The Night Ocean

by Paul La Farge

  Holding the foil-wrapped bottle of Burgundy he’d picked up on his way out of the airport, Charlie stepped from winter into a season that exists only in the houses of old people, a hot, dry season that reeked of cat litter and mentholated spray. A plaid wool jacket and some hats hung on wooden pegs, beside an aluminum walker with tennis balls on its front feet. Immediately to the left was a staircase hung with interesting-looking photographs, but: “In here,” the voice called. Charlie followed it to the kitchen, which was done up in faded greens and yellows. Barlow sat by the window. Charlie had expected him to be decrepit, but he looked robust, like an athletic seventy-year-old. He wore a brown sweater, creased slacks, a white open-collar shirt. A few strands of black hair were combed back from his wide skull. He was smoking a pipe; its smoke coiled complexly in the beams of winter light that shone through the parted chintz curtains. “Are you the electrician?” he asked. “I’m Charlie Willett,” Charlie said. “I talked to you on the phone the other day.” “Oh,” Barlow said, “yes, of course. I didn’t know you were . . .” “Here,” Charlie said, holding out the bottle of wine, “I brought you something from Toronto.” “Thank you,” Barlow said. He smiled with real warmth. “Tell me,” he said, “how did you find me?” Charlie told him about the clues: the mention in All Our Yesterdays, the application for Canadian citizenship, the Montreal matchbook he’d found in Yoh-Vombis. Barlow looked pleased. “You’re very good,” he said. “What about Kansas City?” “What?” Charlie asked. “Never mind,” Barlow said. “Would you like something to eat?” “No, thanks,” Charlie said. “Well, then,” Barlow said, “I suppose we should get started. Do you have a tape recorder?” Charlie took out his phone. Barlow looked at it with wonder. “That’s a tape recorder?” he asked. “Yes,” Charlie said. “We don’t have flying cars, but we’ve got great phones.” Barlow winced. “Why do you say that?” he asked. “I just meant, reality never caught up with the old science fiction dreams,” Charlie said. Barlow looked at him suspiciously. “No,” he said, after a while, “from that point of view, we’re still living in the past.”

  3.

  CW: Just for the record, will you say your name?

  RHB: My name is Robert Hayward Barlow.

  CW: OK, Mr. Barlow. Where do you want to start?

  RHB: [Laughs.] You know, I’ve thought about this moment for years, but I’ve never considered where to begin.

  CW: I could ask you questions.

  RHB: Yes, go ahead.

  CW: Is the Erotonomicon real, or is it a fake?

  RHB: I did my work well! It’s the latter. Very much the latter.

  CW: You made it up.

  RHB: All, except the parts that are true.

  CW: Except . . . Let’s come back to that. I think I understand why you did it. You wanted to get back at Derleth, and Wandrei, and the rest of Lovecraft’s friends. The book was revenge for what they had done to you.

  RHB: Wandrei especially, and also Sam Loveman. I didn’t care so much about Derleth, who was just trying to get Lovecraft published. We actually became friendly, years later.

  CW: What I don’t understand is why you took it back.

  RHB: Who says I took it back?

  CW: Don Pablo was your friend. He wouldn’t have written that letter if you didn’t want him to. Also, if you don’t mind my saying so, there’s no way in the world he would have sent it to Galaxy. He probably didn’t even know what Galaxy was.

  RHB: [Laughs.] Actually, he did. Don Pablo was a science fiction fan.

  CW: Oh. But the investigation was a sham, wasn’t it? You told Armstrong where to look. If there was a real Armstrong.

  RHB: There was. A friend of mine in New York. He sold stoves.

  CW: So, OK, why? You had your revenge. Why take it back?

  RHB: Can’t you guess?

  CW: Tell me.

  RHB: Howard! In the end, I loved him too much. I thought I didn’t, but I was wrong. And when my scheme had succeeded far beyond anything I had imagined, and Howard was in danger of being really forgotten, I decided to end it. So I made myself into a cartoon balloon, and gave Don Pablo the pin.

  CW: Were you in love with him?

  RHB: Oh, a little. Don Pablo was dashing. Have you seen a photo of him? I’ll show you one, if you like. My albums are in the study.

  CW: I meant, with Lovecraft.

  RHB: You don’t know? Then that’s where I’ll begin. [Pause.] Where did you grow up?

  CW: New York City. Why?

  RHB: I grew up on army bases in Kansas, then Georgia, before we moved to Florida. Everywhere I went, I looked for people who were like me, and didn’t find them. By the time I was seven or eight, I had begun to wonder whether I belonged anywhere, to any people in the world, and even if the world was worth belonging to. That feeling persisted until I found Howard’s work. He was the first person I ever knew who believed as deeply as I did that the world was awful, absurd, and utterly indifferent to everything that had the misfortune to live in it. But there’s a strange consolation to knowing that someone else shares your despair. Or no—not consolation. The word I want is exhilaration. When I read Howard’s stories, I felt for the first time that I was not alone.

  CW: I know what you mean.

  RHB: Do you? Well. I wrote to Howard, and he replied. Weird Tales had just rejected At the Mountains of Madness, and he was very bitter about it. Despite that bitterness, or maybe because of it, he answered my questions patiently, and we started to correspond. I felt it absolutely: Howard was one of my people, or I was one of his. So, naturally, I wanted to meet him. He mentioned that he went to Florida sometimes in the summer, and I invited him to visit me in Cassia.

  CW: Why did Lovecraft accept your invitation?

  RHB: I suppose he thought my company would be congenial. I was a weird fiction fan; we had very similar taste. Also, you have to remember that Howard had no money. He couldn’t afford to stay in hotels, and here I was, offering him a free bed for as long as he wanted it.

  CW: So he came to Florida. What happened?

  RHB: He got off the bus in DeLand, carrying his black bag . . . Do you know about his bag?

  CW: Yes.

  RHB: No matter how far he traveled, he took only one small black bag, made of imitation leather. It contained writing paper, underwear, and two shirts. Why should I carry more? he said. I don’t need it. Of course, if I had a train of native bearers, or an elephant . . . [Coughs.]

  CW: Are you all right?

  RHB: Yes. Howard came right up to me. Barlovius, I presume, he said, and held out his hand. I remember thinking that he looked a little like Dante. His hair was more gray than I had expected, and he was wearing a rather old blue suit. Also, he had thick lips, not protruding ones, but broad, broad lips, which were purplish in color.

  CW: You weren’t attracted to him.

  RHB: I wasn’t thinking about that. I hadn’t even considered him as a physical being until that moment. He was so much older than I was! And all this time, Howard was standing there, with his hand out. I shook it. Then he pirouetted on his foot, and said, Ah, DeLand! I had a memorable cheese sandwich here, in the summer of ’31. I tried to take his bag, but he wouldn’t let it go, and we stood there with both our hands on it. Then he laughed and let go. We got in my parents’ old blue Ford, and I drove us home.

  CW: Where Lovecraft met your mother.

  RHB: Bernice, yes.

  CW: I have to ask. How did your mother think it was OK for this forty-three-year-old man to live with you for, what was it, seven weeks?

  RHB: Closer to eight. But you underestimate me. Bernice didn’t know that Howard would stay so long. For that matter, neither did Howard. He had the idea that he would continue south to the Keys, and take a boat to Havana, if he didn’t run out of money. I, however, had a different idea, which was, that Howard would keep me company. Each time he mentioned the Keys, I re
membered one of the as-yet unvisited wonders of our region. Oh, the Spanish sugar mill in De Leon Springs! Oh, the old mission in New Smyrna Beach! I was the Scheherazade of Central Florida. Then I’d go to Bernice and inform her that Howard would be staying for another day or two. That said, I don’t think she minded having him around. Unlike my father, he wasn’t insane, and he had very good manners.

  CW: Lovecraft must have wanted to stay, too.

  RHB: Oh, yes. You can’t convince people unless they want to be convinced.

  CW: Tell me what the two of you did, when you were together.

  RHB: Well, let’s see. We went for a lot of walks. We’d walk on the highway to Cassia, which was just a general store and a pool hall, although for some reason there were two post offices, one in the general store and the other up on a hill, in a kind of shed. We had to stop by both, because Howard was always expecting letters, and we didn’t know which post office would have them. We rowed on the lake behind my house. The Moon Pool, Howard called it, after the story by A. Merritt.* We went up to Silver Springs, to ride in the glass-bottomed boats they had there . . . You know, that was where they filmed the movie of Tarzan, in Silver Springs.

  CW: What else?

  RHB: We talked. Howard knew all the people I had been corresponding with, the weird-fiction authors and fans. He told me what they were like. I remember him complaining about Belknap Long’s mustache. It makes Belknapius look like an anarchist, he said. Or, rather, it would, if it were entirely grown in. As it is, it makes him look like a Democrat! [Laughs.] We read to each other. Howard read his own stories aloud very well. His speaking voice was high and thin, but when he read aloud it became deeper. Sepulchral, he would have called it. [In a deep voice:] “But by God, Eliot, it was a photograph from life!”* He could have been a wonderful radio host. Let’s see. What else did we do? He watched me work on my letterpress. He encouraged me to make a business of it, putting out editions of weird fiction and poetry. If only I kept at it, he said, I could be the Caxton of the weird. Do you know Caxton?

  CW: He printed Bibles, right?

  RHB: Yes, very good! I remember one morning we drove up to St. Augustine. Howard had spent a month there, in 1931, and he knew everything there was to know about the old Spanish buildings. He led me around for hours. Finally, I said, Stop, please, stop! What’s wrong? Howard asked. What’s wrong? I said. My feet are coming off, that’s what. Howard was contrite. Darn it, Barlovius, he said, you know I’m here at your pleasure. You have to tell me when I get to be too much.

  CW: In the Erotonomicon, there’s a scene at the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Leche, where you and Howard kiss for the first time. Did something happen there?

  RHB: Ah, the chapel. Have you seen it? Not very impressive, really. Just a Mission-style box, very plain inside, with a lot of novena candles, and prayers for fertility on slips of blue paper. La Señora de la Leche, you know, is the fertility aspect of the Virgin Mary. As usual, Howard wasn’t satisfied until he had not only read every prayer, but found a nun to ask who had built the chapel, and when, and why, and who was buried in the cemetery next door. Then we sat on a bench by the graves. What do you think of this, Bobby, Howard said: The chapel was built on the ruins of an aboriginal mound, which was consecrated to a fertility goddess, but not one of your cleaned-up Christian ones. Ceres, maybe. Some people believe the Romans made it to the New World, you know! He pulled a story out of the air, about poor Spanish families with an unusual number of children, and a doctor who comes to vaccinate them, one August, at the time of the harvest. The children all resemble one another strangely, as if they had the same father, who was not quite human . . . [Pause.] I wanted to kiss his neck. You have to understand, I hadn’t thought anything like that about Howard before. I knew that I was attracted to men, and I’d even had a sordid little affair with a medical student at Stetson.* But until that moment I had thought of Howard as an older brother, a very admired older brother, unlike my brother, Wayne, with whom I had more or less nothing in common. I hadn’t imagined that I would be in a position to kiss him, any more than I believed that by saying the right words in the right order, I could summon Yog-Sothoth from beyond the stars. But I could, that was what I suddenly understood. I could! Howard was two feet from me. The sun had turned his skin an attractive pinkish brown. I could, but I didn’t dare. Ceres? I said. That sounds promising.

  CW: And then?

  RHB: And then we bought ice cream cones, and ate them on the Bridge of Lions. You couldn’t go anywhere with Howard without eating ice cream.

  CW: Ah.

  RHB: A few days later, I drove him to De Leon Springs, to see the Spanish sugar mill. Howard was ecstatic. You know, Barlovius, he said, we think of this as the New World, but it’s surprisingly old, in parts. He sighed. I think I could be content here. I could never imagine myself a Spaniard, of course, but I might be a renegade Englishman who had turned up in the middle of the swamps. I pointed out that the swamps were to the south of us. Don’t quibble, Howard said. Allow an old man his delusions. We wandered through the grounds and went into the forest. You see, I said. Dry land! Impudent youth, Howard said. Half an hour later, we came to a clearing, and Howard asked if I wanted to rest. Sure, I said. We sat on some springy moss, which Howard stroked absently, as if it were a cat. Howard, I said, do you think it’s strange that you’re my friend? Why would it be strange? Howard asked. Because you’re so much older than I am, I said. Howard laughed. You know, Barlovius, he said, when I think of my four-year-old self, I have to imagine him, the way I imagine the lives of the ancient Romans. But when I think of myself at your age, no transformation is necessary. I am that person, essentially, still. Why, do you think it’s strange? I think it’s strange that we’re friends, I said. With the feeling that I was launching myself into a very powerful and very frightening obscurity, I took Howard’s hand. Then, disaster. Howard jerked his hand out of mine, and stood up. What in Pegāna’s name are you doing? he asked. When I didn’t answer, he said, Let’s go back to the mill. I want to look at it again before supper. I wanted to scream. I’d revealed myself to Howard, and he was disgusted. Now he would go home and tell all of our friends what had happened, and everyone would shun me. I was thinking of how to save myself, when Howard stopped at the forest’s edge. Barlovius, he said, I’m sorry if I spoke too brusquely. You startled me. But I don’t see that there’s any need for that, between us. If it has a place anywhere! He gave a speech about all the various societies which had considered homosexuality a criminal offense, beginning with the Zoroastrians and concluding with the incarceration of Oscar Wilde. It took fifteen minutes. Which only goes to show that it is naturally repugnant to the overwhelming bulk of mankind, he said, by way of conclusion. As if I didn’t know that already.

  CW: Then what happened?

  RHB: Howard stayed for nearly another month. We never talked about what had happened at De Leon Springs, and I tried to put it out of my mind. Howard apparently did the same, although now and then he said something that made me think he had judged me in a way that couldn’t be reversed. Once, for example, we went to Daytona. We were standing on a corner by the beach, talking about the fearsome things that came from the ocean, or might come, when a young colored man—excuse me, a young black man—beckoned to us. He wore paint-streaked overalls, and his arms were white with plaster dust. He was leaning against a mailbox, with a can of beer in his hand and a bag of tools at his feet. I suppose he would have liked to be on the beach, but it was closed to colored people. To black people. I couldn’t help noticing that he had beautiful golden eyes. You want to know what’s out there? he asked. Howard looked at him with horror and shook his head. Take it easy! the stranger said. I’m too worn out to give you folks any trouble. Howard tried to pull me away, but I didn’t go, and he ended up walking ahead by himself. What’s out there? I asked. Well, the stranger said, before the crash, they were going to build houses, on land they took from digging the foundati
ons for other houses, and dumped in the ocean. He told me a story about surveyors marking out streets, and dividing the seabed into lots that had been sold, according to the tramp, to some of the most respectable families in America. I thanked him for this information and rejoined Howard. You do like queer people, don’t you? he snapped. I was just curious, I said. Weren’t you? Not at all, Howard said. Perhaps it’s a failing, but my curiosity is reserved for the larger currents of history. Individual particularities have always depressed me. He didn’t say another word all afternoon.

  CW: Huh.

  RHB: I told myself that my desire for Howard was stupid and unreal. When I felt like I’d explode if I didn’t do something about it, I made a drawing of a forbidden grotto, guarded by a toad-like monster, or a mountain temple, where naked slaves were devoured by horrible creatures with wings. Howard admired them, and I was delighted. Sex was nothing, I thought, when compared with the unspeakable customs of the toad-men! I drew maps of their country, and began an epic poem about them, which I annotated with colorful accounts of their language and customs. I was going to be the great artist of the toads.

  CW: [Laughs.]

  RHB: Well, I took it very seriously. [Pause.] In June, there was a rainy spell. Howard and I wrote a story together,* and I typed several of Howard’s manuscripts. One day, he came into my room. I was trying to set some of Belknap’s poems in type, but my type was all pi’d, and Howard found me looking under the bed for a capital M. I don’t know why you don’t keep your room neater, he said. It seems to me you’d save yourself a lot of time, which you could use to actually print things. I told him that the spic-and-span chapter of my life had ended when we left Fort Benning, and that I wished never to revisit it. Howard looked unhappily at a pile of shirts with some string tangled in them, and a lump of bookbinder’s wax. Where do you keep my manuscripts? he asked. I pointed at Yoh-Vombis. In there, I said. Sacred. Never to be disturbed. Never? Howard said. He took the wax and threw it at the ceiling, to see if it would stick. The truth is, he said, you can throw them out, for all I care. I don’t know why you keep such worthless old things. The wax landed on the floor, and I picked it up. They aren’t worthless to me, I said, and they’re not even that old. Now will you look in that case for a capital W? [Pause.] When the rain let up, Howard told us he was leaving. Havana was out, but he wanted to visit Poe’s house in Philadelphia on the way home, and needed to reserve funds for that. We’ll miss you, Bernice said, a little dazedly. She didn’t understand how he could have been with us for so long. Be sure to send us a letter now and then, she said. Oh, I will, Howard said. The next morning, I drove him to DeLand, to catch the bus. It was pouring, so we waited in my car. This is our last chance, I thought. Well, Barlovius, Howard said, I couldn’t have asked for a better Virgil to show me around these lovely swamps. Forests, I said. I wanted to weep. Around these forests, Howard said. The bus pulled in, and the lights came on inside it. Looks like there are seats in the front, Howard said. A woman got off with her son, who was about six. He jumped into a puddle with a very serious look, as if it had to be done exactly right. I’m off, Howard said, thank you again. He took his bag and ran through the rain to the bus. I waited for it to depart. I thought he might run back to me: Robert, wait, there’s something I wanted to say . . . But the bus left on time. I was so angry, I drove home at fifty miles an hour, which was ten miles faster than the Ford could go. I lost control of it on a turn and hit a tree. Luckily, the Ford was made of something very solid and got just a scrape. The tree was more seriously hurt. I told my mother the road was slick with rain.