Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  ]to the void: "Bullshit! Bullshit! Just try and get me you motherfucker!" And then as the minutes creak by, his energy dips. "[ ] I don't want to die, this [ ]" words coming out

  like a sigh—sad and lost. He lights another flare, tosses it toward the camera, then pushes the rifle against his chest and shoots himself. [ J Jill Ramsey Pelterlock wrote, "In that place, the absence of an end finally became his own end."300

  Unfortunately, Holloway is not entire[ ] s[ ]ssful. For exactly two minutes and 28 seconds he groans and twitches in his own blood, until fin[ ] he slip[] into shock and presumably death.301 Then for 46 seconds the

  ]302

  [1]Can't help thinking of old man Z here and those pipes in his head working overtime; alchemist to his own secret anguish; lost in an art of suffering. Though what exactly was the fire that burned him?

  As I strain now to see past The Navidson Record, beyond this strange filigree of imperfection, the murmur of Zampano's thoughts, endlessly searching, reaching, but never quite concluding, barely even pausing, a ruin of pieces, gestures and quests, a compulsion brought on by— well that's precisely it, when I look past it all I only get an inkling of what tormented him. Though at least if the fire's invisible, the pain's not—mortal and guttural, torn out of him, day and night, week after week, month after month, until his throat's stripped and he can barely speak and he rarely sleeps. He tries to escape his invention but never succeeds because for whatever reason, he is compelled, day and night, week after week, month after month, to continue building the very thing responsible for his incarceration.

  Though is that really right?

  []am[ Jreveals nothing else but his still body. Nearly a minute of s[ ]ence. In fact, the length is so absurd it alm[]st appears as if Navidson forgot to trim this section. After all there is nothing more to [ ] gained from this scene. Holloway is dead. Which is [ ]act[ ] when it happ[]ns.

  The whole thing clocks in under tw[] seconds. Fingers of blackness slash across the lighted wall and consume Holloway. And even if[

  ] loses sight of everything, the tape still records that terrible growl, this time without a doubt, insi[]e the room.

  Was it an actual cr[ ]t[ ]e?[140] Or just the flare sputtering out? And what about the sound? Was it made by a be[ ] or jus[] a[]other reconfig[]ration of that absurd space; like the Khumbu Icefall; product of []ome peculiar physics?

  It seems erroneous to assert, like Pitch, that this creat[ ]e had actual teeth and claws of b[ ]e (which myth for some reason [ ] requires). [ ]t d[]d have claws, they were made of shadow and if it did have te[]th, they were made of darkness. Yet even as such the [

  ] still stalked Holl[]way at every corner until at last it did strike, devouring him, even roaring, the last thing heard, the sound []f Holloway ripped out of existence.'

  ESCAPE[141]

  Unlike Navidson, Karen does not need to watch the tape twice. She immediately starts dragging suitcases and boxes out into the rain. Reston helps.

  Navidson does not argue but recognizes that their departure is going to take more than a couple of minutes.

  "Go to a motel if you want," he tells Karen." I've still got to pack up all the video and film."

  At first Karen insists on remaining outside in the car with the children, but eventually the lure of lights, music, and the murmur of familiar voices proves too much, especially when faced with the continuing thunderstorm howling in the absence of dawn.

  Inside she discovers Tom has attempted to provide some measure of security. Not only has he bolted the four locks on the hallway door, he has gleefully established a rebarbative barricade out of a bureau, china cabinet, and a couple of chairs, crowning his work with the basinet from the foyer.

  Whether a coincidence or not, Cassady Roulet has gone to great lengths to illustrate how Tom's creation resembles a theatre:

  Note how the china cabinet serves as a backdrop, the opposing chairs as wings, the bureau, of course, providing the stage, while the basinet is none other than the set, a complicated symbol suggesting the action of the approaching play. Clearly the subject concerns war or at the very least characters who have some military history. Furthermore the basinet in the context of the approaching performance has been radically altered from its previous meaning as bastion or strong hold or safe. Now it no longer feigns any authority over the dark beyond. It inherently abdicates all pretense of significance.[142]

  Karen appreciates Tom's work on this last line of defense, but she is most

  touched by the way he comically clicks his heals and presents her with the

  colours—blue, yellow, red, and green—four keys to the hallway. An attempt to offer Karen some measure of control, or at least sense of control, over the horror beyond the door.

  It is impossible to interpret her thanks as anything but heartfelt. Tom offers a clownish salute, winning a smile from both Chad and Daisy who are still somewhat disoriented from having been awakened at five in the morning and dragged out into the storm. Only when they have disappeared upstairs does Tom lift up the basinet and pull out a bottle of bourbon.

  A few minutes later, Navidson enters the living room carrying a load of video tape and film. In all the commotion following his return, he has not yet had a spare moment to spend with his brother. That all changes, however, when he finds Tom on the floor, his head propped up against the couch, enjoying his drink.

  "Knock it off," Navidson says swiftly, grabbing the alcohol from his brother. "Now is not the time to go on a binge."

  "I'm not drunk."

  "Tom, you're lying on the floor."

  Tom takes a quick glance at himself, then shakes his head: "Navy, you know what Dean Martin said?"

  "Sure. You're not drunk if you can lie down without holding on."

  "Well look," Tom mutters, lifting his arms in the air. "No hands."

  Setting down the box he is carrying, Navidson helps his twin up.

  "Here, let me make you some coffee."

  Tom gives a noticeable sigh as he at last leans on his brother. Not till now has he been able to really face the crippling grief Navidson's absence had caused him or for that matter address the enormous relief he now feels knowing his twin did indeed survive. We watch as tears well in his eyes.

  Navidson puts his arm around him: "Come on."

  "At least when you're drunk," Tom adds, quickly wiping the wet from his face. "You've always got the floor for your best friend. Know why?"

  "It's always there for you," Navidson answers, his own cheeks suddenly flushing with emotion as he helps his weaving brother to the kitchen.

  "That's right," Tom whispers. "Just like you."

  Reston is the one who hears it first. He is alone in the living room packing up all the radios, when from behind the hallway door comes a faint grinding. It sounds miles away, though still powerful enough to cause the basinet on the bureau to tremble. Slowly the noise gathers itself, growing louder and louder, getting closer and closer, something unheralded and unfamiliar contained in its gain, evolving into a new and already misconstrued sort of menace. Reston's hands instinctively grab the wheels of his chair, perhaps expecting this new evolution within the chambers of the house to shatter the hallway door. Instead it just dies, momentarily relinquishing its threat to silence.

  Reston exhales.

  And then from behind the door comes a knock. Followed by another

  one.

  Navidson is outside loading a box of Hi 8 cassettes into the car when he sees the upstairs lights in the house go out one by one. A second later Karen screams. The pelting rain and occasional crack of thunder

  muffles the sound, but Navidson instinctively recognizes the notes of her distress. As Billy described the scene in The Reston Interview:

  Navidson's dehydrated, hasn't eaten shit for two days, and now he's dragging supplies out to the car in the middle of a thunderstorm. Every step he takes hurts. He's dead on his feet, in total survival mode, and all it takes is her voice. He drops everything. Lost some rolls o
f fdm to water damage too. Just tears through the house to get her.

  Due to the absence of any exterior cameras, all experiences outside the house rely on personal accounts. Inside, however, the wall mounted Hi 8s continue to function.

  Karen is upstairs placing her hair brushes, perfume, and jewelry box in a bag, when the bedroom begins to collapse. We watch the ceiling turn from white to ash-black and drop. Then the walls close in with enough force to splinter the dresser, snap the frame of the bed, and hurl lamps from their nightstands, bulbs popping, light executed.

  Right before the bed is sheared in half, Karen succeeds in scrambling into the strange closet space intervening between parent and child. Conceptual artist Martin Quoirez observes that this is the first time the house has "physically acted" upon inhabitants and objects:

  Initially, distance, dark, and cold were the only modes of violence. Now suddenly, the house offers a new one. It is impossible to conclude that Holloway's actions altered the physics of that space. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that its nature seems to have changed.[143]

  Karen avoids the threat in her bedroom only to find herself in a space rapidly enlarging, the size swallowing up all light as well as Daisy's barely audible cries for help.

  The darkness almost immediately crushes Karen. She collapses. Of course, there are no cameras at this point to show her lost in seizure. That history relies once again on The Reston Interview:

  Navy said it felt like he was running into the jaws of some big beast about to chomp down . . . and as you saw later on, that's— that's exactly what that ugly fucker finally did. [Reston chokes back tears] Sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . Awww fuck it still gets me.

  Anyway, Navy finds her hyperventilating on the floor. He scoops her up—supposedly she calmed down as soon as she was in his

  arms—and then all of a sudden that growl starts up again, rolling in like bad thunder.

  [Reston shifts in his wheelchair; takes a sip of water]

  Well, he runs out of there. Back through their bedroom. Barely makes it through. The door frame came down like a guillotine. Hammered Navy's shoulder and grazed Karen in the head with enough force she lost consciousness.

  I tell you Navy's one tough fucker. He kept going, down the stairs, and finally outside. And then Daisy stopped screaming.

  The next clip of Hi 8 shows Navidson reentering the house, shouting for Daisy and Chad as he sprints down the hall, heading toward the stairs in order to get back up to the children's bedroom. Then suddenly the floor drops away and he is sliding straight into the living room where he would have died had he not succeeded with one desperate flail to grab hold of the handle to one of the doors.

  The Reston Interview:

  Me, I had been trying to get the hell out of there. The knock had turned into this heavy awful pounding. The hallway door was still bolted shut and barricaded but I just knew all hell was about to break lose.

  In fact, my first thought was that it was Holloway, though that hammering was awful hard. I mean the whole wall shuddered with every hit, and I'm thinking if that is Holloway he's changed and I don't need to reacquaint myself with this new and improved version. Especially not now.

  [Reston repositions his wheelchair slightly]

  My chair was still pretty messed up so I couldn't move as fast as I normally do. Then all of a sudden, the pounding stops. Just like that. Silence. No banging, no growl, nothing. And boy, I don't know how to describe it but that silence was more powerful than any sound, any call. I had to answer it, that silence, I mean, I had to respond. I had to look.

  So I turn around—you can see some of this on the video—the door's still closed and the stuff Tom put together is still in front, though the-what-you-call-it, the helmet, has already fallen to the floor. Then the china cabinet and bureau start to sink. Slowly at first, inch by inch, and then a little faster. My

  chair begins to slide. I wedge the brakes, grip the wheels. At first I don't understand what's happening until it dawns on me that it's the floor beneath the barricade that's dropping.

  That's when I twisted around and lunged for the foyer. No chance I could have wheeled out of there. I barely managed to reach the door frame and get enough of a purchase to hang on. My chair though slipped out from under me and just rolled, end over end, down that slope.

  The floor must have sunk six, seven feet. Way below the baseboard, like the foundation had given way, except there was no fucking foundation. You expected to see cement but all there was was blackness.

  All of it—the china cabinet, bureau, coffee table, chairs—just slid down that floor and vanished over the edge. Navy would have vanished too if he hadn't got hold of that door lever.

  Thus the devouring of one theatre of the absurd leads to another. And as is true in both cases, no amount of monologue, costume, or wit can defer the insistent gravity of that void. As theatre critic Tony K. Rich once remarked: "The only option is a quick exit, stage left, and I'd also advise a cab to the airport."[144]

  The exit, however, is not so easily achieved. The Reston Interview

  again:

  Well I started yelling for help. You have to remember, my hands were all messed up from my trip down there. My grip was failing. If Navy didn't get to me fast, I was going to fall.

  So Navy starts swinging that door he's hanging on, back and forth, until he can kind of swing, kind of scramble to where he's about three feet away from me. Then he takes this deep breath, gives me half a smile, and jumps.

  That was the longest moment of them all, and then it was over. He was holding onto the door frame, hauling himself into the foyer, and then dragging me to safety. And all that with a messed up shoulder too.

  On tape, it looks like Navy just hopped over to me and that was that. But boy the way I remember it, his jump took forever.

  Though poorly lit with even poorer resolution, we can see in the video how Navidson uses the door to get in range of Reston, despite the fact that the hinges are about to give way. Luckily, he manages to jump free

  just as the door wrenches loose and tumbles into oblivion. The whole thing does not last more than a handful of seconds, but like Reston, Navidson notes how this brief bit of acdon still leaves a lasting impression. From The Last Interview:

  A few moments ended up feeling like hours. I was just dangling on that brass handle, not daring to look, though of course I did. The floor was steeper than the Lhotse Face, dropping right off into that familiar chill. I knew I had to get to Billy. I just hadn't figured out how yet. Then I heard the ripping. The hinges weren't supporting my weight.

  So I did about the only thing I could think of: I swung the door left, right, then left, and right one more time which closed the gap to a few feet from where Reston was hanging. Just as I made my jump, I heard the first hinge and then the second hinge tear free of the frame. That sound stretched the seconds into hours.

  [Pause]

  Once I made it though, everything sped up again. The next thing I knew we were both out on the front lawn getting soaked by the rain.

  You know when I finally went back to the house to retrieve the Hi 8s, I couldn't believe how quickly it had all happened. My leap looks so easy and that darkness doesn't seem dark at all. You can't see the hollow- ness in it, the cold. Funny how incompetent images can sometimes be.

  Those last words in particular may sound a bit glib, especially coming from such an esteemed photographer. Nevertheless, in spite of numerous Hi 8s mounted all over the house, Navidson is right: all the images recorded during this segment are inadequate.

  Too bad Navidson never holds a camera. The entire sequence covering the escape from the house is reminiscent of something taken off of a cheap surveillance system in a local bank or 7-Eleven. The clips are impartial renderings of a space. If the action slips past the frame, the camera does not care enough to adjust its perspective. It cannot see what matters. It cannot follow.

  Only the interviews inform these events. They alone show us how the moments br
uise and bleed.

  Outside rain overwhelms everything, drenching the street, filling the gutters, stripping trees of fall leaves. Reston sits on the grass, soaked to the bone but refusing to take shelter. Karen is still unconscious, lying in the car exactly where Navidson put her.

  Daisy and Chad, however, are still missing.

  So for that matter is Tom.

  Navidson is trying to decide how he should reenter the house when the sound of shattering glass draws him to the backyard. "It was definitely a window breaking" Reston remembers. "And when Navy heard it, he just took off running."