Edward Lee - Trolley No. 1852

TROLLEY

No. 1852

by Edward Lee

Smashwords Edition

Necro Publications

2012

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TROLLEY NO. 1852

© 2010 by Edward Lee

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

1934

It was the spectral hump of Federal Hill that held the solitary man’s gaze in capture, as oft it did, whene’re he took to his work-desk in hopes of a Muse’s whisper. The westward panes framed this inexpressible sight which rose two miles distant, and for reasons the lean, stoop-shouldered man could not explicate, beguiled his aesthetic senses as if to whelm them most utterly. Near dead-center of the roof-crowned rise stood the blackly bedrabbed hulk of St. John’s Church, whose cold Gothic revival windows seemed to stare back at his gaze in a knowing despair. The man felt certain that one day this morbid and singularly sinister edifice would ignite the fuse of a new tale, yet as so often happens to the creatively inclined, there could be no tale without an accommodating catalyst.

The same could be said of his present scribbling, cursorily entitled “The Thing in the Moonlight,” not a tale of itself but some rather desultory notes for one. It gravitated around a salient and very haunting image that had stricken him in a dream not far agone: a decrepit trolley-car rusting on its iron rails, slack power wires hanging overhead like dead umbilici. Ill-hued yellow paint mouldered around the vestibuled car, a colour akin to jaundice. A black and rather faded stencil identified the vehicle: No. 1852.

This dream-image disconcerted the man to no end, that and the image of the car’s motorman who turned in shifting moonlight to display a heinous face that was nothing but a white fleshy cone tapering snout-like to a single blood-red tentacle…

Like the Gothic pile of the church, the blear-eyed man yearned to harness this image and then rein it into a tale of weird substantiality. But, lo, he knew without the proper catalyst, it would never be more than a page of fallow cacography. Such was the curse of a poor and aging scribe.

However, the door-slat’s clatter alerted him to the arrival of the day’s post, and instead of a nettlesome bill or—his worst fear—an eviction, he found a manila envelope waiting. The upper-left corner bore no name but just a New York City address. From inside, his long thin fingers extracted a handsomely designed if not suspiciously suggestive magazine. Eloquent letters spelled its uncanny epithet EROTESQUE and a sub-heading: Tales for the Selectively Bizarre. A woodcut, quite byzantine in its elaborateness, comprised the cover in a style that seemed reminiscent of Frank Utpatel.

The style, he observed, yet hardly the content.

The woodcut showed what—after a studied glance—could only be the silhouette of a winnowy, well-busted woman, undeniably nude and pruriently posed.

A neatly typed cover letter read as thus:

Dear Mr. Lovecraft:

Forgive the intrusion of this unsolicited invitation. EROTESQUE is a privately-circulated periodical offering fictional fare of the most outre, iconoclastic, and unrepresentative, with eroticism as the central motif. Our readership demands sexually inspired fiction by the very best and most innovative authors of the day—authors such as yourself. Tales incorporating supernaturalism, experimental, da-da, alternate-history, and anti-authoritarian are most encouraged. Should you accept our offer, you will need to furnish a double-spaced typescript of no less than seven thousand words.

You need not worry about the potential controversy of your work appearing in a publication such as EROTESQUE (nor any attendant censorship ramifications); your contribution will be published pseudonymously, and we keep all pseudonyms under the most severe confidentiality. You may be surprised by how many of your peers publish with us on a regular basis.

We pay well above the industry standard; likewise we understand that authors of your admired caliber need not “audition” for inclusion, which is why we make the first-half payment in ADVANCE. Please find the enclosed cheque for $500.00. A second cheque for an identical sum will be rendered upon delivery of the ms. There is no deadline.

Should you not be interested, or are too pressed by your busy publishing schedule, simply return the cheque in the also-enclosed self-addressed, stamped envelope, and accept our thanks for your consideration.

We here at EROTESQUE would be honoured to have your preeminent work in our pages.

Cordially,

F. Wilcox

It would be superfluous to convey the extent of the writer’s surprise and exuberance. With a $500 draft in hand, and another promised upon delivery? These sums singularly exceeded any in this poor scribe’s professional history! With all that filthy lucre? he pondered, I could pay the rest of my aunt’s hospital bill AND cover our rent for a year! When the offer’s full weight sunk in, he actually shouted out a hackneyed and very ebullient, “Oh my God!”

He visibly trembled, then, when he sat down to read…

The magazine, as was manifest, existed for subversive readers, indeed. The man found the tales therein professionally rendered, adroitly and engagingly plotted, and flamboyantly conceived; however, it could not be denied. They were pornographic. Hence, the periodical’s “private” circulation, for fiction such as this would be deemed illegal most anywhere. Desperate as he was for finances (this past winter he’d never been closer to the bread-line) he had to make the self-admission that he hardly approved of pornography; yet on the other hand… Who am I to make judgments? A violation of the law? More than likely. But he had to admit also that most of the contents of Erotesque displayed works of notable craft and fascinating imagery (however lewd that imagery may have been), and he had to admit likewise that the reading’s wake left him aroused in a most primal and unmentionable manner—hence, the effect of the skills of the contributors. How quickly he decided to accept the offer he could not consciously say. Would he be prostituting his wee talents for money? Quite emphatically, he told himself, No. He saw this offer as a challenge, and no writer worth his salt ever turned down a challenge…

This was all ballyhoo, of course, a cheap rationalization. The writer had no verve to write pornography but he needed the money, damn it, and he was so tired of eating cold beans and week-old cheese!

So…

He thought the following soliloquy: In my life of staggering travail, I’ve suffered humiliations and failures untold. Hectored as a child, forced to wear girls’ smocks until the age of eight, socially stifled such that I was unable to graduate high school… For pittances, I’ve ghost-written for dolts and stoked their vain egos by allowing them to put their names on my prose and poetry. I bungled my way to termination as a door-to-door salesman, and I stuffed envelopes for mere pennies. I’ve stood like a lackwit drone in an unheated cubby selling movie tickets to snide, chuckling human vermin. Now, at the least, I would be something much of note:

A pornographer!

But before he would scruple to live up to this F. Wilcox’s adulatory opinion of his talents, he hunted through his fairly recent New York City telephone directory (which he keep on hand due to his frequent journeys there); naturally, there was no listing for Erotesque in the business segment; however…

Amongst the long string of Wilcoxes, he was encouraged to find a listing for a Wilcox, Frederick, at the same address as on the envelope. It made some sense that a publication of ribald literature would not have an official office, opting instead for the editor’s home residence. He stroked his over-protuberant chin, thinking, I suppose I could call Mr. Wilcox from the telephone at the boarding house across the way… , but a second’s contemplation deemed the action unnecessary. Instead came the resolve, My writing is cut out for me… , and what an energizing resolve it was!