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Peter H. Cannon
Let me be known as P. H. Kanon. I live on Manhattan's fashionable Upper West Side. I'm an investment banker by profession; but my real interest lies outside the wheeling and dealing of Wall Street. For the past four years I've belonged to the OSS, or Order of the Silver Sunset, an elite amateur press association of 36 (2 x 18, 3 x 12, or 4 x 9, depending on one's numerological preference) acolytes of Howard Ashton Howard (1909-1963?), the obscure author of fantastical-occult-sexual tales who, since mysteriously vanishing at age fifty-four from a bus tour in Tijuana, Mexico, has grown into something of an underground cult figure. Born in Los Angeles, California, where he lived nearly all of his seemingly mundane life, Howard A. Howard has always had a following with such stories as "The Anaheim Horror" (about a sinister amusement park), "The Bugs in the Tacos" (wherein a Mexican fast-food chain is closed for health violations), and "The Shadow over the San Fernando Valley" (the first weird tale to use smog as an agency of supernatural horror). I'd discovered these stories and others in my teens, when I'd read the cheap Lancer editions of Howard Howard. Later I'd acquired the hardcover collections put out by Altadena House (named for the non-fictional subdivision of L.A. that features prominently in his best works), the publishing company founded in 1964 by his friend Amos Stark and run from his home Place of Nuthatches in the Massachusetts coastal village of Beverly Farms.
Although the charter of the OSS states that the order is "devoted to the study of the life and works of Howard Ashton Howard," I really have little to say about the man or his writings. I enjoy producing my quarterly Miscellaneous Maunderings mainly because it provides me an outlet for poetry and art work of mine that I'd be too embarrassed to show my family or friends, and I can air my views on movies I've seen or books I've read, whether they have anything to do with the supernatural or not. I also like to make extensive mailing comments on the contributions of other members.
One night several months ago, soon after the New Year, I received a phone call which would lead to events that would profoundly alter my understanding of H. A. Howard.
"P. H. Kanon?" the voice asked.
"I'm he."
"This is Kevin O'Malley."
"Oh, Kevin, hi," I said, recalling the happy occasion in the fall when he'd been kind enough to entertain at his apartment me and a number of other New York area OSSers. Kevin, a most congenial fellow who works for the Quaker Relief Agency, had recently joined the ranks of the OSS.
"Listen," Kevin said, "would you be able to come over tomorrow evening for another gathering of local Hahowardians? Madeline Munroe, who's in town for a couple of days on her way back to South Carolina, is coming, and so are Jack Daniels, Mike and Jane, and Ned Cabot, who all came before, plus a few more good people who didn't. It should be a terrific group. For dinner we can send out for Chinese food or something.
"Also, I've got something very special to show everyone-a prize bit of Hahowardiana that I ordered from Roy Squires and just came in the mail today. I think it's really unusual and you're all going to get a big charge out of it when you see it..."
Kevin hoped I didn't mind his keeping this thing a surprise. I assured him I had no objections, and looked forward to seeing him, "it," and the rest of the gang at his place tomorrow evening. I closed with the promise that I'd bring a bottle of wine.
* * *
The next day at 7:00 by previous arrangement I met my friend and neighbor Ned Cabot at the 86th Street subway stop. Ned, or N.E.D. Cabot as he's known to his readers, has been steadily building a solid reputation for himself in the horror-fantasy field with a half-dozen or so well-crafted tales over as many years. Few have forgotten the real sensation "The Events at the Pyatigorsk Collective Farm" (a story with a pronounced Marxist slant) made when it appeared in Nyctalops #8 and later The Best Leftist Short Stories of 1977. He eagerly awaits the publication of his first novel, Nondescript Objects, due out from Crown in July. While not a member of the OSS, Ned reads my sets of the mailings with avid interest.
"Do you have any clue as to what this thing is Kevin's so hot on showing us?" I shouted to Ned over the rumble of the subway.
"No idea," said Ned. "Maybe Roy sold him Howard's 'black book'... Too bad Kevin's a married man. Maybe, though, he intends to loan it to those of us who could use it-or give us a xerox at least..."
I smiled at Ned's joke about the legendary 'black book'-a voluminous diary that H. A. Howard supposedly kept of his many and varied sexual adventures, containing not only names and phone numbers but surefire techniques for seducing women, with illustrative examples... Though it was rumored that Roy Squires had picked up this unique and desirable item of Hahowardiana in the materials he'd purchased, there was no proof it had ever turned up anywhere after HAH's disappearance (despite the claims of certain dubious characters offering it for sale).
It had been raining for days in New York, the temperature unseasonably well above freezing, and Ned and I were grateful that the walk through the drizzle from the 59th Street station to Kevin's 10th Avenue apartment building was a short one.
Kevin ushered us into the front hall with all the warmth and enthusiasm he'd shown us at our previous meeting. The other guests, assembled in the living room just beyond at a slight angle to where we stood shaking our umbrellas and unbuttoning our coats, rose from seats. Ned and I quickly greeted in turn Madeline Munroe, high-priestess of the OSS (then running for an uncontested second term), critic-editor Jack Daniels, young newlyweds Mike and Jane Apollonio, Jerry and Maggie (new members I'd never met before), in from Jersey for the occasion, and OSS veteran and founding-father Ken Indiaink, also in from Jersey. Kevin's wife Sharon, a third-year law student, nodded politely to us then retreated to the bedroom to her books.
Kevin relieved Ned and me of the wine bottles each of us had brought, while we dumped our coats on the bed in the guest room. When I apologized from being late, Kevin shook his head and grinned.
"Not to worry," he said. "I have another surprise for you. You're not the last to arrive. Another guest, an unexpected one, is on his way-someone I'm sure will add tremendously to tonight's proceedings. As I was telling everybody before you came, I got a call late this afternoon from a fellow who says he's an old friend of H. A. Howard's-used to know him in the Pacific Palisades days. He got in from Los Angeles just a few hours ago. All modesty aside, he said he was very eager to meet me, knowing what a fan of HAH I was. When I told him of our OSS gathering and invited him to join the group, he said it would be an honor. It seems he's heard of the OSS, and would like nothing better than to share his memories of HAH with us. So this evening is going to be even more special!"
"What's his name?" asked Ned.
"Oh, yeh, sorry...Jim Jardine." Jardine wasn't a name I remembered from de Camp's biography-but then a lot was unknown about HAH's California associates.
"No offense, but do you mean to say this guy flew to New York just to see you?" continued Ned.
"No, no, he said he's here on business. It's only a lucky coincidence, a spur of the moment thing that he called. Even luckier that we should all be together...
As the three of us passed the closed bedroom door and entered the living room Kevin announced: "The 'unveiling' will take place soon. But let's give Mr. Jardine a little more time, then afterwards we can order dinner. Hope he's not lost in the subway."
Before settling myself I paused to admire, as I'd done my first visit, Kevin's collection of works by and about HAH which took up several shelves in the ceiling-high bookcase against the wall dividing the living room from the kitchen. He owned all the Altadena House editions of the fiction, from the original omnibus, The Exhibitionist, up to the current Anaheim Horror and Others the Collected Letters, both volumes I and II; de Camp's H. A. Howard: A Nonpartisan Complaint and the entire set of publications of the rival Pornonomicon Press, started a few years back by Pali High student Marco Michavez, a Mexican-American youth with access to the Howard Howard papers in the library at U.S.C., where HAH earned his M.B.A. degree. (The Pornonomicon, the mythical tome detailing ancient, forbidden, magical, sexual practices that figures so importantly in the fiction, should not be confused with HAH's own "black book," though it often is.)
I took a seat on the couch next to the burly form of Jack Daniels, a one-time All-American for N.Y.U., who in his typical querulous fashion was going on to Jane about his nemesis T. S. Mohibullah (referred to in some quarters as the "Pakistani pedant"), the brilliant classicist and left tackle for U.S.C. who had maligned the collection on H. A. Howard essays Jack had edited, In Defense of Dion, claiming Jack had written most of the essays himself.
"It's been three years since I edited the Dion book. The first year, naturally, I argued with the kid about it-but how much can you say?"-Plenty, I thought, since the Daniels-Mohibullah controversy over the collection takes up nearly half of the recent Pornonomicon Press Great Feuds of the OSS: Volume 2-"You may have noticed I've said nothing about the matter in the OSS for the last two years. But he won't let it rest. Every mailing he includes some sort of attack on me and my work." Jack scowled with pleasure.
"Well, it doesn't bother me anymore. Let him rave on. I don't care. You can only ignore someone like that."
When I'd listened to Jack long enough, I turned to hear what Madeline, in the chair to my right, had to say. The fact is, I was more interested in guzzling my fair share of wine (and more if possible) than participating in any conversations.
Madeline was giving her theories on why HAH had appeared in Weird Tales so infrequently to Jerry and Maggie.
"I think the man's main problem was his name. I mean, it was rather similar to better known contributors who'd already established themselves-long before he was trying to get his stories accepted. He was just too proud to use a pseudonym... And, you have to admit, many of his stories were pretty derivative. I mean, we all imitate as beginning writers, but it took him ages to grow out of this phase. Unfortunately, by that time Weird Tales was dead..."
As I refilled my glass from one of the bottles on the coffee table, I shifted my focus to Ken Indiaink, who was standing behind me regaling the rest of the company with his always fascinating anecdotes. Older by around twenty years than anyone else present, he knew a great deal about the early days of fandom.
"Yes, HAH did correspond with HPL during the thirties-but not for very long. The person who told me this information says Lovecraft got going on the superiority of his native New England, the 'continuity of its culture stream' and all that rot, which evidently irked the hell out of Howard. As a Californian, he left kind of insulted by Lovecraft's interminable missives championing Georgian architecture and such. When he tried to fight back, citing the distinguished work of Southern California architects he knew of, Lovecraft dismissed them out of hand-based on sheer ignorance! After a while, HAH's annoyance gave way to boredom, and he simply didn't bother to reply... In any event, you all know he didn't like to write letters much. Stark was fortunate to find enough of them to fill those two volumes of letters."
"What happened to HAH's HPL letters, Ken?" asked Mike, almost as keen a Lovecraftian as he is a Hahowardian. "None of them appeared in the Selected Letters."
"Ah, that reminds me of a tale." Ken's eyes twinkled behind his hornrims. "HAH saved his HPL letters from the accounts I've heard. During the fifties, when a certain young man looking for Lovecraft relics paid a call on him, Howard promised to loan him the letters he had. Actually, HAH had taken an intense dislike to the fellow at their first meeting, didn't trust him a bit, and had no intention of letting him near his Lovecraft letters, which he figured he might be able to sell at some later date. Anyway, he arranged to give the young man the letters at a downtown bar, but instead got him piss drunk, stole the money out of his wallet, and put him on a bus with a one-way ticket-the next thing the guy knew he was in Bakersfield without a cent! He hollered a lot and wrote HAH a bunch of threatening letters, but was never able to prove anything.
"Reprehensible conduct, I must say"-the group laughed-"but HAH was hard up for cash in those final days. He had five ex-wives by that time, after all. Think of the alimony bills. Oy vay! Even as a senior partner at Price Waterhouse he couldn't keep up with the expense... But to get back to your question, Mike, I'm afraid the Lovecraft letters disappeared when he disappeared. They were never found among his papers, though of course they may turn up somewhere eventually..."
Copyright © 1997 Peter A. Worthy
