January 10: Deliriums and Death, Son of a Friend, Sorrow

The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon- so like a corkscrew now- was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump.

Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way- cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fireplaces all round- you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den- the bar- a rude attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without- within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass- the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full- not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing."

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man's blanket.

"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?- you want supper? Supper'll be ready directly."

I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought.

The little old man selling the sailors deliriums and death.  The Spouter-Inn isn't close to the Four Seasons, decorated more like Quint's shark shack in Jaws than any kind of boarding house.  It's filled with rough characters hardened by the sea, and the cheap booze is flowing freely to ward off the cold night.  Ishmael has no choice but to stay, share a bed with a stranger.  Either that, or out into the darkness again.

Last night on the late news, I saw a story about a house fire.  Two people were killed in thee fire--a young man and woman, both in their early twenties.  No names were given in the report.  This afternoon, I found out that the young man was the son of a friend and colleague from the English Department.

As most of you know, very little leaves me at a loss for words.  This does.  I don't even know how to approach it.  It's like Ishmael entering the Spouter-Inn and trying to find a place for himself among a crowd of strangers.  He doesn't want to be there, but there is no alternative.  As Melville might have written, he must needs stay.

There are few griefs so profound as losing a child.  I've watched my mother and father do it.  Twice.  It wrecked them.  They sat in the church and funeral home, trying to figure everything out.  How to go on in a world without their son and, later, their daughter.  I remember the sound my father made at the funeral.  Half-sob, half-fury.  Like a Kodiak bear weeping.

There is nothing I can say to my friend to ease her pain.  It's like having to share a blanket with Sorrow.  You don't really want to do it, but, again, you have no choice.  So you crawl into bed.  Let Sorrow warm his icy feet on your back, get used to his ribs and arms pressing against you.

It doesn't get easier.  It get duller.  My mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, still stares at pictures of my brother and sister, and it looks as if she's right back at the funeral parlor, the movie of her life unspooling around her. 

Please, pray for my friend tonight.  She needs strength, courage, and love.

Saint Marty has nothing else he can say.