The Mephistophelean House Read online

  I hesitated, wondering what was beyond the narrow sphere of light. Water spilled under the door. From the vent came the buzzing of flies.

  The pump at the base of the staircase discharged.

  The furnace racketed like a meat grinder.

  Matthew unpacked in a room at the top of the stairs. Tall and bright with hardwood floors and closets at both ends, the windows towered through the trees that looked out on the hills.

  “Your room's down the hall.”

  Across the hall was a grim little room with a curious double-hung window. The window looked out on a Walnut tree growing between the old hip and the awning. An abnormal closet, a false little room, with a trap door, marks on the ceiling, an abrasion or stain I couldn’t explain made the room even more unappealing.

  “What’s that smell?”

  I got the vacuum from downstairs and cleaned the grim white room. To embed the hose head underneath the baseboard I reworked the crack back and forth under the floor.

  “The place smells like cats.”

  “There’s something under the floor.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “I don't know.”

  The baseboard was bilgy.

  “I wonder how long it’s been empty.”

  “A long time, by the looks of it.”

  I rolled the vacuum down the hall, an inch of dust was on the wall, the hardwood, ceiling, windowsills were pocketed in cobwebbed filth. I got a bucket and some rags and opened up a garbage bag. The broom kicked up a frowsy din, the bucket instantly blackened, the grim white room ranked fell and stale, the walls were pinned in human nails.

  Matthew sat on a mat.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Yoga.”

  “This place is disgusting.”

  “I’ll smudge.”

  Matthew lit a stick of yarrow and set it on an altar.

  “What’s that gonna to do?”

  “I'm announcing my presence.”

  “Announcing your presence?”

  “And asking unwanted guests to kindly depart.”

  “Aren’t you going to clean?”

  Matthew pointed at the burning yarrow.

  “Look.”

  The smoke was weird.

  I refilled the bucket and returned to the grim little room, working methodically until dark. I got my sleeping bag and lay in bed. I must have fallen asleep for I was awakened by gurgling raucous enough to wake the dead.

  I opened my eyes.

  It was morning.

  Snow was falling.

  I looked out the window.

  The pigeons were in the Walnut tree.

  The trap door was open.

  Something was coming down.

  The pigeons flew away.

  The trap door dripped on the floor, black marking a sign of wear, not a stain or mold as I had originally thought. The grim little room narrowed and I found myself going downstairs. The white door was open. Barefoot on the basement floor a stranger to myself I saw the melting snow begin to bleed and change to something else, etching icy picric fingers round the very spot I stood, while I tried to move my body but my efforts did no good. A sparking cord plugged in the line was floating in the cement through, the crushing weight then left my chest and I began to hack and cough, so I jumped and grabbed the iron railing, swinging up across and bounded up the basement staircase through the black mold and the rot.

  Matthew poked his head in the kitchen.

  “What’s up?”

  “The trap door's open.”

  “What?”

  We went upstairs.

  The trap door was nailed shut.

  “It was open.”

  “Let’s find out where it leads.”

  The hallway led to Matthew’s room.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “Let’s check the sleeping porch.”

  The sleeping porch was empty.

  “There’s no other exit.”

  “What about the dumbwaiter?”

  “The apparatus is gone.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “What else?”

  “I thought I was sleepwalking. I went downstairs. Water spilled over the floor. I nearly electrocuted myself.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “See for yourself.”

  We went downstairs.

  “Look."

  I pointed at the basement floor.

  “Hmm,” Matthew scratched his head. “When did this happen?”

  “Just now.”

  “The floor is level. You say you came down here for no reason?”

  “I thought I was sleepwalking.”

  Spurs and leaders formed a minatory crown.

  The pattern was unmistakable.

  It was the Weeping Tree.

  We went upstairs.

  Matthew went to the scullery and got a head of kale. He set a knife on a cutting board and opened a bag of vegetables.

  “I wonder what’s in that room.”

  “What room?”

  “The room by the flue.”

  “I didn't see any room.”

  “There’s a door. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead down there.”

  “What?”

  “The stench is overpowering. Who knows what fungi, mold, rayon, natural gas cocktail we just breathed in? I wouldn't go back down there if you paid me.”

  “What about the trap door?”

  “You saw it. It was nailed shut.”

  “But, I…”

  Matthew unpacked a steamer and plugged it in.

  “What are you making?”

  “Kale, wheat grass, and beets.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I opened the refrigerator and got a package of bacon.

  Matthew sneered.

  “You know Ben, you are what you eat.”

  I clenched my teeth.

  “I disagree. I think in America one is judged not by what one eats, but by the content of their character.”

  “Ha, ha. Very democratic,” Matthew was noisome, “Well, you know, I’m sure, that processed meat is bad for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Processed meat will be the death of you.”

  Matthew brandished a liberal dose of honey.

  “By the way, I’m going to the hardware store today to get some, er, supplies.”

  “Supplies?”

  “Er, yeah...”

  “Er yeah what?”

  “Supplies for the…drainage pools.”

  “What drainage pools?”

  “Two simple words, Ben. Carbon Neutral.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Ever given Personal Recycling a thought Ben?”

  I shuddered.

  “Personal Recycling?”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be honest. Do you recycle?”

  “You mean paper and bottles?"

  “I’m talking about carbon emissions, Ben. World carbon emissions. I’m talking about your Personal Carbon Profile.”

  “Personal Carbon Profile?”

  “I’m talking about the Carbon Cycle, Ben. I’m talking about counting your Carbs. The Carbs that count. Your personal waste.”

  Matthew looked down.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Ben.” Matthew rested a clammy hand on my shoulder. “Where does all that ‘crap’ go? Hmmmm? Ben? Where does it go?”

  “It goes in the toilet.”

  Matthew laughed.

  “A simple answer to a complex question. Where does it go when you flush it down the toilet? Where does it end up?”

  “I don’t know, Matthew.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  “I guess not.”

  “No one cares until the crap hits the fan, hmm Ben? It’s the same sad story, told over and over again, history doomed to repeat itself throughout history. But instead of being a slave to history, why not be its ma
ster? Why not give a crap? Before it’s too late?”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?"

  “Count your Carbs.”

  “Living things are made of carbon, Matthew. There’s no way around it. Scientists believe life in other galaxies may theoretically be based on other elements, but we’re not in other galaxies, are we Matthew? We’re stuck here. And here, Mathew, life is Carbon. Carbon is life. They’re inseparable.”

  “It’s about Carbon Consciousness, Ben.”

  The arm came again.

  “Personal Recycling.”

  I looked up at Matthew.

  I neither affirmed, nor disaffirmed him.

  In a way, I hated him.

  “Do you want to personally recycle?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Before things are said and done Ben, I bet I’ll have you recycling on a personal basis.”

  Matthew coughed in my face.

  “I think I’m coming down with something. I tossed and turned all night. Every time I shut my eyes I had the same nightmare.”

  “Really?” I wiped my face.

  “There was an immense metal ball, as large as the universe, devouring everything in its path, and I realized how fast I'd have to go, just to stay ahead.”

  Matthew threw his dishes in the sink and drove off.

  I worked all morning, scrubbing and cleaning the bathroom, hall, and staircase. Years of neglect and disuse had taken their toll on a House that had seen better days. It was the kind of House that was no longer built because the world had changed. The low pitched roof line, decorative brackets, exposed rafters and overhanging eaves, the timber razed from climax forests where towns had grown in their place. The Mephistophelean House was a prize, an American bungalow, but as I worked I felt uneasy. I did not like being alone.

  I stopped at noon for lunch. A sandwich stand on 44th and Hawthorne was open. The cook rubbed his hands for warmth listening to a podcast of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. Sub-freezing temperatures hardened a slippery veneer over the snowpack. I hurried back in the unrelenting wind, the old church despoiled in ice.

  “Hmm. Guess no one’s going to church today.”

  I ate my sandwich in the kitchen. The rosemary bun was buttered and toasted, the Rockfish peppered and lemony. I wadded the grease paper into the trash and dipped my wrinkled hands into another bucket. Cobwebs covered the wainscoting so I swept the black iron grills, bench, and windowsills before mopping the hall, living and dining room. When I opened the cupboard gnats swarmed like pepper-black lentigines. The bathroom was equally vile, a broken toilet leaking into the subfloor.

  I worked until dark, rolling the trash out onto the parking strip. Flurries licked rooftops clean of glistening sheens of freezing rain. I returned to the kitchen and got a brown paper sack.

  All that remained was the basement.

  The light bulb swayed over the basement landing. The pattern was no longer visible. I set the sack on the floor and unplugged the power cord, placing a fan at the base of the stairs. I reset the pump, checked the hose, and began to sweep the floor.

  The broom caught the door under the flue.

  “Idiot. Door’s right here.”

  I swept, keeping an eye on the door.

  “Damned House is falling apart.”

  The floor was caked. I got a can of aerosol baking soda and powdered the drywall. Mold dissolved into gray bands, the deteriorated foundation a moldy plunge pool of agar and soot. I set the can down and wiped my hands. The Mephistophelean House was finished except for one place.

  The door under the flue was moldered in cobwebs.

  I palmed the knob.

  “Hello?”

  The inner, windowless chamber was utterly dark.

  I opened the circuit panel. All the circuits were on, except #16 and #17. I flicked #16. Nothing happened. I tried again. The switch had no effect.

  “Hmmm. Must be something upstairs.”

  I flicked #17. A light bulb hung on a wire inside the windowless chamber. It was dark so I pulled a box of light bulbs from the sack and found a socket on a line.

  The bulb didn’t light.

  I tried another.

  It was no good.

  It was impenetrably dim. A second iron line ran parallel the first. I snatched another bulb from the box but it rang dead. I fit a third bulb in the socket, but it did not light.

  The cinderblock fell over.

  I looked behind my shoulder.

  There was something on the line.

  I fumbled another bulb, but it, like the others, did not light. The single working bulb distorted the dimensions of the room. I glanced one final socket, desperate it was true and the line had power.

  The element caught.

  It was as bright as day.

  The windowless chamber was pockmarked in marl and gley. Double ringed upside-down stars paralleled symbols, numbers and bars under a bursiform blackletter X and a bright freshly painted pink circle.

  “X marks the spot.”

  A third bulb illuminated the windowless chamber. It was long and fell. The air was full of cinders. I went over and inspected the items on a shelf, god's pennies, a holy water sprinkler, a porcelain angel. The porcelain angel was missing its eyes.

  The dumbwaiter was empty. Rungs of a ladder led up the dark shaft.

  “I was right. There is a way up to the attic.”

  For a flooded basement, the windowless chamber was exceptionally wired. I wondered what it had been used for, what the upside-down numbers meant. The foamy pink circle was a void star. The black X was a field of scalars. As I pondered the black X and pink circle I hardly noticed the light bulbs fading, thinking perhaps there had been something there, hanging on the wall, something you couldn’t take your eyes off, and though the light bulbs muddied, giving off the light of two, then one, then hardly any light at all, I gazed into the black X and pink circle, the wall overlapping, lights out, the black X and pink circle one continuous, nonterminating figure.

  I stood in the windowless chamber though it would have been difficult to call myself me.

  There was a red box.

  Inside was a mirror.

  When I looked in the mirror, I saw something I wasn't supposed to see.

  Chapter 3

  The Sickness

  It snowed overnight. I walked to Hollywood in the dark. The ticket machine was broken so I waited on the platform without a ticket. The MAX pulled into the station and the doors opened.

  There was nowhere to sit.

  “The doors are closing.”

  I squeezed onboard. The MAX traversed Sullivan's Gulch and the Steel Bridge before rocketing into the Goose Hollow tunnel. A faded sun burned meekly, the west hills were blanketed in white, and I forgot all about the windowless chamber and the Mephistophelean House.

  I took the four o’clock train back to the city. Pioneer Square was picturesque, white lights and bay laurel, peppermint candles, holly wreaths and menorahs, the Cinnamon Bear, a holiday bazaar with supertrack monorail, reign deer, elves and a tree.

  “I think I’ll stop by Peacock Lane.”

  Skiers mushed over the Hollywood overpass. A boy dragged his brother on a sled. Cars queued up Stark. Peacock Lane was ethereal, electric candy canes, mangers, reindeer, and elves, babies in hats and mittens, carolers, black labs, nativity scenes, Rudolphs and green plywood Grinches. House after house was a caricature in a winter's fable, silver mellophones, Good King Wenceslas, white globes blazing like votive candles, lambs nestling around a manger, wisemen pointing to a star.

  The merry luster of Peacock Lane contrasted the walk up Mount Tabor, icicle awnings and festive displays, stalactited Craftsmans and graupeled waterspouts, 45th coming all too soon, the cracked staircase sepulchered in manroot, the low garden wall, the jagged, misshapen Hawthorns.

  The lights were on in the Mephistophelean House.

  Ruefully I climbed the steps and opened the front door. Matthew sat on the couch. His boots melted
on the floor. I closed the door, took off my coat, and hung it up to dry, and took out a box of soy milk that I stopped at lunch to buy.

  “Houagh, houagh, houagh, houagh.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Didn’t go out.”

  “Not at all?”

  Matthew kicked his boots under the couch.

  “Nope.”

  “Why don’t you go and see the Doctor?”

  “I don’t trust doctors.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  I took a drink.

  “What’s that?”

  “Soy milk. Never tried it before. I bought it at the food co-op.”

  I was certain Matthew would be impressed. Embarrassed by my habits I wanted to prove to Matthew that I could change.

  “Wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole.”

  “What?”

  “Soy creates phantom estrogens.”

  “Phantom estrogens?”

  “Remember what cigarette companies called cancer in the nuclear age? Zephyrs. Mysterious, dust clouds on the human lung. Phantom estrogens are the zephyrs of today. Estrogen has penetrated our drinking supply, Ben. How else can you explain the explosion of reproductive cancer?”

  “But it’s organic.”

  “Ignorance is bliss, right Ben? Wrong. That’s where I come in. I don’t talk about ‘conspiracy theories.' I talk about ‘conspiracy fact.’”

  “Conspiracy fact?”

  Matthew’s eyes burned.

  “You see Ben, that’s what I like about you. You listen to what I say. That’s why I feel like I know you, even though we’ve just met. You’re one of the few people, one of the only people I’ve ever met who isn’t an idiot.”

  “But…”

  “What I say is not opinion, Ben, but based on years of research. I know what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is in the news, and I’ll show you. The writing’s on the wall, Ben. Nothing happens by coincidence.”

  Matthew's pupils were engorged.

  The whites of his eyes were gone.

  It was so cold you could see your breath.

  “Ben, do you think we can turn the heat up?”

  “But Matthew. You know these old Craftsmans. Single-paned windows. No insulation. Think of the cost. And just think,” I maliciously appealed, “of the cost to the environment.”

  “You’re right.”

  I poured the soy milk in the sink but there was nowhere to set the glass. A tower of Matthew’s dishes overfilled the counter. I got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and returned to the living room.