The Old Sculptor

As of late, I have been busy with my law practice and with summer here in the National Capital Region, I have been trying to enjoy the warm weather with my wife and have neglected my paranormal researches. My dreams have been prosaic recently and I have thought that perhaps the eeriness of the last few years have been due to work related nerves. Until my friend Worthingham sent me a frantic email a weeks ago and the slow skulking confusion once again entered back into my idyllic life. Friend Worthingham told me a tale that was both peculiar and absurd. If I had not known him since our days together in law school, I would have thought him insane. Allow me to start from the beginning…

It was during the first week of May when I awoke one morning, checking my email before breakfast, as is my morning routine. Most of the emails were spam or announcements from various professional associations I belong too. One email address stuck out though. The email was from my old law school friend, Henry Worthingham of the IP law firm: Spittle, Sachs and Worthingham. Worthingham had made partner five years ago and we had lost contact with one another ever since that time, due to busy schedules.

I clicked on the email in my inbox and I found the message to be both terse and frantic. This was unusual since old Worthingham was always an affable and playful chap. The message merely read: PLEASE!!! SEE ME TOMORROW NIGHT AT OUR OLD HAUNT, 8 PM SHARP, I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS!!!

I did not know what to make of it. My first thought was that Worthingham was in some sort of financial trouble. I emailed him back immediately that I would of course meet him at The Continental, our old English style pub in Old Town Alexandria, near the Potomac River. We hadn’t had a pint in there in years but I knew it was still in business and I am always willing to assist a friend in his time of need.

The following day was both cold and rainy. The weather report from the previous day had predicted a warmer and partly cloudy day, but no rain. I drove my BMW slowly down King Street, probing for serviceable on-street parking, finding none, I resigned to parking in a gritty garage. The parking garage was overseen by a half-asleep, uninterested Ethiopian attendant who casually tossed me my parking ticket. I walked to the pub in my trench coat and umbrella, trying to avoid the tenacious, dark puddles of water springing up around me like land mines.

The Continental was warm inside, with a few patrons milling around the dart board and some government workers in dark suits dawdling at the bar, nursing their Black and Tans. Many of the booths were empty, except a few invaded by tourist families with little to see at that hour. Worthingham was standing at the bar, holding a Bass, staring out into space. He looked in a dreadful state, his dark, threadbare suit was wet and rumpled, clearly he had not bothered with either a rain coat or umbrella. Worthingham had always been a ginger haired fellow of good size girth and ruddy checks. The man standing before me was a gaunt, pale and almost bald imitation of the jovial Worthingham I once knew. I walked up to him and greeted him.

He looked up at me, his eyes reddish and unblinking. His half-hearted attempt at a smile was more of a severe grimace, as if he were in constant physical pain. I ordered a Strongbow Cider and suggested we find a booth. I did not want Worthingham to unburden himself to me with a group of strangers milling about in earshot. Worthingham nodded his consent and after the barkeep placed my cider in hand, we walked to a corner booth, far from the lackadaisical patrons. We sat down and before I could say another word, Worthingham’s bloodless lips parted and he began his harrowing account.

Do you remember how much I loved art, Old Son? It used to bring me such pleasure to go to a museum or to find some artist’s gallery to peruse. Well…no longer, now I stay as far away from any artist workshop or building that contains anything of an imaginative nature. Do you believe? Do you believe, Old Son that art can contain evil? I’m not just talking about depicting evil; anything by Hieronymus Bosch can display that! I’m talking about actually contain evil in its very fiber! Four months ago, I would have laughed at anyone suggesting just a ridiculous concept. In fact, I used to read your blog for amusement and imagine the crackpots who use to believe such superstitious drivel.

He turned his eyes downward at the old pockmarked wooden table. Worthingham took a deep breath, more of a wheeze really and continued.

I don’t laugh at you anymore. In fact, I think you will understand what I am about to confess to you. Take from it what you will. However…know this, I won’t live to see the fall, Old Friend.

Just after the new year, I decided one Tuesday to ‘play hooky’ from my firm. Ever since Elyse left me for that damn quack psychiatrist, I found that on occasion, I needed an art related distraction. So I drove out from the District and decided to peruse the old Torpedo Factory Art Studios. I had not been there in a long time and I knew that it being winter and a week day, few tourists or art lovers would be around. I know you’re not much of an art amasser and probably have never been there.

You see, Old Son… as you know…the torpedo factory, by the Alexandria waterfront, built torpedoes for the U.S. Navy in World War II. For many years that hulking structure stood dormant at the terminus of Old Town, until a group of artists, along with the city decided to turn it into a place that housed various art studios with a wide mixture of art mediums. All of the studios have large window facing outward where casual passersby can observe the artists at work.

I had not been there in a few years and decided this would be the perfect distraction for the day…a decision I truly regret. I found a parking space close by due to the few individuals lurking around that cold winter day. I walked inside and found the structure almost vacant of artists, many of the studios closed for the day. A painter here or there but no one who stood out to me. I took the stairs and sauntered about the second floor for a bit, when I observed an eerily glow from a small corner studio, the peculiar light emanating inside drew me towards it.

When I reached the studio, I stared into the large window and observed a most peculiar looking artist. He was a bald, very gaunt looking man, dressed in a simple white cotton shirt and jeans, his feet were bare and he wore a large weathered leather smock, giving him the appearance of an old fashioned butcher. I could not see his face because his back was towards me. He seemed to be a sculptor of some sort, since he was working with a type of clay, which I was not familiar. The clay itself was sickly, yellowish in pigment, unlike the typical earthy brown clay of a pottery artist. I could not see the work of art fully, since the artist was in front of it, working deliberately and diligently.

The studio was weirdly lit due to many of the overhead fluorescent lights malfunctioning in a weird sort of cadence. Only one would remain lit at one time while several others would blink on and off. I don’t know why but I felt my hair on the back of my neck and arms stiffen. My tongue grew dry in my mouth and my heart began hammering against my chest. I was rooted to that stop, outside that large display window in the hallway. Any thought of knocking on the studio door quickly vanished. In fact, the very thought of stepping into that studio filled me with an existential dread that I have never experienced.

As if on cue; the artist suddenly stopped. He stood straight up, he must have easily been well over six feet and he turned. For the first time I saw that terrible countenance. The skin of the artist was very dark and his features very angular. From behind, I had assumed he was African in origin, but his nose was long and pointed and his lips thin and cruel looking. He had no eye brows and his eye color…well, I simply cannot describe the color because I have never viewed such a color in all my years on this earth. He smiled at me, I would not believe that such a face could appear even more terrible but when he smiled, I glimpsed ancient yellowish teeth which were sharp, jagged and animal looking. He appeared ancient, not so much in the physical sense but in a strange sort of cosmic manner that I cannot intellectually explain, even now as I sit here.

It was at this point of the tale that Henry Worthingham began to quiver, he eye lids began to twitch and his hands reached out and grasped my wrists. Worthingham’s fingers curled around my shirt cuffs and as he began to speak again, his nails dug into fabric. I could not break his stout grip and as he continued, he fell into a near psychotic state.

For the first time I saw…I saw what he was working on so diligently. It was a large bust… it was a large bust of a man…a man screaming in terror. The mouthed was agape and aimed at the sky, his large curls cascading down towards the floor, the lips pulled back in pure agony and his eyes bulged from their sockets. And the face! My god! Even frozen in such passionate suffering…I still recognized my own face!
I don’t remember how I came to be outside, a full four blocks west of the factory, on King Street. I was told a police officer on patrol had found me in a back alley, sometime in the evening, covered in my own vomit, crying and muttering to myself. I was transported to Alexandria Hospital where I was examined by an ER physician, then transferred to a psychiatric ward where I spent the night. The next day after passing some mental status exams, I was allowed to be discharged and given the name and phone number of a local inpatient substance abuse clinic. I went home and called my secretary advising her that I going to be out for the next week on sick leave. I must have slept the entire week.

I told Worthingham that it was quite a tale and he was lucky to survive such an apocalyptic experience. Worthingham regained some composure and released his grip. He consumed the rest of his drink and took a few deep breaths and continued.

Oh, but my tale isn’t finished, Old Son. You see, once I had regained some soundness of mind and body, I decided to find out more about this dark, old sculptor and his “art work.” I knew I could not physically go back there. Instead, I found a phone number for the Torpedo Factory and called it, I spoke to a volunteer who was little help. She advised me that she thought that the studio space I described was vacant but gave me an email address of the director of this artist enclave.

Immediately, I emailed said director and pretended I was interested in renting a studio at the factory. She responded a few days later. She confirmed that the space was indeed vacant, had been vacant for well over a year in fact. The reason for this she felt was because of what happened to the last artist. Apparently, he was an unusual chap who painted scenes of a grotesque nature (she would not go into detail). This artist had an affectation for the both the occult and the cosmos, spending most of his free time visiting an old book shop in Dupont Circle and gazing at the stars with his telescope. The other artists reported his behavior becoming more erratic (again…no details) and he suddenly changed his medium from painting to sculpting. Tragically, he took his own life not long after starting his sculpting and never completed any works in this medium. This was all the information the director either knew or was willing to share with me.

I advised Worthingham that this was indeed interesting. He held up his right palm, indicating that he was not finished with his story.

In answer to your next question, no the artist was not as I described, in fact, I found a picture of him on the internet. He was of Asian descent and had a full head of hair. It was not long after this minor investigation that I decided to stop going to any art galleries and forgo anything related to art altogether.

It didn’t help. In my dreams I began to see the Old Sculptor, he would laugh at me and beckon me to follow him to some strange unknown place. I always refused but sometimes when I would wake up, I would see small bits of yellowish clay on my wooden floor, near my old easel where I use to paint, on the other side of my bedroom. After these mysterious clay instances, I found myself a complete insomniac. I am unable to sleep at night and can only nap a few hours a day in the afternoons. The other law partners in my firm made me see an internal medicine physician and what I thought would be a routine check-up with possibly a prescription for sleeping or anti-anxiety medication turned out much worse. You see, Old Son, I have advanced bone cancer. I was sent to an oncologist but she could not explain how such cancer could develop and advance so rapidly, in such a short span of time. I knew…but why bother telling anyone (except yourself), they would just assume I had gone loony and put me in a state mental hospital until the inevitable. I am so tired now, the pain from the cancer gets worse and the prescribed pain meds no longer have any effect. Thank you…thank you for allowing me to unburden myself.

I reached and patted his shoulder and told him that if he needed anything to not hesitate to call but I knew from the expression on his face that his time grew short. We stood up and said our goodbyes and walked out into the rain together and went our separate ways. Two days later I received an email stating that Henry Worthingham had committed suicide at his home and a funeral was being planned for that weekend. I went to the outdoor funeral and like all funerals, it was a solemn occasion of remembrance for the deceased. As I watched the casket being lowered into the ground, I could not help but notice the soil inside of the soon to be covered grave, it was clay, with a very yellowish pallor, unlike the typical dark soil found in most of Alexandria. I do not know what to make of this.

Should you be interested in knowing more about the Alexandria Torpedo Factory, more information can be found here. If you should find yourself in a dark corner near a strangely lit art studio, I would decidedly take care and not venture any further.