of which were of brilliantly colored stained glass. For the first time I focused my full attention on them, and was quite frankly stunned when I did. Perhaps I’m not sufficiently familiar with this craft, but I didn’t know such complex work was possible. One of them was so intricately ordered and symmetrical I was put in mind of the mirrored view through a kaleidoscope. The other was a swirling chaos like thorny nebulae that reminded me somehow of a fra
ctal image. Looking too long at either one of them brought on a kind of dizziness, or vertigo, as if I might plunge through them into a cosmic void from which I might not return. At last I had to look away, muttering inarticulately, “Remarkable.”

  A circuit of the ground floor alone was already too much to take in, but my host let me catch my breath by inviting me to sit at a dining room table for coffee. I asked him, “Do you live here alone?”

  “Except for my friends.” He waved at a nearby credenza, on the marble top of which stood a bizarre array of objects, including a limbless anatomical model made of wax with intricately painted internal organs, a pallid heart (dog? pig? human?) preserved in a block of Lucite with a tangle of long black worms emerging from its split sides, a deformed human fetus with strangely fish-like features crammed in a bottle of alcohol, and a coiled snake rearing its head inside a bottle of yellowish fluid.

  I pointed to the last item. “Is that drinkable?” I asked.

  “That’s a matter of opinion. It’s a cobra preserved in rice wine. I picked it up in Vietnam.”

  “What does it taste like?”

  “It tastes like a cobra preserved in rice wine. Care for a glass?”

  “I’ll stick to the coffee, thanks.” I watched the artist dump spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his own cup. “Have a little coffee with your sugar,” I joked.

  Coffin smiled at me oddly. “Amusing. I’ve never heard that joke before.”

  “Sorry,” I chuckled. “I’m sure you haven’t.”

  “I see you brought your laptop.”

  “I had it with me earlier; I like to write on the run. In coffee shops and so forth.”

  “And in Italian restaurants?”

  “Hm?”

  “After you called, our mutual friend Marie Lavoria rang me and admitted rather sheepishly that you had been interviewing her about my family. Silly girl even gave you my phone number and precise street address.” Coffin had been stirring his coffee now for an unusually long time, though maybe it was just to dissolve the unusual quantity of sugar. “I can’t be angry with her…she’s innocent to the point of ignorance…though I did gently suggest that she should be less free with information I might share with her, in the future.”