Local reference : New Orleans

An imported venue (piece-by-piece from Paris, supposedly) placed in downtown New Orleans to host everything from swing-dance-lessons to to live bands, all while operating as a dance club throughout the late night.

When I visited, spring of 2001, the venue was trying to raise revenues by acting as a half dance-club, half-lounge. Cheaply dressed "upscale" bouncers initially turned me away because of my shoes ($140 Nikes) but once inside the clash of scenes almost hurt. The dancefloor is surrounded by tables, which is again surrounded by a lowered level of couches and longer coffeetables. The problem with this, of course, is that the same music must cater to the lounge area as well as the dancefloor, making conversation and general "chilling" near impossible. Hardly anyone was dancing; the place was filled with college boys smoking cigars like Hot-dogs, struggling to make themselves a part of this, to blend in with the velvet upholstry. Girls in platform shoes and bellbottoms did two-steps, oogled by boys and fourty-year old men in turtlenecks, either gyrating on the floor or drooling from the tables, over their spouses shoulders.

The music changes on the hour from House to Top Ten rap, again making the formation of any sort of atmosphere nearly impossible. Beer runs $3.50 for a small bottle, drinks are $4.50 and watered down and the cover charge that night (Friday) was $10.

"The Red Room" is a short story by H.G. Wells. It was first published in the periodical The Idler in March of 1896. It was later anthologized in The Country of the Blind and Other Stories. The story addresses the human tendency to succumb to irrational fear of the unknown.





"I can assure you," said I, "that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me." And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand.

"It is your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm, and glanced at me askance.

"Eight-and-twenty years," said I, "I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet."

The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale ayes wide open. "Ay," she broke in; "and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There’s a many things to see, when one’s still but eight-and-twenty." She swayed her head slowly from side to side. "A many things to see and sorrow for."

I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence. I put down my empty glass on the table and looked about the room, and caught a glimpse of myself, abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness, in the queer old mirror at the end of the room. "Well," I said, "if I see anything tonight, I shall be so much the wiser. For I come to the business with an open mind."

"It’s your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm once more.

I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an arm-chair on the opposite side of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with the withered arm gave this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike; the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes fixed steadily on the fire.

"I said - it’s your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm, when the coughing had ceased for a while.

"It’s my own choosing," I answered.

The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his head back for a moment and sideways, to see me. I caught a momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he began to cough and splutter again.

"Why don’t you have a drink?" said the man with the withered arm, pushing the beer towards him. The man with the shade poured out a glassful with a shaky arm that splashed half as much again on the deal table. A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured and drank. I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman in senility, something crouching and atavistic; the human qualities seem to drop from old people insensibly day by day. The three of them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another.

"If," said I, "you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will make myself comfortable there.

The old man with the cough jerked his head back so suddenly that it startled me, and shot another glance of his red eyes at me from under the shade; but no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from one to the other.

"If," I said a little louder, "if you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me."

"There’s a candle on the slab outside the door," said the man with the withered arm, looking at my feet as he addressed me. "But if you go to the red room to-night-"

("This night of all nights!" said the old woman.)

"You go alone."

"Very well," I answered. "And which way do I go?"

"You go along the passage for a bit," said he, "until you come to a door, and through that is a spiral staircase, and half way up that is a landing and another door covered with baize. Go through that and down the long corridor to the end, and the red room is on your left up the steps."

"Have I got that right?" I said, and repeated his directions. He corrected me in one particular.

"And are you really going?" said the man with the shade, looking at me again for the third time, with that queer, unnatural tilting of the face.

("This night of all nights!" said the old woman.)

"It is what I came for," I said, and moved towards the door. As I did so, the old man with the shade rose and staggered round the table, so as to be closer to the others and to the fire. At the door I turned and looked at them, and saw they were all close together, dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent expression on their ancient faces.

"Good-night," I said, setting the door open.

"It’s your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm.

I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then I shut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing passage.

I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned, old fashioned furniture of the housekeeper’s room in which they foregathered, affected me in spite of my efforts to keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase. They seemed to belong to another age, and older age, and age when things spiritual were different from this of ours, less certain; an age when omens and witches were credible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their very existence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains. The ornaments and conveniences of the room about them were ghostly - the thoughts of vanished men, which still haunted rather than participated in the world of to-day. But with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right-about. The long, draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to the landing and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling that I fancied I heard; then, satisfied of the absolute silence, I pushed open the baize-covered door and stood in the corridor.

The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, coming in by the great window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery illumination. Everything was in its place: the house might have been deserted on the yesterday instead of eighteen months ago. There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the polished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight. I was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landing, hidden from me by the corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvelous distinctness upon the white paneling, and gave me the impression of someone crouching to waylay me. I stood rigid for half a minute perhaps. Then, with my hand in the pocket that held my revolver, I advanced, only to discover a Ganymede and Eagle glistening in the moonlight. That incident for at time restored my nerve, and a porcelain Chinaman on a buhl table, whose head rocked silently as I passed him, scarcely startled me.

The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my candle from side to side, in order to see clearly the nature of the recess in which I stood before opening the door. Here it was, thought I, that my predecessor was found, and the memory of that story gave me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my shoulder at the Ganymede in the moonlight, and opened the door of the red room rather hastily, with my face half turned to the pallid silence of the landing.

I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found in the lock within, and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the scene of my vigil, the great red room of Lorraine Castle, in which the young duke had died. Or, rather, in which he had begun his dying, for he had opened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the place; and never, I thought, had apoplexy better served the ends of superstition. And there were other and older stories that clung to the room, back to the half-credible beginning of it all, the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end that came to her husband’s jest of frightening her. And looking around that large shadowy room, with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongue of flame in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once, and dispel the fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me. After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I began to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its curtains wide. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windows before closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak paneling for any secret opening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were more candles in china candlesticks. All these I lit one after the other. The fire was laid, an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper - and I lit it, to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burning well, I stood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a chintz-covered armchair and a table, to form a kind of barricade before me, and on this lay my revolver ready to hand. My precise examination had done me good, but I still found the remoter darkness of the place, and its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that undefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude. At last, to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into it, and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor of the alcove, and left it in that position.

By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to my reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time I began to string some rhymes together, in Goldsby fashion, of the original legend of the place. A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason I also abandoned, after a time, a conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire’s flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into the moonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presently returned with as many as ten. These I put in various knick-knacks of china with which the room was sparsely adorned, lit and placed where the shadows had lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window recesses, until at last my seventeen candles were so arranged that not an inch of the room but had the direct light of at least one of them. It occurred to me that when the ghost came, I could warn him not to trip over them. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There was something very cheery and reassuring in these little streaming flames, and snuffing them gave me an occupation, and afforded a helpful sense of the passage of time. Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily upon me. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back to its place there. I did not see the candle go out; I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as one might start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. "By Jove!" said I aloud; ‘that draught’s a strong one!’ and taking the matches from the table, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight the corner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with the second, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my head involuntarily, and saw that the two candles on the little table by the fireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet.

"Odd!" I said. "Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?"

I walked back, re-lit one, and as I did so, I saw the candle in the right sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost immediately its companion followed it. There was no mistake about it. The flame vanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to take another step towards me.

"This won’t do!" said I, and first one and then another candle on the mantelshelf followed. "What’s up?" I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voice somehow. At that the candle on the wardrobe went out, and the one I had re-lit in the alcove followed.

"Steady on!" I said. "These candles are wanted," speaking with a half-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match the while for the mantel candlesticks. My hands trembled so much that twice I missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the window were eclipsed. But with the same match I also re-lit the larger mirror candles, and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for the moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a volley there vanished four lights at once in different corners of the room, and I struck another match in quivering haste, and stood hesitating whither to take it.

As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, then into the corner, and then into the window, relighting three, as two more vanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a better way, I dropped the matches on the iron-bound deedbox in the corner, and caught up the bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches; but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadows I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first a step gained on this side of me and then on that. It was like a ragged storm-cloud sweeping out of the stars. Now and then one returned for a minute, and was lost again. I was now almost frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me. I leaped panting and disheveled from candle to candle in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance. I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong, I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall. My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptly this was blown out, as I swung it off the table, by the wind of my sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But there was light still in the room, a red light that stayed off the shadows from me. The fire! Of course I could still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it!

I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals, and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps towards the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, and as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my vision, and crushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain. The candle fell from my hand. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice, screamed with all my might - once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must have staggered to my feet. I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and, with my head bowed and my arms over my face, made a run for the door.

But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and struck myself heavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back, turned, and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture. I have a vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in the darkness, of a cramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I darted to and fro, of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then I remember no more.

I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the man with the withered arm was watching my face. I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled my eyes into the corner, and saw the old woman, no longer abstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue phial into a glass. "Where am I?" I asked; "I seem to remember you, and yet I cannot remember who you are."

They told me then, and I heard of the haunted red room as one who hears a tale. "We found you at dawn," said he, "and there was blood on your forehead and lips."

It was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience. "You believe now," said the old man, "that the room is haunted?" He spoke no longer as one who greets an intruder, but as one who grieves for a broken friend.

"Yes," said I; "the room is haunted."

"And you have seen it. And we, who have lived here all our lives, have never set eyes upon it. Because we have never dared ... Tell us, is it truly the old earl who - "

"No,’ said I; ‘it is not."

"I told you so," said the old lady, with the glass in her hand. "It is his poor young countess who was frightened - "

"It is not," I said. "There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost of countess in that room, there is no ghost there at all; but worse, far worse - "

"Well?" they said.

"The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man," said I; "and that is, in all its nakedness - Fear! Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me in the room - "

I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went up to my bandages. Then the man with the shade sighed and spoke. "That is it," said he. "I knew that was it. A power of darkness. To put such a curse upon a woman! It lurks there always. You can feel it even in the daytime, even of a bright summer’s day, in the hangings, in the curtains, keeping behind you however you face about. In the dusk it creeps along the corridor and follows you, so that you dare not turn. There is Fear in that room of hers - black Fear, and there will be - so long as this house of sin endures.’

He couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of the rain bouncing off the car. It was coming down hard now; each drop, a kamikaze intent on burrowing itself in the vehicle’s frame. “It was a pretty lousy show” said Andy as he pulled himself forward to change the radio station. “I’m on a highway to hell” washed over the car with a sudden fury, his heart beat falling in line with the bass player’s every strum.

The dark blue Passat was pulling in the driveway, finally stopping with crunch on the gravel in front of an ordinary looking house. Following the clicking of doors they were out. They’re faces flayed as they zigzagged through the narrow streams of light the streetlamps were stabbing the pavement with.

“God knows I could use a nightcap, not a bad place to call home Rob” He exclaimed to the driver. Rob only nodded in reply, as he fumbled with the keys. He seemed to be having a problem with the lock.

Finally the key turned, the door slowly sprawling back on its hinges. His eyes were plunged in a sea of darkness; that is except for a pale red light scratching away under the door of the room directly overlooking the stairs. Click! The lights were on and it had vanished. “Would a rum and coke work?” Rob managed to seethe. “Whatever Andy’s having” he replied. As they headed downstairs towards the kitchen he couldn’t help throwing a glance back at the door above the stairs.

“To new friends” Rob said as he clinked glasses with them. He couldn’t help noticing that Rob’s eyes were more bloodshot than usual. A few drinks later he stumbled to his feet “Where’s the bathroom?” he asked. “Up the stairs, second door on the left” was the reply. As he left the room he couldn’t fight the feeling that a pair of unwanted eyes was burning a hole in the back of his neck. He shrugged off the feeling and headed for the stairs.

The rest of the house was engulfed in black. He tried searching for a light switch but gave up almost as soon as he had begun. He moved for the stairs, grasping onto the railway with both hands, he began to ascend.
As he glanced up, his eye once again caught sight of the faint red light that was casting dancing shadows under the door. As he arrived in front of the door, he hesitated. He couldn’t help fight the feeling he shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t even be looking at it, he couldn’t explain why. He stretched out his hand but stopped mid motion. He could’ve sworn he had just heard muffled whispers. He couldn’t make out where the voices were coming from so he thought better of it, and quickly turned to the left and opened and latched the bathroom door.

Upon exiting, everything was as it had been nothing but a void, except for that pale red glow under the door. His heart was beating faster now as he passed it and took a step down the stairs. He stopped cold. Turning around he tiptoed back towards the door, every creak of the wooden floorboards sending shivers down his spine. He placed his hand on the door handle and silently pressed down. As he slowly pushed the door open he felt another hand firmly grasp his own. His stomach clenched and he started. “Didn’t you find the bathroom?” Rob croaked in an oddly assertive way. “It’s right over there” he said as he pointed to the left down the hallway “I thought we’d watch a movie, we’re waiting for you” he grinned. “Thanks” was the only answer he could manage to conjure.

The peculiar feeling he had was beginning to fade as he descended into the living room. Rob and Andy were already sprawled on the couches. “Finally” exclaimed Rob as he motioned for him to take the empty couch in the middle. As the images on the screen raced in front of him, his eyelids slowly began to shroud his vision. The sounds grew further away until finally all was quiet.

In a flash his eyes were open; he sat up and glanced around. The grey emptiness of dawn was already seeping through the cracks in the curtains. Everything was still silent, the ticking of the clock setting the rhythm of his pulse. As he began to wipe the sleep out of his eyes he noticed that Rob’s blankets were lying lifelessly on the floor. He’d probably gone out he thought. It was a good a time as any to leave, although he would have liked to say goodbye or thank him at the very least, but it was probably better for everyone if he left.

He laced his shoes and before he knew it was standing in the entrance, as he looked around in one last half hearted attempt to catch any signs of life, his gaze froze. The door above the stairs stood partly ajar. He hesitantly looked around him, put his bag down beside the door and slowly began climbing the stairs. “Rob” he whispered as he arrived on the landing. His palm pressed on the door and he stepped inside.
The room was empty, of any person that is. However it was cluttered to near breaking point. His eyes took a few moments to adapt to the dim light, which was sparingly being sprayed by nothing more than a red lamp on a little wooden table on the right hand side of the room. After having caught sight of it he couldn’t help himself from letting out a little sigh of relief. It appeared to be some sort of red room. The walls were plastered with photographs and negatives were strewn all over the floor. A number of strings ran through the room from one end to the other like laundry string; each of them burdened by a couple dozen photos. He got closer to get a better look at one of them. As the plastic touched his fingertips, he felt his bowels swirl. It was a picture of a mangled head, the eyes, lifeless and gaunt. He glanced at the next and he could just make out the maggots tearing away at an open torso, the intestines hanging out like a parasite to its host. The fear was taking over, or was it fear.

He dropped the pictures and sprung into the hallway. As he glanced around to reassure himself that he was still truly alone he noticed a family portrait on the wall. The more he looked at it, the more the sickening sensation in his stomach grew. It was a photograph of the picture perfect family; mom, dad, and two young girls. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the children’s innocent faces, their hair curled perfectly to the sides; he placed his fingers on their faces, running their outline back and forth; his every swipe kindling the fire that shone in his eyes more and more. He was gone.

He finally moved down the stairs, he could see the door was unlocked. He picked up his bag, and calmly latched the door. As he tip toed down the stairs his bag fell away, leaving nothing more than heavy headed hammer planted squarely in his hand. He was looking at Andy now. His eyes were still closed; his face turned ever so much on his left side. He could feel the blood pulsing through the veins in his hand as his grip around the hammer’s handle tightened. His arm rose, and with a muffled thud, fell.

He could still taste the metallic twang of the blood in his mouth, the hammer still in his hand. He heard the click of a key in the front door’s lock and stood up. As he began to trudge up the stairs, he could feel the warm streams of blood trickling down his arm to his fingers. Rob was closing the door; a bundle of groceries in hand.

He just stood there, waiting, the hammer gently caressing his outer thigh.

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