Sunday, August 22, 1999

It was Sunday and the main event of the Con that day was the Prayer Breakfast. The night before, we decided to spend the next few nights at a different hotel, so we packed our stuff quickly and proceeded to check out. We drove over to the Marriott, parked the car and got ready for the breakfast. It was at that exact moment that I suddenly realized that I had lost my little blue card entitling me for entry into the celebrations. The worst part was that only a few days before I had opened my registration packet, noticed the card and thought to myself, "Gee, I better make sure I don't lose that since its just the right size to be dropped unaware, fall into a thin but deep crevasse or be blown into oblivion by a southwesterly wind." In any case, the little voice inside my head kept muttering, "Told you so!" and I searched fruitlessly for my pass to the delights of milk and honey so tantalizingly close. After a good twenty minutes of this, I decided to take my confirmation letter (which I had thankfully brought on the trip for just such an emergency) and get into the prayer breakfast come hell or high-water.

We walked into the lobby to see Steven Kaye wandering about clutching a copy of New Mythos Legends next to his chest. A person might foolishly assume Mr. Kaye's habit of clutching this book close to his body was a sign that he looked quite forward to reading it. But I knew differently. Mr. Kaye holds books close to his chest to protect him from gunshots. It was the same reason that he had Chaosium's Beyond the Mountains of Madness strapped under his shirt.

Since Steven Kaye was going to journey into the unknown wastes of Lovecraft Country with us over the next couple of days, we decided that he should check out then and put his suitcase into the car. A job that only involved a few scratches and dents in the plastic bumper of our Ford Taurus. It was a decision that we would regret after the Prayer Breakfast.

The Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast
10:00 am

The program said 10 am, but the truth is that it pretty well got underway at 9:30 am. I went to the desk that was collecting those little blue cards and explained that I had lost mine. But, I offered, I had my registration confirmation that listed myself as having paid for the breakfast. I showed it to the girl who then told me with a straight face that she couldn't see a thing without her glasses, glasses she had apparently forgotten to bring with her. Fortunately, Marc Michaud walked by with his glasses on and was able to confirm that I was indeed "part of the brotherhood." Our group was lucky enough to find a table close to the front, close to the buffet, and close to the doors in case of an unplanned fire. Our table consisted of Daniel Harms, his lovely assistant Monika, Steven Kaye, Dan Clore, my wife, Ken Hill, his wife, myself, and the bibliographic genius Chris Jarocha-Ernst.

The topics went wild. At one moment we were discussing the success of Chris' bibliography, while the next we were enthralled upon a debate on the merits of Mi-Go technology as defined by various writers in the Mythos genre, and then a quick laugh at those foolish individuals that were at the Joshi panel that was taking place at the same time. Topic upon fascinating topic sprang up and were quickly devoured as intellectual candy. The rapidity of the discussion was only stopped for that moment when the breakfast buffet was opened. It was wonderful. More eggs than you could shake a stick at. Bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, fruit, juice and even breakfast cereal was represented in their parade of delights. There were even servants, ahem, I mean waitresses that would come around and fill your glass or take your plates if you wanted to go get a second helping. With all the talking of Lovecraftian and Mythosian topics, its surprising that no one choked.

As the meal spiraled to a close, the Guests of Honor were presented with awards. Ganley accepted his with humble dignity. Chappell accepted his award by offering a little story about Lovecraft and ending it with a pun on the Lurking Fear. Robert Capelletto won the Film Competition and expressed astonishment that his masterpiece was worth the attention it was getting, a comment that invoked some musing that perhaps a good filmmaker doesn't need to know what makes good art.

Then the audience grew quiet as the serving staff was quickly ushered out. It was time for Robert M. Price to put on his show. He entered amid applause wearing a Deep One mask and an elaborate Cthulhu-themed miter with robes to match. Price quickly went into a tirade against the unfocused nihilism and decadence of our age. "Don't misunderstand me, my brothers and sisters," Price said, "I'm not against any of this. I'm just calling for a more directed approach to the madness!" I tried a couple of times to raise the level of complacent audience member up to frenzied crowd, but nobody was willing to go there.

It was then that Price called upon us to perform the Litany of Nug and Yeb as written in the Book of Eibon and translated by Joe Pulver. While we joined in chants and unholy prayers, we could hear in the ballroom next to us the singing of gospel tunes as a religious convention carried on in blissful ignorance of our own demon summoning.

As an unforgettable climax, Price promptly set fire to the ballroom as a surge of people ran screaming towards the exits.

Well, ok, that isn't how it ended. It actually ended with a round of applause and an informal mixer with people from the different tables getting together. It was then that C.J. Henderson and a few of us got together to look at his thirteen-year-old daughter's Mythos-related artwork. They were truly impressive and bound to give some child psychologist out there enough material to fill out a thesis.

After the breakfast, the next stop was the Dealer's Room once again to pick up any last moment purchases. I made a point of picking up New Mythos Legends, The Fantastic Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft (even though much of the geographical articles by Will Murray have been recently found faulty), and I picked up an old manuscript written in German by a professor during the mid-1800's detailing a variety of cults and secret societies. Our group's decision was to head out of the hotel by 1:00 pm, but as usual, when you place bibliophiles in a room full of books, time takes a backseat to the needs of the moment. While we hunted through the rows of books, we ran once again into E.P. Berglund and involved ourselves into a discussion of the Internet and the affect of the new technology on Mythos fandom. (The term "Tragedy of the Commons'"came up if I recall.)

We finally decided to head for the car and begin our journey when the call came out that Brian McNaughton was in the building and heading towards the Dealer's Room. The one thing that we had come to learn about McNaughton that weekend was that if you didn't catch him and tie him down, he'd be somewhere else a few minutes later. So when Steven Kaye realized that he'd left his copy of The Throne of Bones in the car and was hoping for Brian to sign it, the gang immediately went into action. I grabbed Steven Kaye and told him to run for it as we headed for the car. Daniel Harms, Monika and my wife were sent to head off the illustrious McNaughton from the Dealer's Room and to entertain him long enough for Steven Kaye and myself to make it back. Our speed was tremendous as it only took us thirty seconds to run to the car, open the door, scavenge for The Throne of Bones and then run like mad back towards the Dealer's Room. We arrived to thankfully see Brian being distracted by his favorite topic: the decline of the free drink in modern America's bars.

"I go to the supermarket and I get offered everything from samples of shrimp to free trial sizes of detergent. But where is the free drink in our neighborhood bars and liquor establishments?" he asked. It was our good fortune that no one mentioned that Captain Morgan rum was being given out in small sample bottles in the Courtyard or we would have lost him for sure. He already looked like he was going to bolt at the first opportunity. Mr. Kaye got his book signed. I introduced myself and was soundly slapped across the face. And somewhere in all the conversation, Mr. McNaughton had slipped by us and into the Dealer's Room.

Somehow it seemed appropriate that the Ghoulmaster himself should be the one to send us off on our trek. For our next destination was Boston and our goal was to track down the last known residence of Richard Upton Pickman.

Boston
August 22, 1999 2:30 pm

Boston was Monika's city. She'd once lived there and continued to think of it as one of the best places on Earth. So it was a good thing she had come along else the rest of us would have become lost, confused and generally frightened by the large city. With only a few short hours to sightsee, we needed and appreciated having a semi-native along to guide us.

We found ourselves a convenient parking garage where Daniel Harms decided to implement his theft deterrence system. The idea is that if you make the car look messy enough (paper, books, old underwear thrown about) then a potential thief will assume that the owner is a graduate student, a position in life known for uncleanness and poverty. Thus, the reasoning goes, the thief will skip the car. Whatever the merits of the theory, the fact is that the car was left unmolested so perhaps it does work.

Within moments of exiting the car and making our way to the train station, I was approached by a derelict and asked for a quarter in order to "pay the bus fare." It was, I suppose, my welcoming into the big city. Given the state of mind that the beggar was in, I suspected that my quarter wasn't going to find its way into the coffers of the transit authority any time soon, so my initial reaction was to feign a lack of change. But alas, I am a kind and gentle soul and thought for a moment about what would Jesus do in this circumstance. Realizing that I didn't have the power of healing or twelve guys willing to push undesirables out of my way, I decided to compromise and told the person that I didn't have any quarters, but I did have some shiny nickels I'd be willing to give. I'm not sure if the buses don't accept nickels in Boston or if the beggar in question had some personal problem with accepting coinage with the visage of Thomas Jefferson, but the look I received at my act of charity was a look of disgust combined with an outstretched hand. (In case anyone is wondering where the others of the group were at this time, Daniel Harms and Monika had headed into a convenience store for camera film and Steven Kaye and my wife were intelligently far, far away from where I was.) The irony of this situation was that as I reached into my pocket, I suddenly found that every coin I touched was a quarter. I was going to be caught in my lie and by an unsavory member of society that would find no problem making sure that everyone in the surrounding area knew of my duplicity. I stammered, "Hmmmm, sure have a lot of pennies in here." Finally, I grabbed a nickel and clutched on to it for dear life. I lifted it out and handed it over. Without a thank you, the beggar took it and walked over to the nearby bus stop to ask for quarters. Later, as we were rejoined as a group, we walked past the bus stop only to be approached by the same person asking us for quarters. So much for leaving an impression on people.

We rode the subway to some area of town, the names have become blurred. Central, I think. Where we walked out of the subterranean darkness into daylight and a huge city hall before us. We walked from there into the Italian sector of the city and the North End. Narrow streets with cobblestones gave the sense of traveling back in time. We came upon a small park with a statue of Christopher Columbus gazing out towards the ocean with an almost mystical yearning to once more bridge the gap. I was excited to see that the Dante Alighieri Society had been one of the principle sponsors of the statue since I had discovered that the Society had been watched with a close eye during the Hoover years at the FBI. Thoughts of a society bent on bringing the dual City of God/City of Man into being with a temporal ruler and a religious one according to Dante's ideas for a worldspanning empire fluttered through my head.

After breathing in the sea air, we started walking towards the Old North Church. We passed Paul Revere's well-preserved house along the way and came to a courtyard where his statue upon a horse continues its ride into history. (It was there that I learned from my wife the artistic rules governing the placement of the horse's hooves in sculptures.) We found our way to the church and entered. There wasn't a large crowd, which was welcome given the small room within the church. The most interesting moment, for me, was the existence of an old un-refurbished window towards the right of the main altar area. It was here that Robert Newman (the man who foolishly volunteered to stay behind with the lanterns when Revere took off for his ride) escaped from British troops. Apparently, for a couple of hundred years, people read Newman's account of how he had escaped from the troops by breaking through a window where apparently there wasn't one! Historians, being the hunters of truth that they are, came to the conclusion that Newman had been mistaken in his description of the window. However, in the early 90's, a workman found the window behind a wall by mistake and the account of Newman suddenly all clicked and made sense. For some reason, the idea of knowing something that a historian who died in 1988 didn't know was thought provoking.

"Look here, did you know the whole North End once had a set of tunnels that kept certain people in touch with each other's houses, and the burying-ground, and the sea?"
-- "Pickman's Model," H.P. Lovecraft

It's true, and the ancient entrances are still there as doorways into the makeshift basements of those old houses. We walked through the streets glancing at these doorways wondering with fevered imaginations what lay beyond them. What queer things dwelled beyond those latched doors?

We made our way to the Copp's Hill Burying Ground and viewed the tomb of the Mathers and walked among some of the oldest headstones in the United States.

Following the directions Lovecraft gives for Pickman's hidden studio, we walked along the twisted alleys and dark corners of the North End. Up past Battery Street and continuing past Constitution Wharf, we eventually came to the alley and gazed at the empty parking lot that once held a building that is thought to have existed at the time of the events of "Pickman's Model." Here, people parked their cars upon what might be the location of one of America's most famous and influential horror stories and no one was wise to the fact.

And one has to wonder what government agency felt the need to destroy the house and cover the area with a thick layer of pavement.

As we walked away, the subject of ghouls was foremost on our minds as we once more passed one of those mysterious doorways and I saw a sign posted upon it. With curiosity I approached it and read an announcement that the laundry room contained within was to be kept clean or the privilege would be taken away. It was Daniel Harms that spotted upon the ground, in a cocoon of dirt and a curious green ichor, a disused brassiere dropped from some woman's laundry basket. "Look! Its a ghoul's bra!" So it was that we had finally found proof for the existence of ghouls under Boston's streets. Either that, or the existence of a braless woman in Boston's upperworld.

As we turned the corner from Pickman's favorite street, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of the Feast of St. Dominic where the community carries a statue of St. Dominic around the North End accompanied by a band and a large assortment of elderly women. (Which is strange since the feast day is supposed to be on the 8th, but I guess they have a right to celebrate it any way they wish.)

We then walked to that hideous church where HPL's parents were married, visited Boston Common, the bar that inspired Cheers, drank Italian sodas in the basement of a small little coffee house, watched a juggler throw things in the air for money, went to a small tea shop, and went to a Tower records.

By 9:00 pm, we had done more in an afternoon and early evening than I do on most days. After a dinner at an Italian restaurant (where I stowed away a good portion of free buns), we decided to go back to the car and drive to Danvers where our new hotel awaited us. Aside from watching The Substitute 3 on HBO and mocking it, we planned for the next days events and went to bed.

Created: December 5, 1999; Updated: August 9, 2004