Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Captain's House (Part II)
“Have fun and remember, you're talking to a dead person, it's all right you'll die too someday.”
(This advice, gleaned from 'Wikihow' was where we left off on Tuesday.)
The old mansion has an upstairs attic that can be bolted from the outside.
What would you need to lock in the attic?
Perhaps the inside of the door is covered in the frantic
claw marks made by something trying to escape.
This is a place the step-mother locks the child away to starve.
This is a place to deposit the baby from David Lynch’s
Eraserhead.
This is a place to chain up the Welsh-version of Quasimodo.
Push some bits of dog food through the opening at
the base of the door once a week. Stand back and listen to the beast scamper down the stairs, nails clawing at the cold floor, the drooling sounds, as it presses its mouth to the ground to snatch up the pellets with its yellow tongue. At nights you slide in a peanut-butter cookie packed fat with animal-strength tranquilizers to quell its pre-pubescent howls.
This is where we need to hold our séance.
Since Buffy and Drama seem reluctant,
I tell some little lies.
I assure them that since I will be controlling the séance, if anything bad happens, it will happen to me, not to them. I need them for the sole purpose of 'completing the circle,' I say.
I say that we need to use the attic because we need to be as close to the moon as possible, and that the attic is the natural and safest conduit for contact with the spiritual world.
Would you rather, I say, do this in the room where you'll have to sleep later?
I don't tell them I am leading our venture into the spiritual world based off of my cursory glance at an internet article.
Drama protests that his family’s Scottish estates are registered as haunted and
that he could potentially attract bad spirits. Giving us attitude, he flamboyantly, 'jus' don' wanna.'
To quell his fears, I leash the dog to the wall in the attic corner as
a variation on the classic 'canary in the coal mine.'
Weasel doesn’t respond.
Weasel mutters something indiscernible.
We go up.
We are in the attic.
We have lit the low-ceilinged room with a solitary candle.
We hold hands, and
I speak the words.
I invite whatever spirits are present to join us.
I request, specifically, the spirit of the Captain.
I repeat my invitation.
I must speak to the spirit the way
I would want to be spoken to if
I were a spirit.
We stay there in silence.
I ponder the attic with the low ceiling, like a small airplane hangar and
the old glass drooping with age, and the walls too thick without apparent reason.
What's in there?
I find myself thinking of Poe’s
“The Cask of Amontillado,”
and likening it to the story of the Captain's own wall collapsing on him, albeit, in a decidedly more reflexive rehashing of Poe's story.
Maybe we could get in trouble with this:
I usually am a sucker for a brazen act of hubris.
Why wasn’t the Captain’s wife's name also etched on those bricks?
What did he do with her?
What native islands had the captain exploited and/or terrorized?
How many turtles had he scooped with a knife from their shells, shearing first the tail, then the back legs then the front legs, then the wrinkled neck holding the gumless, open and tremoring mouth?
Seafaring success in those days often seems to have been congruent with capacity for brutality- was the Captain an evil man?
I realize that I am supposed to focus on listening for the spirits.
Did I ruin it?
Should I say the words again?
Weasel lets out a little moan. His hand feels wet in mine.
Buffy squeezes my hand tighter and is, for once, motionless and cold.
I am about to repeat the incantation.
The dog barks.
We flinch as a group.
The unnaturally green image of a thick, large lizard with bulging bright yellow eyes flashes through my brain. It looks up at me like a child keeping watch on its parent. Is this vision good for me?
Drama shrieks in a falsetto.
Weasel and Buffy bolt down the stairs.
The dog is upright on her hind legs, straining at her lead.
I rise, trying to be calm, searching for some levity.
Drama is having fits. Convulsions. Spasms.
He makes his way to his feet. He stands and convulses circularly, violently.
His mouth is chattering from an unseen cold.
His head swivels unnaturally, like an old woman struggling to eat soup at a church banquet.
The dog has burrowed beneath a towel, and is standing eerily catatonic.
Drama’s jaw looks unhinged. It is open beyond what is natural.
He stands in one spot and convulses, rattles.
His head is back. His mouth is open.
It is as if someone holds his head back and pours scalding coffee into his mouth.
I run.
We are outside the attic.
Drama is up there still.
We hear him still.
His voice has gotten higher now.
It is shrill. It is subhuman.
We hear thick panting noises.
We hear shrill whistles.
Buffy slams the attic door shut.
Locks it.
the Weasel says.
She flips Drama off through the door.
Her raised finger trembles.
Silence.
We hear Drama’s slow steps.
A horrible whimper from upstairs.
The whimpering turns into a desperate whine.
We hear choking noises, gurgling.
Nobody laughs.
We hear slow steps.
Then heavy steps.
We see the old wooden door.
Now here is running. It comes down the stairs.
Slams
his body full force into the door.
We leap back.
Drama is quiet and seems level.
None of us speak. Weasel stands behind Buffy, clutching the folds of her blouse.
I see the latched bolt and it is steel and in places it has collected rust, and there is the place that has worn smooth from humans touching it for years and years.
None of us says a word.
His voice has dropped.
It is too low.
It is a growl.
Drama is not this good of an actor.
He raps at the door.
He is pounding
He is frantic and pounding and screaming
We are there outside the door, somehow transfixed.
Immobile.
His voice goes falsetto:
I hesitate.
I run down the hallway to my room, and gather up my possessions. I hear Buffy exit and start the car.
I run back, but stop. I stay still and listen.
Now Weasel is the one that sounds different.
He speaks low and succinct.
Weasel sees me and sounds timid again-
We hear barking upstairs.
We are in the Porsche.
We are driving fast back to Swansea.
(This advice, gleaned from 'Wikihow' was where we left off on Tuesday.)
The old mansion has an upstairs attic that can be bolted from the outside.
What would you need to lock in the attic?
Perhaps the inside of the door is covered in the frantic
claw marks made by something trying to escape.
This is a place the step-mother locks the child away to starve.
This is a place to deposit the baby from David Lynch’s
Eraserhead.
This is a place to chain up the Welsh-version of Quasimodo.
Push some bits of dog food through the opening at
the base of the door once a week. Stand back and listen to the beast scamper down the stairs, nails clawing at the cold floor, the drooling sounds, as it presses its mouth to the ground to snatch up the pellets with its yellow tongue. At nights you slide in a peanut-butter cookie packed fat with animal-strength tranquilizers to quell its pre-pubescent howls.
This is where we need to hold our séance.
Since Buffy and Drama seem reluctant,
I tell some little lies.
I assure them that since I will be controlling the séance, if anything bad happens, it will happen to me, not to them. I need them for the sole purpose of 'completing the circle,' I say.
I say that we need to use the attic because we need to be as close to the moon as possible, and that the attic is the natural and safest conduit for contact with the spiritual world.
Would you rather, I say, do this in the room where you'll have to sleep later?
I don't tell them I am leading our venture into the spiritual world based off of my cursory glance at an internet article.
Drama protests that his family’s Scottish estates are registered as haunted and
that he could potentially attract bad spirits. Giving us attitude, he flamboyantly, 'jus' don' wanna.'
To quell his fears, I leash the dog to the wall in the attic corner as
a variation on the classic 'canary in the coal mine.'
“I had a dream that you had a red Ferrari,”
Drama tells Weasel.
“It means that you were being quite self-involved, as usual,”Drama continues to prod.
Weasel doesn’t respond.
“At least try and act interested in my dream, please, dear Weasel.”
Weasel mutters something indiscernible.
We go up.
We are in the attic.
We have lit the low-ceilinged room with a solitary candle.
We hold hands, and
I speak the words.
I invite whatever spirits are present to join us.
I request, specifically, the spirit of the Captain.
“Tell us your story.”
I repeat my invitation.
I must speak to the spirit the way
I would want to be spoken to if
I were a spirit.
We stay there in silence.
I ponder the attic with the low ceiling, like a small airplane hangar and
the old glass drooping with age, and the walls too thick without apparent reason.
What's in there?
I find myself thinking of Poe’s
“The Cask of Amontillado,”
and likening it to the story of the Captain's own wall collapsing on him, albeit, in a decidedly more reflexive rehashing of Poe's story.
Maybe we could get in trouble with this:
I usually am a sucker for a brazen act of hubris.
Why wasn’t the Captain’s wife's name also etched on those bricks?
What did he do with her?
What native islands had the captain exploited and/or terrorized?
How many turtles had he scooped with a knife from their shells, shearing first the tail, then the back legs then the front legs, then the wrinkled neck holding the gumless, open and tremoring mouth?
Seafaring success in those days often seems to have been congruent with capacity for brutality- was the Captain an evil man?
I realize that I am supposed to focus on listening for the spirits.
Did I ruin it?
Should I say the words again?
Weasel lets out a little moan. His hand feels wet in mine.
Buffy squeezes my hand tighter and is, for once, motionless and cold.
I am about to repeat the incantation.
The dog barks.
We flinch as a group.
The unnaturally green image of a thick, large lizard with bulging bright yellow eyes flashes through my brain. It looks up at me like a child keeping watch on its parent. Is this vision good for me?
Drama shrieks in a falsetto.
Weasel and Buffy bolt down the stairs.
The dog is upright on her hind legs, straining at her lead.
I rise, trying to be calm, searching for some levity.
“Typical Drama. How about taking a break-”
“Ahh-Ahh-Ahh. I-I-I.”
Drama is having fits. Convulsions. Spasms.
He makes his way to his feet. He stands and convulses circularly, violently.
His mouth is chattering from an unseen cold.
His head swivels unnaturally, like an old woman struggling to eat soup at a church banquet.
The dog has burrowed beneath a towel, and is standing eerily catatonic.
Drama’s jaw looks unhinged. It is open beyond what is natural.
He stands in one spot and convulses, rattles.
His head is back. His mouth is open.
It is as if someone holds his head back and pours scalding coffee into his mouth.
I run.
We are outside the attic.
Drama is up there still.
We hear him still.
His voice has gotten higher now.
It is shrill. It is subhuman.
We hear thick panting noises.
We hear shrill whistles.
Buffy slams the attic door shut.
Locks it.
"He‘s an actor. It’s what he does,"
the Weasel says.
"Right. This isn’t funny,"
Buffy says.
She flips Drama off through the door.
Her raised finger trembles.
Silence.
We hear Drama’s slow steps.
A horrible whimper from upstairs.
"The dog,"
Buffy says.
The whimpering turns into a desperate whine.
We hear choking noises, gurgling.
"Sounds like he’s waterboarding the dog,"
I say.
Nobody laughs.
"Poor dog,"says Weasel.
We hear slow steps.
Then heavy steps.
Down the stairs.To us.
We cannot move.
We see the old wooden door.
Now here is running. It comes down the stairs.
Slams
his body full force into the door.
We leap back.
"Oh, hey guys. Sorry about that. Dog was going mad up there,"
Drama is quiet and seems level.
"Mind letting me out of the brig? Ha ha."
None of us speak. Weasel stands behind Buffy, clutching the folds of her blouse.
I see the latched bolt and it is steel and in places it has collected rust, and there is the place that has worn smooth from humans touching it for years and years.
"Just a little excited there mates."
None of us says a word.
"GUYS."
His voice has dropped.
It is too low.
It is a growl.
Drama is not this good of an actor.
He raps at the door.
"OPEN THIS!"He pounds.
"OPEN THIS OPEN THIS!"
His voice is harsh and high and cold.
"I command you!"
"That’s an order!"
"This is treason!"
He is pounding
He is frantic and pounding and screaming
We are there outside the door, somehow transfixed.
Immobile.
His voice goes falsetto:
"You’ll hang for this.
You’ll hang and hang.
Keelhauled and hung.
Keelhauled and hung."
"Buffy get the car, Dan, get your things."
I hesitate.
"We’ll get ours later. Go."
I run down the hallway to my room, and gather up my possessions. I hear Buffy exit and start the car.
I run back, but stop. I stay still and listen.
Now Weasel is the one that sounds different.
He speaks low and succinct.
“Maybe this will teach you some humility. Enjoy your night, you prig. Always about Drama. Everything about Drama. Always making drama about Drama. Hey guys, want to hear about my dream? No. No we don’t; no we don’t. Have a good night. Have a long fucking night with the Captain. Prig."
Weasel sees me and sounds timid again-
"Lets go. Drama is a prick."
We hear barking upstairs.
We are in the Porsche.
We are driving fast back to Swansea.
"The maid will be there in the morning,"
Weasel assures us.
"It’s her job to deal with shit."
"Right,"I agree.
"She wouldn't be a maid if she didn't like dealing with shit."We all share a laugh that lasts too long. The car is fast and the black coast begins to yield to the lights of the city.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Captain's House
All of my companions have catchy monikers:
Drama.
Weasel.
Buffy.
We took the boat around the point for fish and chips.
I met these characters in Morocco, and they invited me up for a weekend in Wales.
Buffy is excitable and always needs reassurance from the group.
She is actually known to slap people if they are not focused enough on her.
Somehow, we get along just fine.
Weasel and Drama have been friends for so long that they make their own gay jokes.
Weasel is a swarthy little man with a thick Welsh accent.
Drama is a willowy and excitable actor- always complaining that he is being typecast as either a poor man’s Jon Heder or a crack addict.
On the window of the fish and chips place, they have written:
They probably would have been the best,
but something about the rash of ten year old rugby players infecting the place with their dingy teal shirts and sticky looking faces seemed to limit my abilities to evaluate this particular fish and chips experience relative to my lifetime of other fish and chips experiences.
Erosion is claiming part of the cliff along part of the main beach in New Quay, Wales. The interesting thing to me, is the viscous grey clay gathered at the bottom. It has the consistency of a wet cake batter-
I’m just guessing, since I’ve never attempted anything that rigorous.
We leave the dock and make our way back to the Captain's old estate.
We are staying of course, in the mansion of one of the most successful shipping captains in the Welsh history.
Apparently he died violently when his massive wall of, oddly enough, personalized bricks, collapsed and left him trapped. He ended up starving to death beneath that proverbial ‘ton of bricks.‘
The town has placed a plaque on the sidewalk in front of the estate to denote this tragedy. It is one of those historical markers that oxidize almost upon placement.
Weasel and the others are drinking Bell’s eight year old scotch whiskey, and I have sampled some five year old Boddingtons beer.
In the foyer, Weasel approached me with a request.
He wanted to perform a séance, but thought that the others would only go along if I suggested it. Sounded like he had requested it too often.
Immediately, I agreed that a séance seemed appropriate.
We could get the Captain back down here to ask what was going on
with all the personalized bricks in that wall.
Why Personalized?
Why not just monogram them, instead of writing your full name?
I was convinced it would be a little like visiting Morocco: some weirdness, but harmless; good people if you try to speak their language.
From the internet, Wikihow feebly offers us the grammatically poor reassurance:
(Continued on Thursday)
Drama.
Weasel.
Buffy.
We took the boat around the point for fish and chips.
I met these characters in Morocco, and they invited me up for a weekend in Wales.
Buffy is excitable and always needs reassurance from the group.
She is actually known to slap people if they are not focused enough on her.
Somehow, we get along just fine.
Weasel and Drama have been friends for so long that they make their own gay jokes.
Weasel is a swarthy little man with a thick Welsh accent.
Drama is a willowy and excitable actor- always complaining that he is being typecast as either a poor man’s Jon Heder or a crack addict.
On the window of the fish and chips place, they have written:
“Probably the best fish and chips you’ll ever eat.”
They probably would have been the best,
but something about the rash of ten year old rugby players infecting the place with their dingy teal shirts and sticky looking faces seemed to limit my abilities to evaluate this particular fish and chips experience relative to my lifetime of other fish and chips experiences.
Erosion is claiming part of the cliff along part of the main beach in New Quay, Wales. The interesting thing to me, is the viscous grey clay gathered at the bottom. It has the consistency of a wet cake batter-
I’m just guessing, since I’ve never attempted anything that rigorous.
We leave the dock and make our way back to the Captain's old estate.
We are staying of course, in the mansion of one of the most successful shipping captains in the Welsh history.
Apparently he died violently when his massive wall of, oddly enough, personalized bricks, collapsed and left him trapped. He ended up starving to death beneath that proverbial ‘ton of bricks.‘
The town has placed a plaque on the sidewalk in front of the estate to denote this tragedy. It is one of those historical markers that oxidize almost upon placement.
Weasel and the others are drinking Bell’s eight year old scotch whiskey, and I have sampled some five year old Boddingtons beer.
In the foyer, Weasel approached me with a request.
He wanted to perform a séance, but thought that the others would only go along if I suggested it. Sounded like he had requested it too often.
Immediately, I agreed that a séance seemed appropriate.
We could get the Captain back down here to ask what was going on
with all the personalized bricks in that wall.
Why Personalized?
Why not just monogram them, instead of writing your full name?
I was convinced it would be a little like visiting Morocco: some weirdness, but harmless; good people if you try to speak their language.
From the internet, Wikihow feebly offers us the grammatically poor reassurance:
“Have fun and remember, you're talking to a dead person, it's all right you'll die too someday.”
(Continued on Thursday)
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
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