Father's Letter - Halloween 2011

[Mike Durant]

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A FATHER'S LETTER

by

Michael F.X. Durant

I never really knew my father. When I was about three, good old Jeremy Michael Harris was placed in a home for the criminally insane. I never wanted to go see him. My paternity hung over me, overshadowing all I did. That's what happens when your dad assassinates someone.

I suppressed it. My mother brought me in for all sorts of psychiatric testing when I was still young. Aside from some anger management issues (where's daddy?), I passed their tests. I spent the rest of my life up to this point trying my damnedest to suppress anything that might have come from his side of the family. The man rotted away and died in the “hospital.” I took my mother's name, Fennimore. After high school, nobody really ever asked me about my father. That was fine by me.

My kid, Ronnie, is the same age I was when my father committed his crime. I told my wife about my old man some time before we married. Vanessa just hugged me, held me tight. She did the same thing when my mother died last week. I loved her with all my heart, and when she held me I felt safe. Away from the world. I felt calmer in her embrace, less angry.

My mother was in the ground for all of two days before we moved into her house for the selling of the estate. Vanessa went through each room with a trashbag, cataloging what we could sell and tossing what we couldn't. Hidden deep within a file cabinet, pressed between my mother's 1982 tax returns and her current insurance information, Vanessa found a letter addressed to me.

It was yellowed and faded. Mr. Michael Harris, the envelope read, with my mother's address. It was postmarked... holy hell. The letter was sent to me when I was five. The return address was the damned hospital in Arkham where my father lived out his wasted life. He would have been in the hospital for two years by that point. Vanessa handed it to me unopened.

Dear Mike,

I'm not sure when this letter will reach you. If it will reach you. Nevertheless, I owe you an explanation. Your mother won't hear it, but you must.

I stopped there. It was scratched out in pencil and faded in some places. I looked up from my seat to see Vanessa looking at me. She was watching me with a careful eye, just seeing what I would do. “Just his crazy ramblings,” I said. “I don't need that right now.”

Vanessa smiled. “Damn right you don't! Want to toss it?”

I hesitated. These frantic ramblings were all I had of my father. I should have thrown the damned thing out right then and there, but I couldn't. There was the Jeremy Michael Harris the world knew... and the Jerry Harris that his son would never know. I shook my head, and folded the letter up. Vanessa nodded and moved on to the next room. I placed the letter in the envelope, and tucked it into my pocket.

I looked around the room, and decided to catalog my mother's library. It was disordered, like the rest of her house. She could reach for the shelf and pluck the exact book she wanted, but I didn't know what her filing system was. I always suspected there wasn't one. I began to stack the books on the floor, separating fiction from nonfiction, and then paperback from hardcover. In the next room, Vanessa was singing to Ronnie, some old song about having no girl in your life. I had to pause a few times to dry my eyes.

§

If I die in this rat hole, nobody will ever know that I'm not crazy. That's the secret. I know how my story sounded, so I didn't argue at my trial. There's not really much you can say to the government, to the rational sane world we think we live in.

We're wrong. The world is neither rational nor sane. Son, let me tell you a story. Let me tell you about the man I killed.

I didn't even know that I'd pulled out the letter and begun reading it at first. Vanessa was out picking up lunch from whatever fast food joint was closest. We'd made a good dent in my mother's belongings. We were just about done for the day. After lunch, Vanessa would sort through the jewelry I'd found, and then we'd head home. My bereavement leave was over, so I would be going to work again.

I was alone in the house, and when I realized what I was doing, I looked up from the letter. The wind made a chime sing out in the back yard, and it howled through the old house, its friend. The house was so essentially of my mother that I half expected her to come down the stairs and tell me to turn my frown upside down.

I was in college when I first encountered the... the markings were too smudged to read here. At the time, his name was Ray Fallon. He was a minor celebrity at Miskatonic University, where his band, Ray Fallon and the Brown Jenkins, played almost every Friday night. One Friday night, I had nothing better to do than to get drunk and watch the BJs. So, a couple friends of mine went with me to The Hoary Man to watch them. The Hoary Man was a dive near the campus, and most nights catered exclusively to the students there. I can only hope you'll discover the same bar, too.

I went to Northeastern University. Miskatonic hadn't even been on my radar.

The BJs were the main act, and their opener was some prog rock high school group from nearby Dunwich. We were good and toasted by the time the BJs came on stage. Ray marched on stage with a demoniac glare that silenced the crowd. Some people are electric like that, and with a glance at his bandmates, they started to play. I'd never heard the BJs play before, and it was enthralling. Almost literally enthralling. I may have had too much to drink, but there is one clear memory I have of that night.

We were deep in the woods separating Arkham and Dunwich. The BJs were playing in the clearing. I could not tell you why we were there, but the music was intense. My heart beat to it. The crowd was chanting... here my father crossed out “Ia! Ia!”... “Yeah, yeah!” And then we looked up at the sky.

One of the members of the BJs had a fiddle, which added a strange, otherworldly quality to the songs. Suddenly, his violin strains echoed back to us from the heavens. I can't remember what I saw when we all looked up there. All I remember is waking up the next morning in the wasteland of a roaring hangover. A friend and I had slept on a pair of benches by a bus stop.

I heard a car door slam, and put the letter away. Vanessa walked into the house with a greasy bag filled with burgers and fries, and a shake for Ronnie. I went into the kitchen and pulled two cans of Coke from the fridge. As I walked back to the living room, I saw Vanessa sorting through some of the jewelry while Ronnie sat on her lap, drinking his shake. At that moment, my body and soul were as far as could be from witch-haunted Arkham.

§

I had sleepwalked to my car. I have no idea what I had been dreaming about, but I was in my pajamas, in my car, with my keys. I got out of the car, and went back inside.

The next day, I went back to work. My father's letter gnawed at me all day, but I was too busy catching up on two weeks of undone work. It was almost not worth the time off. At lunch, I called Vanessa.

“Hey, hon.”

“Hey, Mike! How's it feel to be back?”

“Busy. Almost not worth the time off.”

She chuckled. Vanessa always chuckled at my jokes.

“I think I'm going to go out with the guys for a drink tonight.”

There was the slightest pause. “Alright, hon. You deserve it.”

I didn't go out with the guys. I got in my car and headed north of Boston, getting off at the Miskatonic Valley exit on 93, and driving into witch-haunted Arkham. I'd never been there before, but my GPS guided me. As I approached the city, I saw the vast expanses of suburbia give way to something older and more decrepit. My approach into the city drove past three family homes that were almost crumbling. A right turn brought me onto College St., where the apartment buildings were barely any better, reminiscent of Boston's Student Ghetto.

Miskatonic University was a brilliant jewel that improved the property around it. I passed sleek, modern dorms and class buildings, and turned off of College St. Eventually, I came out of the cave of the college city, and found myself in an older section. I could see the gambrel roofs on the buildings, and soon, my GPS brought me to a halt in front of a small, ancient-looking building. The Hoary Man.

I parked down a side street, and double checked the space for No Parking signs. Then I went into the bar. It was a dimly lit college dive, with students eating sandwiches and drinking beer. I saw an ancient bartender, maybe the Hoary Man himself, and I sidled up to the bar, taking my seat away from the students. I felt my alien-ness in this place. Everyone in the bar knew I didn't go to Miskatonic. The old man walked up to my seat, and grumbled something. I looked at the beer menu tacked to the wall.

“I'll have a house ale,” I said.

“A pint of Shoggoth's Old Peculier. Be right back.”

He walked away, and returned with a murky brown brew. I took a curious sip, and put it down. “Pretty good, ayuh?” the man asked.

“Ayuh,” I replied, mimicking his Maine accent without meaning to. “You been tending bar here long?”

“Ayuh, long enough. Used to be a pretty hopping bar. Bands, a line outside... Never think that now, eh?”

“Heh, you wouldn't. What kind of bands? Any I'd know?”

“Nah, mostly local shit.” The last word slipped off his tongue with a well-worn familiarity.

“I've been looking into local music, actually. Ever heard of the BJs?”

“The Brown Jenkins? Oh, sure, sure.” The Hoary Man's bushy eyebrows narrowed. “Not very popular outside the Valley.”

“Even so. Know much about them?”

“Nah, they broke up some time in the eighties. Couldn't tell ya why. They sure played, though.”

I took a long drink of the swill he'd served me. “They ever release any albums?”

“Don't think so. None they sold here, leastaways. Crazy buncha kids. The fans would follow them out to the woods like the fucking Pied Piper.”

“Every week?”

“Ayuh.”

“Ever hear what they saw out there?”

“What they saw?” The Hoary Man paused. “Maybe you should pay for your drink, young Harris.”

I looked around, then checked my belt for my RID card. It wasn't there and would have said Michael Fennimore if it was. “How did you--?”

“I recognize yer face. Yeh father was a reg'lar 'round these parts back then, and I don't forget the regulars.”

“Tell me what he saw out there in the woods.”

“I don't think I will, young Harris.”

I slammed a twenty on the table. “Another pint. Close out my tab and keep the change.”

I downed the first Shoggoth's before the Hoary Man returned with another. He didn't glance at the empty glass. “Don't go chasing after your father, boy. Your father died chasing his crawling chaos, and for what? Just go home. You don't belong here.”

I looked into the Hoary Man's eyes. “So, my father was insane?”

“Did I say that?” The man was confused.

“Never mind.”

I drank the swill in silence and left the Hoary Man. Was that all? My father's letter... all just him chasing the crawling chaos of his own insanity? I drove south, out of Arkham, and back towards the real world. My wife was emptying the dishwasher when I got back home, and I kissed her. Together we finished cleaning up the kitchen.

§

I couldn't sleep. My mind crawled with the unread parts of my father's letter. The Hoary Man's words came back to me as whispers in the night. I got up without disturbing Vanessa, and I walked downstairs with the letter to read more.

When we got back to the dorm, we both felt strange. We discovered that we both felt the same feeling of being watched. Like the sun was some imprisoned eye glaring down at us, watching our every move. For weeks afterward, we couldn't stand to be out in the sunlight for long. To this day, I hate it still, but I can bear it.

Reading his fevered words, I felt an eye on me. I looked up and saw Vanessa standing there in her thin cotton nightgown. I smiled like a child caught in the act.

“Don't worry about it, honey. It's natural.”

“I know, but...”

She walked over to me, and put her arms around me. She pulled herself into my lap and kissed me quiet. “But remember, Mike. He was a very sick man. Don't read anything into this letter. He was insane.”

I kissed her back. “I know.” I pulled the straps of her nightgown down past her shoulders, and kissed her again.

§

I owed it to myself to read my father's letter, no matter how it affected me. And I owed it to my wife not to go around the whole state chasing his crawling chaos, trying to corroborate his story. The next day, I sat in my cube for lunch and read more of the letter.

We suppressed the urge to shout at the sun, tell it to stop watching us. Nevertheless, my friend killed himself a few months later, in the darkest part of the Waite Library. I was alone with this madness. His suicide letter was a note that he was escaping the Crawling Chaos that would come.

Years later, I began seeing Dr. Reginald Forrester at your mother's insistence. I was going through a rough patch, then. It was either see a shrink or get out. I saw a shrink. Forrester came highly recommended to me, but I knew what he was when I entered the office. Hidden behind his half-spectacles lurked the same demoniac glint of the eye that I had seen on Ray Fallon. Their names were linked together in my mind, and I even told Forrester about Fallon. I bared my soul to him, not even realizing that it was happening.

Forrester didn't even laugh. He let me tell him everything, and with a few gentle probings, the matter was laid bare. He prescribed some medication to bring me down from my feelings of paranoia. But I sleepwalked.

“Fennimore! You got those reports done?”

§

With a few minutes to spare later in the day, I googled Dr. Forrester, but found nothing. The internet had never heard of him. Or, at least, there was no Dr. Forrester who practiced near Boston or Arkham. The rest of the day, the initials R.F. played in my head. I knew as well as anyone who Jeremy Michael Harris had assassinated: Senator Roger Forsythe.

§

That night, I locked myself in my study, and resolved to finish the letter. I unfolded it from my pocket, and again turned my eye to the now familiar handwriting. There was not much left to tell; I could see myself coming close to the end of the letter.

During one of our sessions, I asked Dr. Forrester what he was. He smiled as if speaking with a child. “Jerry, you know what I am. I'm a therapist, and I want to help you get well.”

“No,” I snarled, swatting away his hand. “I know you by your eyes. You can't be Ray Fallon. But you are. What are you?”

The grin dropped from Dr. Forrester's face. “Ray Fallon was one of my masks. Very perceptive. I have many masks. A thousand. Thousands of thousands. I'm known by many names. The Black Man. The Dark Pharaoh. Some people call me Mr. Skin. I'm in the chaos business.” He smiled at me. I couldn't believe my ears. Then he cocked his head ever so slightly, and my therapist was back. The mask was back. “Such a lovely day out today. Maybe you should take a walk, Jerry. Fill these prescriptions.”

I went for a walk before returning home, but I burned the prescriptions. I never told your mother. I went to see Dr. Forrester the next week, but it was as though his practice had never existed.

Your mother had grown suspicious by this point, and had gone to see Dr. Forrester. It was no use trying to tell her that he had vanished. She didn't believe I'd ever been to a therapist at all! Son, I hope you treat your wife, if you have a wife, better than I treated your mother. There was alot of shit that I just do not need to get into right now, since it has no bearing on my story. I knew though. My father was an alcoholic, and he cheated on my mother. When I asked her why he would do such a thing, she shrugged and said that he liked the secrecy of it. But your mother threw me out at that point, and I was in a bad way.

I won't bore you with the details. This story began in Arkham and it ended there, too. I was staying in a cheap boarding house near the campus. I was at the Hoary Man most nights, and I picked up a job as a janitor in the Waite Library. During my free time, I found myself in the old books section of the library. I was drawn to a pamphlet called “On Nameless Cults,” an English translation of a German original, kept behind glass. I read about cults worshipping the Crawling Chaos, a pantheon of trickster gods, or the same trickster god wearing different masks. The pamphlet traced this entity to the witch cults of Salem and Arkham, which worshipped the Black Man, and the Brotherhood of the Dark Pharaoh. I knew the man behind those masks.

I was unsure of this entity's purpose. More lunch hour research showed me the closest thing I had to a name for the entity. The Dark Pharaoh in particular was traced back to the historical pharaoh Nyarlathotep. Typically, the Crawling Chaos appeared to delight in nihilism, in self-destruction, or, according to some scholars, to further the dread unknowable aims of his brethren.

Around this time, I began to hear hallucinations. Even now, I can still hear the beating of the BJs drummer, the mad piping of their flute, and the wild howlings of Ray Fallon.

I could barely stand to be out during the day, but night was sheer terror. For during the day, only one eye watched me piece together the horrible truth. But at night, thousands of eyes turned their gaze on me, boring into my soul to see what I'd discovered.

Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with A Thousand Young!

The next paragraph was written in a different pen by a steadier hand.

I don't know why Nyarlathotep has singled me out from among the whole of humanity. I don't know what he would have me do. He had interfered in my life twice. I'd lost my sanity, and my family. I swore to find that bastard and make him pay. That was when Senator Roger Forsythe took to the national stage.

I put the letter down. My headache had returned. Tentacles writhed and crawled around my skull and squeezed. I could see where the letter was going. For some reason, Ray Fallon had been a traumatic event for my father. He had manufactured a whole delusion from it, based on the initials R.F. His delusion went as far as the therapist Richard Forrester. Combine that with whatever occult information he had gleaned from Miskatonic University, and he had developed a full-blown alternate reality. If it hadn't been Senator Forsythe, it would have been some other unfortunate celebrity with the initials R.F.

And I'd almost convinced myself of that. But that hoary man at the Hoary man whispered to me across time from our first meeting. He had known about the Crawling Chaos. How?

I finished the letter. It didn't shed any light on the matter, and it went pretty much as I had expected. He had planned his assassination attempt, and carried it out. I walked over to my mantlepiece, and stoked the log. I threw the letter into the flame, and let it burn. I imagined the flame devouring the letter, the initials R.F. being last and the brightest to burn.

I'd almost convinced myself that my father had talked to the hoary man, but that didn't sit right with me. I'd half-convinced myself that my trip out to Arkham had been a bad dream. Then I saw the newborn photo we'd taken of little Ronnie. His initials were laser-inscribed on the frame.

Ronald Fennimore.

R.F.

I shook my head, and put out the log. I went up to my room and passed it. I walked into my child's room. Ronnie stirred, and looked up at me. “Papa?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

The only light was the silvery glint of the moon. I had an audience of a thousand stars watching what came next.