by Various
Portland must have been a beautiful town once. What's left of its history is still visible in the occasional patch of land that hasn't been improved or gentrified, but the rest is an architectural horror story. Whatever charm the older city had, it's fast disappearing under bloated hotels and franchises of all kinds. Between IKEA, Best Buy, and Walmart, every place is starting to look like every other place. That's why I wish I could still drive the back roads. But if the northwest is truly as haunted as I believe, then the back roads would have to be the worst place to drive alone. Green men, right? And who knows what else?
On the plus side, the World Horror Convention was one of the better conventions I've attended. Horror fans are clean, well dressed, intelligent, polite, and enthusiastic. I have no idea why this is so. (Although I do have to admit I was a little put off by the beautiful woman who came up to me and said she wanted to lick my Stoker. I wasn't sure what she meant by that, and I'm not up on this year's crop of new slang terms.)
But.…
I also have to admit to sensing a peculiar undercurrent of strained anticipation throughout the entire proceedings—a feeling like being a newcomer to a Shirley Jackson lottery drawing, as if everyone there was in on the secret. Everyone except me, that is.
And yes, Gordon, I am staying rigorous with my prescriptions, I am taking all my little yellow and white and orange pills every day, always on schedule, always with food—which is making it hard to diet. My equator continues to expand like a producer's ego (you know which one I mean), but nevertheless, despite all the various odd side effects and the excruciating need to pee every forty-five minutes, I am religiously keeping to the regimen. I say religiously because it hurts to pee now and I'm always saying, "Oh my god!" when the need suddenly and painfully punches me in the right kidney.
I have an app on my phone, another on my Kindle, a third on my laptop, and I get email warnings at the half-hour, fifteen-minute, ten-minute, and five-minute marks, plus three separate alarms to alert me to the actual moment of medication. Between you and Harlan and my son and both my agents checking up on me every week, it's like being tag-teamed by a herd of Jewish mothers with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I won't say "trust me" because in Los Angeles, that translates as "bend over," but I don't know what else I can say to reassure you that I'm all right. At least, as all right as an overweight, aging, science fiction writer with paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-esteem issues can be. (The doctor's words, not mine. And no, I am not in denial.)
Nevertheless, what I'm telling you here is true. That peculiar feeling of anticipation and dread at the convention was real. Very real. It had something to do with the awards banquet on Saturday night.
It wasn't like a Hugo Award ceremony, with everybody pretending they hadn't been campaigning like a Southern politician for the past year and a half. No, this was different. This was more like the warm up for a funeral, with everybody smiling politely and trying not to say what they really thought of the guest of honor.
When we finally got to the banquet—oh, that's another thing. There used to be Hugo banquets a long time ago. They were big and sprawling, sometimes with as many as 500 fans all dressed up in their finest kilts and jerkins, sitting in one place and behaving themselves for hours at a time.
Now there's no banquet, just an overblown award ceremony with so many thousands of people in attendance the convention has to display the whole affair on a huge screen above the stage so the people in the far-back rows can actually see what's happening. So why bother to attend when you'd have a better view staying in your hotel room and watching the Internet feed?
But the horror fans still remember the great literary tradition of an awards banquet—first you eat your dinner, then you eat your heart out. Particularly appropriate for this genre, of course.
Anyway, as a nominee, I got to sit at one of the front tables, so I had a good view of the proceedings. This did not turn out well.
To my left at the table were John Shirley and his wife Micky. John was a special guest at the convention, kind of an ancillary guest of honor, I guess. He and I agreed not to fight or otherwise embarrass each other this time and Micky sat between us as a referee. So that was good.
On my right was Ellen Datlow, who apparently knows where all the bodies are buried—and no, that is not a metaphor, I'm talking about real bodies. To her right was Roberta Lannes, whom I hadn't seen since my housewarming party forty years previous, and no, she wasn't the reason I haven't had a party at my house since. That honor belongs to—Never mind.
I'm not going to name the other people at the table, partly because I don't want to embarrass them or get them into any trouble, and partly because I don't want to risk misspelling their names, but they all had slightly worried looks on their faces and that should have been a clear signal at the outset that something was very different here from what I was expecting. They seated themselves nervously, looking around for a bit before finally deciding that this might be a safe place to endure the banquet. In fact, one of the wives even said so: "I don't think we'll be in any danger here." (That did feel vaguely insulting, yes.)
The meal itself was relatively painless, as banquet meals go. The conversation meandered lazily around a variety of politely shallow subjects—except for one unsettling moment. Every guest at the table had an attractive place mat listing the order of events for the evening, including the nominees for all the awards. There was also a pen inscribed with the Horror Writers Association so we could check off the winners as we went.
I shared a story I had heard, that the award trophies had been designed by Harlan Ellison and a sculptor named Steve Kirk—
Apparently, Harlan had gotten annoyed that so many writing awards were ugly. The Hugo looks like the hood ornament of a 1953 Oldsmobile, the Nebula is a lucite brick with a big striped marble and some glitter in it, the Edgar is supposed to look like Edgar Allan Poe but could easily be mistaken for Ayn Rand, hard to tell. The Shirley Jackson award is just a rock. (Honest!)
So Harlan Ellison—this is the way I heard it from Harlan—designed an award trophy modeled after the House of Usher, an exquisite little mansion with steep gables and crooked chimneys and narrow windows, all marvelously detailed with restless vines clawing up the sides, spidery gargoyles perching on ledges, ominous bats lurking in the belfries, and even a bit of unearthly crud creeping up from the eldritch depths beneath. The whole was elegant and ornate. Steve Kirk sculpted the final version. When you open the front door of the house, a small plaque inside reveals the name of the author and the work that won the award.
The others at the table listened politely as I repeated this. When I finished, the fellow at the opposite side of the table started to say, "Yes, that's the public story—" He was about to say more, but then his wife poked him—hard enough for everyone else at the table to notice—and he immediately fell silent.
In my confusion, I looked to Ellen Datlow for explanation, but she only leaned toward me long enough to whisper, "Be very careful. You might win." This was a prophecy I promptly ignored. I already knew I wasn't going to win.
I'll share this with you, Gordon—
When I first started writing, I went to a lot of conventions because it was an opportunity to learn from the very best authors in the field. It was my post-graduate work in how to be a science fiction writer. Many years later, when I finally felt confident enough to compile all the best advice that worked (for me, anyway) into a book about how to write science fiction and fantasy, most of the lessons were things I had learned from all the people who had ended up with grandmaster trophies on their shelves.
Most of them are gone now. The people I went to conventions to hang out with have almost all disappeared. The few cons I have attended have been populated with names and faces mostly unfamiliar to me—and I assume my own name and face are equally unfamiliar to them.
At one con, a young fan saw my badge had the "Pro" ribbon attached, so he leaned forward and squinted to read my name. "I never heard
of you," he said. "What did you write?"
I replied, "I wrote the novelization of Battle for the Planet of the Apes. " I said it with deadpan pride.
He snorted and walked off, his way of demonstrating how unimportant I was.
If you need to learn humility, attend a convention.
I do not need to learn humility. Humility is the enemy.
Writing is arrogant. Writing comes from the assumption you have something to say and that it's worth saying—and worth other people's attention. Not just their attention, their time and their money too. Writing comes from the assumption trees should die in the service of your words and ideas.
There's no humility in that. There never will be.
Nevertheless, humility is what you learn at a convention. Which may be why I don't attend many. Humility is embarrassing.
But I was at this one. The World Horror Convention. I did not know many people here. I don't know many horror writers, so this was a strange and alien environment to me. The few people I did have a chance to meet seemed to be very nice—intelligent, enthusiastic, well-groomed and well-mannered. Even elegant.
I used to love horror. I grew up reading Robert Bloch and Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson and Shirley Jackson, but I don't write horror. I've written maybe three horror stories—four, if you count The Martian Child. I can't think of anything scarier than being entrusted with custody of a child, and after you've lived with a teenager for a while, there isn't anything else that can scare you.
So I don't write horror.
And while I truly appreciate a good scary movie or a well-turned phrase that can send a chill up my spine—like Tom Lehrer's legendary lyric: "…sliding down the razor blade of life"—I haven't followed the horror genre as closely as I should have in recent years.
And that's the point. I did not know these people and the whole time I was sitting there, I was still puzzling how Night Train to Paris had gotten nominated, let alone achieved a place on the final ballot. (After I'd been told that the story was on the ballot, I'd made it available through the appropriate channels, but other than that I hadn't done anything that would have been called campaigning. I think campaigning is gauche. No—let me rephrase that. Anything that looks like overt campaigning is tacky, but if you can do it without looking like you're doing it, that's an art form in itself.)
But as many award ceremonies as I have attended over the years, there was something different about this one—like an overlying sense of dread. It was as if the nominees didn't want to win. As the various presenters began handing out awards, I sensed a curious despair in the winners' acceptance speeches—as if they weren't just being honored, but also singled out for a particularly onerous burden as well. Like winning a weekend at the Bates Motel or being gifted with a puppy named Piddles. I even heard "Why me?" and "I don't deserve this" a couple of times.
Finally, they arrived at the Superior Achievement in Short Fiction award. I was bent over my paper, trying to decide between Patrick Freivald and Lisa Mannetti as the most likely winner when I heard my name called and Ellen Datlow poked me viciously in the ribs. I looked up—looked across the table and saw the horrified expressions of our table mates.
As I stood, Micky hugged me intensely and whispered, "It'll be all right, David. You'll be fine. Just don't—" I didn't hear the end of the sentence. Someone else was pushing me forward.
There's a video on the Internet of me accepting the trophy. I put the thing on the podium in front of me, somewhat terrified at being put on the spot, and stared at it in confusion and surprise. I think I look drunk, exhausted, or embarrassed—possibly all three at the same time. (Except I wasn't drinking.)
I had not prepared an acceptance speech. I had not expected to win. I didn't know many people in the Horror Writers Association. I'd never attended a World Horror Convention before. I hadn't campaigned for the award. I had no idea how my story ended up on the ballot, so I just read off the names of the other nominees—Michael Bailey, Patrick Freivald, Lisa Mannetti, John Palisano, and Michael Reaves—and said, "You guys are the reason I didn't prepare a speech." Not having prepared a speech, I didn't have a good exit line, so I simply said thank you and stumbled off the stage, wondering what had just happened.
Back in my seat, when I finally recovered my breath, I realized the whole atmosphere at the table had changed. It was as if everybody had moved their chairs ten feet away. The woman who had told her husband this would be a safe place to sit now looked abashed, her husband angry. They hastily excused themselves even before the award ceremony had concluded. Their exit was covered by a standing ovation for William F. Nolan, who was being honored for his book of essays about Ray Bradbury.
It only got weirder. After the last presentation, as the banquet broke up into its various factions, John and Micky quickly disappeared, Ellen Datlow as well. No one came up to say congratulations. No one approached at all.
I found myself standing alone with traffic parting around me as if I were a human pothole. But I wasn't the only one. The other award winners, whether still sitting stunned at their tables or standing forlorn in the aisles, were similarly isolated. People were avoiding them—us—as if we had suddenly become infectious.
Gordon, I tell you—at first, I thought it was rudeness, and I do know rudeness. I'm a science fiction fan. I've been to Worldcon. I've attended SFWA meetings. (Don't ask.) I've had fans come up to me and say, "You're not so hot." I've had fellow authors accuse me of—Never mind, I don't need to reawaken that rumor. I was once even refused admittance to the Hugo losers party, despite having lost more Hugos than most of the guests combined.
But this wasn't like that. This wasn't your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill fannish rudeness. This was something else. This was fear —a very deliberate and studied retreat, a pretense of normalcy while not-so-casually drifting toward the door.
I've been to other award banquets. Despite my (well-earned) reputation for a legendary lack of social skills, I still know how guests are supposed to behave at an event like this. Normally, people crowd around to congratulate the winners and admire the trophy. This was…disturbingly wrong.
At first, I thought it was just me they were avoiding. That was understandable—I didn't know many people here, and it made sense that everybody would rush to hang out with their friends, so it puzzled me that all of the other award winners were standing alone too, holding their little Usher mansions away from their bodies.
It's a curious piece of work. It looks like it's cast in some kind of resin. In the right light, it's almost translucent. And it's warm, sometimes uncomfortably warm, as if there's something burning inside. That must be an illusion, an artifact of the resin. It absorbs heat and holds it. I'm not sure.
I wandered over to the after-party and experienced the same anti-social phenomenon. Few people wanted to talk to me. I put the award down on a table in the corner of the room, went and got a glass of wine. Without the trophy under my arm, I had a little better luck meeting people, but not much. I began to wonder if the Horror Writers Association was so insular an institution that I was seen as an outsider, even a pariah—but if that were so, then why had they handed me their most coveted award?
After a few more fruitless attempts at socializing, I gave up, grabbed the trophy, and headed back to Dennis'. He oohed and aahed over the award, commiserated with me about the weirdness I'd experienced at the convention, and ascribed it to the general weirdness of Portland and why he intended to move further south—a lot further south. Like San Diego. Someplace where the sun shines every day, whether it wants to or not. (Myself, I'm holding out for Hawaii, where the sun shines even at night.)
I posted a note on Facebook about the outcome of the awards, then crawled off to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I thought I heard noises, like a muffled argument behind closed doors. But it might just have been one of my strange dreams.
Did I tell you I've been having strange dreams? Maybe it's the medication, but a quick perusal of my d
ream journal reveals a disturbing trend:
I'm dreaming again about that enigmatic metropolis I call Endless City, always the same, always different, I know it and I don't—it's a place that can be reached only by the road not taken. It hides just behind the façade of what we call reality. What happens there isn't supernatural, it's just different. There are no billboards in Endless City, few people, and it's perpetually overcast, as if it's always about to snow—but it never does. It feels like a video game environment where you have to keep driving through an almost-real landscape in search of something important, but you're not sure what, or why.
This time, this dream, there was something behind me, not quite chasing, but not benign either. Dark figures. No, not zombies. Zombies don't scare me—remember, I've been to Comic-Con. These things were from someplace deeper in the subprimal cortex. Perhaps one day they will catch me.
Perhaps, the dark figures that pursue me in dreams are simply the essence of fear—hollow wisps with no real substance. But what if they're not? What if there really is something beneath the thin veneer of consciousness that is so far beyond comprehension, all we can do is anthropomorphize its manifestations into spidery stalkers or killer clowns or just dark clouds of unease that fill the shadows under the bed or the dark corners of the closet?
I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to know. I'm more comfortable in a mechanistic universe where every odd thing that happens is really just a bit of confusion in a superstitious observer. But I'm still not ready to find out what happens if you die in a dream. So I drive the blue '62 Mustang convertible through the twisting curves of the gloomy mountain roads, heading toward a sanctuary I'll never reach because it doesn't exist. Sometimes, he is with me, but not tonight. Tonight, I'm alone.
In the morning, Dennis wasn't there when I surfaced. Instead, there was a note on the counter. Apologies. Sorry we can't do a day-trip along the Columbia River to see the falls and the fish ladder. Next time, maybe. Have a safe drive home.