King Death

by Nik Cohn

  Wild ponies went galloping through the redwoods, waterfalls burst and exploded far below. On the far horizon, across an infinity of wheat fields, there was a cowboy on an unblemished white horse. Wires hummed, distant lights flared up in the dark. A vulture circled high overhead and, when Eddie awoke, the sky was full of thick black smoke. The prairies were transformed into factories, the factories into oil fields. Monstrous red ovens glowed in the night and the limousine was deluged with writhing fireballs. In the morning, the plains were full of cattle. At dusk, Eddie slept beside a deep dark river.

  In Dallas, Jade Carney sniffed crystals in his dressing room and made up his eyes with golden glitterdust. Then he began to brush out his corn-yellow hair, one hundred strokes with the left hand, one hundred strokes with the right.

  Jade, whose father had been a postal worker in Hoboken, had a mouth like a shiny red mailbox and a slipping and sliding, squirming and slithering pink electric tongue. Onstage, he moved his legs so fast that they blurred and dissolved like pages in a flicker book and, when young girls screamed at him, he would stick out his buttocks, stick out his electric tongue, entice and goad and tease, until they were driven past endurance and stormed the stage in delirium, at which point the guards would swing their batons, blood would flow and Jade would disappear.

  Now, alone in his dressing room, waiting to be unleashed, he puckered his lips and painted them bright scarlet. From the auditorium, there came an incessant high-pitched screaming, unvarying, inhuman.

  Though the noise was deafening, Jade remained quite separate and did not seem to notice. Fists hammered at his door, despairing voices cried out his name, screams and electronic feedback meshed together into a single apocalyptic howl – he blew himself a kiss, studying his lips in the mirror, and reached again for the crystals.

  Fluttering his eyelashes, he bent his head to sniff and, as he did so, a shadow fell across the glass. Without any sound or preparation, Eddie appeared behind the singer’s back and their heads moved close together, their cheeks almost touched.

  So thickly was Jade painted, so masklike was his face, that it wasn’t easy, even in full-screen close-up, to guess at his real feelings. For the first few seconds, he opened and shut his bright mouth, possibly in protest. But no words came out, only faintest gurglings, which might have meant almost anything, and soon even these were silenced. Then Eddie held him close, soothing him and petting him, coaxing him like a groom with a nervous colt, and, as if of their own accord, Jade’s limbs relaxed.

  Now the din and confusion vanished, all mess and hysteria gone for ever, and nothing remained but Jade and the performer, his touch so firm yet gentle, his eyes so full of light. With a little sigh, the singer shut his eyes and, when Eddie whispered in his ear, he must have heard something amusing. At any rate, he smiled and stuck out the tip of his pink tongue and, abandoning himself entirely, he let himself drift down into sleep, where he was safe.

  Having rendered Jade Carney, Eddie drove back to the mansion and shut himself inside his bedroom. For three days and nights, he lay on his back, sleeping, flicking dice and playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic on a beat-up old harmonica. He neither read his reviews nor watched his performance on the screens, and he was content.

  When at last he returned to the perfumed garden, he discovered Seaton lounging in the shade of the fig tree, with his mouth full of ripe red flesh. ‘Dear boy,’ said the Englishman. ‘You were magnificent.’

  ‘I’m glad you liked it.’

  ‘Liked it? I was overcome. Even by your own standards, it was a tour de force beyond words, and this time, make no mistake, you have truly put the cat among the pigeons. At a single stroke, you have become a superstar. Every paper in the country is full of you, the networks plug you hourly. As for the families, they talk of nothing else.’

  ‘Do they still hate me?’

  ‘They do not know,’ said Seaton. ‘They hate you and they are drawn to you, they are shocked and overawed, and they can’t forget you. Just like myself, when I first saw you, they are flung into hopeless confusion.’

  Eddie asked no more questions; now that he had recovered from the shock of his first reviews, the details of his progress no longer intrigued him. On the contrary, all this fuss and hysteria was an embarrassment. By nature, he was discreet and retiring, a born ascetic, and bright lights hurt his eyes.

  In particular, he was disturbed by this new name, King Death, which made him think of all-in wrestlers – cheap, loud and exhibitionist, everything that Death herself would most despise. So he hurried back inside his attic, where vulgarities could not reach him, and there he waited, emerging only to train, until it was time for the next completion.

  He cultivated geraniums in a window box, he played on his harmonica, he carved two small notches on the bedpost with his occisor. At dead of night, when nothing moved or made a sound, he fingered his crucifix in the dark and was transported back to Tupelo, to the doorway of the Chinese laundry.

  At last, when another month had elapsed, Seaton tapped lightly on the door and he was released. Pausing only to pick up his suitcase, he set out towards Milwaukee, where he met with Ahmed Abdul Fakir.

  Ahmed Abdul, formerly known as Leroy Jefferson, was eighty-six inches tall, played basketball for the Cleveland Juggernauts, and in his spare time preached Islam. He faced east at sunset, he yearned for Ethiopia, he carried guns underneath his caftan, and every time he passed a lawman, he spat in the dust. When he appeared on the Marvin Quincey Show, he referred to Uncle Sam as a honky racist pigfucker.

  Accordingly, on the following evening, just as he was rising to the basket, he felt a sudden pain in the back of his neck, which did not destroy him instantly but left him paralysed. For a moment, there was an illusion that he had simply congealed and was hanging in mid air, suspended by invisible wires. Then he unfurled and gently swooned upon the court, where he stretched out flat on his back, a stricken black giraffe.

  Viewer response was overwhelming.

  As relayed by HBLF, Ahmed Abdul achieved an audience rating of 63.27 per cent across the nation, which made him the number one spectacle of the entire season. Wherever he was shown, in bars or coffee shops or supermarts, excited crowds assembled and women screamed, men started fights. Three senators, seven congressmen and thirteen clerics made speeches, and the police posted notices on every blank wall they could find, in which King Death was valued at a hundred thousand dollars, dead or alive.

  Meanwhile, in Tierra de Ensueños, buzzers buzzed and bleepers bleeped in chorus, sounding forth with an eagerness and insistency not equalled for many long months, and their mingled song rang out in the Englishman’s ears like electronic church bells, joyful and triumphant.

  Sarah Carter festooned her windows with strings of garlic, to keep the performer at bay, and big Jim Haggard took to sleeping with a loaded pistol underneath his pillow. On the first night alone, Seaton replayed the completion sixteen times; Barney Brannigan watched them all.

  Another month passed by.

  Once again, King Death faded from the headlines. But this time his memory remained undimmed. In just three renditions, he had created such a profound impression that no amount of strikes, air crashes or South American revolutions could erase him. Through all the years that the families had spent watching, no other image had ever reached them so deeply, had caused their hearts to beat so hard or their stomachs to lurch so strangely, and even while he was languishing in abeyance, they dreamed of him nightly.

  For thirty-three days, Eddie stared at the ceiling and, on the thirty-fourth, he travelled to Boston, where he introduced himself to Mayor Claude O’Hannigan, the homosexual.

  On the evening that the King arrived, Mayor Claude was special guest of honour at a Gala Trans-sexual Funfest and made his speech in a scarlet satin dress, peroxide wig and frilly garters. Afterwards, when the shrieks and cheering died down, he returned to his hotel and entered an
empty elevator.

  Halfway between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors, the mechanism jammed and the lights went out, leaving him stranded in pitch blackness. He bit his lip, he held his breath, he tried not to whimper. Then somebody struck a match and he found himself gazing into the strangest blank eyes, which lured him irresistibly. As if of their own accord, his eyelashes fluttered, his red lips parted and one of his shoulder straps slipped. ‘Love me,’ whispered Mayor Claude, and his throat was slit in a kiss.

  Yet another month elapsed, and then came Walter ‘Big Walt’ Grodzinski, the Trotskyite labour leader from Pittsburgh, consumed in one of his own blast furnaces; then Preston Pitts, the chemical mystic; and then Dr Reuben Mark, the Harvard militant.

  Now King Death had appeared seven times in so many months, and his works had been witnessed by the best part of one hundred and fifty million citizens. His name had become universal, his image inescapable. According to the ratings, he was the hottest property in all America.

  At HBLF headquarters, six secretaries and six stenographers in slate-grey uniforms laboured five days a week to cope with his mail and file his reviews, no matter how unkind. After each performance, the switchboards would be jammed solid for twenty-four hours.

  By this time, the King had received official recognition. Even as the last fragments of Big Walt Grodzinski glimmered and died in the background, Attorney General Flaherty called an emergency press conference and named the professional Public Enemy Number One, with an adjusted valuation of half a million dollars.

  For a performer still in his first season, this was a distinction quite without parallel. But soon he achieved an even greater landmark, something so tremendous that, when Eddie returned to the mansion after Reuben Mark, Seaton opened wide his arms and clasped him to his bosom: ‘Words fail me,’ said the Englishman.

  ‘Why? What has happened?’

  ‘Mr President himself has responded. Last night, when he got the news about the Doctor, he made an unscheduled appearance on HBLF and spoke of you to the nation, as a major domestic issue.’

  ‘Was he rude?’

  ‘Indeed he was. In less than ten minutes, he denounced you with fifty-three adjectives, thirty-seven nouns, eighteen verbs and twenty-six adverbs. His cheeks went grey, there were traces of froth at the corners of his mouth, his voice grew hoarse with passion. Without exaggeration, I have never known him wax so wrathful about anything.’

  ‘And that makes you happy?’

  ‘It overwhelms me,’ Seaton said, blowing his nose. ‘To think that a man of his position should be so deeply stirred, his imagination so devoured, all in the space of a few short months, that passion overwhelms him and he shouts it from the rooftops – it almost exceeds my dreams.’

  ‘I do my best; no man can do more,’ Eddie told him, and once more the performer escaped into his attic.

  Still, he did not feel at peace. The longer he spent in Tierra de Ensueños, the less its climate seemed to suit his blood, and he was afflicted by an ever-increasing lethargy. He lost his appetite, his senses were clouded by a ceaseless buzzing in his ears, and his limbs were weighed down by a most peculiar drowsiness, which no amount of sleep could dissipate.

  Each day passed like the one before. Mechanical as a sleep-walker, Eddie wandered through the corridors, looked down from his window, trained behind the greenhouses, tended his geraniums, put out breadcrumbs for the orioles, rummaged in his suitcase, studied his reflection, threw knives, twirled lassos and yawned. From time to time, when he could not avoid it, he suffered himself to be posed in left profile, silhouetted against a technorama sunset. But mostly he lay on his back, eyes wide open, and dreamed of sidewalks.

  Down below, Seaton ambled through the gardens, sniffing contentedly at the roses. These were carefree, sunlit passages in his life, and there were moments when he almost felt like new.

  But the families grew restless.

  King Death had become a habit; they felt flat without him. After completions, all other images seemed empty and used up, hopelessly artificial. To while away the time, they thumbed through magazines, stared at the screens, studied their horoscopes. But nothing could hold their attention or take their minds off the King. They still called him names but he alone could release them, could actually make them feel, and even though they knew that they were wrong to do so, they yearned for his return.

  Facing the mirror, Eddie brought out his occisor and carved an eighth notch on the bedpost. Thirty-six hours later, in San Francisco, the pornographer Cal McCracklin was drowned in a cesspit.

  On a hill overlooking the city, McCracklin’s works were gathered together into a gigantic bonfire, arranged in the shape of a cross. Eddie lit the blue touch paper and instantly, courtesy of HBLF, a great flame swept the nation. In medium close-up framed against the blazing cross, the performer adjusted his hat and raised his right hand, as if to take his solemn oath, pledging himself till Death.

  His flesh was incandescent, his eyes shone like candles at an altar. In Tierra de Ensueños, the fire leaped high in the deserted galleries, refracted through a hundred mirrors and screens, and the families were blinded by the glare. Even in reflection, the heat made them sweat, smoke got in their eyes, they could hardly breathe. Safe and snug in their compartments, they burned.

  On the first anniversary of Karl Rosen, Seaton organised a small celebration and the partners dined together by candlelight, seated at opposite ends of the banquet hall.

  They sat in two pools of light, so far apart that neither could guess the other’s expression. In one, the Englishman appeared in a white dinner jacket, patent pumps and a velvet bow tie, and fed himself on asparagus and lobster, roast quail and strawberry trifle; in the other, his uniform unchanging, Eddie consumed a bowl of black-eyed peas.

  In the absence of any conversation, the screens performed a selection of highlights from the past year’s works and, when the sequence was over, Seaton rose to his feet, raising his glass in a toast. ‘To us,’ he said.

  ‘To Death,’ replied the professional.

  Afterwards in the library, over brandy and Dr Pepper, they listened to the wind howl in the chimney, hiss in the corridors, rattle at the windows, and both of them were borne away on different journeys, Eddie to the wastelands of Mississippi, Seaton back to the cricket grounds of England.

  Meanwhile, on the monitor, Jerry McGhee, Charley Mitchell and Barney Brannigan were revealed in the pool room, drinking cold Coors, and, as was their custom, they talked about King Death.

  Seaton paid no attention. By this time, discussions of the King were ten a penny, and he snuggled deep into his armchair, feet up in front of the fire, dreaming contentedly of Trumper and SF Barnes, 1903–4.

  Ten minutes went by in perfect peace, and he was just on the verge of dozing off, when suddenly one remark detached itself from the background mumble and hit him between the eyes: ‘Facts is facts,’ said Jerry McGhee. ‘The guy is still a killer.’

  On the surface, this remark was nothing untoward. It had been made many thousands of times before, both inside and outside the mansion, and Seaton had always shrugged it off. But this time, for some odd reason, perhaps because he was dreaming of cricket, his tolerance snapped.

  Furious, he pulled himself upright in the armchair, snatched his feet from in front of the comforting fire, and shut off the monitors with a thump of his clenched fist. ‘Ingrates,’ he said. ‘Bare-faced hypocrites.’

  ‘They still seem confused,’ said Eddie.

  ‘I have tried to be patient. God knows, I’ve done my best to understand. When the first reviews came out and you were downcast, it was I who told you to be philosophic and wait without rancour until the tide turned, believing deep in my heart that Right must out in the end. But a full year has passed, still they persist in the same inanities, and I have reached the end of my tether.’

  ‘They mean no harm; they just don’t
know any better.’

  ‘Then it’s time that they learned. Week after week, month after month, they have had an unparalleled chance to learn and comprehend and, if they haven’t seen the light by now, they ought to be ashamed.’

  ‘They have no guidance.’

  ‘The plain fact is they’re using you. They gobble up everything that you offer them, wallow in your sensations, come alive through your magic, live out all their dreams and most secret imaginings. And then, the moment that you’re gone, they turn around and call you a killer.’

  ‘I bear no grudge.’

  ‘They simply don’t deserve you. Spoiled brats that they are, they take you for granted and think they can treat you like dirt. And yet, if ever they lost you, how soon they’d change their tune!’

  Midnight struck. At once, Eddie stood up and prepared to leave. By candlelight, his features seemed to dissolve and reform continually, and his eyes glowed green and gold, as though he were a Persian cat. ‘Folks are strange,’ he said. ‘They never miss their water until the well runs dry.’

  ‘That being the case,’ replied the Englishman, ‘I believe that we’re due for a drought.’

  Three days later, a stranger in a black overcoat, black gloves and a black slouch hat booked into a seedy backroads motel, somewhere on the fringes of Bakersfield, and shut himself in his room.

  The desk clerk recognised him straightaway, called the police and, within fifteen minutes, the motel was surrounded by a hundred lawmen, armed to the teeth, who moved in as warily as if they were tracking a yeti. When at last they reached the stranger’s door, they took a deep breath and broke it down without knocking.

  Inside, the man in black was stretched out idly on his bed with his shoes and socks off, watching his own image on Channel 5. Looking up at the intruders, he gave no sign of surprise or dismay but simply put his boots back on and, rising, presented his wrists to be handcuffed. ‘No comment,’ he said, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of big black shades.