Throughout this morning I’ve been trying to recall ‘Murphy’s Laws for the Hospital Corpsman,’ but it may have been to long ago or I have filled my brain cavity with too many other things. Besides, I got hung up on law #50: “The good doc considers the risk before running to a casualty. The great ones think of the danger after the casualty has been recovered and treated.”
That is the greatest law — you before me. I wonder often why and how I survived.
Beyond death itself, which I’ll have no earthly knowledge of entering into from this life, my greatest fear is being told, “Go away from me for I never knew you.” This comes from my ever-dominate feeling of being wholly unworthy of redemption and forgiveness.
Therein is where my horrors lay. It’s that vast, never ending, and endless void, that gulf in between man and God, a cosmic darkness, empty, save for what I cannot perceive in my egoed imaginations. Are there mindless and vile things that float about in that ethereal place between Heaven and Earth or perhaps below both, that those separated from God, will meet, either on accident or by purpose, which will consume what spirit is left of our once golden beings?
This is what resides in that darkness, the hidden, shrunken, tangled places of my mind and this Terra on which I wander, and that are relived in my science fiction and horror writing. As William Shakespeare posits in his play, ‘Hamlet,’ that, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” perhaps what’s not dreamed of in our modern philosophy might be the cause of our undoing and demise.
“…the daemon-sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the hellish dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless…” — The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, H. P. Lovecraft, January 1927
“Mind if I sit here?” the very old man asked as he pulled the chair out from the table. I was sitting at a table in the far corner of the Washoe County Public Library at 12th and Ardmore.
“Please,” I said, “Help yourself.” I returned to reading the book I had propped up in front of me.
“I see,” the recent joiner eventually said, “That you’re a fan of Harold Lovecraft.” I nodded ‘yes,’ as he continued, “I knew him when I was a kid,” and his New Englander accent suddenly pronounced.
I looked at him with some trepidation, studying his somewhat cloudy and watery-blue eyes, looking for some sort betrayal to what he was claiming, but could find none, so I set my book aside and waited to hear about the writer first hand.
“Even at nine, I knew he was a strange one, but I found him interesting. My mother, God rest her soul, forbid me and my older brother from visiting his home on Barnes Street,” he said, “unfortunately he was in the final years of his life.”
“So were you around when he died?” I asked.
“Oh, no – by that time he was too sick for visitors, but I do recall his casket being carried from the house to an awaited hearse,” he answered, adding, “It was a sad day for me and my brother, though I don’t think very many people were concerned one way or another with his passing.”
“So how did you end up in Nevada?” I asked him.
“The Army sent me here during World War II, for training, to fight the Krauts in Africa. After the war, they assigned me to Camp Stead and when I mustered out of the service, I never left.”
After a few seconds of silence, “Besides, Rhode Island had nothing to offer a kid like me, whose only real job had been killing people.”
My raised eyebrows must have told him of my surprise as he clarified his comment, “I killed a lot of Krauts during my time in the Army. I needed a fresh start and Nevada was it.”
“I get that,” I said, “The horrors of war.”
The old man paused, looking off to the side and stared as if he were recalling the event. I sat quietly, intent on learning more.
“You know he was on to something with his character of Cthulhu?” he finally started, “and I’m not talking only about creation of the thing, but what it really represents.”
“Explain,” I stated as I shifted forward in my seat.
“I finally figured it out after the war when I realized that he was talking about a very old idea of a new world order. Once it hit me, I could see everything clearly – events detailed in his stories and such have a natural connection to events that happened in the real world. It is all truth, but highly fictionalized.”
“That’s crazy,” I smiled.
“You’d think,” he shot back, “But I’m telling you the facts. Pay attention to what is happening in the news, politics and such, you’ll see the connection my young friend. Also think about the character ‘Abdul Alhazed’ and his book ‘Kitab al-Azif,’ or as it’s better known — the ‘Necronomicon.’
I shook my head, certain the old man was off his rocker. He knew what I was thinking, adding, “Maybe I am crazy, maybe I’m not. Woodrow Wilson, Fourteen Points, the League of Nations, the rise of Communism, the Nameless City, Arkham and so on. It’s all there, codified, but well hidden to the average Joe.”
“So where do you suggest I start?” I asked.
“First remember the name ‘Sr’yu’mg-em’,’ then Start with the 1991 news story about the Octopus,” he said, “followed by reading the novel, ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,’ if you haven’t already.”
“Isn’t that one where the villain returns from the dead using something Lovecraft called, ‘essential saltes’ or something like that?’
The old man simply smiled, “You’ll figure it out.”
He struggled sightly to push back his chair and stand-up. I stood to offer him a hand, but being the typical New Englander, he refused my assistance.
“You know,” he said before shuffling away between the rows of library books, “It’s good to finally get it off my chest and to pass this information on. I know you don’t really believe me now, but long after I’m gone, you will. I promise, you will.”
Three weeks later that I saw that same man’s face once again. This time atop an obituary with the name ‘E. Brexley Grieves,’ and an accompanying article about an unknown elderly man being shot two times in a probable act of suicide.
Doug Ames, 61, was born on July 8, 1958 and unfortunately passed away on August 12, 2019 following a nearly four-year long battle with cancer. He grew up in Crescent City, California, but was living in Dolan Springs, Arizona.
A 1976 graduate of Del Norte High, he was in Reno, Nevada in March 2016. We were supposed to get together on the morning of the fifth, but he had to cancel.
I wish we could have met for that final time, but…
Tom Cassidy was born in Crescent City, California on April 9, 1961 and passed away from congestive heart failure on August 7, 2019 at the age of 58. He leaves behind his wife Michelle, whom he married on June 21, 1986.
We were teammates, both sprinters, running track and field at Del Norte High School, where Tom graduated in 1979. It leaves me very sad knowing that Tommy crossed the finish line ahead of me.
Rest in peace, Tom.
“When I got here, I seen that marquee out there with my name in lights on it. My name’s never been up in lights before,” he said in his distinctive Southern-drawl, “But I’ll get over it and sing some for ya, which is why you’re all here tonight.” His enthusiasm was authentic, infectious and the gathered audience ate it up.
I couldn’t help but smile at this familiar act and that’s when I knew I’d been lucky to have seen him perform before fame failed.
The Old Blog in the Desert 