House of Leaves (18 page)

I’m afraid.

It is hungry. It is immortal.

Worse, it knows nothing of whim.

VII

But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination.

—
Jack London

“To Build A Fire”

Holloway Roberts arrives carrying a rifle. In fact in the very first shot we see of him, he emerges from a truck holding a Weatherby .
300
magnum.

Even without weapons though, Holloway would still be an intimidating man. He is broad and powerful with a thick beard and deeply creased brow. Dissatisfaction motivates him, and at forty-eight, he still drives himself harder than any man half his age. Consequently, when he steps onto Navidson’s front lawn, arms folded, eyes scrutinizing the house, bees flying near his boots, he looks less like a guest and more like some conquistador landing on new shores, preparing for war.

Born in Menomonie, Wisconsin, Holloway Roberts has made a career as a professional hunter and explorer. As travel writer Aramis Garcia Pineda commented: “He is confident, leads well, and possesses a remarkable amount of brassball courage. Over the past some have resented his strength and drive but most agree the sense of security one feels in his presence—especially in life-threatening situations—makes tolerating the irritating sides of his character well worth it.”
[83—See Aramis Garcia Pineda’s “More Than Meets The Eye” in
Field and Stream,
v. 100, January 1996, p. 39-47.]

When Navidson told Reston how Karen had explicitly asked him not to explore the hallway—and presumably Navidson described the discoveries he made during Exploration A—the first person Reston called was Holloway.

Reston had met Holloway four years earlier at a symposium on arctic gear design held at Northwestern University. Holloway was one of the speakers invited to represent explorers. Not only did he clearly articulate the problems with current equipment, he also focused on what was needed to correct the problems. Though a fairly humorless speech, its conciseness impressed many people there, especially Reston who bought the man a drink. A sort of friendship soon developed. [84—Leeze1 Brant’s “Billy Reston’s Friends For Life” in
Backpacker,
v. 23, February 1995, p. 7.] “I always thought he was rock solid,” Reston said much later in
The Reston Interview.
“Just look
at
his C.V. Never for a moment did I suspect he was capable of that.”
[85—See Exhibit Four for the complete transcript of The Reston Interview.]

As it turned out, as soon as Holloway saw the tape of “The Five and Half Minute Hallway”, which Reston had sent him, he was more than willing to participate in an investigation. [Gabriel Reller in his book
Beyond The Grasp of Commercial Media
(Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1995) suggests that the appearance of the first short entitled “The Five and a Half Minute Hallway”
originated here: “Holloway probably copied the tape, gave it
to a couple of friends, who in turn passed
it
along to others. Eventually it found its way to the academic set” (p. 252).] Within a week he had arrived at the house, along with two employees: Jed Leeder and Kirby “Wax” Hook.

As we learn in
The Navidson Record
,
Jed Leeder lives in Seattle, though he was originally from Vineland, New Jersey. He had actually been on his way to becoming a career truck driver when a trans-continental job took him all the way to Washington. It was there that he discovered the great outdoors was not just some myth conjured up in a magazine. He was twenty-seven when he first saw the Cascades. One look was all he needed. Love at first sight. He quit his job on the spot and started selling camping gear. Six years later he is still a long way from Vineland, and as we can see for ourselves, his passion for the Pacific Northwest and the great outdoors only seems to have grown more intense.

Consummately shy, almost to the point of frailty, Jed possesses an uncanny sense of direction and remarkable endurance. Even Holloway concedes that Jed would probably out distance him in a packless climb. When he is not trekking, Jed loves drinking coffee, watching the tide turn, and listening to Lyle Lovett with his fiancée. “She’s from Texas,” he tells us very softly. “I think that’s where we’re going to get married.” [86—See also Susan Wright’s “Leeder of the Pack” in
Outdoor Life,
v. 195, June 1995, p. 28.]

Wax Hook could not be more different. At twenty-six, he is the youngest member of the Holloway team. Born in Aspen, Colorado, he grew up on mountain faces and in cave shafts. Before he could walk he knew where to drive a piton and before he could talk he had a whole vocabulary of knots under his fmgers. If there is such a thing as a climbing prodigy, Wax is it. By the time he dropped out of high school, he had climbed more peaks than most climbers have claimed in a lifetime. In one clip, he tells us how he plans to eventually make a solo ascent of Everest’s North Face: “And I’ll tell you this, more than a few people are bettin’ I’ll do it.”

When Wax was twenty-three, Holloway hired him as a guide. For the next three years, Wax helped Holloway and Jed lead teams up Mt. McKinley, down into Ellison’s Cave in Georgia, or across some Nepalese cwm. The pay was not much to brag about but the experience was worth plenty.

Wax sometimes gets a little out of hand. He likes to drink, get laid, and most of all boast about how much he drank and how many times he got laid. But he never brags about climbing. Booze and women are one thing but “a rocky face is always better than you and if you make it down alive you’re grateful you had a good trip.”
[87—Bentley Harper’s “Hook, Line and Sinker” in
Sierra,
v. 81, July/August 1996, p. 42.]

“This though has to be the weirdest,” Wax later tells Navidson, right before making his last foray down the hallway. “When Holloway asked me if I wanted to explore a house I thought he was cracked. But whatever Holloway does is interesting to me, so sure I went for it, and sure enough this
is
the weirdest!”

On the day Holloway and his team arrive at Ash Tree Lane, Navidson and Tom are there to greet them at the door. Karen says a brief hello and leaves to pick the children up from school. Reston makes the necessary introductions and then after everyone has gathered in the living room, Navidson begins to explain what he knows about the hallway.

He shows them a map he drew based on his first visit. Tellingly, this hardly strikes Tom as news. While Navidson does his best to impress upon everyone the dangers posed by the tremendous size of that place as well as the need to record in detail every part of the exploration, Tom passes out xerox copies of his brother’s diagram.

Jed finds it difficult to stop smiling while Wax finds it difficult to stop laughing. Holloway keeps throwing glances at Reston. In spite of the tape he saw, Holloway seems convinced that Navidson has more than a few loose wing nuts jangling around in his cerebral cortex. But when the four dead bolts are at last unlocked and the hallway door drawn open, the icy darkness instantly slaughters every smile and glance.

Newt Kuelister suspects the first view of that place irreparably altered something in Holloway: “His face loses color, something even close to panic suffuses his system. Suddenly he sees what fortune has plopped on his plate and how famous and rich it could make him, and he wants it. He wants all of it, immediately, no matter the cost.” [
88—See Newt Kuellster’s “The Five and a Half Minutc Holloway”
in
The Holloway Quesrion (San
Francisco: Metalambino Inc.,
1996),
p.
532;
as well as Tiffany Baiter’s “Gone Away” in
People,
V. 43, May
15,
1995, p.
89.] Studying Holloway’s reaction, it is almost impossible to deny how serious he gets staring down the hallway. “How far back does it go?” he finally asks.

“You’re about to find out,” Navidson replies, sizing up the man, a half-smile on his lips. “Just be careful of the shifts.”

From the first time they shake hands on the doorstep, it is obvious to us Navidson and Holloway dislike each other. Neither one says anything critical but both men bristle in each other’s presence. Holloway is probably a little unnerved by Navidson’s distinguished career. Navidson, no doubt, is privately incensed that he must ask another man to explore his own house. Holloway does not make this intrusion any easier. He is cocky and following Navidson’s little introduction immediately starts calling the shots.

In earlier years, Navidson would have probably paid little attention to Karen and headed down those corridors by himself—danger be damned. Yet as has already been discussed, the move to Virginia was about repairing their crumbling relationship. Karen would refrain from relying on other men to mollify her insecurities if Navidson curbed his own risk-lust and gave domesticity a real shot. After all, as Karen later intimated, their home was supposed to bring them closer together.
[89—See Chapter XIII.] The appearance of the hallway, however, tests those informal vows. Navidson finds himself constantly itching to leave his family for that place just as Karen discovers old patterns surfacing in herself.

Later that evening, Holloway places his hand on Karen’s back and makes her laugh with a line the camera never hears. Navidson immediately bumps Holloway aside with his shoulder, revealing, for one thing, his own easily underestimated strength. Navidson, however, reserves his glare for Karen. She laughs it off but the uneasy energy released recalls Leslie Buckman and Dale Corrdigan’s accusations. [90—Refer to footnotes 19 and 20 concerning Karen’s infidelities. Perhaps it also should be noted here that for all his wanderings Navidson was pointedly not promiscuous. Good looks, intelligence, and fan did not combine to create an adulterous lifestyle. Jona Panofsky in “Saints, Sinners, and Photojoumalists”
Fortune,
v. 111, March 18,
1985,
p. 20, attributes Navidson’s genius to his “monk-like existence.” However, Australian native, Ryan Murray in his book
Wilder Ways
(Sydney: Outback Works, 1996) calls Navidson’ s monastic habits “a sure sign of unresolved oedipal anxieties, repressed homosexuality, and a disturbed sense of self. Considering the time he spent away from home coupled with the kind of offers he got from the most exotic and tantalizing women (not even including those from his numerous female assistants), his refusal proves a nauseating absence of character. Make no mistake about it: over here his kind enter a bar with a smile and leave with a barstool for a hat.” An odd thing to say considering Navidson drank freely in every Australian bar he ever visited and on the one occasion when he was attacked by two drunks, purportedly angry over all the attention the waitresses were lavishing on him, both inebriates left bruised and bleeding.
(The Wall Street Journal,
March 29, 1985, p. 31, column 3.)]

Yet even after Navidson’s interjection, Holloway still finds it difficult to keep his eyes off of Karen. Her flirting hardly helps. She is bright, extremely sexual, and just as Navidson has always enjoyed danger, she has always thrived on attention.

Karen brings the men beers and they go outside with her and light her cigarettes. It matters very little what they say, her eyes always flash, she gives them that famous smile, and sure enough soon they are all doting on her.

Navidson confides to his Hi 8,” I can’t tell you how much I’d like to deviate that fucker’s [Holloway’s] septum.” And then later on mutters somewhat enigmatically: “For that I should throw her out.” Still aside from these comments and the strong nudge he gave Holloway, Navidson refrains from openly displaying any other signs of jealousy or rage.

Unfortunately he also refrains from openly considering the significance of these feelings. The closest he comes appears in a Hi 8 journal entry spliced in following his encounter with Holloway. On camera, Navidson treats what he refers to as “his rotten feet.” As we can clearly see, the tops are puffy and in some places as red as clay. Furthermore, all his toe nails are horribly cracked, disfigured, and yellow. “Perpetuated,” Navidson informs us. “By a nasty fungus two decades worth of doctors finally ended up calling S-T-R-E-S-S.” Sitting by himself on the edge of the tub, blood stained socks draped over the edge, he carefully spreads a silky ointment around what he glibly calls his “light fantastic toe.” It is one of the more naked moments of Navidson, and especially considering its placement in the sequence, seems to reveal in a non-verbal way some of the anxiety Karen’s flirtation with Holloway has provoked in him.

All of which becomes pretty irrelevant as Holloway soon spends most of his hours leading his team down that lightless hallway.

Frequently treatment of the first three explorations has concentrated on the physical aspects of the house. Florencia Calzatti, however, has shown in her compelling book
The Fraying of the American Family
(New York: Arcade Publishing, 1995)—no longer in print—how these invasions begin to strip the Navidsons of any existing cohesion. It is an interesting examination of the complex variables implicit in any intrusion. Unfortunately understanding Caizatti’s work is not at all easy, as she makes her case using a peculiar idiom no reader will find readily comprehensible (e.g. She never refers to Holloway as anything but “the stranger”; Jed and Wax appear as only “the instruments”; and the house is encoded as “the patient”). No doubt inspired by Caizatti, a small group of other writers, including the poet Elfor O’Halloran, have continued to mull over the dynamics brought on by Holloway’s arrival.
[91—Consider Bingham Arzumanian’s “Stranger in a Hall”
Journal of Psychoanalysis,
v.14 April 12, 1996, p. 142; Yvonne Hunsucker’s “Counseling, Relief, and Introjection”
Medicine,
v.2 July 18, 1996, p.
56;
Curtis Meichor’s “The Surgical
Hand”
Internal Medicine,
vR September 30, 1996,
p.
93;
and
Pifor
O’Halloran’s “Invasive Cures”
Homeopathic Alternatives,
October 31, 1996, p. 28.]