Benjamin Knight & The Syphilitic.

By Michael A. Cavagnaro

i.

Through his second decade, Benjamin Arthur Werner Knight passed his time idly in Berlin, reading stolen books and squatting in the houses of deceased or hospital-bound relatives.

And in the evenings, when it became chilly, he spent his time congregating in hovels or in cheap pubs with fellow British expatriates and others of like mind, filthy dregs who believed themselves to be academics and creatures of intellect, who blamed the murky strawman of capitalism rather than themselves for their own failings in life, who steadfastly denied the existence of an interventionist God to the face of small children, and who followed the route of The Coward in the Darkness.  That is to say, these types of men habitually wrote upon society’s ills alone, in bare rooms at twilight, rather than unravel them in the real world through strength, courageous deeds and moral example.  Characteristically for these men, even this small measure was applied only after first having taken great pains to appear concerned about these matters in the public realm and in turn to receive accolades for the same.  Their souls were as empty as their pockets -- a vaporous shell of an uncertain, barren and joyless life.

Now, Benjamin Knight had very few reliable physical and mental gifts, but he had convinced himself that those which he did in fact possess and could regularly call upon were stronger than most.  He suffered bodily from a certain shakiness of limb and limpness of generative organ, and could scarcely lift a fallen tree-twig to remove it from his path.  However, he could often be heard to claim that, given several evenings of undisturbed thought, a light, and a paper and pen (none of which he could afford on his own recognizance), a most incisive and convincing letter of complaint regarding the sorry state of the walkways of London or Berlin could be formulated by his hand with ease.

The truth of it lay somewhere in the middle.  Though he thought of himself as a writer, and regularly presented himself to his fellowperson as such, Benjamin Knight was anything but.  Subsisting on the strength of a political monograph he had written seven years previous entitled "Blutige Hände, Blutiger After," Benjamin had a nebulous reputation among his peers as the sort of man who would argue in favor of the contrary opinion on any number of topics.  This status, however, was not so ingrained that even one person noticed the fact that he hadn’t touched pen to paper, even one jot or tittle, since the day he nailed copies of the aforementioned treatise to the doors of four prominent churches in the city.

(It had been rainy that day, and the ink had run so badly as to obscure his poorly-formed and childlike ideas.  His maternal great-grandmother, a former missionary, had written by post shortly thereafter to express how ashamed she was of him.)

ii.

And so it occurred one night that Augustus Twigg, freethinker and poet, sat in the barroom with his arm round young Benjamin’s shoulder, hearkening back to the grand old days of his own misspent, libertine youth.  Benjamin, for his part, was feigning interest in these tales in the hopes that Augustus, whose pockets were uncharacteristically loose and heavy that night, might reward his attentions with a refreshment.  But he found, however, that he simply could not contain his disinterest, and expressed it angrily.

"That’s all well and good, Augie, but why should I care?"

At this, Benjamin’s companion became angry and left the table spluttering and puffing -- though Benjamin found, to his great pleasure, that Augustus had also left his drink behind, and nearly three-quarters full at that.  He seized the glass immediately, and while enjoying this unexpected bounty, he cast his eyes around the pub to the various ne’er-do-wells, profligates, snake-worshipers and philosophasts that filled it, all the time wondering at the beautiful, arcane blue orb on which he dwelt.

And by the time he saw the bottom of Augustus’ glass, Benjamin had already forgotten his troubles.  Though born of both Saxon and Germanic stock, he was a notorious lightweight when it came to hard drink.  After all, he had made a number of his most unfortunate decisions under the influence of a surprisingly small amount of liquor: the robbing of an orphanage at midnight on Easter Sunday whilst the poor children slept, an impulsive back-alley encounter with three strapping art students in Switzerland (scars from which he still bore on both kneecaps), the attempted murder by slow poison of a Spanish rival’s prize mare and her foals.

Being in this compromised state, then, Benjamin thought nothing of it when the handsome stranger appeared and offered to buy him yet another drink.  He was sharply dressed to be sure, and smelled of the ocean, and also of a gentlemanly musk which reminded Benjamin of a favorite uncle, putting him completely at ease.  As he engaged this man in further conversation, he caught himself laughing flirtatiously and drawing physically closer to him.  Wild thoughts, bidden and unbidden, raced through his mind.  Though Benjamin was not used to this kind of attention from other men, he knew himself, and his own desires and proclivities, well enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  In the end, he made plans with the man to meet outside the bar following a discreet ten-minute interval, after which they would simply allow nature to take its course.

The next thing Benjamin knew, however, he was lying on the thickly carpeted floor of an unfamiliar room.  A peculiar noise filled the air, like that of the windy breath whistling through the flattened and misshapen nostrils of a pug or bulldog.   Benjamin, curled like a fetus on the ground, held his head and moaned his mysterious gentleman’s name aloud.  And to his horror, he received a response, but not from the one he expected.

"I apologize," rasped a voice from the darkest corner of the room, "for the misleading character of our introduction."

It is difficult to reconstruct the details of this scene, as Benjamin’s own recollections are tainted by the effects of the drugs that had been used to subdue him.  We do know that the room was well-appointed though poorly lit, and that sweet and savory scents drifted in through the window from a nearby garden.

Immediately, Benjamin sat up, squinted and rubbed his eyes, bringing the full character of his host into focus.  A mountain of a man loomed in front of him, cloaked in endless, shapeless volumes of thick black cloth.  His face was itself hidden by red velvet, and there was no hint of bare flesh.

"I must also apologize for the necessity of my disguise.  As you no doubt may have guessed, I have been… afflicted with a condition which some, I suppose, might argue I have brought upon myself."

Two pale claws emerged from the depths of the Syphilitic’s robes and took hold of Benjamin’s chin, then brushed his cheek with the back of one hand in an affectionate manner.  Benjamin remained, submissive, on his knees in the front of the man.

"Oh, my dear boy.  I have been watching you, Benjamin Knight.  And I have made my decision; I have chosen you.  And you will be as my wife, and I will be your husband.  For months I have known you at a distance.  You toil, and scrabble, and labor with no reward.  I am your reward, Benjamin Knight.  I am he whom you have been waiting for."

From virgin wells deep within himself, Benjamin shuddered and released a sigh.  He hadn’t felt this way, this connected to another human being in his entire life.

"The moon is angry," proclaimed the Syphilitic from behind the curtain which concealed his face.  It sounded as if he were about to weep.  The strange man’s forearm exposed itself as he pointed skyward, through the window and into the night.  Benjamin’s eyes were drawn to the pale knobs of diseased, extraneous flesh which hung from it like Christmas ornaments.

"Yes.  Oh, my, yes.  I do believe it is," Benjamin agreed in a quivering monotone, drawing ever closer to the fiend.  He didn’t know what he was saying, but it felt extraordinary.

"Ah!" hissed the Syphilitic, as if he had forgotten, and then once more become aware of his lover’s presence. "Come here, my child.  I wish to see you, and have you, for myself."  And then he raised the scarlet veil with a surprisingly deft movement of thickly segmented and gnarled fingers, laying it finally about his uneven shoulder like a shroud.

THE END

Post-script.  In the months following the above-described events, Benjamin Arthur Werner Knight became himself afflicted with the French disease, and in time succumbed untreated, all madness and open gumma, at the age of thirty-four. To contact Michael A. Cavagnaro click here
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