The Night Ocean

by Paul La Farge

  RHB: Here.

  CW: Wow.

  RHB: It used to be more blue.

  CW: What happened next?

  RHB: Starting that afternoon, I began to tell myself a story, and in this story, Howard and I were in love. We stayed in Florida for only a short time, then we moved to another part of the country. I imagined us in San Francisco, which I knew almost nothing about, except that it was far from my family, and had a lot of bookstores. In my story, we bought a house there, and invited our friends to visit: Belknap, and Price, and Ray Cummings,* and dozens of other people who, in reality, would never have crossed the United States to see a couple of homosexuals. We threw costume parties, and raised rabbits and chickens. We slept in the same big bed. I didn’t tell Howard my story, because I didn’t think I had to. I thought he was telling it, too. We sat in the rowboat without talking, or even rowing. We held hands. We didn’t go on any more expeditions, except to eat ice cream in DeLand, and bump knees under the lunch counter. Where would we have gone? We had already found what we were looking for. [Pause.] One day, Howard told me he had thought of an idea for a novel, which he was thinking of calling The House of the Worm. It was about several generations of an English family, and the rise and fall of their fortunes. At the end of it, he said, the last male descendant emigrates to New England, where he has various misadventures and finally goes mad. It ends tragically, Howard said, but what I want to show, Barlovius, is the immense connectedness of human life. When you think about the way the same patterns repeat, from generation to generation, it’s almost monstrous. Like in “The Dunwich Horror,”* I said. Howard was nonplussed. Not quite that, he said. I want to write about real people. Do you know Zola’s novels? He talked excitedly about the research he’d have to do, to write this novel. He could do some of it in the New York Public Library, but the genealogical records he wanted were in London. Imagine, he said, the Old Gent in London! It’s always been a dream of mine to get there, but I’ve never felt venturesome enough to make the trip. And now . . . I do! His face was flushed with happiness. I thought: all right, London. And I began to tell myself a story about that. [Pause.] But still nothing happened between us, sexually. And to make a long story short, I went out one night and had sex with the boy we had met on Daytona Beach, the one who believed in the houses in the ocean. Do you know who the Gullah are?

  CW: Sure.

  RHB: Island people, from Georgia, descended from slaves. They have their own language, which is quite interesting. Part African, part English, but not modern English: it’s more like early nineteenth-century English, miraculously preserved. [Sighs.] It’s funny to think that the past Howard longed for does exist, or did, but only in places where Howard would never have dared look for it. My friend’s name was Luke, and his parents were Gullahs from Tybee Island. They believed all kinds of strange things—cities in the ocean was the least of it. Luke’s grandmother was a hoodoo woman, who believed you could make someone go away by writing their name backward . . . Where was I?

  CW: You slept with Luke.

  RHB: Not slept. I drove to Daytona; we had magnificent, simple sex in the back of the Ford; then I drove home. Howard was awake when I came in, washing collars in the bathroom sink. Where’d you go, Bobby? he asked. I should have lied, but I was never good at improvising, the way Howard was. I had to prepare everything. So, like an idiot, I told him the truth. I thought if I made him jealous, he’d want to try the same things with me. But Howard just stood there, his mouth partway open, rubbing his hand against the lip of the sink. Then he said: For someone as well-off as you are, Bobby, you have remarkably little breeding. He shut the bathroom door. I heard him cough, then water running in the sink, then, for a long time, nothing at all. He was still there when I went to bed.

  CW: What happened?

  RHB: Howard didn’t come down until after lunch. He went straight into the garden and talked to Bernice about the orchids she was teasing from the ground. I joined them, but Howard wouldn’t look at me. Finally I asked if he’d help me carry the boat into the water, and we walked down to the lake. I’m sorry about last night, I said. Please tell me that I haven’t ruined everything. Everything would be an exaggeration, Howard said. He stood very stiffly, with his hands in his pockets. Even in DeLand, I’m sure there are people who aren’t thinking about you at all. Will you forgive me? I asked. For what? Howard said. For hurting you, I said. My dear Barlovius, Howard said, you haven’t hurt me, except insofar as it pains me to see you demean yourself. How old is your friend? My age, I said, seventeen. Oh, Howard said. He plucked at a strand of Spanish moss that hung from the branch of a live oak. You’re both very young, he said, and . . . now we’ve got it in the water, I think I’ll take the boat out. I watched him row to the far side of the Moon Pool, where he sat, holding the oars but not moving.

  CW: He loved you.

  RHB: I thought so. Howard stayed six more days, to prove I hadn’t broken his heart. Then I followed him to St. Augustine, for his birthday, to prove that I believed I hadn’t. We barely talked. I remember standing on the wall of the Spanish fortress, running my hand along the coquina stone of the parapet. Howard was walking below me, inspecting the foundation, just a little figure in a cheap blue suit. How useless this all is, I thought. [Pause.] My parents got divorced in the summer of 1936, and Bernice and I moved back to Kansas City. I went to see Howard that August, in Providence. We had been exchanging letters as if nothing were wrong. I thought . . . I wondered if he might have forgiven me, after all. But when I got to Providence, Howard was busy revising some awful book,* and he had no time. He was another person in Providence: older. He worried about money, and talked about it constantly. I hate to say it, but I found him dull. Even his skin had become dull, like an old man’s skin. I tried to revive him with a plan to publish William Seabrook’s travel books* in a uniform edition, but he was completely unmoved. They’re all in print, he said, why bother printing ’em again? Because of how they’d look, I said. I think it would make a nice effect. There could be a Seabrook Library, bound in midnight-blue Morocco leather, and stamped in gold. Or would red be better? You would have trouble finding a question that interests me less, Howard said. I don’t understand, I said. I thought you and Seabrook were friends? Robert, Howard said, what you don’t understand is that I care about literature, whereas you care about books. I didn’t speak to him for days. But at the end of the month, we took a trip to Salem and Marblehead.

  CW: The famous Arkham and Kingsport.

  RHB: You’ve done your homework. There were four of us on the trip: Howard and I, Kenny Sterling,* and Sterling’s friend Roscoe, who was, I believe, a law student. We toured Salem as a group. Sterling got on my nerves, and Roscoe was even worse: both of them fawning over Howard, and at the same time making themselves out to be very important, as if they were the initiates of a cult, the purpose of which was to laugh at how stupid everyone else was. What really bothered me, though, was how much Howard enjoyed it. I thought at first that he was going along with them, but then I saw that he thrived on their attention, that it made him into something he very much wanted to be. I had a terrible thought, that this was what Howard wanted from me. Not love, and certainly not sex, but adulation. All this time, I had imagined that he was drawn to me because we were akin to each other, but now I wondered if he’d answered my letters so generously because he knew that I would save them, because I was a collector. I wondered, bitterly, if he’d ever seen me as anything other than an instrument of his posterity. Not that I would have minded being that, necessarily, but it was so dishonest. To use me that way and not tell me I was being used. When we got to Marblehead, on the second day of our trip, Sterling and Roscoe were in ecstasies. I think the desk clerk at our hotel has webbed fingers, Roscoe said, tittering. Could he be of the accursed race of fish-men? I have a strange foreboding about the chowder, Sterling said. Careful, men! I told Howard I wasn’t feeling well. But you have to see Marblehead, he said. It’s
one of the wonders of New England, a place where the past has been harmoniously incorporated into the present. It won’t be harmonious with my headache, I said. You go ahead. He and Sterling and Roscoe went out together, and I walked alone to the Old Burial Hill, which overlooks the harbor. I didn’t want to see Howard ever again. I had my bag with me, and I decided I’d take the bus to Boston, then back to Kansas City. After that, I didn’t know. I could see cars nudging up and down the streets of Marblehead, but they had nothing to do with me. Nothing had anything to do with me. I thought of throwing myself from a cliff, but there wasn’t a cliff nearby. I sat at the foot of a big spruce tree, and I was still there when Howard scrambled up the path, out of breath. Barlovius! he said. Thank all the gods! I went back to the YMCA to see if you were feeling better, and they told me you had left. I did leave, I said. I see that, Howard said, but why? I just stared at him. Aha, Howard said. Do you mind if I sit down? So we sat there for a while, then Howard said, At your age, Bobby, you naturally imagine that what you feel is important. When someone slights you, you want to murder him! And when you think you’re in love . . . When you get to be the Old Gent’s age, however, you’ll understand that everything you feel has been felt before, over and over, until it’s as worn out as my 1917 overcoat. Really, it’s comical. Each of our so-called individual emotions is just a repetition of something that has been felt countless thousands of times before, by countless others. From that point of view, it’s hard to put much stock in feeling. Do you see my point? Forget it, I said. It was a hot, cloudless day, and you could see quite far. What’s that? I asked, pointing to a black speck on the horizon. I think it’s Bakers Island, Howard said. Unless it’s a hitherto unknown island, where mysterious lights blink in a code that the cryptologists at Miskatonic University* have yet to crack. When they do crack it, I said, it’ll say, Howard, come home. Howard laughed. What would I do without you, Bobby? he asked. I shrugged. Find another acolyte, probably. I’m sure Roscoe or Sterling would be glad to oblige. Possibly, but would either of them do this? Howard asked. He took my hand. I was stunned. Careful, Mr. Lovecraft, I said, someone might find your behavior low class! Howard laughed again, less happily. He looked out to sea, and said, I wonder if I’ll ever get to England. Let’s go, I said, impulsively. We’ll set you up in the British Museum, and you can write your book. I’d like to see Scotland, too, Howard said. I hear their castles are exceedingly ancient and gloomy. We’ll find the gloomiest one, I said. Then we’ll go to Paris, and see the Catacombs. Howard looked at me with amazement. Barlovius, he said, I think you’re serious. Absolutely serious, I said. Howard tightened his grip on my hand. I was sure he would say yes—it was clear to me that he wanted to go. But after a single, beautiful moment, in which I imagined the two of us living together openly in Paris, or if not there then in Morocco, a moment in which I imagined that love and even happiness might exist in this world, Howard asked, How do you propose we pay for this trip? We’ll work our passage across the Atlantic, I said, and hitchhike the rest of the way. Ah, Howard said. You expect me to stand in the roadside dust, with my thumb out. Why not? I asked. And sleep in the woods, Howard said, and warm my hands at a campfire. Sounds like fun, I said. What about Mrs. Gamwell? Howard asked, meaning his aunt. Would she come with us? I hadn’t thought of it, I said. I couldn’t leave her alone, Howard said seriously. She’s getting on in years. What if something happened to her while we were away? I had just had the pleasure of spending three weeks next door to Mrs. Gamwell, and she seemed able to take care of herself. You’ll write her letters, I said, the same as always. What about my things? Howard asked. I’d miss them if we were gone too long. Now you’re teasing me, I said. England is full of things. France, too. Yes, but they aren’t my things, Howard said. And what if one of us fell ill? I don’t speak a word of French. We’ll worry about that if it happens, I said. No, Bobby, Howard said, I can’t. I’d be too afraid that something would take away all the pleasure I might get from such an expedition. I realized two things then. The first was how great a part fear played in Howard’s life. Not the cosmic fear he wrote about, but ordinary fear, that his luggage might get lost, or that French food wouldn’t agree with him. I did not love Howard any less for this, but I did feel sorry for him, and I didn’t want to be like him. That was the second thing I understood: I wanted to live. I looked out at the flashing Atlantic, flecked with tiny sails, and promised myself that I would cross it. To Howard I said: All right, have it your way. What about an expedition to find some ice cream? Howard smiled. It may be perilous, he said, but, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The Miskatonic University Ice Cream Expedition of 1936, I said. We were still holding hands. Howard wrapped his pinky around mine, and said . . .

  CW: Umph.

  RHB: Umph. Then we walked back to town, and joined Roscoe and Sterling.

  CW: Was that when you wrote “The Night Ocean”?

  RHB: What? No, that was earlier. After Bernice and I moved to Kansas City, in July of ’36, I fell in love with a boxer, and while he was training, I’d wait for him in the public library. I must have written it then.

  CW: But it’s all about the ocean!

  RHB: Yes? Well, I probably missed the ocean. I used to love going to Daytona Beach.

  CW: . . .

  RHB: What can I tell you? Now that I think of it, though, I did show the story to Howard, before we went to Marblehead. He made a few changes, but on the whole he admired it. You know, Barlovius, he said, you would be one of the best weird writers of your generation, if only you applied yourself. I thought he was scolding me, and out of sheer perversity, I decided not to write any more weird fiction. [Laughs.] Later, after Howard died, I realized that he really had liked the story, but it was too late. I couldn’t go back. And, in fact, “The Night Ocean” was the last story I ever wrote.

  CW: The end of an era.

  RHB: One rarely knows that at the time. What I remember is that Howard and Sterling and Roscoe and I spent a pleasant afternoon in Marblehead. Now that I knew Howard loved me, I didn’t mind them so much. We walked along the shore that night, looking for the phosphorescent jellyfish which Sterling assured us would be there, but they weren’t, and the next day Howard and I went back to Providence. He opened the door to his apartment and groaned sepulchrally, Here’s the mail. A few days later, I had to go back to Kansas City. Howard walked me to the bus station. It was very much like our first parting, in DeLand, two years earlier, only this time it was Howard who was downcast. You know, Robert, he said, I’d be glad to see you settled here, one day. I don’t think Mrs. Gamwell would like that, I said. She couldn’t stand me, because she knew just what I was. I don’t live my entire life to please Mrs. Gamwell, Howard said, only most of it. I imagine that a gentleman of my age should have the right to choose his friends. I promised to think about it. In fact, I couldn’t imagine living in Providence, which struck me as being a city of aunts. I wanted to see Paris. I know what that means, Howard said. You’ll be halfway to making a decision, then a butterfly will appear, and you’ll run off to look for your net. Not necessarily, I said, blushing. We reached the bus station. Used to be a stable, Howard said, if I’m not mistaken. The property of a man named Peaslee, who owned all the hansom cabs in Providence. He held out his hand. Good-bye, Robert. He waited until the bus door closed, waved once, solemnly, and walked off. The bus route wound down toward the river, and as we turned onto Exchange Street, I had a view of College Hill, lit by the afternoon sun. For one long moment, I saw the city the way Howard always had, as a dream-city, where the colonial past curled like a cat, sleeping in a doorway, which might wake up at any moment, stretch, and come back to life. The buildings shone red and white and gold; the blue air hung over them like an upside-down ocean. Then the bus turned again, and the hill vanished. I had the ridiculous thought that this vision had been Howard’s parting gift to me, and now that it was gone, I had lost him, too. I told myself not to be stupid, but of course I was right. Howard died six mo
nths later, while I was in Kansas City.

  5.

  Here, unfortunately, Charlie’s phone ran out of memory. For the rest of the story, he had to rely on the notes he’d scrawled while Barlow spoke, which he fleshed out later with facts he’d gathered from his own research. The spring of 1937, Barlow told Charlie, was a gray epoch of grief. He ruined everything he touched. He enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute and studied with Thomas Hart Benton, the great muralist, but after Howard died, Barlow lost interest in painting. What could a mural do? Wasn’t art merely a consolation for the artist and his bourgeois friends? At first Benton appreciated his rebellious spirit, but Barlow never finished anything, and Benton got tired of him. So Barlow quit art school. He went to Mexico to learn Spanish, then he moved to California—not to San Francisco, where he had imagined living with Howard, but to Lakeport, a small resort on a large blue lake surrounded by towns. He stayed with the Beck brothers, Groo and Claire: two handsome redheads who published a magazine called The Science Fiction Critic. Claire had a mania for bathing and walking around in tight-fitting underwear. Groo was surly. When it got cold, he sat by the fire, reading Amazing Stories, listening to the radio, petting his dog, and eating walnuts, all at the same time. In their company, Barlow began to dream again. The Becks had a letterpress, and he used it to print Howard’s commonplace book. He thought Lakeport might become what Cassia could have been, a haven for artists. There were empty houses all around where his friends could live. He wrote to Clark Ashton Smith, a writer and painter whose work Howard had admired. Smith lived in Auburn, north of Sacramento; Barlow imagined him as a pillar of this new California community, this utopia of the weird. He was going to rally everyone under the black banner of Lovecraft. He ignored the letters from friends in New York, who said Sam Loveman was telling everyone that he, Barlow, was a thief. He also ignored the nagging letters from Wisconsin, where Derleth was waving his own Lovecraft banner, pompously, and, Barlow thought, somewhat comically. He had never met Derleth, but he had a mental picture of him: a stout fellow in a plaid jacket, with a face like an insurance salesman’s. Not weird at all, he thought. Barlow was still deciding which of the Beck brothers to fall in love with when Clark Ashton Smith sent him a postcard, to say that he did not desire to see Barlow, or to hear from him, ever again.