by Rick Dakan
“Really?” As a writer I meet a lot of people who claim they’re working on a book, which usually means they have an idea for a book in their heads that they would like to see magically put on paper somehow.
“Well, S.T. Joshi’s H.P. Lovecraft: A Life is a fine piece of work of course, but I feel that it suffers a bit from Joshi’s own atheistic prejudices and biases. He covers all the details of Lovecraft’s life in impressive detail, but he misses some important aspects of both Lovecraft’s inner demons and the spiritual import of the pieces themselves. Have you read much Lovecraft scholarship?”
“I really haven’t, no,” I said, then paused, thinking maybe this Lovecraft scholar might give me some insight into Shelby’s new obsession. “But I’m interested in learning more.”
Sinclair took my show of interest and jumped on it with the pride and enthusiasm of a devoted expert spreading the great truths of his chosen field. “There are many schools of thought on Lovecraft and his work of course, as is the case with any great master in the arts. I try to keep an open mind about all the different approaches. I believe it’s important to really listen to all the possible interpretations and insights before making a final judgment. It has taken me years of study and reflection to come to the point I’m at today.” He proceeded to list for me a number of different scholarly works, some of which, like the essay by a French novelist Michel Houellebecq, who I liked a great deal, sounded quite interesting. I felt that moment of mild vertigo I get whenever a new topic opens up before me that catches my curiosity: the gaping maw of ignorance I want to fill but know I probably won’t ever have the time or energy to explore the way it deserves, and which usually leads to me buying a bunch of books that sit on shelves, all but the first chapters unread.
“May I ask, is your friend a serious collector?”
“Yes, I think he is. Certainly he’s very serious about Lovecraft. It’s practically all he talks about these days.”
Sinclair gave a polite chuckle. “I know the feeling. Some of my acquaintances fairly roll their eyes when I start in on one Lovecraft tale or another, although I’ve won many of them over to my point of view.”
“I can imagine.”
“I first discovered his work while I was in seminary of all places. At first it was just a bit of a distraction from the academic rigors of my studies, but soon enough the gentleman from Providence’s stories began to take a greater and greater pride of place in my thoughts. At one point I actually gave them up for Lent. Of course I was never ordained. My interest was always more academic than evangelical. I became a professor of theology for some time, although I’m now very much retired from that sort of academia. The tiny ivory tower of my small used and rare bookshop here in Providence is all the battlements I need anymore. I specialize in old pulps from the 1920s and 30s, although of course I deal in all manner of rare books. In my search for original Lovecraft pieces I come across quite a few others. I’ve become a rather significant little nexus of information for the various factions of collectors out there. I think of myself as a neutral party in their various rivalries and disputes.”
“What do you mean? What kind of rivalries and disputes can there be among collectors of old pulp magazines?”
“Oh, the usual petty jealousies and resentments that sprout up whenever you have a small community of people passionate about something,” he said with a superior drawl. “I’m sure you’ve experienced this sort of thing.”
“I think so, yes,” I said, thinking of some of the people I’d met at various science fiction and comic book conventions. “What are they arguing about? Who would win in a fight between Godzilla and Cthulhu or something?”
Sinclair laughed. “No, no, nothing like that I’m sure. Matters more esoteric. The meanings of Lovecraft’s works, the sources of his inspiration. We know from his letters that Lovecraft’s dreams inspired many of his stories, including “Dagon.” That portion where the narrator claws his way through the mud back to his boat is right out of one of Lovecraft’s dreams. They also break down on cosmological lines. One faction clings to Lovecraft’s anti-religious and anti-superstitious writings and finds his works entirely in keeping with the doctrines of materialism. Others believe that Lovecraft had some actual insight into the cosmos and even other dimensions and that his stories contain real information coded in pulp horror metaphors. Still others insist that Lovecraft was an unwitting vessel for outside forces that communicated with him through his dreams. Yet another faction emphasizes his role as a progenitor of modern science fiction and finds warnings about the abuses of industrial science run amok in his work. And those are just the most popular positions. As I said, I don’t take sides per se. I collect Lovecraftiana and admire the man and his work a great deal. I see merits and flaws in many of the arguments, but most of all I like to simply keep my finger on the pulse of things.” He paused for a moment and I wondered if he’d maybe realized how long we’d been talking, although I found this talk of factions somewhat intriguing. “Do you think your friend falls into any of these categories?”
I was wondering the same thing myself. Shelby seemed to have found some meaning in Lovecraft’s work, and I imagined that he must have had some exposure to these various factions and their ideas. It was possible that these were the people he didn’t want to know about the books he was collecting. Although maybe not. I wasn’t even sure he was online anymore. Or maybe Kym was part of one of these groups. “I don’t know,” I told Sinclair. “He hasn’t gotten into specifics.”
“Ah well. In any event, I do hope he appreciates the pieces you purchased from me on his behalf, and I’ll keep an eye out for any of the other items on the list you sent me. Be sure to contact me if you have any problems. And please do pass my contact information on to your friend in case he should ever wish to deal with me directly.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said, although I was still pondering Shelby’s possible ideological stance in the Great Online Lovecraft Debate. Then it occurred to me that there was something Sinclair might help me with after all. “Actually, can I ask you one quick question?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Do you know what Starry Wisdom might be a reference to?” I asked. The name had slipped to the back of my mind by the time I’d gotten home from Conrad and Lauren’s the other night, and I still hadn’t bothered to look it up to figure out which Lovecraft story Shelby had cribbed it from.
There was a long moment of silence on the other end. “Why?” Sinclair finally replied.
His sudden caginess made me a little paranoid so I said, “I just heard it the other day and I thought it was a Lovecraft reference of some sort.”
“It is, it is,” he said. “It’s a reference to a corrupted church in ‘The Haunter of the Dark,’ one of Lovecraft’s final tales.”
“A church?” I asked, not surprised at all that Shelby had chosen it for the name of his own church.
“Yes, but not a Christian church. A dark and dangerous sect devoted to the worship of the Great Old Ones. Where did you hear the reference?” he asked, maybe a little anxious for an answer.
“I’m not sure,” I lied. He must have guessed it was from my “friend,” but I didn’t want to give away any of Shelby’s secrets. “Probably somewhere online while I was looking for Lovecraftiana.”
“Yes,” said Sinclair. “That of course makes perfect sense.”
“Well, I gotta get going,” I said, not wanting to have to lie to him any more than necessary. “I want to spend some more time reading these books before I turn them over. Thanks for all your help.”
“My pleasure. And do take your time with them. You’ll thank me later.”
After I hung up, I took a moment to catch my mental breath and write down some of the things Sinclair had mentioned during our conversation. I’m always excited to learn from experts, especially in little niche areas of knowledge. It would be good to have him as a contact, especially if Shelby still wanted me to buy books for him and gave me some
more money to do so, then Sinclair could probably hook me up. I looked at The Outsider and Others for a long moment, just staring at the faded blue and white cover and wondering how many other people had read it and who had first bought the volume.
That night, I took the book to bed with me, being careful not to damage any of the yellowed pages or further tear the frayed dust jacket. I flipped ahead to some of the stories I remembered most from back in my high school gaming days, starting with “The Call of Cthulhu” and moving on to “The Dunwich Horror.” I fell asleep a few pages into the second tale, one of the few I remembered really well, mostly because there was a cheesy movie version of it starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee that I’d seen a couple times on VHS.
I awoke the next day to a banging on my door (still don’t have a doorbell) and struggled to find my glasses as I crawled out of bed. It was 8:14 a.m., a little early for FedEx, but I was expecting a package from one of my editors and I didn’t want to have to drive down to the depot to pick it up after 5:00. I rushed down the stairs in only my underwear and a T-shirt and pulled open the door harder than necessary, almost slamming it against the wall. Not FedEx. It was Shelby, dressed in sweats and with an old backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Good morning, Rick,” he said with a smile. “Did I wake you up?”
“A little bit, yeah,” I said, ushering him in.
Shelby’s gaze fixed at once upon the open packaging on my dining room table and the stack of Weird Tales and other books I’d gotten for him. “They’re here… ” he said, his voice trailing off as he picked up the copy of Beyond the Wall of Sleep. He caressed the cover for a moment and then wheeled on me and demanded to know, “Where’s The Outsider?”
I mentally recoiled at the sharpness in his tone. “It’s upstairs,” I said. “I’ll go get it.”
I took my time retrieving the book, stopping to use the bathroom first. Not a word of thanks from him, and I never appreciate people being snippy with me, much less so when they’ve woken me from a sound sleep. I found the book on the floor by my bed and brought it down to him. I saw that he’d already packed the other magazines and books into his backpack and was waiting by the stairs for me. He’d had the pack for at least a decade, and during his bicycle everywhere phase in his late twenties he’d always had it with him, sometimes stuffed with fliers for parties or raves, others with all the clothes and personal affects he’d take along on a three-week road trip. Seeing him place his latest obsession into the bag made me wonder just how serious he really was about this Lovecraft thing.
I handed him the book. I was sad to see it go, but I’d ordered the cheap paperback versions of Lovecraft’s books, and was expecting them any day now, so I could catch up on my own time. “There it is. First Edition, Arkham House. I’ve spent all the money you gave me, so… ”
“There’s more,” Shelby said, motioning with his head back towards the dining room table where another thick envelope sat. He never took his eyes off the book and I watched as he carefully, even reverently opened it up and started reading from a seeming random page.
“I’ve got in touch with this serious collector… ” I said after a few uncomfortable moments of watching him read.
This statement made Shelby break away from the book “You didn’t mention my name did you?” he asked.
“No, no, of course not. But he’s a good resource and I can probably use him to get most of the rest of the things on your list.”
“If you have to. If you can, though, use as many different sources as possible, you know?”
“No, I don’t really know. Why all the secrecy anyway?”
“Thieves, my friend,” Shelby said with a smile. “Don’t want thieves coming round looking for a good haul.” I didn’t believe this explanation for an instant and his smile told me that he didn’t either. But before I could press the issue he asked, “So, do you want to join?”
“Join what? Your church?” I looked away from him, clearing off some errant packing material from the dining room table.
“I assume Conrad and Lauren have told you about it.” Shelby stepped up next to me, running his hand along the glass tabletop.
I turned and looked him in the eye. “They don’t know very much.”
He smiled and winked at me. “No one outside does. That’s why you have to join.”
“Well, I gave up on churches a long time ago, Shelby. What makes yours so special?”
“For starters we’re not really a church. We’re something different.” His chest puffed out a little, his eyebrows arching. “An experience. A movement. An education. We’re asking the same questions all the other churches do, but unlike everyone else, we’re not afraid of the answers. We’re not afraid of the truth.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said. It all sounded like pretentious mumbo jumbo to me. “No offense, man, but I’ve known you too long to see you as a font of truth about the universe.” The words came out sounding harsher than I’d meant them to. I was mostly teasing him, although also still a little miffed at having been woken up and his general evasiveness on the details.
He moved close to me, his face just inches away from mine. “Not me, Lovecraft. I’m just the interpreter of the truths he saw. And there are plenty of people who do see me as a conduit for truth, and there will be many more to come.” I could tell he was a little annoyed with me, although someone who knew him less well than I might not have picked up on it. “I’m offering you a chance to really help build something here.”
I stepped back, turning towards the kitchen to throw away the detritus I’d collected from the table. “Build what? What is it you’re doing exactly?” I said to him over my shoulder.
“We’re shaking the world, Rick. Starting with Sarasota, we’re setting the stage in people’s minds for the future. We’re showing them a path of unfettered, terrifying truth.”
“And this is fun how?” I called from the kitchen.
“It’s fun in every way possible, trust me. This town, this world, it’s not ready for what I have to show it, any more than it was ready when Lovecraft wrote about it in the 20s, but there’s no more waiting. The stars are right. The time is now.”
I’d heard some version of this speech more than once from Shelby. Before it had been about buying land in Costa Rica and before that it had been about making a documentary film about building a sailboat from recycled parts.
I came back into the dining room and stopped a good five feet from him. “Not right now,” I said, and saw the disappointment crawl up behind his eyes and linger there. “I’ve got a lot going on. I’ll help you with the online stuff if you want, but there’s just too much on my plate right now.”
Shelby shrugged as if to say it wasn’t a big deal. And maybe it wasn’t. If he’d really wanted me to join, I imagined he knew me well enough to realize I wouldn’t be swayed by vague evangelical posturing. “Thanks again for all your help on this,” he said, hefting the books in his backpack as if we hadn’t been talking about the church at all. “I really do appreciate it. I’ll buy you a drink or four at the reunion.”
“You’re going?”
“Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. Aren’t you?”
“I guess I probably am,” I said, if only to see how the rest of my class reacted to him.
After he left, I stood there for a moment just gathering my wits and, for the first time, wondered how he knew the books had arrived in the first place. I hadn’t told him. I couldn’t have — I still didn’t have a number for him.
I walked over to the dining room table and looked in the fat envelope. It took me a minute to count it all, but there was another $5000 in there, all in hundreds along with another list. More books, including works by authors besides Lovecraft. I vowed to make sure to tell him at the reunion that if he wanted me to keep doing this he’d have to call first before coming and waking me up next time. I also decided that until he gave me an actual reason to do otherwise, I’d try and save myself a lot of time and see if Sinclair c
ould help me with the new list.
Chapter 7
I went to a small magnet school in Sarasota, or “school for the gifted” as they liked to call us braniacs back in my day. I always thought it was weird that the name of a relatively obscure Superman villain, Braniac, would catch on as a kind of insult other kids would hurl at you when you told them what school you went to. Did they know the reference? Probably not. Our particular crop of sixty-eight brainiacs had graduated from high school sixteen years earlier (no one had gotten things together in time for the traditional fifteenth reunion) and time and attrition meant that only about a third of us were able and/or willing to show up for the reunion itself. With such small numbers to accommodate, even including spouses and significant others, the organizers were free to choose a more inviting venue than our alma mater’s cafeteria or gym. The reunion dinner (as opposed to the kid-friendly reunion picnic to be held the next day) was in an upscale restaurant called the Chef’s Table, which had a large lounge area and excellent food and martinis, all of which were popular with the yuppie set I do so much to avoid here in town (Sarasota yuppies being their own tenacious breed of forty- and fifty-something rich types rather than anything particularly young or urban). But that Friday night we had the place to ourselves, at least until 10:00 p.m., and the food really is good.
I wore a T-shirt and black pants and an unbuttoned, short-sleeved blue shirt with white floral print, thinking myself slightly hip and, by my standards anyway, dressed up. I mean, my shirt did actually have buttons on it, even if I wasn’t using them. Most of the rest of my fellow classmates didn’t seem to have my kind of fashion sense — they wore coats and ties and party dresses for the most part, and although one or two of my former fellow braniacs wore jeans and polos, I felt decidedly underdressed, but I tried my best not to care very much.
Julie Kraswolski, the alumna who’d done all the hard work of organizing this event, sat just inside the door behind a table covered in name tags. There was a crowd gathering around her as people both searched for their own names and looked to see who else was supposed to show up. I glanced over the list, remembering Lauren’s comment to me about hooking up with old flames. There were two on the list. Kelli Hartshorn was now Kelli Weintraub. Cara McMillan was there too, though, maiden name and all. I wondered what she’d been up to. I thanked Julie for putting this all together as I looked the names over. I picked up mine and saw that neither Conrad nor Shelby had arrived yet. Slapping the sticker in place on my chest, I turned away to find the bar.