Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  “How’s that feel?”

  He nodded and let his head loll.

  Arco was playing darts. Willie watched for some moments, then clinked his glass on the bar. “How izzat, Arco?”

  “Hm?” His hand stopped in midair; he glanced at Willie, who wiggled his fingers playfully.

  “How izzat? I said. How izzat?”

  “Izzat?” His brow furrowed again, the dart poised beside his head.

  “Yes, izzat? How izzat—you know izzat.”

  “Willie …” Bill began warningly.

  “No no no,” Arco said easily, “it’s okay. He’s just joking, aren’t you, Willie?”

  Willie winked at Judee. “Jus’ joking. Izzat okay?” He swiveled on his stool, back and forth. Then, “‘I’d like to get you on a slow boat to Fiji,’” he sang, wagging his head idiotically.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Arco tossed a dart lightly; it struck the cork board with a thunk.

  “I hear you’re goin’ to Fiji, tha’s all.” He sang, tapping rhythm with two fingers on the bar top: “‘I’ve got an island, in the Pacific …’”

  Bill flashed another glance, shook his head; Willie snickered wetly and continued: “‘And ev’rything about it is t’rrific.’ T’r-rrific. I’n that right, Arco? I hear the island’s ab-so-lutely terrific. Fish and poi and all that crap.”

  Arco said nothing, tossed two darts in quick succession. Willie continued his needling. “Two kinds of people in the world, Arco—the haves and the have-nots. That puts you on the other side, don’t it? The have-nots?”

  “Guess it does, Willie.” Plunk; another dart.

  “And there’s another kind. Givers and takers. You’re not a giver, Arco, you’re a taker, no matter what you pr’fess t’ these poor be—benighted … izzats.” Arco’s dart whizzed through the air, struck the board. Watching his reflection in a mirror, Bill gathered back his hair and secured it with a girl’s ponytail elastic he had taken from his pocket, and slicked the loose ends over his ears. Willie drank his drink. Then, giggling again, he said:

  “I understand you’re an actor, Arco.” Arco looked at him; Willie smirked over his glass. “That true?”

  “Right, Willie. To be or not to be, all that crap.”

  Willie laughed stuporously. “Pretty good, kiddo. ‘To Bee or not to Bee.’” He pointed to the framed Porter lyric on the wall. “Story of my life. What movies you been in?”

  “Lots.”

  “Which ones?” Willie persisted doggedly, swaying on his stool. Arco snapped his fingers. “Hey, Wimp, get my bag over there.” She clopped across to get the shoulder-strap bag, carried it back, and he took it onto his lap, unzipping one of the side compartments.

  “Naw, naw—” Bill began, leaning across the bar with his hand. Arco knocked it aside and began laying out pictures on the black Formica.

  “Come here, Willie, have a look at these.”

  “Aw, Arco …” Bill whined.

  Willie only smiled inanely, shrugged, remained on his stool.

  “Willie. Here.” The two words snapped out like a dog’s command were sufficient to bring the older man to a position where he could view the pictures.

  “Aw, c’mon.” Blushing, Bill protested, tried to cover them with his hands, “He don’t want to see those.”

  “Sure he does, jasper.” Arco’s voice had a coaxing allure in it. Judee giggled, and inched forward; Willie could feel her warm breath on his neck. “He’s old enough, aren’t you, Willie?” His fingers gripped the back of Willie’s skull, directing his look. “Here’s some stills from our latest flick. See? Arco, Bill, and Judee. Hot stuff, huh? You can see why they call him ‘Pistol Bill,’ the hot rod. Ladykiller, y’know? Really shoots ’em with that.”

  “Very interesting. Judee, you’re extremely photogenic. Bill, too. Sorry about that nose, Arco, it looks like it might get in the way of your work.” He glanced again at the trio of nude bodies in the pictures, then turned away.

  “You ever seen a skin flick, Willie?” Arco asked.

  “Cert’nly.”

  “I don’t mean soft-core—I mean the real hard stuff.”

  “Cert’nly. I’m not a child, you know.”

  “That you’re not, Willie, that you’re not. Are you still young enough to get it up? Si vieillesse pouvait? Tell you what I’ll do. If the price is right, I’ll let you have your pick—either one.”

  Willie stared at him, shook his head, not understanding.

  “You can have either one—or both, if you can manage it. How’s that? Up to you.” He seized the back of Willie’s head again and forced him to look, first at Bill, then at Judee. “They’re both up for grabs, Willie. What d’you say—Judee the Wimp or Pistol Bill?”

  “Arco, knock it off.”

  “Shut up, jasper. Well, old-timer, what about it? Hot stuff or not?”

  “Bill, I really think—” Willie tried to extricate himself from Arco’s grasp.

  “If I say so, they’ve got to.” Staring in the mirror, Willie saw the grim smile, saw him watching; lowered his eyes. “That’s how it works. Right, Wimp?” She murmured something and ducked her head. “Right, buddy?” Bill only shrugged helplessly. “Jasper, I’m talking to you.”

  “Right,” he mumbled in an embarrassed tone.

  Arco wandered away to the card table and picked up a manuscript page of “Salad Days.”

  Willie waved his arm. “Leave that alone, please.”

  “Say, this stuff’s go-o-od, Willie, you know that?” From his mocking tone, Arco didn’t think it good at all.

  “You’ll get them mixed up. M’autobigraphy … Put ’t down—” He had difficulty getting off his stool, spun, and fell against the girl. Arco came back, resuming a measure of geniality. His former fierceness had melted again; he was sunny as morning. Willie sat, leaning his head on his hand. Someone had turned up the music. Judee was dancing by herself. Bill was watching Arco, as though for some cue. Nothing more was mentioned about their leaving. Again there were little fleeting currents ebbing and flowing, whose tensions Willie couldn’t follow. His hiccups came back. Judee made him put his hands over his head and hold his breath. Then she got him to take gulps of water; he continued hiccupping. Arco and Bill had begun Indian wrestling. It seemed impossible to Willie that that small, wiry arm should be possessed of such strength. It held its own for some time against the larger one, the two hands tightly clutched, fingers laced, trembling with vibrations that shot all along the tendons and muscles. At last, the greater strength prevailed as Bill’s shoulder hunched forward, slightly shifting the angle of torque, and Arco’s arm quivered, then surrendered under the pressure. With gasps they unsprung their grip and fell back at opposite sides of the bar, panting. Judee clapped and bounced and leaned to kiss Bill’s ear.

  “Ver’ good, m’boy,” Willie congratulated Bill.

  Arco’s eye wavered thoughtfully between Willie and Bill. Then, as if just noticing, he musingly said to Bill:

  “What’s the rubber band for, jasper?”

  “Hey, you know. Keeps the hair out of m’eyes.”

  “I don’t like it.” The words came out in a muted snarl.

  “Okay, okay.” He undid the band, shook his head, and the blond locks fell about his face. Arco leaned back on his stool, scrutinizing the effect like an artist studying his model. Something seemed to displease him. “Christ, you’re a mess,” he said contemptuously.

  “Aw, c’mon, buddy, knock it off.”

  A pause; then, quietly: “What? What’s that?” he questioned with subtle menace. “You telling me to knock it off? Knock what off?”

  “Never mind.” Bill fell silent.

  “No. I do mind. I mind a lot. Let’s talk about it. What is it you want me to knock off, jasper? Mm?” Bill said nothing; Arco’s fingers gripped his arm. “I asked you a question, jasper, I want an answer. Remember? I ask, you answer.”

  “I think we ought to go,” Judee interrupted quickly. “I think we ought to go right now
. Before—”

  “Before what?” Arco’s eyes dared her to move. She sat again, biting her lip and hugging her waist. “You know what I think, Willie?” Arco continued, with a mixture of elaborate deference to the older man. “I think we’ve got a troublemaker here. Here we are, having a nice time, and this jasper wants to make trouble.”

  “Come on, Arco,” Bill protested, “f’r chrissakes. What’d we come here for?”

  “Shut up.” Releasing his arm, he gripped a handful of Bill’s hair, then slowly sifted it through his fingers, examining it.

  “You know what I think … ?” It began as a casual, offhand notion. Bill tried again to free himself, but Arco’s fingers dug into his hair and held him. “I think … we ought to …”

  Bill’s eyes rolled fearfully, the look of a trapped animal. “C’mon, buddy—”

  “No, no, wait. I think we ought to—”

  “Jesus, Arco, not again.”

  “Yes … I think so … Definitely … I definitely think we ought to cut your hair.” Bill balked and reared back, pulling Arco from his stool. Long strands of hair hung from his fingernails. Taking the scene as another joke, Willie laughed foolishly. Judee seized his arm with fearful intensity.

  “Got some scissors, Willie?”

  Willie pointed to a drawer in the back bar. Arco yanked it out, upturned its contents on the bar. Tools fell out—screwdriver, hammer, pliers, boxes of tacks and nails, a roll of electrician’s tape, and among all of it, a large pair of shears. Arco took them up, making test snips in the air. “Yes,” he said mildly, “they’ll do.” His face had flushed. He breathed through his open mouth; his eyes gleamed.

  He handed the shears to Judee, who pulled away.

  “Take them.”

  She read his expression and took them.

  “Bill?” He spoke the name lightly, Bill’s features drew taut, the muscles in his jaws jumped as he slowly came and stood submissively in front of Arco, who pointed downward. Bill knelt slowly, as a dog does, resistant to unwelcome training.

  Willie put out a protesting hand. “No. You can’t.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Not in m’house …”

  “It may be your house, sir, but they’re my kids. They do what I tell them.” He nodded to Judee, who whimpered and pouted as she came to him.

  “Arco—do I have to?”

  Without replying, he crossed his arms over his chest and waited. She made a few tentative snips at the ends of Bill’s hair and looked up timidly. Arco shook his head.

  “More.”

  With a little sigh she began in earnest, working neatly, sliding the ends of the hair between her second and third fingers and shearing them off blunt.

  “I didn’t say give him a styling,” Arco told her coldly. “I said cut it off.” He snatched the scissors, pushing her aside; he bent over Bill, who remained mute, kneeling in a penitential attitude, hands clasped at his loins, presenting the broad nape of his neck and the blond crown of his head. Snip snip, went the scissors, their steel blades glinting in the light. Willie was quivering with fascination; he seemed to view the scene through a glaze, his vision smeared by drink and emotion. His arms and legs began to shake, and he seized his thighs to quiet them. It was ceremonial—dreadful, wasteful, sadistic, but nonetheless ceremonial. Once only Arco paused, glanced sideways at him, then returned to his labors. There was the hoarse sound of his nasal breathing; the only movement from the kneeling figure came as, hair falling on his shoulders, down his back, his fingers unclasped and he grasped his thighs, the tendons in the backs of his hands working as he clutched himself. Then it was done. Arco stepped back, Bill raised his head. Willie turned his eyes away from the look of passionate submission he read there. Arco tossed the scissors onto the bar.

  “Get up,” he ordered. Bill rose and stared at the hair littering the floor. His hands came up to feel the damage. His hair, brutally hacked, hung unevenly. In silence he used the scissors before a panel of mirror and began evening the ends. The others remained seated on their stools. Nobody said anything.

  Someone had been playing with the light switches, and dim beams cast random pools of illumination in the grottolike darkness, glinting among the chandelier prisms, striking the crystal and the murky mirrors. Willie finished his drink, made himself another, and crossed the room to sit down on the sofa. The portrait of Bee smiled down, caught in the golden rays of the gallery lamp over the frame. Willie closed his eyes, rested his head back. When he opened them she was still there, smiling. He wished she would go away; wished they would all go away.

  “You got yourself in, Billyboy,” the portrait seemed to say, “now get yourself out.”

  Bee was always saying that. He began talking back to her, something he had rarely done while she lived, muttering words, phrases, to which she listened, smiling, always smiling. Spectrally, out of the darkness, Arco once more materialized. Willie dropped his eyes, with an uncomfortable flutter of his lids. He was half sprawled on the sofa; Arco took the chair on his right, then Judee came and slid into the one on his left. She leaned to pat his hand. He was still muttering, talking disjointedly.

  “What’s that you say, old-timer?” Arco asked. Willie couldn’t remember. His mind was not working properly. Thoughts came and went, elusively; he tried to catch the tail of one and attach it to the head of another, and failed. Still he talked, rambling on about Bee. There was something he wanted to say—to tell them. He couldn’t say it very well, but it was there, had been there, and it wanted to come out. It came out in scarcely cogent, half-realized spurts … dribs and drabs. He’d gone past his limit. Too many Scotches, trouble thinking … difficult. But … wanted to say it … Held his glass up to the portrait with a glazed, mouth-drooping expression.

  “’S Bee. Queen Bee. Lady Bee. She ran the hive. Buzz buzz buzz. All the other bees swarmed, Bee sat and waited for the honey. Honeybee. Honey Bee. Hi, honey Bee.” He shook his head dumbly, wiped his wet mouth, wiped his hand on his robe. “See, it was this way. Mama, she said let’s get out of here, let’s us get out of Al’bama. We got. Little Willie ’n the bes’ of sashes. All dressed up for show biz. Mama knew how.” He waved his glass foolishly at the picture. “Di’n’tcha, Mama?” His bleary eye skewed to Arco, then to Judee, who sat quietly observing him. “Tell you something. Smart lady, Bee. Knew how to get th’ world by the tail, twist it up, and tickle its ass. Ver’ religious person. Not originally, y’un’erstand. Recent vintage. Tell you a secret….” He drew in a deep breath and held it, his head weaving, mouth agape, eyes blank on the picture.

  “What’s your secret, Willie?” Judee asked.

  He blinked at her. “Nice Wimp. Sweet Wimp. Dumb Wimp. Poor dumb bitch. Mother left you in a shopping cart. Mine never lef’ me for an instant—not one. On the road, she traveled with me. Took a suite, she had the next room. G’night, Billyboy, come to tuck me in, safe an’ sound. ‘L’il Willie in the best of pajamas.’ With monogram—here.” He stabbed his left breast. “Alexander Shields, silk pajamas. Bet you never saw silk pajamas. I wear ’em. Bee picked ’em out. Bee picked everything out. Pick pick pick.” He tugged at the gold chain around his neck.

  “What’re the keys for?” Arco asked again.

  “Told you—key to my heart.” He sniggered.

  “Secret heart? What’s the secret, Willie?” Arco prompted from his chair.

  “Secret? … Yes, secret Mama Bee. Buzz buzz.” He pursed his dry lips, seemed to gather himself together into a semblance of momentary lucidity. “Was this way. I once had a passion. Not a perf’ctly grand passion … nor necessarily normal one … but for someone who hadn’t had any passion at all it was enough. Sweet are the uses of perversity, as they say.” He hiccupped. “But Bee—buzz buzz buzz—could not approve. Wouldn’t have it. I had to lie, cheat, make up things. But a ride on the Grand Canal by moonlight … gondola … what’s blacker than a Venetian gondola? I sneaked around in gondolas, she pretended not to know. But she did. Said it would kill her. I
gave up the passion, of course. Had to, for her. But. Here’s the secret. She did it to make sure that for the rest of her life—and after—now—that wherever I might love, whomever, I would feel guilty.”

  He seemed to have collapsed in upon himself, a small shriveled nut-brown figure, ridiculous and pathetic in his robe and mirrored cap, clutching his glass. His nose ran, and his eyes. He maundered on, alluding to escapades, license, thrills of his youth, all of which had received the cold water Bee had dashed on them; she had been like a fireman, extinguishing every threatening flame. Though she wore no apron she had kept him on tightly tied strings. And … “And”—he shrugged again, hopelessly—“when Bee was at the door, love flew out the window. Why should a person feel guilty about love? Can you explain it to me?” He leaned forward, entreating them. Judee shook her head mutely, softly crying; Arco observed him with a sleepy, half-lidded look.

  “That’s too bad, old-timer,” he said at last. “She really had you by the balls.”

  Willie nodded sorrowfully, and put his index finger up to make a point. “But, you see, long before she died she made sure that there’d always be a lady in th’ house. Hostess, as ’twere.”

  “Who?” Arco asked.

  “Laguna Lil.” He raised his glass again. “Here’s to crime, and here’s to Laguna Lil.”

  “Who’s Laguna Lil?”

  “Told you. Lady of the house.”

  Arco came suddenly alert. “She home?”

  “She’s always home.”

  Arco glanced at Judee. Willie had struggled up from the sofa, draining the dregs from his glass. Approaching the mantel, he let his hand caress the funerary urn. “Hi, dearest. Dearest mum. Mummy. Mom-mee. Here’s your l’il Billyboy, drunk again.” He looked over at the others. “Bee di’n’t approve of drinking. Mama”—looking at the portrait, then at the others, wobbling backward to make the introduction—“that’s Judee with two e’s, you can call her the Wimp, ever’body does, and tha’s Arco. Watch out f’r Arco, Mama,” he added slyly. “He’s tricky.”