The Tunnel

So I was starting a new job--night watchman at a pizzeria. It was presided over by two women, both large and ill-kempt; neither woman would ever see the high side of forty again.

Apparently, I started after hours. But what else to expect?

The place was deserted when I got there. Both women were cordial, polite; I asked them plainly if the building was haunted.

Of course, said the smaller one with dark, short, curly hair. She had busty momma hips and a wide ass. Her partner was big and blonde.

"What else did you expect? This building is pretty old. We've been here for years."

Her friend tittered. Outside, downtown settled down into an electrified night of wet pavement and dismal searching headlights. The night before, I had been in the head of a motorist picking up hookers.

"What do you mean you mean, 'in his head'?" asked the tall, busty blonde, who was no less obese than her small, brunette companion. I hadn't realized I had been thinking aloud.

"I mean, I was 'in his head.' Like, I was him. I could feel his thoughts, see out through his eyes."

There was a short, silent pause. The place itself smelled exactly as you'd expect: garlic, onions, fried meat, burnt pizza cheese. All the lights, except for the light in the kitchen, had been turned off. I could see no sign of a cook, anywhere.

"I woke up in the backseat of a car. Outside, a gaggle of girls was staring at me in surprise. I suppose I must have crawled in back and fell asleep. The next thing I know, I'm driving. And looking at a woman I know to be a prostitute standing there. She's young..."

One of them whistled long and slow. And the other, the brunette said, as if hitting me with a spot exam, "Then whaddya do?"

I struggled. Outside, rain began to patter against the huge window overlooking the street. The walls here were adorned with old pictures, ancient advertisements from Coca-Cola. Mabel Normand and other Gibson girls.

"And then what did I do?" I asked out loud. The blonde suddenly interjected, as if afraid I might answer, holding her hands out as if to say, "Okay, enough is enough!"

"We have a lot to get through tonight you guys, so if we could move this along, I know Brenda, you have a lot to do tonight..." and she turned to me and sort of laughed/nodded, "And I know you want to get the show on the road. Huh?"

Brenda, who I suddenly realized had been chewing gum, said, "Yeah, okay sure. let's go. She continued to eye me with a steely, suspicious gaze for a moment. I had transgressed some undiscovered social taboo.

"Yeah," I said. "Sure thing. Let's go."

***

She handed me a flashlight.

We went in the back and down a flight of steps. We were in a sort of basement area, and I asked again, with greater enthusiasm, "So, this place is haunted, correct?"

At first, there was a slight pause. Then--

"Well, it's what they say. We can't seem to keep anyone in this job. People leave, refuse to return. Everyone says it's not worth the money. But, with the way the economy is, that may change."

"Yeah," snorted Brenda. "And we pay better than most."

"Sure."

Ahead, one of them unlocked a heavy padlock, twisted up a rusted metal latch, and swung open a heavy metal door. It scraped the floor below like the desiccated feet of some revivified cadaver.

Beyond, there was darkness going down to a pinpoint of light. It might have been a flickering flame hiding under the crack of a door.

" I can't do this," I suddenly interjected. "I know myself. I just can't." I tried to break free, but we were like three hunched spelunkers, hooked together by an invisible cable.

'it's like the great dead womb of the House of Usher," I said, not certain what I really meant. "I suppose Madeline Usher might come screaming out of the black, her long white fingers pointing at us in the dark--"

"So melodramatic...."

Brenda snorted. Wanda (I later found out her name was) said, "Her mouth working soundlessly, I bet. Accusing Roderick Usher of committing vile profanities against her dead body."

I don't know how to respond to this. Then say, "Yes. The entire House of Usher is a metaphor, you know. The story hints at certain tendrils of necrophilous love."

"As well as incest, of course," piped in Brenda. "The House of Usher is a great, sterile, dead cunt."

"You mean, a metaphor."

"A dream-like, surreal allegory for the corrupt love that vanquishes men..."

"Men and gods," laughs Wanda.

I then said, as if to lighten the mood (although why I thought it would have done so is beyond me at this point): "To a new world of gods and monsters..."

"What's that from, that old line? It's a movie line, I know. Oh, wait! Don't tell me, don't tell me..."

Pause.

"I finally say, "It's from Bride of Frankenstein."

"Oh," squeals Brenda in faux pain. "You TOLD me, damn it! I TOLD you not to tell me."

Beyond, another doorway. How could this light, I wondered, be concealed from us, even way back there in the tunnel, in the heart of the dark? I had no idea. A jump-cut, perhaps. And then there we were.

"Oh, nobody has been in here in a long time."

In truth, it must have been the office for the maintenance men. The desk was empty, but punk rock posters adorned the walls and, curiously enough, Victorian photos mixed in. The maintenance had filled in the spaces in the wall with their pictures; the Misfits logo, the Crimson Ghost, was prominently and appropriately displayed.

The overhead fluorescents shining down from the high ceiling provided harsh, ugly illumination. "I wonder where they got off to," asked Brenda, turning to look at the walls as if mystified by what they had done to the room.

The room itself had a large entryway on the other side, leading to what I could see was a central entryway for a deserted manor. A staircase journeyed upward into darkness. There was an old episode of In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy, one exploring the topic of ghosts in photography. In that episode, a specialist examined an original, famous photo of a spectral image clutching the railing of an old staircase in a haunted mansion. Captured by accident, the picture was proven authentic, suggesting that the camera could capture the presence of invisible intelligence, discorporated entities, imprisoned, in the netherworld, between here and the hereafter.

I wonder if we are all but illusions. And these spirits, these phantoms, are even more incredible illusions. Dreams captured within dreams, as simply the shifting vision of a universal intelligence beyond anything we can understand.

I imagined such a ghost might be walking the similar staircase, clutching with one bony, sinister hand, the old wooden rail as it made its tortured way up, step by spectral step.

Outside, beyond the reach of the eyeless walls, lightning flashed in a sky made obsidian by night.

It was but a dream.