|
|
|
|  |  |  |
|
By the Hair
of the Head For Charlie Grant The lighthouse was gray and
brutally weathered, kissed each morning by a cold, salt spray. Perched there
among the rocks and sand, it seemed a last, weak sentinel against an
encroaching sea; a relentless, pounding surf that had slowly swallowed up the
shoreline and deposited it in the all-consuming belly of the ocean. Once the lighthouse had been
bright-colored, candy-striped like a barber's pole, with a high beacon light
and a horn that honked out to the ships on the sea. No more. The lighthouse
director, the last of a long line of sea watchers, had cashed in the job ten
years back when the need died, but the lighthouse was now his and he lived
there alone, bunked down nightly to the tune of the wind and the raging sea. Below he had renovated the
bottom of the tower and built rooms, and one of these he had locked away from
all persons, from all eyes but his own. I came there fresh from
college to write my novel, dreams of being the new Norman Mailer dancing in my
head. I rented in with him, as he needed a boarder to help him pay for the
place, for he no longer worked and his pension was as
meager as stale bread. High up in the top was where
we lived, a bamboo partition drawn between our cots each night, giving us some
semblance of privacy, and dark curtains were pulled round the thick, foggy
windows that traveled the tower completely around. By day the curtains were
drawn and the partition was pulled and I sat at my typewriter, and he, Howard
Machen, sat with his book and his pipe, swelled the room of gray smoke the
thickness of his beard. Sometimes he rose and went below, but he was always quiet
and never disturbed my work. It was a pleasant life. Agreeable
to both of us. Mornings we had coffee outside on the little railed walkway and
had a word or two as well, then I went to my work and he to his book, and at
dinner we had food and talk and brandies; sometimes one, sometimes two,
depending on mood and the content of our chatter. We sometimes spoke of the
lighthouse and he told me of the old days, of how he had shone that light out
many times on the sea. Out like a great, bright fishing line to snag the ships
and guide them in; let them follow the light in the manner that Theseus
followed Ariadne's thread. "Was fine," he'd
say. "That pretty old light flashing out there. Best job I had in all my
born days. Just couldn't leave her when she shut down, so I bought her." "It is beautiful up
here, but lonely at times." "I have my
company." I took that as a compliment,
and we tossed off another brandy. Any idea of my writing later I cast aside. I
had done four good pages and was content to spit the rest of the day away in
talk and dreams. "You say this was your
best job," I said as a way of conversation. "What did you do before
this?" He lifted his head and
looked at me over the briar and its smoke. His eyes squinted against the tinge
of the tobacco. "A good many things. I was born in Wales. Moved to Ireland
with my family, was brought up there, and went to work there. Learned the
carpentry trade from my father. Later I was a tailor. I've also been a
mason—note the rooms I built below with my own two hands—and I've been a boat
builder and a ventriloquist in a magician's show." "A ventriloquist?" "Correct," he
said, and his voice danced around me and seemed not to come from where he sat. "Hey, that's
good." "Not so good really. I
was never good, just sort of fell into it. I'm worse now. No practice, but I've
no urge to take it up again." "I've an interest in
such things." "Have you now?" "Yes." "Ever tried a bit of
voice throwing?" "No. But it interests
me. The magic stuff interests me more. You said you worked in a magician's
show?" "That I did. I was the
lead-up act." "Learn any of the magic
tricks, being an insider and all?" "That I did, but that's
not something I'm interested in," he said flatly. "Was the magician you
worked for good?" "Damn good, m'boy. But his wife was better." "His wife?" "Marilyn was her name.
A beautiful woman." He winked at me. "Claimed to be a witch." "You don't say?" "I do, I do. Said her
father was a witch and she learned it and inherited it from him." "Her father?" "That's right. Not just
women can be witches. Men too." We poured ourselves another and exchanged
sloppy grins, hooked elbows, and tossed it down. "And another to meet
the first," the old man said and poured. Then: "Here's to
company." We tossed it off. "She taught me the
ventriloquism, you know," the old man said, relighting his pipe. "Marilyn?" "Right. Marilyn." "She seems to have been
a rather all-around lady." "She was at that. And
pretty as an Irish morning." "I thought witches were
all old crones, or young crones. Hook noses, warts..." "Not Marilyn. She was a
fine-looking woman. Fine bones, agate eyes that clouded in mystery, and hair
the color of a fresh-robbed hive." "Odd she didn't do the
magic herself. I mean, if she was the better magician, why was her husband the
star attraction?" "Oh, but she did do
magic. Or rather she helped McDonald to look better than he was, and he was
some good. But Marilyn was better. "Those days were
different. m'boy. Women weren't the ones to take the
initiative, least not openly. Kept to themselves.
Was a sad thing. Back then it wasn't thought fittin'
for a woman to be about such business. Wasn't ladylike. Oh, she could get sawed
in half, or disappear in a wooden crate, priss and look pretty, but take the
lead? Not on your life!" I fumbled myself another
brandy. "A pretty witch, huh?" "Ummmm." "Had the old pointed
hat and broom passed down, so to speak?" My voice was becoming slightly
slurred. "It's not a laughin' matter, m'boy."
Machen clenched the pipe in his teeth. "I've touched a nerve,
have I not? I apologize. Too much sauce." Machen smiled. "Not at
all. It's a silly thing, you're right To hell with it." "No, no, I'm the one
who spoiled the fun. You were telling me she claimed to be the descendant of a
long line of witches." Machen smiled. It did not
remind me of other smiles he had worn. This one seemed to come from a borrowed
collection. "Just some silly tattle
is all. Don't really know much about it, just worked for her, m'boy." That was the end of that. Standing, he knocked
out his pipe on the concrete floor and went to his cot. For a moment I sat there, the last
breath of Machen's pipe still in the air, the brandy still warm in my throat
and stomach. I looked at the windows that surrounded the lighthouse, and
everywhere I looked was my own ghostly reflection. It was like looking out
through the compound eyes of an insect, seeing a multiple image. I turned out the lights,
pulled the curtains and drew the partition between our beds, wrapped myself in
my blanket, and soon washed up on the distant shore of a recurring dream. A
dream not quite in grasp, but heard like the far, fuzzy cry of a gull out from
land. It had been with me almost
since moving into the tower. Sounds, voices. . . . A clunking noise like peg
legs on stone . . . a voice, fading in, fading out . . . Machen's voice, the
words not quite clear, but soft and coaxing . . . then solid and firm:
"Then be a beast. Have your own way. Look away from me with your mother's
eyes." ". . . your
fault," came a child's voice, followed by other words that were chopped
out by the howl of the sea wind, the roar of the waves. ". . . getting too
loud. He'll hear . . ." came Machen's voice. "Don't care . . . I . . ." Lost voices now. I tried to stir, but then
the tube of sleep, nourished by the brandy, came unclogged, and I descended
down into richer blackness. Was a bright morning full of
sun, and no fog for a change. Cool clear out there on the landing, and the sea
even seemed to roll in soft and bounce against the rocks and lighthouse like
puffy cotton balls blown on the wind. I was out there with my morning
coffee, holding the cup in one hand and grasping the railing with the other. It
was a narrow area but safe enough, provided you didn't lean too far out or run
along the walk when it was slick with rain. Machen told me of a man who had
done just that and found himself plummeting over to be shattered like a dropped
melon on the rocks below. Machen came out with a cup
of coffee in one hand, his unlit pipe in the other. He looked haggard this
morning, as if a bit of old age had crept upon him in the night, fastened a
straw to his face, and sucked out part of his substance. "Morning," I said. "Morning." He
emptied his cup in one long draft. He balanced the cup on the metal railing and
began to pack his pipe. "Sleep bad?" I
asked. He looked at me, then at his pipe, finished his packing, and
put the pouch away in his coat pocket. He took a long match from the same
pocket, gave it fire with his thumbnail, lit the pipe. He puffed quite a while
before he answered me. "Not too well. Not too
well." "We drank too
much." "We did at that." I sipped my coffee and
looked at the sky, watched a snowy gull dive down and peck at the foam, rise up
with a wriggling fish in its beak. It climbed high in the sky, became a speck
of froth on the crystal blue. "I had funny
dreams," I said. "I think I've had them all along, since I came here.
But last night they were stronger than ever." "Oh?" "Thought I heard your
voice speaking to someone. Thought I heard steps on the stairs, or more like
the plunking of peg legs, like those old sea captains have." "You don't say?" "And another voice, a
child's." “That right? Well . . . maybe you
did hear me speakin'. I wasn't entirely straight with
you last night. I do have quite an interest in the voice throwing, and I
practice it from time to time on my dummy. Last night must have been louder
than usual, being drunk and all." "Dummy?" "My old dummy from the
act. Keep it in the room below." "Could I see it?" He grimaced. "Maybe
another time. It's kind of a private thing with me. Only bring her out when
we're alone." "Her?" "Right. Name's
Caroline, a right smart-looking girl dummy, rosy cheeked with blonde
pigtails." "Well, maybe someday I
can look at her." "Maybe someday."
He stood up. popped the contents of the pipe out over the railing, and started
inside. Then he turned: "I talk too much. Pay no mind to an old, crazy
man." Then he was gone, and I was
there with a hot cup of coffee, a bright, warm day, and an odd, unexplained
chill at the base of my bones. Two days later we got on
witches again, and I guess it was my fault. We hit the brandy hard that night.
I had sold a short story for a goodly sum—my largest check to date—and we were
celebrating and talking and saying how my fame would be as high as the stars.
We got pretty sicky there, and to hear
Machen tell it, and to hear me agree—no matter he hadn't read the story—I was
another Hemingway, Wolfe, and Fitzgerald all balled into one. "If Marilyn were
here," I said thoughtlessly, drunk, "why we could get her to consult
her crystal and tell us my literary future." "Why that's nonsense,
she used no crystal." "No crystal, broom, or
pointed hat? No eerie evil deeds for her? A white magician, no doubt?" "Magic is magic, m'boy. And even good intentions can backfire." "Whatever happened to
her, Marilyn I mean?" "Dead." "Old age?" "Died young and
beautiful, m'boy. Grief killed her." "I see," I said,
as you'll do to show attentiveness. Suddenly, it was as if the
memories were a balloon overloaded with air, about to burst if pressure were
not taken off. So, he let loose the pressure and began to talk. "She took her a lover,
Marilyn did. Taught him many a thing, about love, magic, what have you. Lost
her husband on account of it, the magician, I mean. Lost respect for herself in
time. "You see, there was
this little girl she had, by her lover. A fine-looking sprite, lived until she
was three. Had no proper father. He had taken to the sea and had never much
entertained the idea of marryin' Marilyn. Keep them
stringing was his motto then, damn his eyes. So he left them to fend for
themselves." "What happened to the
child?" "She died. Some
childhood disease." "That's sad," I
said, "a little girl gone and having only sipped at life." "Gone? Oh, no. There's
the soul, you know." I wasn't much of a believer
in the soul and I said so. "Oh, but there is a
soul. The body perishes but the soul lives on." "I've seen no evidence
of it." "But I have,"
Machen said solemnly. "Marilyn was determined that the girl would live on,
if not in her own form, then in another." "Hogwash!" Machen looked at me sternly.
"Maybe. You see, there is a part of witchcraft that deals with the soul, a
part that believes the soul can be trapped and held, kept from escaping this
earth and into the beyond. That's why a lot of natives are superstitious about
having their picture taken. They believe once their image is captured, through
magic, their soul can be contained. "Voodoo works much the
same. It's nothing but another form of witchcraft. Practitioners of that art
believe their souls can be held to this earth by means of someone collecting
nail parin's or hair from them while they're still
alive. "That's what Marilyn
had in mind. When she saw the girl was fadin', she
snipped one of the girl's long pigtails and kept it to herself. Cast spells on
it while the child lay dyin', and again after life
had left the child." "The soul was supposed
to be contained within the hair?" "That's right. It can
be restored, in a sense, to some other object through the hair. It's like those
voodoo dolls. A bit of hair or nail parin' is
collected from the person you want to control, or if not control, maintain the
presence of their soul, and it's sewn into those dolls. That way, when the pins
are stuck into the doll, the living suffer, and when they die their soul is
trapped in the doll for all eternity, or rather as long as the doll with its
hair or nail parin's exists." "So she preserved the
hair so she could make a doll and have the little girl live on, in a
sense?" "Something like
that." "Sounds crazy." "I suppose." "And what of the little
girl's father?" "Ah, that sonofabitch!
He came home to find the little girl dead and buried and the mother mad. But
there was that little gold lock of hair, and knowing Marilyn, he figured her
intentions." "Machen," I said
slowly. "It was you, was it not? You were the father?" "I was." "I'm sorry." "Don't be. We were both
foolish. I was the more foolish. She left her husband for me and I cast her
aside. Ignored my own child. I was the fool, a great fool." "Do you really believe
in that stuff about the soul? About the hair and what Marilyn was doing?" "Better I didn't. A
soul once lost from the body would best prefer to be departed I think . . . but
love is sometimes a brutal thing." We just sat there after
that. We drank more. Machen smoked his pipe, and about an hour later we went to
bed. There were sounds again,
gnawing at the edge of my sleep. The
sounds that had always been there, but now, since we had talked of Marilyn, I
was less able to drift off into blissful slumber. I kept thinking of those
crazy things Machen had said. I remembered, too, those voices I had heard, and
the fact that Machen was a ventriloquist, and perhaps, not altogether stable. But those sounds. I sat up and opened my eyes.
They were coming from below. Voices. Machen's first. ". . . not be the
death of you, girl, not at all . . . my only reminder of Marilyn. . . ." And then to my horror.
"Let me be, Papa. Let it end." The last had been a little girl's
voice, but the words had been bitter and wise beyond the youngness of the tone. I stepped out of bed and
into my trousers, crept to the curtain, and looked on Machen's side. Nothing, just a lonely cot. I wasn't
dreaming. I had heard him all right, and the other voice . . . it had to be
that Machen, grieved over what he had done in the past, over Marilyn's death,
had taken to speaking to himself in the little girl's voice. All that stuff
Marilyn had told him about the soul, it had gotten to him, cracked his
stability. I climbed down the cold
metal stairs, listening. Below I heard the old, weathered door that led outside
slam. Heard the thud of boots going down the outside steps. I went back up, went to the
windows, and pulling back the curtains section by section, finally saw the old
man. He was carrying something wrapped in a black cloth and he had a shovel in
his hand. I watched as, out there by the shore, he dug a shallow grave and
placed the cloth-wrapped object within, placed a rock over it, and left it to
the night and the incoming tide. I pretended to be asleep
when he returned, and later, when I felt certain he was well visited by
Morpheus, I went downstairs and retrieved the shovel from the tool room. I went
out to where I had seen him dig and went to work, first turning over the large
stone and shoveling down into the pebbly dirt. Due to the freshness of the
hole, it was easy digging. I found the cloth and what
was inside. It made me flinch at first, it looked so real. I thought it was a
little rosy-cheeked girl buried alive, for it looked alive . . . but it was a
dummy. A ventriloquist dummy. It had aged badly, as if water had gotten to it. In some ways it looked as if it
were rotting from the inside out. My finger went easily and deeply into the
wood of one of the legs. Out of some odd curiosity, I
reached up and pushed back the wooden eyelids. There were no wooden painted
eyes, just darkness, empty sockets that uncomfortably reminded me of looking
down into the black hollows of a human skull. And the hair. On one side of the
head was a yellow pigtail, but where the other should have been was a bare
spot, as if the hair had been ripped away from the wooden skull. With a trembling hand I closed the
lids down over those empty eyes, put the dirt back in place, the rock, and
returned to bed. But I did not sleep well. I dreamed of a grown man talking to
a wooden doll and using another voice to answer back, pretending that the doll
lived and loved him too. But the water had gotten to
it, and the sight of those rotting legs had snapped him back to reality, dashed
his insane hopes of containing a soul by magic, shocked him brutally from
foolish dreams. Dead is dead. The next day, Machen was
silent and had little to say. I suspected the events of last night weighed on
his mind. Our conversation must have returned to him this morning in sober
memory, and he, somewhat embarrassed, was reluctant to recall it. He kept to
himself down below in the locked room, and I busied myself with my work. It was night when he came
up, and there was a smug look about him, as if he had accomplished some great
deed. We spoke a bit, but not of witches, of past times and the sea. Then he
pulled back the curtains and looked at the moon rise above the water like a
cold fish eye. "Machen," I said,
"maybe I shouldn't say anything, but if you should ever have something
bothering you. If you should ever want to talk about it . . . Well, feel free
to come to me." He smiled at me. "Thank you. But any problem
that might have been bothering me is . . . shall we say, all sewn up." We said little more and soon
went to bed. I slept sounder that night,
but again I was rousted from my dreams by voices. Machen's voice again, and the
poor man speaking in that little child's voice. "It's a fine home for
you," Machen said in his own voice. "I want no home,"
came the little girl's voice. "I want to be free." "You want to stay with
me, with the living. You're just not thinking. There's only darkness beyond the
veil." The voices were very clear
and loud. I sat up in bed and strained my ears. "It's where I
belong," the little girl's voice again, but it spoke not in a little girl
manner. There was only the tone. "Things have been bad
lately," Machen said. "And you're not yourself." Laughter—horrible little
girl laughter. "I haven't been myself
for years." "Now, Catherine . . .
play your piano. You used to play it so well. Why, you haven't touched it in
years." "Play. Play. With
these!" "You're too loud." "I don't care. Let him
hear, let him . . ." A door closed sharply and
the sound died off to a mumble; a word caught here and there was scattered and
confused by the throb of the sea. Next morning Machen had
nothing for me, not even a smile from his borrowed collection. Nothing but
coldness, his back, and a frown. I saw little of him after
coffee, and once, from below—for he stayed down there the whole day through—I
thought I heard him cry in a loud voice, "Have it your way then," and
then there was the sound of a slamming door and some other sort of commotion
below. After a while I looked out
at the land and the sea, and down there, striding back and forth, hands behind
his back, went Machen, like some great confused penguin contemplating the far
shore. I like to think there was
something more than curiosity in what I did next. Like to think I was looking
for the source of my friend's agony; looking for some way to help him find
peace. I went downstairs and pulled
at the door he kept locked, hoping that, in his anguish, he had forgotten to lock it back. He had not forgotten. I pressed my ear against the
door and listened. Was that crying I heard? No. I was being susceptible,
caught up in Machen's fantasy. It was merely the wind whipping about the tower. I went back upstairs, had
coffee, and wrote not a line. So day fell into night, and
I could not sleep but finally got the strange business out of my mind by
reading a novel. A rollicking good sea story of daring men and bloody battles,
great ships clashing in a merciless sea. And then, from his side of
the curtain, I heard Machen creak off his cot and take to the stairs. One
flight below was the door that led to the railing round about the tower, and I
heard that open and close. I rose, folded a small piece
of paper into my book for a marker, and pulled back one of the window curtains.
I walked around pulling curtains and looking until I could see him below. He stood with his hands
behind his back, looking out at the sea like a stern father keeping an eye on
his children. Then, calmly, he mounted the railing and leaped out into the air. I ran. Not that it mattered, but I
ran out to the railing . . . and looked down. His body looked like a rag doll
splayed on the rocks. There was no question in my
mind that he was dead, but slowly I wound my way down the steps . . . and was
distracted by the room. The door stood wide open. I don't know what compelled me to
look in, but I was drawn to it. It was a small room with a desk and a lot of
shelves filled with books, mostly occult and black magic. There were carpentry
tools on the wall, and all manner of needles and devices that might be used by
a tailor. The air was filled with an odd odor I could not place, and on
Machen's desk, something that was definitely not tobacco smoldered away. There was another room
beyond the one in which I stood. The door to it was cracked open. I pushed it
back and stepped inside. It was a little child's room filled thick with toys
and such: jack-in-the-boxes, dolls, kid books, and a toy piano. All were covered
in dust. On the bed lay a teddy bear.
It was ripped open and the stuffing was pulled out. There was one long strand
of hair hanging out of that gutted belly, just one, as if it were the last
morsel of a greater whole. It was the color of honey from a fresh-robbed hive.
I knew what the smell in the ashtray was now. I took the hair and put a
match to it, just in case. Well . . . toys will be toys. Swing on by Thursday, May 15, for another
dose of vitamin Mojo from Dr. Champion Joe R. Lansdale! "By the Hair of the Head" originally appeared in Shadows 6. It later appeared in Bestsellers Guaranteed, a collection published by Ace. It's also been adapted to film—check it out! "By the Hair of the Head" © 1983 By Bizarre Hands, LLC. All Rights Reserved. |
