On leaving the House of Flesh in some haste, OR Not for Love or Money

A further episode in the Wayout in Washington D.C. series

I left the theatre in a pensive mood. I did not pay attention to the direction in which I was walking, if any. It was now dark. I suddenly became aware of the delicious smell of roast meat wafting my way. I followed my nose round a corner and into a narrow dimly lit side street. I came across a strange little restaurant with the arresting name of "THE HOUSE OF FLESH." I had been in cafes and bars with quaint names and macabre interior decorations before. What mattered to me then was the hunger I felt. That smell of roast beef had the same effect on me as that mess of pottage had once had on Esau.

The place was empty, or so it seemed. A surly looking waiter appeared from behind a purple curtain. his thin lips, curled up at one corner, suggested the grin of a skull. Without a word he lit two black tapers on the candelabrum standing on the table and placed the menu in front of me. This included a number of unconventional items such as jellied serpent and crocodile's eggs, though I assumed that the roast bat was just there as a gimmick. I certainly was not going to order chauve-souris a la maison that evening. I just kept to the more pedestrian dish of roast potatoes and steak.

“We have very good wines, sir," said the waiter, adding as though by way of an afterthought "--red wines.”

I chose an exotic Balkan variety. The waiter returned with the wine and a silver goblet. How kinky, I thought. The bottle could have done with a dusting, but the wine itself left a pleasant enough taste on the palate, slightly acrid perhaps. Further draughts, however produced a strange feeling of muzziness.

At last the waiter came with the steak. It was rare all right. Just as I put fork to mouth, I heard the wail of a passing siren. Maybe it was the ambulance comingto pick up the old gentleman who had suffered an attack at Ford's Theatre, I thought. I inspected the interior of the restaurant more closely. However much of a gimmick it all was, it struck me as convincing, in its own way, rather like the Gothic castle set in a Boris Karloff film. Perhaps it was something out of Edgar Allan Poe. There were finer touches, too--a calendar affixed to the wall by a coffin nail, for example. The day's date was ringed in what I assumed was red ink. This gave me cause for reflection. It was the twenty-second of November, a fateful day in the annals of American and world history.

I reached into my left-inside jacket pocket and brought out my wallet. This I opened and from one of its compartments I took out an old envelope on which I started to doodle.

First I wrote the date:

22. 11. 75

I proceeded thus:

22 + 11 = 33

33 · 3 = 11

ABCDEFGHIJK. 1234567R9 10 11

Vacantly staring at the figures and letters on the envelope, I began to feel distinctly ill at ease. For the first time I could sense that someone else was in the room with me. Perhaps he had slipped in unnoticed. Perhaps he had been there all the time. My eyes had become adjusted to the darkness. As I looked at the walls, I could make out a little niche or alcove in each of them just large enough to accommodate a couple of seats. Just right for couples eating out.

On second thoughts, perhaps not. What a place to take a girl! The waiter came in to light a candle another table. I ate up the rest of my food. It was time to be getting along. I looked into my goblet to discover that the dregs had solidified, or rather coagulated, into a most unpleasant looking black mass. Another anxiety state was coming on. I somehow felt that if I happened to turn my head towards the lighted candle, I would see something capable of instilling the most profound terror within me. Even as a child I experienced a superstitious fear of anything that hung in dark wardrobes or fell draping the chairs in dark bedroom corners. I just had to leave. A breath of fresh air would do a power of good. All I had to do was pay and leave. Where was the waiter? Once outside I would hail a taxi and drive straight back to the motel. I would have an early night, get up early, have a big breakfast with lashings of coffee. I would check out, leave Washington and make south for Richmond and Williamsburg. There everything would be fine, just fine. I could continue my research on Poe without these adventitious props.

Why wouldn't the waiter come? Each moment seemed like an hour. I heard the clicking of a clock on the wall. I could just make out its pendulum looking like the scythe of time swaying to and fro.

To my horror, I heard movements, the sound of a chair-leg scraping along the floor, rats' feet scratching the paneling, a skeleton rattling in a cupboard, things like that. Like Lot's wife I looked round or rather half round. I dashed for the exit like a mad thing. For one dread moment I thought that the door was locked. I pulled it open with all the strength I could muster. I ran and I ran and I ran. Now I knew that my imagination had not been playing tricks on.

The street was in total darkness like the darkness in Byron's poem on that theme. Just a power cut, the voice of reason assured. Maybe, but I wanted to reach the safety and security afforded by neon lights and illuminated advertisements, people looking at shop windows, cars driving down the street and the familiar smell of exhaust fumes. I had to get back to people. Then I saw a light, just a speck at first. As I ran with bursting lungs, the speck became a pool of light, the pool the world of people, cars and street lamps. I felt an immense relief. I slackened my pace and deeply inhaled the air. I could have kissed the first person I met walking down the street. I promised myself a double scotch at the next bar I came across. How good to be with ordinary men and women again. At the end of the block a bar was waiting for me. The nightmare was over.

With a whiskey glass in my hand I could see things in perspective. What a fool I had been. So I had had a meal in a gimmicky restaurant, I had allowed my? fertile imagination to get the better of me again and I had caught a glimpse of a fellow wearing a hooded vestment. It must have been a cleric who felt like eating out for a change or more likely an actor who was waiting for a dress rehearsal. I had funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. This time it had nothing to do with fears about the paranormal, but it was unpleasant nonetheless. I hadn't paid the bill... but hadn't I taken out my...? In a reaction of sheer panic I felt for my wallet. My fears were fully justified. My wallet was not there. All I had on me was dime. The barman asked if it was time for a refill. He must have guessed that something was up from the startled expression on my face. I had to make a split-second decision. Either I would have to try and explain the situation or break for it. I couldn't face the idea of being on the run again. I looked the barman in the eyes and explained as best I could. When I told him about a restaurant around the corner, and he asked which one, I said that it was called "The House of Flesh." He made a face, then nodded at two guys standing behind near the door. They approached slowly with looks I can only describe as menacing. The bartender remarked on the very fine gold watch I was wearing. It would do nicely as a security while I went back to "The House of Flesh" to collect my wallet.

Hardly had I left the bar when another thought struck me. The wallet contained my travelers' checks and my credit card. I would really be stuck if I did not get it back. Now came the test. I would have to return to the restaurant. If, as my reasoning self maintained, I had fallen victim to my own fancies, all I had to do was return there, apologize for leaving like that, ask for the wallet and pay the bill. There was just one little problem: Where was the restaurant? I looked for the intersection I had run to along a street with no lights. All the crossroads I came across connected streets with their lamps in working order. Easy. The technical fault responsible for the darkness of the street I had run along had been rectified in the meantime. Fine, but that did not help me find the street. I turned right down a street I thought might have been the one I had come along, but it did not lead to "The House of Flesh." When I asked people if they could direct me to "The House of Flesh," they looked at me strangely, some with a smile of amusement, some with a gesture signifying suspicion, distrust or even fear. I felt embarrassed when I asked people where "The House of Flesh" was, but when I simply asked them if they knew of a restaurant which had rather strange interior decorations, they would invariably ask what it was called. I still had to say "The House of Flesh" in the end.

Under any other circumstances l would have discontinued my quest, but other circumstances would not have been desperate. Without embracing Marxism or any of its tenets, I came to feel that a stranger in a big city with only a dime in his pocket was more a ghost than a living man in what I believe they term "the period of neo-capitalism." With no watch, either, I was losing my sense of time. I decided I would ask just one more person before returning to Arlington, if need be, on foot.

To my immense relief, the person, a suave young man-about-town, said he knew lust the place I was looking for. He led me down a dark street. My heart was palpitating with excitement. He was giggling about something, but I had no idea what. When we turned a corner, I could see a red light. It was not quite as I remembered, but I was sure my ordeal was coming to an end. It would be too cruel to contemplate any other outcome. The young man pointed to a building and left with another giggle. It was only when I entered the place that I realized that I found myself in the foyer of a brothel. Before I had time to beat a retreat, a young and by no means unattractive young woman came up to me. Waggling her sparsely clad anatomy, she asked if I had any special requests. Perhaps I just wanted standard terms and half an hour's fun. I told her that talk about any kind of terms, special or standard, was irrelevant, as I had only a dime on me. She laughed at the joke and ruffled my hair. When I emptied my pockets to show her that a dime was all I had, she just laughed so loud that a middle-aged lady and a tough guy came up to us wanting to know what all the fuss was about. She told them that I was just a harmless nut. She told me that a dime was good only for one thing and that also involved letting one's pants down. She whispered something in the lady's ear. Whatever the suggestion was, it did not meet with approval.

"There's no room left for charity in this world," she said. "Come back when your finances are okay. Ask for Lola. You're cute."

This incident was the final straw. Though it was now cold and damp, I would just have to cut my losses and walk to Arlington with no money, travelers' checks, credit card or the gold watch my father gave me for getting my "O" Levels.

After a ten minutes' walk I came across a public convenience, which was just as well. I needed to use one badly. As the girl said, a dime is good for one thing, at least. Barely had I closed the toilet door behind me, when I heard someone else come down the steps accompanied by a strange rattling noise. I sat there for ten minutes not daring to make a sound. I listened for another five minutes but could hear no sign of life. I dashed out of the toilet and up the steps leading to the street. The fog had become denser. I walked ahead until I reached the Mall.

Walking along, I could just make out the Constitution Monument and the White House illuminated by floodlight.

The fog grew denser. An owl hooted. Again I had that funny feeling of not being alone. But one was in sight. What was that noise? My imagination was playing tricks on me again. I thought I heard the crackle of dead leaves under foot. There was a park on the left. I came to realize that I must have left the main road. The paving stones became less regular in shape and size before vanishing altogether. Little more remained than a track. I was just thinking of retracing my steps when I heard a strange rattling sound and twigs snapping. I quickened my pace. I was not the only one to do , it seemed. I started to run.

The path was slippery, so slippery in fact that my running did little to augment my forward progress. Soon there was no path to follow, and I was forced to jump over bushes or duck under low-hanging branches. Sometimes, as I brushed past briars, thorns scratched my legs and arms. As in a nightmare, the cause of fear lay not in the knowable, however horrid, but in threats and dangers, which impinge upon the consciousness from the unknown realm.. No thought could bring hope or relief, not even the thought of Rachel, for a voice within told me that a sinful wretch such as I could never win the heart of so fair and pure a being. In vain I scanned the pages of literature for consolation. Those lines, which did spring to mind, were far from consoling, whether penned by Coleridge or Robert Browning:

Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk and fear and dread

And having once turned round, walks on

And then no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

For mark, no sooner was I fairly found

Pledged to the trail~, after a pace or two

Than pausing to throw backward a last view

O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round,

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; nought else remained to do.

No doubt remained. The strange figure I had caught a glimpse of in "The House of Flesh" was the one following at my heels. My ears told me that he was gaining on me despite my athletic exertions. Perhaps he was a brother of Spring-Heeled Jack, the bogeyman of the Victorian nursery room, or the werewolf. The crackle and snap of breaking twigs got ever louder. I heard a noise like the gnashing of teeth. My limbs ached, my legs felt as heavy as lead, their movement slow and barely responsive to the will. Just as I was ~n the point of giving in to a feeling of utter resignation to my fate, I saw an iron railing ahead. This signaled my final hope. If only I could reach and surmount that railing, there might be a chance of escaping my pursuer. I mustered all my strength for the dash, and by one last stupendous effort, I reached the obstacle and leapt. For an agonizing second I balanced on top of the railing, my legs not knowing which way to go, before lunging headlong down the other side. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of the Potomac's waters rolling down below.

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