And what was now taking place was a pitiable site, indeed.
The girth of Mary’s belly made it difficult for her to bend over, yet bend over she did, after fiddled at Paul’s trousers. It was clear now what his problem had been earlier. A bucket in the corner of the office told me that’s where he’d been struggling to when he’d flopped himself out of the chair: for the purpose of urinating, a task not easily accomplished given his disabilities. I could only presume that his trousers were left perpetually open for such emergencies.
Distaste plainly stamped on her face, Mary held a tin can betwixt the poor man’s legs, into which he now voided his bladder.
Her wince intensified. “For goodness sake, Paul! You go more than a horse! Hurry!”
Another full minute lapsed when finally the void terminated and Mary aversively emptied it in the small sink. “You just want attention anytime you know I’m getting some.”
“I do not,” he said forlornly. “I had to go and you weren’t here.”
She sat with some effort in a fold down chair, cradling the distended belly. “I’m doing all of this for you and step-dad, you know. Working two jobs and carrying another baby. I’m tired of you taking me for granted. You’re lucky to be alive, you know, and you wouldn’t be, Paul, if it weren’t for me.”
Paul railed, elevating his stumps. “Oh, yeah, I’m so lucky to be alive! Thanks very much!”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said in a lower and somehow darker tone. “We could have it a lot worse. Both of us.”
“He wanted to talk to me, not you,” Paul objected, spittle on his lips and tears in his eyes. “I knew Lovecraft better than you, and just because—”
“That’s enough,” came her tempered retort, then she rose from the chair, but before she could exit—
“Mary, wait! Please!” the invalid implored.
“What?” she nearly growled.
“I need you to…”
“You need me to what?”
Now his voice degraded to a pitiful peep “You know… With your hand…”
A hot glare raged on her face. “No! It’s dirty and sinful! It’s disgusting!”
My brows rose high.
Paul’s forlorn whine continued. “But it’s so hard to do it myself. I get lonely back here, and…”
“No!”
“At least-at least… can I see? I’ve got nothing else, Mary. Please. Let me see, just for a second…”
Mary’s comely visage was now a mask of disdain. “No! I’m your sister, for goodness sake!” then she left the room in a whir and slammed the door.
First, the blaring sight, then, second, the implications, left me agog at the window. Yet when my eyes fond their way back to the unfortunate Paul, I heard my very soul groan…
He sat now in a desperate hunch, his back to me, his shoulders moving as his forlorn whimpers drew on. I did not need to see to know that he was attempting to masturbate with his elbow stumps.
What a tragedy, I thought.
My secret gaze retreated. Though the situation offended my outer sensibilities, I did not issue judgments, but what a sorry plight life left to so many. The poor girl, pregnant while having to work two jobs to support an invalid brother and most likely an invalid stepfather. While the poor brother himself has only… this as his only accessible mode of pleasure. The grim reality only served to reflect more of myself back into whatever sense of self-awareness I possessed. I was the indulgent, filthy rich, having never had to work in my life, while these people.
I knew that before I left this town, I would do something quite generous for this destitute family…
The alley’s exit conducted me to a crossroad, when I turned westward and followed the sign. Clean block buildings lined one side of the street, stands of dense trees lined the other. I set my quiet despair behind me, to re-attended my task.
I MUST locate this Cryus Zalen…
Sunlight sifted through high branches while from the east a gentle surf touched my ears. I wondered if Lovecraft had ever walked this particular street and so hoped that he had. I knew that I was seeing what he saw as his mind worked on the pieces of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
A crunch to my left stopped my gait. I turned, scanned the crush of trees, but saw no one where I was sure someone must be. The sound I’d heard was unmistakable: a footstep crunching down on the drought-withered detritus of the woods.
After several more paces, the crunch resounded again.
“Hello there!” I called when I saw the figure shamble through the trees. A figure, yes, adorned in a long, ruined black raincoat. “Mr. Zalen! Please! I’ve dire need to speak with you!”
The figure disappeared as quickly as if it were part of the woods. I could only wonder now just how debilitated Mr. Zalen had become via the rigors of opiate addiction and impoverishment. The latter stages of such misfortunes regularly left its victims incoherent or fully mad. Should this be the case with Zalen, my trek could well prove pointless.
A ten-minute stroll left me standing before the new fire station where several men chatted amiably while they washed and polished the grand, new pumper truck. Not half a block on, I found what could only be the poorhouse.
The single-floored length of small apartments looked pressed down by adversity, as though soullessness were as salient a feature as the compartments’ peeling paint and rag-stuffed broken window panes. From them issued the smells of urine and rotting food. An elderly man sat slumped and glassy-eyed before one dingy-doored room, to the effect that I thought he might be deceased until he shivered once, and hacked. An obese blind woman with a white cane sat just as dejected at the next unit. She looked up sightlessly when she’d no doubt heard my passing, then rose from the milk crate she used for a chair, tapped back to the doorway, and went in. The door slammed.
The end unit struck me as darker than all the rest, though the sunlight here shone evenly across the entire length of apartments. A doorless postal box revealed no occupant’s name, and I noticed a grease-stained garbage bag sitting roadside filled with stubs of burned down candles, expended flash bulbs, and empty food cans aswarm with flies. A cracked walkway led me forward until I stopped, forced to eye a curious door-knocker mounted in the beaten door’s center stile, a queer oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth or nose, no additional features.
I wrapped hesitantly with the knocker, staring uneasily at the name plaque posted just above: C. ZALEN.
3.
What the door opened to show me was more of what I expected: a thin, pallid man demonstrating every sign of physical squalor. He still wore the ruinous black raincoat, which hung open to show him shirtless, sunken-chested, slat-ribbed. Frayed trousers torn off at the knees were what he wore below the waist, as well as rotten shoes. His already sunken eyes appeared nearly non-existent by the smudge-like crescents beneath them. I made every attempt to smile and seem unfazed.
“Ah, Mr. Zalen. My name is Foster Morley. I saw you cutting home through the woods but I guess you didn’t hear me.”
The man frowned. Longish black hair had been slicked back off his brow by either tonic or, more likely, the natural oils from his scalp that had accreted from not washing often. “What do you want?” he asked in a voice that sounded more hardy than I would expect from such a dilapidated unfortunate.
“You’re the photographer, correct? The newspaper man, or have I been informed in error?”
“That was a lifetime ago, but I guess if you’ve been informed about me, you’re either police or a client… and you don’t look like police so I guess you better come in.”