I used to listen to a record when I was a kid. It was filled with ghost stories, tales of monsters and murder. Perfect for a nine-year-old kid. It was narrated by none other than Alfred Hitchcock, and it was sold as an album for children.
One of the stories that I remember in particular was about a traveler who ended up staying in an abandoned house on a stormy night. The traveler builds a fire in a hearth and bundles himself in a blanket, trying to go to sleep. Pretty soon, he hears scratching and mewling. In walks a small black cat that goes to the fire and warms itself. The traveler thinks nothing of this, and tries to go back to sleep.
Pretty soon, more scratching and mewling. A second cat comes in, almost twice as big as the first cat. The second cat goes to the fire, looks at the first cat, nods at the traveler, and says to the first cat, "What are we going to do with him?"
The first cat answers, "We'll wait until Tom shows up."
The second cat nods, and both cats sit staring at the traveler. Pretty soon, more scratching and mewling. A third cat enters. This cat is twice as big as the second cat. It's the size of a puma. The third cat goes to the fire, nods at the other two cats, and says, "What are we going to do with the stranger?"
The second cat says, "We're waiting for Tom to show up."
All three cats sit staring at the stranger, who is filled with terror. Pretty soon, more scratching and mewling. An enormous fourth cat enters, as big as a small cow. The fourth cat goes to the fire, looks at the traveler and then at the other cats. "What's going on with him?" the fourth cat nods at the horrified traveler.
"We're leaving it up to Tom," said the third cat, licking his whiskers.
The fourth cat nods agreeably. All four cats sit staring at the traveler, who is cowering in his blanket.
The passage from
Moby-Dick today reminds me of this little tale. Ishmael wants to go to sleep, but the harpooneer that he is supposed to share a bed with has not arrived. According to the landlord of the Spouter-Inn, the harpooneer is out on the streets, selling shrunken human heads:
I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too
short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too
narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher
than the planed one- so there was no yoking them. I then placed the
first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall,
leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I
soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under
the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all,
especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the
window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the
immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.
The
devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal a
march on him- bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be
wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea but upon
second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next
morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be
standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!
Still looking
round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable
night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think that after all
I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown
harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be dropping in before
long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly
good bedfellows after all- there's no telling.
But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.
"Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he- does he always keep such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.
The
landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be
mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he
answered, "generally he's an early bird- airley to bed and airley to
rise- yea, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out
a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late,
unless, may be, he can't sell his head."
"Can't sell his head?-
What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?" getting
into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this
harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather
Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?"
"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked."
"With what?" shouted I.
"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?"
"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'd better stop spinning that yarn to me- I'm not green."
"May
be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but I rayther
guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin'
his head."
"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's.
"It's broke a'ready," said he.
"Broke," said I- "broke, do you mean?"
"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess."
"Landlord,"
said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snowstorm- "landlord,
stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too
without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can
only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain
harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you
persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories
tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you
design for my bedfellow- a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an
intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you
to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I
shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the
first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling
his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer
is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir,
you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so
knowingly would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal
prosecution."
"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath,
"that's a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then.
But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of
has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of
'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he's sold all on
'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell to-night, cause
to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' human heads about
the streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wanted to last Sunday,
but I stopped him just as he was goin' out of the door with four heads
strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions."
This
account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that
the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me- but at the same
time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday
night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business
as selling the heads of dead idolators?
"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man."
"He
pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's a nice bed: Sal and
me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's plenty of
room for two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed that.
Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in
the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and
somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm.
Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a
glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards
me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a
clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday- you won't see that
harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere- come along then; do
come; won't ye come?"
The harpooneer, about whom Ishmael is justifiably cautious, has grown by the end of this passage into something terrifying and dangerous. A man trying to sell human heads to strangers on an early Sunday morning. Ishmael is like the traveler from the Alfred Hitchcock record I used to listen to as a child. He's waiting for Tom to show up.
I think we all do this a lot. We build up things in our mind. Worries that start out small become towers of terror. I am having a routine colonoscopy on Monday. It's that time of life for me. Tomorrow, I start the whole cleanse thing. Not looking forward to it. And, now that I am this close to the actual procedure, I've been having thoughts of colon and rectal cancer. Thinking about people I know who've been diagnosed. Suddenly, I'm Ishmael waiting for the harpooneer. The traveler waiting for Tom to show up.
Of course, I know that I am going to be fine, but the little obsessive part of my mind is running like a hamster in a wheel. Until Monday, I have a feeling that I'm not going to rest easily. That's the way most fears work. They grow and grow in your mind until they are as big as Bigfoot.
I've been told that the opposite of faith isn't doubt. It's fear. I know this is true this weekend.
Back to my story from Alfred Hitchcock . . .
Pretty soon, the traveler hears more mewling and scratching. In walks a cat as big as a horse. It goes over to the fire, sits down, and nods at the terrified traveler. "What are we going to do with him?" the horse-cat says.
The first cat purrs. "We're waiting for Tom to show up."
All the cats nod and turn their glowing eyes to the traveler.
The traveler can't take it any more. He leaps up, throws his blanket and the cats, and leaps over the fire toward the doorway. Without looking back to see if the cats are following him, he screams, "Tell Tom I couldn't wait!!!!" The traveler runs out into the rain and thunder and dark.
I know that fear of the unknown is a useless emotion. It simply causes sleepless nights and upset stomachs. However, it's difficult for me not to dread the possibility of Tom walking into the hospital room on Monday morning.
Saint Marty is thankful today for everything that distracts him today--scrambled eggs, blue sky, a good book, and, maybe some chocolate.
