Those 70's Horror Movie Stars

Boris Karloff, Frankenstein (1931)

Back in the day, actors like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff became huge celebrities as they helped to create a class of films that became known as Horror.  They were (and still are today!) household names.  But as horror movies evolved, and involved more, uh, odd behavior, morphing from Gothic classical material to shamelessly campy and graphic horror, the top roles in horror movies seemed to go to unknown actors who remained as such.  Vincent Price might be an exception to this rule.  And even Bela, Boris and Vincent were never really accepted as mainstream actors.  Horror was their shtick and to horror they shtuck.

Today, it is mostly the same.  Horror films are made with few known actors in their casts.  You might see an actor or actress whose career has tanked take a role in a horror movie because they can't get any other work.  But you rarely see an A-lister seek after a horror role.

But something funny happened in the 1960's that led to a rash of top Hollywood stars who dove head first into the horror genre.  Maybe it was the success of such films as Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) that allowed horror films to drag themselves into respectability behind the casting of such mega-stars as Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.  Also, as the 70's dawned, there was a great revival of spiritual interest in the United States.  Unlike the spiritualism kick of the 1920's, this new interest did not just see the spiritual plane as something benign, where old relatives sat around wishing to speak with their great-nieces and great-nephews.  Just as the churches were experiencing a rise in popularity of the charismatic movement, secular society was becoming more intrigued by the spiritual battles between God and Satan.  This turn of attention was noted in Hollywood, and some very big stars were suddenly willing to lend their name and image to some rather strong horror...uh, shall we say offerings?

Oliver Reed, Burnt Offerings (1976)

And since we've used the word, I'll start with Burnt Offerings, a film from 1976.  This is a very good haunted house film, and it starred Oliver Reed, who was just beginning to reach his stride in what would become a very big career.  He was no stranger to horror, having played a local thug in The Shuttered Room, the 1967 adaptation of Lovecraft's short story The Dunwich Horror.  And though Reed was not yet the iconic celebrity he would become, Burnt Offerings also attracted such stars as Burgess Meredith and Bette Davis.

What I liked about this movie was the slow tension as Reed's character slowly, and ever so slightly, begins to change as a husband and father.  It never fully degrades like the father character in The Shining, but this more subtle change is unnerving coming from a man of Reed's brute frame.  He always had that smoldering undertone that made us believe that acting or not, you wouldn't want to turn your back on this guy for long.  And in this film, he uses it to great effect.

Gregory Peck, The Omen (1976)
Not the usual image we have of Atticus Finch.

Next on my informal list is The Omen (1976), which of course starred that stony-faced megastar Gregory Peck.  His appearance in this movie definitely gave credibility to the idea that any actor could consider appearing in a horror movie.  After all, he was arguably as big a star as Bette Davis.  And while she had an image as a bit of a feisty woman who never wanted to follow the rules, Peck had impeccable credentials as an all around good guy.   And Lee Remick had already been cast opposite some very big names.  She was already becoming a star.  As for the movie itself, I can't endorse it.  I tried to watch it, and it was so silly, I gave up early on it.  It just seemed so corny.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the 1979 Dracula starred none other than Laurence Olivier, often considered Britain's greatest Shakespearean actor.  In this film he plays Van Helsing, the Dutch doctor who is summoned to help puzzle out the malady that is afflicting the anemic Lucy.  What I like about Olivier's performance is his near perfect accent that truly mimics the syntax of Stoker's Van Helsing character.  He also manages to portray Van Helsing just as the character is written.  He is at times cute, odd, mysterious, bold, and even frail.  Olivier exhibits all of these mannerisms in a way that makes sense and is in no way forced.  I will point out that this is no stretch for Olivier to take on this role, since the source material is part of the classic canon.  However, he was also willing to join in on the bloody fun of Marathon Man in 1976, where he maniacally tortures Dustin Hoffman with a dentist's drill.  Obviously he did not seem to worry that such movies might hurt his respectable image.

George C. Scott, The Changeling (1980)

George C. Scott, a bigger-than-life star, took on the haunted house theme in the 1980 film The Changeling.  (Yes, 1980 is still the 70's for all you nit-pickers out there.)  And for me, this is one of the better modern haunted house stories.  Also drawing in Golden Age of Hollywood film star Melvyn Douglas (the man who made Garbo laugh in 1939's Ninotchka), a personal favorite of mine, this movie is saturated with atmosphere and will make you wary of old, high-backed wheelchairs.  At this point, Scott was definitely a major player in Hollywood, having been nominated for an Academy Award four times (and winning best actor for his signature role in Patton).  This was not his only outing in the horror genre, later playing the mystic Native American Indian in Firestarter and even joining the cast of The Exorcist III.

Of course, some horror fans out there would suggest that the biggest film for this genre in the 70's was The Exorcist, which certainly drew its share of Hollywood talent.  Max von Sydow was already an accomplished actor in 1973, as were Ellen Burstyn and the irascible Lee J. Cobb.  However, I'll concede they do not fit the profile of my A-listers whose impressive notoriety aided Horror as it matured into a respected film category.  But a little known fact about this movie should be highlighted here: the original actress offered the lead role by director William Friedkin was none other than Hollywood's most respected lady of the silver screen, Audrey Hepburn.  And she was actually willing to accept the role.  Unfortunately for Friedkin, she was something of a recluse by this time, and would only take the role if the filming could be done in Rome.  The studio said no, and Anne Bancroft eventually accepted the role, only to be forced to back out due to a pregnancy.  I often wonder just how Hepburn's casting might have changed this movie, and how it might have changed her already legendary career.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Fred Astaire,
and Melvyn Douglas, Ghost Story (1981)

This is not a complete listing of movies that fit this profile, but it gives you an idea of how the genre was changing.  By the 1980's, we would see more of the same.  Ghost Story, in 1981, starred no less than four classic actors: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman.  (And I shouldn't leave out Patricia Neal, a great lady from the Silver Age of Hollywood best known for her roles in Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Day the Earth Stood Still.)  Silence of the Lambs boasted stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.  Hopkins, of course, ended up winning the Best Actor Oscar for his horror role.

Will we see such casting again?  I'm sure it will happen.  Perhaps Sean Connery could be lured from retirement to star in a ghost or haunted house story.  Maybe Tom Hanks could be tempted into something more diabolic than his light-weight Dan Brown religious thrillers.  After all, Robert De Niro did play Frankenstein's monster in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version of Frankenstein, though very few people saw it.

Sadly, much of the horror genre has been hijacked by the recent obsession with torture-porn, and this has drained a great deal of credibility from what these classic actors and actresses helped to create.  Will there come a time when the A-listers decide to take back what their predecessors built up?  Only time will tell.

Cities of the Dead: Double Vision

Cities of the Dead, Jason Phillip Reeser

For newer readers of Room With No View, I'd like to let them know about my most popular book, which is perfect for this time of year.  Cities of the Dead is a ghost story collection set in the cemeteries of New Orleans, Louisiana.  Tales of ghosts, pirates, thieves, and dead rock-and-rollers can be found in this eclectic congregation of mystical chronicles.

Back in 2006, my wife and I took a guided tour of Lafayette Cemetery Number One in the historic Garden District of New Orleans.  It was the first time I'd been to one of the many above ground cemeteries that are nestled into the various neighborhoods of the Crescent City.  Due to the fact that the city sits below sea level, burying the dead is not possible, since the dead seemingly refuse to stay buried.  Citizens of the early city discovered that the saturated ground always shoved the dead back to the surface.  The simple response was to bury the dead above ground in crypts.  As a result, the cemeteries look like...well, let's let Mark Twain describe it.  His view on it sums it up the best:

Lafayette Cemetery Number One

There is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the cemeteries. They bury their dead in vaults above ground. These vaults have a resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble, generally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they face the walks and driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves through the midst of a thousand or so of them, and sees their white roofs and gables stretching into the distance on every hand, the phrase 'city of the dead' has all at once a meaning to him. Many of the cemeteries are beautiful and kept in perfect order...if those people down there would live as neatly while they were alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages to it.

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1880

During our 2006 tour, which was just one year after Hurricane Katrina devastated that venerable city, amid the rasping wail of power-saws and chattering hammer blows (evidence of New Orleans' second reconstruction phase), we followed our guide past sun-bleached sepulchers and vibrant green alleys of thick, recently mown grass.  As a writer, I was struck by the crowded nature of this necropolis.  I began to wonder just what it would be like for ghosts to live here.  We generally think of ghosts in lonely, empty places like an abandoned house or a distant moor.  But here, if a ghost were to haunt the earth, it would not be lonely.  It would, in fact, be heavily beset by other ghosts.  Many of the crypts are family crypts, and family members are stacked in on top of one another like chord-wood.  Imagine, I thought, what sort of complications would arise between them all?

At the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival--look for us again on Nov. 2, 2013

Before long, I had begun to write a few stories along this theme.  Over the next four or five years, I added more stories, until I'd completed thirteen of them.  It seemed an appropriate number on which to stop.  Since the book's publication, it has been well-received.  It is a mainstay on the tables of a handful of stores down in the French Quarter, and was a popular item during its release at the 2012 Louisiana Book Festival.

Several of the stories are available here at Room With No View.  Just click on the links below to read them.

The Wanting Dead  (originally printed in The Louisiana Review, Spring 2008)

The Soldiers' Home

And now for the Double Vision!  Beginning this month, Saint James Infirmary Books has made it possible for costumers who purchase the print version of COTD to receive a free eBook version along with it.  Even better, if you purchased a copy of this book through Amazon in the past, you can log in and receive your free eBook copy also.  We are offering the same free eBook copy from the Saint James Infirmary Books website.  If you purchased a print copy from us (and all of our copies can be signed if you request it) or you choose to purchase one from us now, we will send you a free eBook copy of the book.  So be sure to get a copy today if you don't already have one.

For more information on the book, check out our website here.

To order a signed copy, just click this link.

Or you can use one of the Amazon links below.  The Kindle edition is on the left, the print edition is on the right.

A View of The Lalaurie Horror

The Lalaurie Horror by Jennifer Reeser

(Today's post is just to point you in the direction of really great new release from Jennifer Reeser, a wonderful formalist poet who, I'm proud to say, is also my wife.)

Twice Nominated for Literature's Pushcart Prize.

On April 10, 1834, fire erupted at the mansion of wealthy, beautiful, twice-widowed socialite Madame Marie Delphine Lalaurie, a Creole of French and Irish heritage living on Royal Street in the famed French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. First responders discovered seven slaves in the attic, victims of her torture chained to the mansion walls.

They were rescued, though to this day, at least seventeen slaves belonging to Madame Lalaurie remain vanished without a trace, and the roster of slave children, adults and elderly who mysteriously died in her care is considerable.  The lady herself escaped prosecution and was never brought to justice. 

Reports of hauntings and strange sights at the mansion have persisted through its 200 year history, with a long list of owners -- from humble school instructors to Hollywood stars such as the actor Nicolas Cage -- who each abandoned the house after a relatively short time, following a timeline of unfortunate events. At present, the Lalaurie Mansion is considered among the loveliest of homes in the United States of America, and reputed to be one of its most haunted, as well.

Jennifer Reeser conducts a spellbinding, poetic "ghost tour" through its chambers, exploring the real culture, cuisine, history, mythology and art unique to New Orleans, while at the same time creating an original story and fictional plot, told in a straightforward, classic form full of feeling, which should be clear to anyone, anywhere in the world. Readers will encounter such characters as Calavera, the Baron Samedi, and even Madame Lalaurie, herself.

What the literary journal, TRINACRIA, has described as, "...an amazing terza rima narrative of a tour through an old haunted house, done in unnerving Grand Guignol style."

A signed, print edition of The Lalaurie Horror can be bought for $8.00 at Saint James Infirmary Books.  A Kindle version, which can be read on any smartphone, or tablet, is available at Amazon for just $3.99.  Don't miss out on this unique tour of New Orleans.  And for those of you who are not big fans of poetry, this is a rare chance to read some of Jennifer's poetry that is a narrative form.  That's right, she tells a story, and what a story it is!

A View of The Myrtles Plantation

The Myrtles as seen from the entrance.

Louisiana is well-known for its array of antebellum homes scattered along the banks of the Mississippi river.  Louisiana is also famous for its many ghost legends, primarily centered around New Orleans.  And while many plantations can be found just upriver from the Crescent City, one of the most legendary haunted plantations can be found not in New Orleans, but in St Francisville.  Located about thirty minutes north of Baton Rouge, The Myrtles Plantation has received wide attention for its colorful and mysterious history.  On the first weekend in April, our family gathered from our scattered homes to meet at this hauntingly beautiful estate.

  A short drive up U.S. Highway 61 out of Baton Rouge will deliver you to the small community of St Francisville.  Pass through this and you will quickly see The Myrtles on the western side of the highway.  As you drive onto the grounds, you'll immediately be treated to a view of oak trees heavy with Spanish moss.  If you arrive in the afternoon, as we did, the sun will pour in from the west providing a perfect golden glow for a backdrop.  And you'll want to arrive in the afternoon if you are interested in one of the Mystery Tours held on Friday and Saturday nights.  These are held at 6, 7, and 8 pm both nights.

  If you arrive early enough, you can have dinner at the Carriage House Restaurant, which is located on the grounds.  They have a traditional Louisiana sampling of shrimp etouffee, oysters, catfish, and other seafood.  You can also add some gumbo, boudin balls, and crab cakes if you're hungry enough.

  The grounds surrounding the house are immaculate.  Crepe myrtles and azalea bushes hide beneath the shade of massive oak trees, with plenty of space for the sun to splash through onto the lawn.  There are walkways and benches for visitors who wish to stroll about this pastoral setting, and there are several wide open spaces for the kids to run around and expend their energy.

  On the backside of the house is a brick court yard with a fountain in its center.  From here you can visit the General's Store gift shop, enter the Carriage House Restaurant, or queue up for your tour of the main house. If you like cats, you might want to chase them around, as one young boy did for most of his time there.  Another popular activity is snapping as many pictures as you can in the hopes that you'll catch a ghost on film.  (I wonder if ghosts are not as easily caught on digital cameras as they are on film?  I have no way to prove this, but I suspect that spirits don't show up on pixels, and it is really the chemical properties of film that trap their images for all the world to see.  But that's just my own theory.  Feel free to float one of your own on the subject.)

  It was here, in this court yard, that the infamous Chloe photograph was taken back in 1992.  The new owners of the estate were taking pictures for insurance purposes.  In one photo, a shadowy figure could be seen on the porch as if it were heading toward the old kitchen.  It is somewhat transparent, and the theory is that this is an image of the ghost of a slave girl who was hanged for murdering two of the plantation owner's children.  It is a sad, tragic tale that seems to contain all of the usual suspects: lust, jealousy, betrayal, retribution, and the desecration of the dead.  (And don't forget the moral tossed in on the evils of eavesdropping.)  You'll hear all the Gothic details on your tour.  And if you're not into the night tours, there are plenty of daylight tours throughout the week.  You'll get the same details from the day or night tour.

  The tour guide will spend about thirty minutes showcasing the first floor of the house, entertaining the large group with stories of the various deaths that occurred in the house as well as the ghost stories associated with those deaths.  While our guide assured us that many members of the tour-groups have experienced strange phenomenons during the tours, our group did not, unless someone did and was not eager to volunteer such information.  It was my first tour of the house.  I was with a family member who had been through during a daylight tour and it was his view that the daylight tour was better since you could see the rooms better and enjoy the antiques and artwork.  I'm pretty sure he is right, since I was disappointed during the tour that the lights were kept so low.  This was an effort to increase the mystery, but I would have rather been able to enjoy the historical aspects of the tour over the supernatural.  I was also disappointed that we were not allowed to take pictures on the tour, with the exception of the front hall.  But you know how much I like to take pictures.

  In the front hall you will see another celebrated piece of their haunted legend.  A large mirror sits atop a bureau in an ornate gilded frame.  It is said that the mirror has been changed out many times over the years, and yet a stain/etching has returned after each restoration.  Mirrors play a big role in old superstitions at times of death, and the legend is that this one was not covered after the murders of the children, hence the visual evidence of someone trying to "come through" the mirror.  I'm not entirely sure what that means, since we were also told that you can see the silhouettes of the children on the roof in the Chloe photo.  Perhaps I didn't understand the story correctly.  I admit I wasn't paying close attention.

  I did enjoy the stories of John Leake and William Winters.  Both men died in the house, the first from his wounds in the Civil War, and the second from a cowardly murder one tragic night.  The tale of William Winters was the most interesting of all the stories, I thought.  Both of these men had lived in the house for a time, and their rooms are available for guests.  But be forewarned, many stories of strange happenings have come out of those rooms from guests.  But if you aren't afraid of someone tugging at your foot in the night or porcelain dolls joining you in your bed, then you'll have no trouble sleeping in the rooms.

And sleeping in the house is one of your options.  There are six rooms available to be rented in the original house.  There are also an assortment of other homes on the estate that have rooms available.  Notably, there are four new cottages that face the main house, with porches looking out over a pleasant pond.  I imagine it would be a great place to wake up and drink coffee on a cool morning.

  To find out more about The Myrtles, just use this link to see their website.

The court yard at night.  I never caught sight of a ghost, but
I did see plenty of people enjoying the evening.

This idyllic setting is perfect for photographers.  A wedding party had
been on the grounds the day we arrived.  You couldn't ask for a more
romantic backdrop.

There are many wonderful touches to the landscaping here.  These
little guys stand guard over the porch steps at the front of the house.

From the front porch you can see the order and peaceful view
found on the estate.  It is impressive, peaceful, and a great way
to experience Louisiana at its best.

A Veteran's Day View of Cities of the Dead

Free Ebook Downloads Nov 12th through the 14th

Due to my work schedule, I was unable to get this posted on Veteran's Day, but I am going to go ahead with it a day late.  In conjunction with our second promotional giveaway for Cities of the Dead, I will post a story from the book that has not yet been published in print or on the web outside of the book itself.
This story involves the spirits from a Confederate Artillery Regiment, whose bodies were buried together in a Society Tomb.  The memorial in question is real.  The story is fictional.  War is hell, as General Sherman said, but it doesn't always end when we think it does.

The Soldiers’ Home

by Jason Phillip Reeser 

            Early mornings in the Firemen’s Cemetery are notoriously shrouded in mist.  Educated men might explain this by pointing out the land’s elevation in relation to the nearest waterways as well as the role played by local weather.  Those of a particular engineering bent would add the importance of Interstate 10 running along its western border.  Spiritually minded men might suggest that regardless of such natural influences, these sacred grounds are a nexus wherein heaven and earth join, allowing the passing of so many souls that a certain residue is inevitably to be seen with the aid of the day’s first sunlight.

            The Fireman’s Charitable and Benevolent Association had consecrated these grounds in the year 1852 and tourists might believe the more mischievous tour guides who spin tales of ghostly smoke and water-sprays from spectral hoses.  The awkwardly dressed men with cameras enjoy the idea that firemen of old still battle it out with ancient fires for all eternity.  Their wives tend to shudder at this image; some of them familiar with the dread of waiting for a husband to return from a hazardous job, and some simply burdened with an ingrained human alarm towards house fires.

            Educated men scoff at notions of this kind and even spiritual men hesitate to give it credence.  And in the end the tourists will tuck their photos away in a box along with the tour guide’s fanciful tale and forget all about it.  Neither the scholars, nor the religious, nor the tourists will ever understand just how close to the truth such tales do come.

            Before the first ray of each new dawn, just as it seems as if the grip of night’s darkness will never be broken, those who sleep lightly in the Fireman’s Cemetery are disturbed by a muffled racket coming from a great, square society tomb.  Standing along one open lane, deep within the field of the dead, it is rather plain in appearance, and by starlight is dreary looking—a heavy, squat figure resembling a rundown tenement or forgotten bureaucratic cellblock.  Across the top edge of this monument, if the darkness were pulled away, one would see these words: Soldiers’ Home.

            A man’s tired voice murmurs a few words, the only reply a sharp clank of metal on stone.  Shuffling steps echo against the neighboring tombs, and then someone coughs.  There is the sound of running followed by jeering laughter.  A lower voice, wide and powerful, demands an answer.  For the first time, distinct words are heard.  “Yessir!”

            Now, a great many footsteps can be heard.  Rattling and clattering mix with coughing and veiled curses.  It is evident that as many as ten or twenty men are moving about in the dark.  If they are all of one purpose, it does not sound so.  A short quarrel, muffled by the shroud of pre-dawn but no less violent than if it were conducted in sunlight, is cut short by a harsh command.  The runner returns at the same time.  Most of the clamor is now out on the open lane, in front of the Soldiers’ Home.  There is less noise, though a few more words are clearer now.

            “Watch that,” a husky voice warns.

            “All right, all right.”  The lower voice concedes.

            “Battery,” a quick whisper.  The last of the muted clanks and shuffles comes to an end.

            All is silent now save for one figure who cannot stop coughing.

            “Battery.”  This time, the voice carries more authority.  The coughing stops for a breath, but begins anew.

            The low voice issues an order.  The coughing figure moves away from the others, back towards the dark block.

            “Battery.”  There is no more noise.  The black morning air holds for a collective pause.

            The forms of men can now be seen as the first bit of grey is mixed into the atmosphere.  There are four rows of men, five abreast, facing the Soldiers’ Home.  Before them stand two men, off to one side stands a thinner man.  By their silhouettes, it is obvious that the men are standing at attention, arms held at their sides.  Each man’s head is covered by a misshapen cap.  A few exceptions are bareheaded.  All are uniformed, though most of the blouses ill fitting.

            The thin man steps forward, facing the Battery.  He bows his head and speaks.

            “Our Father, which art in heaven…” his voice is as thin as his shadow.

            The Battery joins in.  The words of the prayer echo down the grassy lane, swallowed by the lingering night.  When they finish, they are silent for a full minute.

            From out of the Soldiers’ Home comes the sound of a stifled cough.

            “Detail.”  The word cuts the silence like an alarm, and the black forms break formation.  Each line of men makes its way to one of the corners of the Soldiers’ Home.  Most of the black night has been replaced by a heavy gray that allows the men to be able to see shapes but nothing more.  It is all that they need.  Each corner of the blocked structure is composed of a cannon barrel standing on end.  In the middle of the east and west walls stand two other cannon, though there are not enough men to work these.  The men toil swiftly, their carefully plotted routine insuring that each cannon is lowered without injury to the men or damage to the stone artillery pieces.

        As this is being done, two men from each detail pull open the nearest bottom vault and withdraw a stone cradle which will hold each great barrel.  As their comrades set the cannons into the cradles, they already begin to withdraw bags of gunpowder, as well as the rammers, cleaning worms, sponges, lanyards, and friction primers.  As one man seals each vent hole with his thumb, they first worm and swab out the barrels, removing any bits of masonry chips and dust that fell in during the process of removing the cannons from the monument.  The vent holes are then cleaned out in the same manner. By the time the cannons are secured to the cradle, each team is ready to load their gun.

            A bag of powder is rammed into place, and the brass friction primer is loaded into the vent hole.  A stone cannon ball, from a stack on the monument’s corners, is rammed into place.  The five men now come to attention as one of them chuffs “Ready to fire!”  One of the details is slow, and finishes ten seconds behind the others.  An officer fidgets with his pocket watch.

            “They’ll make it, Colonel.”  The husky voice tries to reassure him.

            “All right, all right.”  The Colonel’s low voice betrays his aggravation.

            “It’s Vincent’s men.  There’s only four of them.  Theirs was the man with the cough.”

            “Yes, I know that, Major.”

            Enough light has crept into the field to allow the two officers to see facial expressions.  The Colonel tries to smile.  The strain is unmistakable even in the dim light.

            “I don’t like the men to be slack, Major.  I was easy on them.  Too easy.  It’s why we’re all here.”

            “Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s foolish.  You’re not to blame.”

            “Battery!”  The Colonel’s command cracks out sharply, ricocheting off the nearest crypts.  The men stiffen, each gunner’s hand grasping tightly to his lanyard.

            “You know I’m right, sir.  This melancholy of yours comes and goes.  You’ll think better of it.  Just give it time.”  The Major gently touches his commanding officer’s arm.  “We’ve been over this hundreds of times.”

            The Colonel ignores the touch and the comforting words, staring instead at his pocket watch.  He draws in a deep breath and then, without pause, barks:

            “Fire!”

            The four cannons belch smoke and thunder as well as stone chips and plaster dust.  Quickly, as if their former lives depend on it, the men reload.  Vincent’s detail keeps up with the others and a second volley is fired.  They fire a third and fourth volley as the smoke obliterates what little light the morning has to offer.  Their world is no longer black.  It is grey and white, the air thicker than the silk lining of the finest coffins.

            “Shall they reload?” the Major asks.  His men wait for his order.  He steps closer to the Colonel in an attempt to see him clearly through the haze.

            “Why do you always insist it is not my fault?”  The Colonel snaps his pocket watch shut and rams it into his jacket.  “I told Division they were ready.  I volunteered them.  Insisted they be sent forward.  You call me a fool?  Only a fool would deny me this judgment.”

            “The men, sir?”  The Major waits for his Colonel’s decision.

            “Again, Major.  They’re off this morning.  And the sick man is not to blame.”

            “Battery, reload!”  The Major’s shout lacks conviction and carries emotion he had hoped to keep hidden.

            “Do not worry, Major.  I know you disagree.  You think I’m too hard on them.”

            “On yourself, sir.”

            The men are grimy with carbon, grout and sweat.  The chalky residue from the stone guns is smeared across their faces, making them appear all the more ghostly.  They work with determination, dragging out more bags of gunpowder, swabbing out the barrels, and ramming the loads in place.  It is hot work.  The cloying humidity, even in the early morning, attacks them.  They press on, knowing there is no respite unless they improve.  The Colonel has been known to push them until the late morning sun has finally forced them back into their graves.  They fear this as much as they fear real combat.  The sun is painful, and cuts deeply into their souls.

            Yet, in the face of this toil and pain, they persevere.  If they are ever to find peace, they know they must satisfy their Colonel.  They must show him that his will has driven them beyond their limitations.  That he has forced improvement upon them to such an extent that time can be reversed, they can be saved, and he can be redeemed.  By his own sheer resolution he must drag them out of the pit that he himself dug for them.

            He is demanding the impossible but they do not balk in the face of it.  Yes, it is hard work.  It is madness.  But they soldier on.

            “Fire!”

            Smoke rolls in every direction.  It filters down each adjacent lane, spreading its nauseating stench over and into tomb after tomb.  Many of the dead, long used to this barrage, keep quietly in their crypts, content to wait out the Colonel’s self-inflicted fury.  On this day, there are no new arrivals to annoy him, demanding that he stop.  The newest residents in the nearby crypts have already tried this and learned that the old soldier is as unmovable as Stonewall Jackson ever was.  They will hate him for a long time.  Eventually, as with the older dead, they will come to pity him.

            “Cease fire!”  The call is as loud and punishing as his earlier order to fire.  And it does not mean the soldiers will now get their rest.  Now they must move sharply, and attack the cannons in reverse, lifting the great barrels back into place, and stowing the cradles and tools without delay.  If this is not done right, they may be forced to do it all over again.  They work feverishly, both desiring to please their Colonel and fearful of his retribution.

            “You see, Major, responsibility must rest somewhere.  It cannot be passed along indefinitely.  Even if it could, it should not be.  Someone has to step in and take the weight of it.  You must surely see that this is so.”

            The Major watches his men struggle to lift the stone cannons.  In a way, his task is just as difficult.  Just as repetitive.  He has argued this point countless times.  But he has never given in.

            “Someone does take responsibility, Colonel.  Someone of a much higher rank.  You would not presume to make yourself His equal, would you?”

            “Look closely at these vaults,” the Colonel steps closer to the Soldiers’ Home.  The large memorial consists of five stacked rows of burial vaults.  There are four vaults to each row.  “As you are well aware, there are no names here.  Only numbers.  These men were destroyed beyond recognition.  Twenty men on this side, twenty on the south side.  Yet, we are only able to cobble together enough pieces to make twenty-four men.  My God!  I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for it.”

            The Colonel puts out a hand and leans heavily against a marble vault.  His breaths are short and awkward.

            “You insult your Superior by this proud obduracy.”  The Major is not moved by the Colonel’s emotion.  He once was long ago, but he has not been for a long time.  He makes an effort to win the argument nonetheless.  “Step aside, and admit your limitations.  You are not God, and He never expected you to be one.  There are times when other men’s actions—even sins—affect us.  We have no control over them.  We simply do what we must and the end comes out all of its own accord.”

            The men of the Battery, constructed from the detritus of war, reassemble on the grassy lane, now at attention.  Their eyes wide with the terror of expectancy.  Their ears still ring with the cacophony of their exercise, they tremble with an excess of adrenaline.  They only wait now to hear their commander’s judgment.

            The Colonel eyes them with weary assessment.  He has seen them perform better.  He knows it.  They know it.  But he is also aware they have done the best they could for that day.  The larger question he must answer is whether or not it is enough.

            “Step aside, you said?” the Colonel asks softly.  “How that I wish I might.”

            He tugs at his buttoned collar and looks over the heads of his men.  The smoke has spread out over the burial ground now, a white mist in the rays of the morning sun.  The smoke will clear eventually, and the sun will burn them if they do not get under cover soon.

            “Battery, fall out.”  His order is nearly a whisper, but the men hear it plainly enough.  They break ranks and step out of the wide, grassy lane.

            In the miasma of smoke and sunlight, the weary soldiers climb into their stone barracks, making little jokes as they go.  They need rest.  And at least for a day, they will get it.

            “Thank you, Major.  That will be all.  For this day.”

            The Major disappears around one corner of the large tomb.  His quarters are on the south side.  Left alone, the Colonel stands erect as the smoke begins to clear.  He endures the sunlight for a short time.  It burns, and he imagines it is necessary.

            “Not God.”  The Colonel chafes at the Major’s impudence.  “The man’s got gall, I’ll say that for him.”

            And then he is gone.  The Colonel lies in his vault, just another corpse in a tomb that he has built with the power of his pride.

            A cough is heard inside the Soldiers’ Home.  Then nothing more.

            The sun rises.  Early morning tourists remark upon the mist that lingers over the burial field.  Another day begins.

To all of those men and women who have given of themselves for our country, I say thank you, and may God grant you the peace that passes all understanding.

One Reason I Do Not Give Up Writing

As a writer who often struggles with the temptation to give it all up, there are not many things that can convince me to continue writing.  Here, however, is one very good reason that keeps me going.  The following story was published in the Spring 2008 issue of The Louisiana Review.  It is always encouraging to pull this out now and again.

1. The Wanting Dead
(The Louisiana Review, vol. 6, Spring 2008)
a story from The Cities of the Dead
by Jason Phillip Reeser

            My first night in the City of the Dead was a real eye opener.  I was not in the least ready for anything that happened.  But then, no one alive can prepare you for your first night as one of the dead.  No one really tries.  And why should they?  I would never have listened.  I never listened to anyone when I was alive.  I had no idea I would learn to listen so well once I was dead.  But death is full of so many surprises.

            I’d like to explain how it all came about.  At least how the night progressed.  It is a curiosity I’d like to be able to logically describe—how I was lying in the coffin, surrounded by darkness, and how later I came to be standing outside my crypt, reading the inscription on the faceplate as if I were looking for errors in the non-erasable marble.  I remember that distinctly.  I remember reading over it hoping I might find some mistake I could point to and say “there, you see?  They placed the comma in the wrong spot, so obviously I’m not dead.  I may only be alive by a technicality, but I’ll take what I can get.”  I had a vague feeling that such an idea made no sense, but it only bothered me more when I realized it made no sense to be standing outside my burial crypt as well. 

            Maybe, I concluded, what made sense in the world of the dead did not always translate into the world of the living.

            But I have very little patience to explain anything.  I want most of all to speak of what I saw.  And when I think of doing so, I immediately think of this dead guy who went by the name of Dodd.  I don’t remember his first name.  But Dodd sticks in my mind like a migraine.

            “Let me ask you something,” he said to me straight off.  They were the first words out of his mouth.  He just walked up to me and started up a conversation that I soon learned he had with everyone.  “Think about putting a gun to your head.  A big one.  You pull the trigger, right?  BAM!  You’re dead, right?  Isn’t that what you’d expect?”

            I tried to think through his question.  I was sure he was driving at something.

            “Well?  Am I right?”

            “Sure.  Bam—you’re dead.”  My delivery of this response was greatly lacking in passion.

            “That’s what I thought!”  He supplied the passion to our conversation.  “Jeeze Louise!  No one ever said it would hurt!  I mean, you pull the trigger, it should all be over.”

            “It hurt?”  I found myself mildly interested in his scenario.

            “Hell yes, it hurt!  You ain’t never felt hurt like that.   I screamed and screamed.  God, I must have screamed for an hour.  And the whole time I was thinking no one said this would hurt!”

            I watched him shake at the memory.  He drew deep breaths in his open mouth and forced the air out through his nose.  He was obviously more enraged at not having known how painful his death would be than at the pain itself.

            “Don’t mind him, that’s only Dodd.”  A thin little man stepped up beside me and waved dismissively as Dodd continued to describe his pain.  “He goes on like this forever.  Only the new guys listen to him.  Everyone else gets tired of hearing it.”

            “I’m Jack,” I said to him, offering my hand.

            “Nice to meet you, Jack.  I’m Joseph.  Sorry, I don’t—“ he held a hand up and waved away my attempted handshake.  To Dodd, he added “Yeah, yeah—hurt like hell.  We know.  You put a bullet in your brain, you idiot.  You thought it would tickle?”

            Without touching me, he reached out and guided me away from Dodd.  Dodd didn’t seem to mind.  He just kept on saying over and over “hurt like Hell!  God!”

            We walked down the rows of crypts, moving aside from time to time to allow others to pass.  I don’t remember when I accepted that there were so many of us walking about in the early darkness of the evening.  I knew what we were.  No one had to say it out loud.  In fact, that was a distinct point to be made.  No one did say it out loud.  No one dared to mention just what we were.  At least that’s what I assumed.  I came to realize later that most of them simply did not care to say it out loud; as if the whole matter were trivial.  There was no spell that might be broken if our true nature was spoken of.  But from my own point of view, I felt certain it would be in bad form to say anything.

            Joseph led me on past crumbling tombs and one or two weary cast iron fences.  I had no idea where we were going, and I repeatedly asked him where we were going.  He would never give an answer.

The blue and purplish twilight mixed with the glow of white plaster and marble, highlighting our shapes with an otherworldly aura.  This radiance was unnerving to me at first, for it gave off no light beyond the outlines of our bodies.  It merely burned within the boundaries of our frames.  The total effect gave us the appearance of being lit from within by shrouded firelight.  This became more and more apparent as the night grew darker.

            We crossed from one crowded lane of crypts to a more spacious avenue.  Large crypts with detailed stonework stood like the stately homes in the surrounding Garden District.  Beyond these, we came upon a group of low flat coping tombs.  There were a great number of the dead congregating here, the coping tombs being used as benches.

            I had imagined Joseph was leading me here to introduce me to someone who might explain what was going on, or at the very least he would tell me this was the best place to spend the night for safety’s sake.  I wasn’t really sure what would be said, but I expected something—anything.  I never suspected he would lead me there and then promptly ignore me.  Once there, he spoke to one or two of the others then idly wandered away.

            I stood at the head of one of the makeshift benches and watched a woman who sat on the far end of it.  She sat motionless, staring straight ahead.  I turned my head to my right to see just what had her attention.  Across the wide avenue sat a tall narrow crypt with six squares.  The whole mausoleum was done in marble.  It was expensive work, this was no brick memorial overlaid with plaster.  A fat milky cross sat imposingly on a thin shelf just below the name plates.  An inscription in the gable of the roof read Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys with the year 1894 in its center.  There was something both noble and heartbreaking at the thought of someone or some group spending so much money and effort on children who had spent their life here on earth wanting and alone.

            “Have you ever spoken to any of them?  The children, I mean.” I asked her.

            She turned and gave me a startled and curious look.  I saw right away how drawn and tired she looked.  Her hair was black, as was her dress.  A shadow lay across her and I could not see her hands.  After staring at me for an uncomfortable silence, she answered me with a shake of her head.  I felt as if I’d asked an obviously stupid question.

            “They don’t come out?”  Even as I asked, I knew the answer.  I wished I knew why the orphans never came out, but I did not wish to ask a second stupid question.

            “I knew one of them,” she said softly.

            “There are no names on the plates.  How do you know?”  I thought I had better stop asking questions.  I sensed my questions were not only stupid, but that they were becoming increasingly insensitive as well.

            “He was my child.  My little boy.”  She said nothing more.  She had no need to say more.  She hadn’t been staring at the crypt.  She had been weeping before it, quite possibly each and every night for God knew how many years, only she had no more tears.  Her tears had run out a very long time ago.  Her sobs had ceased to shake her frame as well.  All she appeared to have left was the pain and despair that clouded her soul.  I wished I had never spoken to her.  And yet I wished to know everything; why had the boy been orphaned?  Why had he died young?  Unable to make such wishes come true, I did the one thing I could do and turned away from her.

            “Something the matter?”  A tall man stood beside me furiously cleaning his eyeglasses on his shirt tail.  He held them up to the blackness of the night as if he were looking for spots on them.  He glanced down to take his measure of me before returning to the task of making his glasses spotless.

            “No.  Nothing’s wrong.  I wouldn’t have thought you’d need glasses… anymore.”  I blurted that last bit out before I remembered how taboo the subject of death seemed to be.  I had not meant to make such an obvious allusion to the man’s condition.  I flushed at my error, but he never seemed to notice it.

            “If it’s the girl that’s bothering you, don’t worry over her too much.  That’s just Marie.  She’s batty.”  He felt for a less soiled corner of his shirt tail and smothered a lens with it.

            “I can understand that,” I said with what I hoped would sound like sage understanding, “I’m sure a mother handles the loss of a child with less pragmatism than do fathers.”

            “You’re not seeing things clearly,” he said after sliding the glasses on and wrapping them around his ears.  “It appears to me you’re being made a fool of.  It is as clear to me as my own hand in front of my face—Marie’s no mother.  Never had a son.”

            “How do you know that?” 

            “Oh, damn it all.”  He pulled his glasses off and stuffed them back into the shirt tail, vigorously rubbing at the lenses.

            I turned away from him as eagerly as I had from the grieving mother.  His fanatic craving for spotless lenses baffled me.  I hurried away.  I must have rudely pushed people out of the way.  With a certain detachment, I could hear people complaining as I jostled my way through them.  Whether I murmured my apologies to them or not I cannot say.  But I continued to push on with a total lack of decorum for maybe two or three minutes.

            I eventually regained my composure and walked alone for maybe half an hour.  Honestly, time for us dead did not move in the same way it did when our hearts pulsed with blood.  I had not been buried with a watch, and so I had no way to prove this.  But I had no illusions about how we moved through time.  I could see already that the night would drag on far longer than it would have when we were alive.  I didn’t like that thought.  I wanted to get on with it.  I felt like a sleepless man who lay feverishly in bed only too aware that he had seven more hours alone with his thoughts.  But what added a great deal of unease to my mind was the realization that I was trapped not just with my own thoughts, but the thoughts of all those dead that surrounded me.

            William and Thomas were prime examples of this.  I found them both standing in the middle of a lane, staring at two crypts that stood close enough that only weeds were able to fit between them.

William was a large and imposing figure.  He stood shaking his head at an ornate cathedral shaped memorial made of red granite.  It was topped with four spires at each of its corners.  A high pitched roof bridged the gap between the spires.  Colonnades on both sides of the intricately carved door were covered in stone ivy and flowering vines.  William gestured at the ornate structure without turning an eye in my own direction.

            “Have you any idea how much that cost?  Red Granite, for God’s sake.  Look at it.  I made no provisions for that.  She must have mortgaged the house to have that erected.  What was she thinking?  That woman will be the death of me.”

            “She must have loved you a great deal.”  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.  But I caught myself in time to say nothing more.

            “Loved me?  I’ve got nothing to do with it.  This is her way of putting on a show for her friends.  She’ll play it up all the way.  They’ll be shaking their heads in wonder and admiration at her sacrificial gesture.  More’n likely they’ll take up a collection for her.  Oh, just look at the flower vases.  Four of them!  Paid full price on all of them, I’d bet.”

            “I’d take red granite,” Thomas said, managing to sound forlorn without serving it up too thick.  “Red granite lasts such a long time.  Can you believe I’ve only got brick with plaster smeared all over it?  They didn’t even bother to add the fake lines that make it look like stone.  And why should they have?  The plaster’s already cracking and flaking off in places.  See there?  Just under the south eave.”

            I couldn’t see it from where I stood, but I said nothing in reply.  I was getting better at that.

            “I won’t even mention the name plate.  Unbelievable.”  He shook his head.  I could hear both anger and shame in his words.  I thought he did have a valid point about the name plate.  It was sitting on the ground in two pieces.  The largest piece leaned against the crypt opening.  Behind this, I could see the unevenly placed bricks which had been thrown together in a really shoddy fashion.  Two bricks were missing at the top.  The smaller piece of the name plate lay flat in the grass.

            “Worked nearly every day for forty-three years.”  William was still talking about money.  “Saved everything I could.  The wife spends it on this.  Do you see what I mean?”

            “No,” I answered.

            “I refused the doctor’s last suggested treatment because I told him I’d be damned before I spent that kind of money.  I hadn’t spent a lifetime saving money in order to waste it all in order to keep myself alive.  And look.  I can tell you, I’ve researched this.  I knew what kind of costs were involved in something this grand.  And I know to the penny just how much I had put away.  She spent it all.  It’s all right here.”

            “Don’t let him get to ya,” Thomas warned me with a hand on my shoulder.  “His loved ones obviously cared enough to put thought and effort into this.  It’s magnificent.  How they must have loved him.  My people, on the other hand…” he held his hands out in the direction of his dilapidated vault and nearly growled at what he saw.

            I opened my mouth to ask if his people had the money to spend on his grave but closed it before the words came out.  I didn’t really want to hear his answer.  I could only imagine that no matter their financial situation, he would find some way to demean the choices they had made.

            I left them arguing over their troubles and found my way back onto the wide avenue where I’d started earlier that evening.  I saw Joseph again.  He was leading a short fat man towards the coping tombs.

            “You look like you could use a friend.”

            I turned towards a very young man who smiled with excitement brimming in his eyes.  Despite his near manic enthusiasm, he had a pleasant face.

            “Don’t get me wrong, but maybe a few answers might satisfy me more than just finding a friend.”  I was sure I had just said something offensive.

            “Don’t I know it?  Your first night, am I right?”  If I’d offended him, he never showed it.

            “Yes.”

            “My first night was worse.  I wandered around all night.  Had no idea what was going on.  I just wanted it to end as soon as possible.”

            “That’s about the sum of my first night,” I empathized.

            “Oh, I know what you mean.  But mine went beyond that.  People came up to me out of nowhere and just whined and complained as if my only purpose was to listen to them cry.  I wanted to be their friend, but not their counselor.”

            I saw Joseph heading towards me and I raised my head in recognition.  He waved a hand towards my excited companion and shook his head.

            “Don’t mind him, that’s only Carter.  He goes on like this forever.  No matter what you say, he’ll not only know what you mean, but he’ll have been through something even bigger than you.”  To Carter he added, “Nobody cares, man.  Nobody cares what you know; nobody cares what you’ve done.  No one wants a friend like that.”

            Before I knew it, Joseph was gently guiding me back towards the now crowded set of benches.  It occurred to me he probably had no idea why he was leading me there.  But I didn’t resist him.  I wanted to find Marie.  I had decided the eyeglass cleaning specter had not known what he was talking about.

            “I’m sorry about your son,” I said softly as I sat down beside her.  She didn’t say anything in response, and I gladly remained silent as well.  I stared at the blank name plates of the destitute orphan boys and waited with her.

            Behind us, a man complained to no one in particular that he was there by mistake.  Some trivial technical error had been made in some vague far off place and here he was stuck amongst the dead.  I tried to block out his voice and just concentrate on Marie and her son.  I couldn’t have said why.  Maybe because she was the only one not saying anything.  Everyone else had something to say.  Even Joseph seemed hell bent on pointing out who should be ignored.  I too had felt the urge to be always speaking, even if it had always been to ask a question.

            But not Marie.  The few words she had spoken had only been in reply to my own questions.  Maybe she had run out of words when she had run out of tears.  I didn’t know for certain.  And I didn’t have to. 

            My thoughts turned towards her son and the other orphaned boys.  Why did they never come out?  Surely they had something to say?  They, more than any of us, had reason to complain; alone, a life of want.  Had they ever learned to accept it?  Maybe in fact they had.  Surrounded by so many who wanted so much, I began to suspect just what set these orphans apart.  They did not demand fairness; they had learned long ago how fickle life could be.  They did not crave the finer things in life; the basics were hard enough to hold onto.  All I had heard and seen that night had been the empty shells of men seeking and desiring what they could not have; before or after death.  One desired to control money he no longer held.  Another had wanted to make and impress a friend.  A mother wanted her son.  And even I had wanted something strong enough to pull me from my grave.  I wanted to understand.  I wanted to know why.

            But there before us lay a tiny group of boys who wanted nothing in death, as they had learned to do in life.

            I only became aware of the tear that rolled down my cheek when Marie reached up and wiped it gently onto her hand.  She rubbed at it with her thumb, rolling it around until it was gone.

            She still had no words to say.  But for that moment, she had taken the tear and it had been enough.  It was something I knew for certain, though I would never understand.  And I hoped that I too could find it to be enough.



End

     A short story of mine, Timeless in Winter, will be appearing online at bewilderingstories.com near the end of November.  Keep an eye out for it!