Encounters with Enoch Coffin

by W. H. Pugmire

  “Oh, look at you!” exclaimed the shadowy seated figure, in a ghostly choked voice. “How you burn! And to think I once found your eyes beautiful when they were merely blue!”

  “Can I put on a light?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t think I could stand it.”

  Enoch stood over his friend. Though the gloom was thick and cloaked the young man, candlelight was reflected in the lenses of a pair of spectacles he wore. Enoch had never known Trent to wear glasses before -- and certainly not glasses with lenses that flashed with such remarkable color.

  “The special aid you directed your father the optometrist to fashion for you,” Enoch observed.

  “Yes, and they broadened my artistic vision as I had hoped…and then some. I’m sorry I can’t bequeath them to you, my friend. I can’t do that to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told my parents I was going away to visit a friend for a while, so they wouldn’t come here and see me this way. I don’t want them to find these glasses. I don’t want my father to look through them again. I’m glad you did come tonight, Enoch. Please, you must promise me something.”

  “Promise you what?”

  “You must swear to me, as my friend, swear as a man of integrity, that you will smash to tiny bits every pane of glass in that lead box. And when you’ve done that, you must promise me you’ll smash these spectacles, too.”

  Enoch Coffin was silent for several long moments, but at last said, “If that’s your wish, then I promise you.”

  Did he see a black crescent open in the vague, pale smudge of a face? “Thank you, dear friend.”

  “But what’s wrong with you? What’s happened?”

  “What happened to old man Gardner’s ancestor, and his wife, and his sons? The color demands a high price for its glory. You’re familiar with many an old frightening tome, aren’t you? So you must know the Bible.”

  “It’s not my favorite frightening tome.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Trent hissed, his wispy voice fainter by the second. “But therein it says, ‘The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.’”

  Enoch nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

  Trent didn’t add comment to that, to acknowledge that Enoch gleaned what was happening. Several more drawn-out moments ticked past, in which Enoch found himself mesmerized by the light dancing in the lenses Trent wore. At last, he stepped forward to cross the remaining distance between them, and reached out to remove the spectacles from that shadowy visage.

  Briefly, when he pulled the glasses away, two hollow pits were revealed behind them, black tunnels bored far back into the student’s skull. Enoch thought he heard a final sigh…and then the top half of Trent’s head collapsed and crumpled down into the hollow of the lower half. Enoch stepped back, still holding the spectacles. He heard more than saw the rest of the disintegration, rustling sounds like sifting sand. Some larger bits thumped softly onto the floor.

  VI.

  Enoch kept his word. When he brought the heavy lead box of little window panes to his house in the North End, he smashed every one of them, pulverized them to a fine powder. The lenses of the spectacles, too.

  Then he mixed these glittering, weirdly incandescent granules into the gel medium, and began a new painting depicting the scene at the well. Normally he didn’t care for acrylic paints, which he felt didn’t blend as well as oils and dried too quickly for his taste, but in this instance owing to his use of the gel medium it was the right choice.

  Again he portrayed a night scene, twisted trees straining to grope at the cosmos, light rushing up from the old stone well in a soundless volcanic blast. But instead of blending terrestrial colors to hint at this unearthly light, he used the gel, which would dry clear but prove a binding medium for the countless scintillating particles of glass, each like the cell of a body that could not be fully comprehended with the puny, reptilian human brain.

  He would not be able to show this painting for very long at any one time, if he hoped to preserve it. Private showings, then, never a public exhibit. Any long exposure might be detrimental to the painting…and the viewer as well.

  He experienced a deep gratification that he had succeeded in besting the challenge, though a bit of guilt for feeling triumphant where Trent had failed. Well, in a sense it had been a collaborative effort, much as Enoch normally avoided such.

  He had painted this scene on a much smaller canvas than usual. One that could fit inside a riveted metal box.

  Ecstasy in Aberration

  I.

  The smooth black gentleman smoked in starlight. As he leaned against the late-eighteenth-century building that had once been a custom house he gazed beyond the harbor to the distant reef. He sucked in the Innsmouth stench of rotting wharves and decomposing time, and then he blew a cloud of scented smoke into the moist air and sighed. Behind the brick wall against which he leaned came the thump of gloomy music to which the young ones waltzed, and the sound reminded him that he was thirsty; and yet he could not get his legs to move so that he could rejoin his friends inside the nightclub, he was too spellbound by the macabre nature of the dead city and the sea. He smiled. How alike he was to the others he had encountered during his few months in the city, those lost souls who had found, in decaying Innsmouth, a portal to rich perversion and secret pleasure. Yet there was something more, something that remained hidden to most and could be ascertained by those few exotic souls who owned the capacity to taste uncanny vibration in the filthy air. Extinguishing his fag in the ashcan by the club’s doorway, the black man walked to the crumbling stone breakwater that extended out into the harbor and listened to waves on sand, as behind him the music inside the club ceased and was replaced by the movement of the departing crowd. Soon he sensed the creature just behind him and her familiar perfume. He spoke her name to the waves.

  “Adrianna. Come stand beside me and count the stars as they are reflected on the water. Both sea and sky are black and blend as one, an abyss of delicious pitch into which one may rise or sink, according to one’s fancy. Come, old woman, stand beside me.”

  “Ah, Delmore Rahv – I cannot count the stars, for my eyes are too entranced by darkness.” The sound of her raspy voice always startled him slightly, sounding as it did like an utterance croaked from some deep cavern. “The stars, for all their shimmer, are dead things; but darkness is alive, don’t you find? Alive and rapacious.” She stood taller than he, and he had to look up to study her curious head, which seemed somehow too large for its neck; and as he regarded her fantastic face he thought, as always, of alien things, for her large and lidless eyes seemed other than human, and her flat nose and wide mouth bespoke a racial heritage that confused him. He watched as her rough small hands lifted so as to pat her beautiful wig as the jeweled rings on her fingers competed with starlight. “I am enjoying your little book. But what made you abandon verse for fiction?”

  “No, I won’t ever ditch poetry – it is the air I breathe. But there can be poetry in prose, as I hope my book demonstrates. The short story is an intriguing form and can express so many things. I’m growing fond of finding my way into the novelette form, which despite its length demands Poe’s theory of singleness in unity and effect. Did you like…”

  “Your little evocation of myself? Your coy yet playful portrayal?” She laughed, a little. “You have listened to fables, but the facts escape you.”

  “I prefer myth to verity. And I think it conveys more truth than otherwise. The legends of Innsmouth, for example – they’re rooted in dark historical fact, with which you’re intimate. You were born…”

  “In February of 1928 – that month of fire and emancipation. No, you would not understa
nd the freedom that came from flame and obliteration. We who survived, we of fantastic wealth, built up a portion of the city; but we left much evidence of destruction, and our ruins have served us well, for they keep outsiders from our midst. People dislike Innsmouth as much as they abhor Dunwich, and for similar reasons of a prejudice they cannot fathom. It’s so amusing, to watch the ones who drive through the city as they tour New England, to see their troubled reaction swell to distaste and dread. They are perplexed and intimidated by the small packs of weird children who follow them and whistle as they whittle effigies in wood, their knives gleaming like lethal silver waves. Ha ha!” Her husky laughter erupted into strangled coughing. “Give me one of your foreign cigarettes, Delmore. I love how they savor of death deep in my lungs.”

  The smooth black man took the cigarettes from his pocket and placed one between his lips. He lit up, sucked briefly, and then offered it to his companion. She quaffed its fumes as the poet lit another for himself. Together, they smoked in starlight. Then the fellow leaned to Adrianna to kiss her wrinkled face, looked once more at the distant reef, and walked away. She did not watch him fade into the night, for she was captivated by the darkness of sky and sea. It moved before her with dark clouds in the air and their dim shadows on the water. She then noticed the more sinister shadows that moved about Devil Reef, those inky shapes that surfaced above the waves and then dipped beneath them, oozing away from the black reef and moving toward the harbor. The crowd from the club behind her had completely dissipated, and she stood absolutely alone, with no sound except the movement of waves on sand. She stood very still as they surged to her, the shiny bodies that caught the reflection of stars on their wet inhuman flesh. The creatures lurched forward, and she held to them her hands as they encircled her. Some few barked to night’s abyss while others kissed the woman’s hands with bloated mouths. She watched the approach of one final being, and sighed in ecstasy at the sight of the object that it held. The thing loped to her and lifted the tiara of white gold before her mouth, for her to kiss, for her to see her odd reflection on its façade. Then the object was set atop her wig, as the horde moved about her in honor of her majesty.

  II.

  The artist tried to sleep as the bus rolled along, but it was next to impossible because of the mortal din that issued from the others seated around him. He felt as if he were on the old bus that took him home from high school, especially when the pack of young people began to sing a song in French. He was slouched against the window with his knees up against the seat in front of him, which was how he knew that someone had plopped themselves before him. Trying to resist opening his eyes worked for just a little while, and then he gave up, groaned, and gazed at the skinhead girl who was staring at him with her Malaysian eyes.

  She smiled timidly. “Sorry. Um, you’re Enoch Coffin, the painter.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, wow! I saw your show in Boston, at the Lavoria Gallery. Such potent art.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re on your way to Innsmouth.”

  “Yep.”

  “Nice. I’ve been there for half a year. I work at a Wiccan shop in Arkham four days a week. We all work outside of Innsmouth.” She indicated the other bohemians aboard the bus. “There’s not much work in town, really, and most of it is done by the regulars there. You have your own work in town, I’ve read.”

  The artist pushed away from the window and lowered his numb legs. “Yep. I’ve been commissioned to do a portrait of an author – Gerhard Speare – for his forthcoming book. I refuse to work from photographs, so the old codger has finally relented and is allowing me to paint him in his home. You read it where?”

  The young woman smiled. “There was an article in the local rag. It’s rather incredible, really. Very few of us have seen him. He’s so old and sick he doesn’t get around at all. I’m amazed he hasn’t kicked off. How amazing that he’s still writing! And you’re to do his portrait for this new book?”

  “Yep. What’s your name, dumpling?”

  “Nesa. Nesa Katt.”

  “So, you’re a witch?”

  She laughed. “No, I just work at the shop because it’s way cool. I like to fuck warlocks, you know, and have hot wax spilled on me and all that cool stuff. Razor blades and bite marks.”

  “You’re a wild one.”

  “Funny, that’s what I heard about you. Well, here we are.”

  He hadn’t noticed that they had entered the city, for the early nightfall was dark indeed. He arose as the bus came to a stop and watched his young acquaintance move to others and whisper to them, and then he pretended not to notice as the others gave him curious looks. “I’m a girl with a reputation,” he thought. Following the others out of the vehicle, he stood waiting for one of the two porters to wheel his gear to him. He had not brought much, for Gerhard Speare had insisted on choosing the canvas for his portrait and some few shades of paint. Enoch would normally have objected, but the fee that the eccentric writer was paying for his visual rendering was so extravagant that the artist could in no way refuse the offer. He watched a young fellow with his suitcases and trunk on a long wheeled cart approach him.

  “Mr. Coffin? Your cab awaits you there.”

  He nodded to the lad, who seemed to be slightly crippled from the odd way that he walked, and followed him to the long black taxi. “Mr. Speare has paid your fare, sir,” the boy said, actually refusing Enoch’s proffered tip.

  Stepping inside, he sank into the smooth leather upholstery and rolled open a window so as to breathe in the smell of wharves and sea. Seeing the Malaysian lass, he called to her.

  “You need a ride?”

  “No thanks,” she called back. “Where are you staying?”

  “The New Gilman.”

  “Hoo, hoity-toity. I’ll see you around.” She waved as a red sports car stopped near her, into which she climbed. Enoch’s porter, having completed the task of loading, thumped on the back of the taxi, and the artist observed the town he passed through. Some few of his friends who had visited Innsmouth described it for him, and he always thought they had exaggerated – but he now saw, however dimly, that Innsmouth was indeed the strangest of haunts. Most of the factories he passed were obviously in ruins, as were most other buildings, the one exception being a mammoth Gothic Revival edifice that might once have been a railway station, judging by the various tracks he could just make out and a distant covered tunnel that probably spanned the Manuxet River. The journey continued, until suddenly everything changed as the taxi entered the New Merchant District. Enoch marveled at the splendor of some of the buildings, all of which seemed of recent construction. He was taken to a building composed of coral sandstone and beige marble, and a tall fellow dressed in top hat and tails opened the door to his vehicle and called him by name. How the hell did everyone know who he was?

  Enoch followed the tall lean gentleman into the hotel and to a spacious elevator which lifted to the fourth floor. “Room Number 428, Mr. Coffin. Your things will be brought up momentarily. Shall I hang up your suits and such?”

  “That would be excellent. I have two suits in the trunk. I’ll take care of the rest of my clothes. And please don’t fiddle with the art gear, I’ll take care of all of that.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Coffin.” The fellow did not refuse a tip. “Thank you, sir. I’ll return as soon as your things find their way here. Enjoy your stay at New Gilman House.”

  “You guys still serving food?”

  “Yes, the dining room serves until nine in the evening. We have an excellent halibut tonight, sir.”

  “Great.” He nodded to the man and then was alone. Stepping into a resplendent bathroom, he checked himself in the mirror and washed his face, groomed himself a bit and made certain that he had placed one of his key cards into his wallet. He was famished, and the word “halibut” was making his mouth water. He exited his room and took the elevator to the lobby, where the main dining room was pointed out to him. Seated, he glanced at the menu an
d goggled at the prices.

  “Your meals are gratis, sir, compliments of Mr. Speare. We have an excellent white wine to go with the halibut Provençal, which is served over rice or couscous. House salad is an excellent choice, and may I suggest the lemon tart for dessert. Very good, sir. Ah, here is your bread and garlic butter. We are famous for our butter, you know.”

  The guy was a trifle wearying. “Great. I’ll have the salad now, and a cup of chowder.”

  It was a spectacular feast, such as he hadn’t partaken of since the days when he was screwing Latisha Bright, who served as his patron for a season until the sex got old. He had overindulged in the wine and then accepted a glass of champagne to go with the tart. By the time he had completed his repast, the room was blurry. Pulling a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, he set it on the table and staggered to his feet. He was able to walk past two tables until he collided with a seated patron.

  “Oh, fuck, excuse me.”

  “It’s quite all right, Mr. Coffin. Will you join us for coffee? We find you rather intriguing.”

  “How the hell does everyone know who the fuck I am?” he slurred.

  “From the small piece in yesterday’s paper, of course, with its charming photograph. It’s an event, your coming to paint the great and mysterious novelist. But the new book is, as we understand, a collection of novelettes.”

  “Did you say coffee?”

  “Yes, with or without brandy. For you I suggest without, you are quite shamefully intoxicated. Sit here, beside me, so that my ancient eyes may drink your handsomeness.”

  He fell into the offered chair. “Coffee,” he ordered in a loud voice, “with heaps of sugar, no cream. Yeah, sure, drink my beauty all you want, pumpkin. Hey missy, I’m Enoch.”

  “I know,” said the attractive young woman. “We encountered each other earlier today, on the bus.” He squinted and smiled. “Oh yeah, Miss Pussy. How ya doin’?” The girl’s sudden laughter was so loud that the sound of it made the artist sink a little into his chair.