Dane and Victor flew in from Denver for the long-planned and plotted journey through the hills and dales of our fair state. The plan included them spending a week or so doing the tourist bit in town before we lit out into the wilds. I knew the fellows through Glenn who’d attended college with them. Dane managed telecommunications and advertising for the Denver Broncos. A rugged blond with a flattened nose and cauliflower ears from amateur boxing matches and tavern brawls. His partner Victor was stocky and bald and decidedly non-violent. He’d inherited a small fortune from his parents and devoted his time to editing an online poetry journal of repute. The journal was once mentioned by then U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins in his weekly column. Victor was a Charles Simic and Mark Strand man and I liked him from the start. Glenn referred to them as Ebony and Ivory on account of Victor’s resemblance to a young Stevie Wonder and Dane’s being as white as a bar of soap.
We threw a party and invited a few friends from Glenn’s company and some writer and photographer colleagues of mine. Glenn barbequed steak on the back porch. I mixed a bunch of Margaritas in pitchers and after dinner we sat around drinking as the sky darkened and the stars came out.
The big news was Dane and Victor had gotten hitched in California before Proposition Eight overturned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This was a year and a half gone by, so their visit was part vacation and part honeymoon. I confess to a flash of jealousy at the matching rings, the wallet of sepia tone wedding photos and the sea of family and friends in those photos. The permanence of their relationship galled me and I loathed myself for it. Glenn hadn’t proposed and I was too stubborn, too afraid of rejection to propose to him. I slipped away while everybody was laughing about the wedding high jinks.
Glenn sauntered in as I was rinsing the dishes and put his arm around me and kissed my cheek. He was tall and lanky and had to lean over to do it. I’d drunk four or five Margaritas in the meantime and my eyes were watery and doubtless red. He was oblivious, not that I held it against him. Glenn could be tender and thoughtful and wasn’t so much indifferent as clueless. Despite his interest in classical music, literature and art, a possibly less wholesome, but no less cerebral, fascination with the esoteric and the occult, he didn’t like to think very deeply about certain things. His father was dead; a career railroad man, second generation Irish, he dropped in his traces from a heart attack when Glenn was fifteen. Glenn’s parents had known he was gay since grade school and they accepted him. Everything came easy. He cheerfully took what we had for granted as he took everything else for granted. The guy read books and worked with strings of code, for Christ’s sake. Truly a miracle he possessed any social graces whatsoever.
As for me, my father had been a white boy from the Bronx who served thirty years in the Army, the last decade of it as a colonel. My mother was a former Brazilian teen queen bathing beauty who married Dad to get the hell out of her hometown. Dad passed away in his sleep from an overdose of sleeping pills a few weeks before I met Glenn. I sometimes wondered if it’d been accidental, or closer to the protagonist’s opt-out in that famous little novel by Graham Greene. Mom pretended I’d court a fine young lady one day soon and sire a brood of kids. My three brothers were scattered across the world. The eldest kept in touch from India. Otherwise, I received birthday cards, the odd phone call or email, and that was that. Glenn kissed me again—hard and on the mouth, and he tasted sweetly of booze. I wiped my eyes and grinned and let it ago like I always did.
Gnats and mosquitoes descended. The guests retreated to the living room. Glenn put on music and began serving another round of drinks from the wet bar. I fetched Moderor de Caliginis and took it to my office. An examination of the book revealed phone numbers and mailing addresses amidst the other text, although considering the edition’s publishing date, I assumed most were dead ends. In tiny print on the copyright page was a line that read SUBMISSIONS with a P.O. box address in Walla Walla.
Meanwhile, the party was in full gear. Between songs, raucous laughter floated to me. My CDs—Glenn preferred classical music; Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, Sibelius. That wouldn’t do at our casual get-togethers. Somebody sang along to the choruses of Neil Sedaka, Miles Davis, and Linda Ronstadt, a step behind and off-key. Daulton, our grizzled tomcat, jumped onto the easy chair near my desk and went to sleep. Old Daulton was a comforting soul.
I hunched over my computer monitor and ran searches of key phrases from the book. A guy in Germany claimed there were numerous versions of The Black Guide—he’d acquired editions for regions in France, Spain, Portugal, and South Africa. A college student in Pullman wrote of a friend of a friend who’d used the book to explore caves in Yakima. That struck me as odd—I wasn’t familiar with any notable caves in Washington. Another man, an anthropologist named Berman, explained that several of the entries provided contact information for practitioners of the occult. During the late 1990s he’d visited some of these persons and joined them in séances, divinations, and fertility rituals. He was currently a professor at Central Washington University. On a lark, I sent him an email, noting I’d inherited a copy of the guide.
The most interesting item I retrieved during my three lonely hours at the keyboard was the journal of an individual from Ellensburg who went by the handle of Rose. Rose started her journal in April, 2007. There were three entries—the first talked about not really wanting a journal at all, but keeping one on the advice of her therapist. The second was a twenty-five hundred word essay on her travels abroad and eventually finding The Black Guide at a gift shop in Ellensburg. Apparently Rose had sought the book for several years and was elated. The guide contained a listing of secret attractions, hidden places, and persons “in the know” regarding matters esoteric and arcane. In the final entry, she mentioned packing for a trip with three friends to the “tomb” on the Olympic Peninsula and would make a full report on her return. The journal hadn’t been updated since June, 2007. Nonetheless, I left an anonymous message inquiring after her status. This satisfied me in a perverse way—it felt as if I’d thrown her a lifeline.
I signed off around three a.m. Glenn was already in bed and snoring. I lay beside him and stared at the pale reflection of streetlights on the ceiling. Who was Rose? Young, pretty, wounded. Or, maybe not. The kind of girl who took pictures of herself in period costumes. Pale, thick mascara, in her rhinestone purse a deck of tarot cards she’d inherited from an older woman, a long lost sweetheart. Rose was a girl with many friends and lovers, yet who was usually alone. I pressed The Black Guide against the breast of my pajamas and wondered where she was at that moment. I dreamed of her that night, but in the morning all I remembered was flying above an endless forest and the rocky bluff of a small mountain, and into a cave that swallowed me whole.
3.
“C’mon. Tell Willem a Tommy story,” Glenn wore a loopy smirk. He’d done one too many shots of Cuervo.
“Oh, yes!” Victor pounded his empty glass on the table.
“Okay, okay. Here’s one about Thomas-san,” Dane said. His hair was tousled, his cheeks were flushed. He eyed me with an intensity that indicated such a story symbolized a great confidence, that I was on the verge of admittance to the inner circle.
This was in the early evening after hiking up and down Queen Anne Hill since breakfast, peeking into shops, trying the innumerable bistros and pubs on for size, and yelling raucous comments at the construction boys ripping apart the sidewalk in front of the Phoenician Theatre. Now we were just off campus at a corner booth in a dimly lighted hole in the wall called The Angry Norseman. We’d drunk with the vigor of sailors on shore leave the entire day and were almost sober again. A gaggle of college students in University of Washington sweatshirts congregated at the bar and overflowed the tables. It was getting rowdy.
“Who the hell is Tommy?” I said.
“A short, stubby guy who took six years to graduate,” Glenn said. Older than us. Balding, but he had this Michael Bolton thing going on. Hair down to his bum. Managed a pizza parlor.�
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“Mean sonofabitch,” Dane said. “He’d get drunked up and pick fights with the frat boys. One of ‘em whacked him in the head with a golf club. Just pissed him off.”
“I remember that.” Glenn chuckled and licked the salt from his wrist. He downed his tequila. His eyes were bright. “Cops locked him in the tank overnight and slapped him with disorderly conduct.”
“A real loveable asshole,” Dane said.
Glenn said, “He got killed waterskiing a couple years ago. First time out, too. Strapped on a pair of skis and got his neck broken fifteen minutes later. Tried to jump a ramp. Dunno who the hell was driving. All their fault, y’know.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
Glenn patted my hand and shrugged. “Whole thing was moronic. Sorta fit, though. He was gonna go out from a rotten liver, a motorcycle accident, or a prison fight. That’s just how it was with the crazy fool.”
“Wait, that’s—” Victor closed his mouth.
Dane said, “Anyway. This isn’t really a Tommy story per se. We had this other buddy named Max. Ol’ Maximus was a real cocksman and he was cozy with this little rich girl who was going to an all girl school on the other end of town. A real honey.”
“Hear, hear,” Glenn raised his glass. “Glittery green eye-shadow, Catholic schoolgirl skirts and thigh-high lace-up boots. Ruff!”
“Right, right. Becky Rimmer.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Her name was Rimmer. Kinda unfortunate. Her folks were out of town and she invited Max over for the weekend, and me, Glenn, Thomas and Vicky latched on. Becky didn’t like it much, but what the hell was she gonna do? So we arrive at the house—and man, it’s posh. A gaming room with a kickass sound system and a stocked bar. We were in seventh heaven. She laid down the ground rules—be careful with the new pool table and hands off Daddy’s scotch. No problem! Max promised.
“Becky disappears with Max for some nooky. First thing—Tommy, who’s already high as a kite, decides to shoot some pool. He misses the cue ball and digs a three inch groove in the felt.”
“And the booze?” I said.
Dane pantomimed guzzling from a bottle. “Heh, Thomas had her old man’s supply of Dewar’s in his guts in short order. Pretty quick, Tommy gets bored and decides to check on Becky and Max who’ve locked themselves in Daddy’s den and are making like wild animals. Tommy gets some tools from the garage and the next thing we know, he’s standing on a stool and drilling a hole in the door to make a peephole. Laughing like a lunatic, sawdust piling on his shoes.”
Victor said, “Me and Dane dragged him away from the door and gave him some more booze. Things are going okay until there’s a crash from the den and Max starts hollering. Turns out, he was banging the girl on a glass coffee table and at the height of the rumpy pumpy it shattered and she dropped through. They were going at it doggy-style, so she sliced her arms and knees. Nothing serious, but it looked awful. Blood and jizz everywhere.”
“Yeah,” Dane said. “A scene from one of Takashi Miike’s films. Naturally, we took her to the hospital. The docs gave her some sutures and bandaged her head to toe. Many awkward questions were asked. Max drives her home and the rest of us split. Mom and Dad get back early. Becky’s lying in bed trying to think of a story when she hears her mom in the study go, ‘Oh. My. God. What is this filth—?’ And, as Mommy dearest comes through the door waving her daughter’s soiled undergarments, from downstairs her dad bellows, ‘WHO THE HELL DRANK MY DEWAR’S?’ ”
I laughed so hard my side ached. “What did she do?”
“Girl was a soap opera junkie. She squinted and said in a pitiful whisper, ‘Mommy? Mommy? Is that you?’ ”
Glenn bought us another round. Conversation turned to the impending trip. Victor unfolded a sheet of paper and showed us notes he’d made in heavy pencil. On the itinerary was a day hike on Mount Vernon, a tour of the Tacoma Museum of Glass, a leisurely day in the state capital of Olympia, then a blank slate. There’d definitely be a night or two camping on the Peninsula; where was yet to be settled. Victor said, “That leaves us some days to check out the sights. Maybe visit Port Angeles?”
After much noncommittal mumbling from the three of them, I took The Black Guide from my pocket and thumbed through the section on the Olympic Peninsula. “The Lavender Festival in Sequim is coming up. Port Angeles is close by, and Lake Crescent. Glenn and I stayed at the lodge a few years ago. Gorgeous scenery.”
“Absolutely,” Glenn said. Victor said, “I hear it’s spooky. The Lady of the Lake murders . . . ”
“Oh, that was ages ago,” I said, albeit it made me uneasy that I’d recently read a passage in the guide documenting the scandalous tale. Too many coincidences were accumulating for my taste.
Dane took the guide and turned it toward the dim lamp hanging above our table. He grinned. “Vicky, look at this!” Victor leaned in and scanned the page. Dane said, “This thing is a kick in the pants. Says there’s a hotel in Centralia where they hold séances once a month. And a . . . dolmen up a trail on Mystery Mountain.”
“See,” I said. “we should put Sequim on the calendar. Go visit this dolmen after we see how the lavender jelly gets made.”
“What’s that, anyhow?” Dane said.
“A prehistoric tomb,” Glenn said. “There aren’t any dolmen in this state. Maybe I’m wrong, but it sounds fishy.” He spent an inordinate amount of time cruising Wikipedia. “Up a trail, eh?”
“About seventeen or eighteen miles up a crappy road, more like. The Kalamov Dolmen and Cavern. There are some campsites. It’s on the edge of a preserve.” Victor stroked his goatee.
Dane said, “This is a seriously cool idea. I gotta see it. I gotta.” He poked Victor in the ribs and laughed.“C’mon, baby. This sounds awesome, don’t it?”
Victor agreed that it indeed sounded awesome. Glenn promised to arrange for a bed and breakfast in Sequim and to make a few calls regarding the mysterious dolmen. If nothing else, the park seemed as decent a place as any to camp for a night or two. The guide mentioned trout in the mountain streams. I wasn’t much for the sport, but Glenn and Dane had dabbled in fly fishing.
Once I got the guide back, I studied the entry on the Kalamov Dolmen and its attendant notes in the appendix, which included references to celestial phases and occultation rites. I didn’t know what any of that stuff meant. Nonetheless, we’d have lively anecdotes for future vacation slide shows and a story to tell, I was certain.
4.
Glenn and I frequently made love the first year we were together. Not so much later. We were perpetually exhausted because of project deadlines, hostile takeovers at the workplace and, of late, the ever shrinking newspaper circulation. Glenn had climbed the ladder by dint of overtime and weekends; I still received more commissions than I could shake a stick at. Familiarity took its toll as well.
Once Dane and Victor arrived, Glenn tried to fuck me every night. That hurt my feelings. I knew he was jealous of Victor—Victor was a flirt and he came on to me in a not too serious way. Glenn laughed it off, however, when the lights dimmed. . . . He was also a territorial sonofabitch and it aroused him that they were screwing like rabbits down the hall. I tried not to let it bother me too much, although I drew the line at him groping me while dead drunk. That night, after we piled into a cab and finally made it home from the Angry Norseman, I smacked his hands away as he kept grabbing at my zipper. He persisted. I lurched downstairs and crashed on the couch, a maneuver I hadn’t resorted to since our last real argument the year prior.
There was a special on the History Channel. A crack team of geologists and a film crew were mucking about Spain, exploring caverns and whatnot. My eyelids drooped. I slowly emerged from a doze to hear a man discussing holy rites among the Klallam tribes and other ancient peoples of the Pacific Northwest. He described burial mounds along the Klallam River and the locations of megaliths and dolmens throughout Western Washington. I was confused, second-guessing Glenn’s assertions that no ancient
megaliths or dolmen existed in our state, but the narrator continued: Of particular interest is the Kalamov Cavern site near Mystery Mountain National Park. The Kalamov Dolmen, named after Dr. Boris Kalamov, who discovered it in 1849, is remarkable in its size and antiquity. A relic of the Neolithic Age . . . 3000 B.C. Perhaps older. A word of caution is in order. There is a dangerous . . . The monologue faded and someone wailed in pain.
I lifted my head and the room was full of blue, unfocused light. The television screen skipped, and ghostly figures shifted between bars of static. Soundless because I’d hit the mute button prior to nodding off. Every channel was full of snow and shadow, except for the ones with the black bar saying NO SIGNAL. Unsettled without knowing precisely why, I rubbed my eyes and went to the window. The neighborhood was blanketed in darkness but for a scattering of porch lights. The cityscape was hidden by the canopy of the trees. I hugged myself against an inexplicable chill as I attempted to recall the odd commentary of the dream.
Turning, I saw a man sitting in the armchair in the corner near the pine shelf that housed a meager selection of my books. A burst of light from the TV screen revealed this wasn’t Glenn or our guests. I was woozily drunk—the topknot, the surly, piggish features, the short, bulky frame, was precisely how I’d envisioned the inimitable Tommy of college lore. He reclined, mostly concealed in shadow, but I saw he was naked, one thick leg folded across the other to artfully cover his manhood. His flesh was very pale; the flesh of a creature who’d dwelt in a sunless grotto for ages. He raised a finger to his lips. “I’ve just come to talk,” he said, imparting menace with the over enunciation of each syllable, hinting that on any other day I’d experience something other than conversation. “Scream, and our buddy Glenn is going to come running. He’ll trip over Vicky’s jacket on the top step and roll down the stairs. It’ll be a mess, trust me.”
New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird Page 7