"The Other Phantom" by Edward D. Hoch, 1989

From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989

Grade: B

Well, it's not exactly a work of art, but in light of its predecessors, I'll take it.

This is just a cute little murder mystery, barely long enough for there to be any mystery about it at all.  It has a few distinguishing characteristics, though no real moral; it's more a little fan-indulgence, but not the kind that makes me cry (Siciliano, I'm looking at you, buddy).  A man spends the night in the currently-defunct opera house on a dare and is killed, and everyone runs around in a panic blaming the Phantom until matters are brought to light.

The story does a nice job of initially setting up the conflict between the perception of the Phantom as a mortal man and as a supernatural agency.  The two reporters that are involved in most of the plot (a nice nod toward Leroux, who was himself a very successful reporter) disagree as to the Phantom's nature, and in fact have something of a continuing feud over it.  The assertion by one of them that the "press [has] much to answer for" when it comes to the Phantom's fame and legend is another gentle dig at Leroux, in the spirit of good fun.

There's a little detour at the beginning as well where the construction of the Eiffel Tower is being effected, and some conversation regarding it.  The piece is set in 1887, six years after the events of Leroux's novel, so the historical dating is correct (the tower was finally completed in 1889); and unlike my hatred of Siciliano's heavy-handed foreshadowing (sorry, dude, I don't mean to hate on you so much), this was well-handled.  The erection of the tower is a very real marker of modern progress, and as this little story really has only one subtextual theme--that of the insistent march of time and its effects on the world--the reinforcement is subtle enough not to offend me, but present enough to reinforce the point.  The tower is representative of the changing of the times and the inevitable aging that comes to all things; their conversations around its base, in keeping with this, revolve around whether the Phantom has yet died of old age or is still dwindling quietly away in his underground domain, if he ever existed at all.

The first of the reporters, Vinding, is another example of this theme at work; in his fifties, he has a minor epiphany about his age when he is dismissed as "old" by the woman he fancies, and as a result determines to answer his colleague's challenge; the very boyishness and immaturity of the challenge, which brings to mind many a child's dare to spend the night in an abandoned shed or a supposedly haunted house, is the factor which spurs him on as he attempts to regain, if only in his own mind, some of his youth.

The imagery immediately prior to Vinding's death is extremely evocative; he spends his last hours sitting alone on the stage of the opera house, in the dark except for his small lantern.  It's a very primal scene, not only because of the obvious campfire imagery which suggests a primordial ancestor warding off the dark--and the accumulated fears associated with it--but also because as the scene takes place on a stage, it is by nature utterly exposed.  I have no idea if this is something the author thought through or just thought, "If I were spending the night in an opera house, I would sit on the stage," but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.  It's such a lovely moment.

Of course, poor Vinding is murdered (for reasons that are really entirely peripheral, though satisfactorily explained) by a man in the Phantom's mask with a knife; I can virtually guarantee that ever Phantom aficionado that read this story sat up indignantly and said, "Whatchoo talkin' bout?  Erik doesn't stab people."  So it wasn't particularly difficult to divine from that and from the title that this isn't actually Erik, but a murderer using his legend to cover his own actions.  I was actually kind of sad once I arrived at that conclusion, since it meant this was another story like the last one that didn't really have a lot to do with the Phantom myth, but goshdarn it if Hoch didn't come back and redeem himself.

Intriguingly, the Phantom gets a sort of redemption in this story as well, despite it being years after the original--or at least, if not redemption, he clears his name, because he totally kills that unfortunate motherfucker who was impersonating him and dumps the body in front of the police inspector.  It's interesting to ponder whether Erik kills him out of a sense of justice--for after all, despite his somewhat cracked outlook on life, Erik has always been supportive of an honor system--or out of expediency and pride for what the fellow was doing to tarnish his reputation.  To further muddy the point, Erik informs the police inspector that he "[harms] no one unless it is necessary," a marked departure from Leroux's Erik, who tended to kill people for annoying him.  Or perhaps not; depending on the outlook (and Erik's is stranger than most), each death in Leroux's tale--Buquet, Giry's replacement boxkeeper, Phillllippppe--could be viewed as necessary in light of their actions in opposition to Erik. 

Then, much to my endless entertainment, the inspector looks away at the body, turns to look back and thank Erik, and finds that the Phantom has gone.  Ladies and gentlemen: Erik = Batman.  I am so boundlessly tickled.

The one thing that did irk me slightly was the credulity and acceptance of the police officer in question; not only does he accept that Erik is who he says he is at face value and not ask him any of the burning questions that have to be percolating in that skull somewhere, but he somehow ignores the fact that he just KILLED A DUDE IN FRONT OF HIM.  I mean, he saw him do it.  Isn't that supposed to trigger some kind of police officer response, like, you know, because it's murder?  Generally, the police do not thank you for murdering people, even if they were murderers themselves.  They call that vigilanteism and look dimly upon it.  But then again, this is a different time period and a different country, so I could be entirely full of it.  Still, for him not to attempt to find out more about Erik--if he isn't the Phantom, who is he and what is he doing here in the middle of the night MURDERING PEOPLE, and if he is, wouldn't someone probably like to detain him/talk to him/ask him about the utter insanity he perpetrated a few years ago?  In light of the extremely suspicious way the officer treated Vinding's friend when he was under suspicion, it just doesn't hold water that he'd accept Erik's statement of the murderer's identity and motive without a qualm.  Nevertheless, the police officer does not pursue it, and I sighed a bit but was ultimately pretty satisfied with a cute little story.

Now, everyone say it with me in a Bruce Wayne voice: "I'm Erik."

I amuse myself so much that it's probably unhealthy. 

 Create your own free wiki!Support CommunityPublic, not yet premium Privacy Policy RSS