The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1

by Joseph S. Pulver

She unbuttoned her dress and let her hair down. Smiled. LIES—

  All those sons-a-bitches jawin’, Mama and her school-girl/movie-picture glamour magazine dreams, and her book learnin’—always talkin’ about romance stories she’d read and movies she’d seen, all of princes and damsels and far-away places with strange names, and IF ONLY. That’s what drove his Daddy off—

  “It’s OK, darlin’. Happens sometimes.”

  It happened. Curves and layers and blood, and white glistening bone.

  Mama, she’d lied about Cassilda and the book. And it happened. Curves and layers and blood, and white glistening bone.

  Carl Lee sat in a cheap chair in her rented trailer. He drank her whiskey and looked at her laying there. She wasn’t lying now. He put his hand on her jaw and turned her head, looked at the truth in her eyes. He turned on the radio by the bed, the slow country song sounded like wind in the wires.

  He tried to count how many he’d met. How many looked like Cassilda, but weren’t. He shoulda known, the painted nails and painted lips and bottle-blonde dye-jobs, and they drank beer—some right from the bottle—or whiskey, never lemonade.

  Carl Lee heard the rain outside. Thought about spending the night. There was still half a bottle left . . . But Cassilda was waiting. He went into the bathroom and washed the blood from his knife. Washed his hands. Watched the diluted blood find its way down into darkness. He looked in the mirror and traced the scorpion-like tattoo on his chest with his finger.

  “Cassilda,” he howled silently.

  Then he was out driftin’ with the wind. Headlights approaching.

  His thumb flashed.

  ~*~

  He deposits his small gesture in the mailbox. The fourteenth postcard to the inquisitioner with cold dark eyes behind unsightly horn-rimmed eyeglasses. In powerful red words, each asks the same question:

  Dear Dr. Archer,

  Are you watching?

  for Alice Cooper and Robert Bloch

  An American Tango Ending In Madness

  A century in seclusion with the green birds . . . The humors of the lantern as sedatives . . . And she misses having shoes . . .

  The darkening sky shouts.

  “The tiles here are so cold.” She wiggles her toes. Almost smiles at the movement. “I’ve grown pale here.”

  Still she walks the garden. Bare feet gently pushing aside the black, curling leaves of the Winter Tree . . .

  Black hair and a crown of dead black moths. Her cloak and parasol wandering from vault to headstone to dry fountain. She stops at a grey-blue marker. “I was once like you.” She opens her parasol. Her face and shoulders now shadowed from the gaze of the moon.

  The diadem on her finger is so heavy . . .

  She returns to her rooms.

  Curtains flapping in the breeze, flapping, as the hazy yellow sun rises over the swirling dust.

  She put down The Book and put on the mask. She never read with it on. She wanted to face the Truth face to face.

  There are six bodies, the bodies of children, lying near the closed gates of the courtyard. This journey in the leaves had been profitable . . .

  She was sick of being under house arrest. She wanted her freedom and the sooner the yard was full, the sooner they’d unlock the gates . . .

  ~*~

  Susan, blonde, slender—fit, black hair and ample in her dreams, believed Fredric was a werewolf, tearing at the throats and breasts of harlots who wanted his money and to sit beside him in the queen’s chair. Their fine dresses of red and black would hang in her closet. Whether in darkness or by candlelight, their flourishes would waltz in his bed. When they entered the museum gala it would be their arm in his arm . . . Each pursuer would gladly push her into the abyss to be the nightingale that sat on the rainbow.

  The glow of Fredric’s power and vast financial holdings called to them.

  But she was first in this court. And first she would stay. By act or word, she would not be swept aside to some final chapter of pain. She could see what lie behind their masks. And her poison was the most deadly. Let them find another pocketbook to steal from or let them die. She was master in this game and enjoyed licking their blood from her hand.

  She loved watching his firm muscles move against her flesh in the mirror. Loved watching his lips kiss her secret curves. Just a little grass, and sometimes a glass of brandy or a bottle of wine . . . and a whisper . . . and she spread her wings . . . flying . . . guiding him with her hand . . .

  The candles have gone out. They sleep . . . The brittle light of the city drifts through their window. In the bewildering labyrinth they dream . . .

  Fredric chases a rabbit. He’s lightning running on windblown feet, chasing his dinner, the sweet skin of the hind legs flooding his nostrils . . .

  She is a stone mouth biting Death . . . The inquisitor’s hands are full of bees. They fly from his rope fingers and fill her empty shoes . . . Susan reaches down. Her shoes are now black roses. At her touch, they swoon.

  ~*~

  The line of questions comes. One by one they hand her their note—One line, one short question. She smiles and points.

  “You may pass,” she whispers.

  Most turn slowly. They all follow the garden path to the suicide chamber. Hands folded quietly in their laps they sit. Wait. Reflect. When a bell rings or a bird awakens autumn’s gleam with song they rise from the simple wooden bench and enter the chamber.

  Each traveler, man or woman or child, leaves their mask behind on the bench. After they have passed into the chamber a pale man walks to the bench and removes his mask, casting it into a slow stream where it glides toward the lake. His bone-white hands reach down and pick up the mask left by the last question. Without a word he places the mask over his featureless face.

  It is ever midnight in the park.

  The questions slowly stroll into the park unseen by The World outside . . . and never leave. Beyond the gates, The World continues to laugh and drink, or sunken in solemn doorways, cry, and grind out its toils . . .

  The next question appears. She changes her tongue and points to the slim doors, which open like unfolding wings, under the golden dome of the chamber . . .

  ~*~

  Susan was a librarian once, a writer, when the words weren’t too unsettling to put on paper, and long ago, when she attended art school, a sculptor, until the chilled morning the hearse that carried the body of her idol and mentor, and lover, passed her in the street.

  After that, she took her father’s money and went in search of a new life.

  What she found was Fredric’s bed . . . And in it she stayed these last six years. There were no children, there never would be, but she always had dogs. A pair. Always a pair. One large and having a dark coat. The other, half the size of the larger and white or light tan in coat.

  And they always had romantic names, nothing common. Zemo or Zeus for the large canine and Camilla, her mother’s name, or Cosette for the one with the pale coat. Never a Mike or a Bob. Never a Missy or Cupcake or Bubbles.

  Unless she and Fredric were playing in the mirror, or on those afternoons when she read from The Book, they were always at her side. Sentinels. Teeth ready to save her from any attack.

  ~*~

  The curious tails of the kites in the park have stopped their circus dance.

  A street of deeper blue. Shadows and ripples consider further away. Twilight walks slow, leaving gentle footprints.

  A gallery window under a yellow sign. The lights are still on. Fingers from her past touch her shoulder. A voice of a long time ago whispers to her.

  The exhibition is titled In The Year Of The Dragon. Two of His sculptures are being shown . . . Her fingertip caresses the cheek of his life mask . . . So long ago the soft moments happened . . . She sees the “come follow” eyes of the hearse driver . . . She is as frozen to that corner as the streetlamp . . . A crow lands on the empty spot, a moment ago, (a lifetime ago?), occupied by the hearse . . . She hears a piano and a sad voice sing
ing, “‘Leave dreams to the dreamer’”.

  There is an empty space on the wall of her study. So quiet this image of her mentor, her former lover, now gone to dimmer glades. She buys it. Rushes to a cab. Rushes home. Hangs it on the wall of her study. Her fingertip caresses his cheek . . . She reads to him. Reads from The Book he once, a long time ago in his small room in Dragon’s Court, read to her.

  She can feel his fingers stray . . . then, angel to her demon, play in her darkness . . .

  ~*~

  After the battery of rampant caws she must endure at the luncheons, for decorum and Fredric’s sake, Susan loves to sit in the park. The quiet breeze treading the leaves, the light bird song, the sun fluttering on the hair of children free of error and worry and toil, sooth her nerves. For a few minutes or an hour, she’s free of the trials of perverted ugliness that oppress her. Free of thoughts of Fredric and his line of endless whores.

  But the alarm of her wristwatch comes and she must return home. To not have Fredric’s dinner ready and waiting might send him over the edge.

  On the table in the foyer, under the vase of day-old roses, a note:

  Susan,

  Called away to the court. One can’t avoid Truth, or the judge, can one? I’ll be staying at Don’s place in the Hills if you need me. His number’s in my rolodex. Back on Thursday. Don’t forget the party on Saturday. Can you pick up my tux?

  Love, F.

  Another trip to SoCal. The 3rd this month. Another star requiring spin and counsel. Another starlet requiring his less cerebral services.

  She should cast out the werewolf, take half, or take a lover . . .

  Instead she takes to her bed . . . With The Book.

  Zemo sits at the doorway. Colette lies on the floor behind him. They never enter the room went she reads of the sweet cool shadows descending on the Dragon’s Wood.

  The wind rises. Its voice whispers, “Come back.”

  She sets The Book on her nightstand. Unties her hair. Unbuttons her shirt buttons. Slips her panties off . . . Her fingers call to demons . . .

  ~*~

  The longest day . . . A piano, harvesting an autumn eulogy. The sad notes, postcards from a long-stemmed trance, drifting as if from some other world, find her waiting under a tree soon to bend under winter. The bones of a nightingale litter the ground before the headstone. She moves the skull forward an inch with a toe . . . Under her pallid mask, tears have dried on her cheeks. The diadem on her finger is so heavy . . .

  She unbuttons her blouse and offers her breast to the wind . . .

  ~*~

  She is locking the clasp of her diamond necklace . . . She comes in from the weather. She stands in the doorway, drops the small bag of groceries . . . see Him hanging, shirtless, barefoot, from the pipe . . . the brown rope tight about his throat . . . The Book of the King of Wisdom lies at his feet . . . She takes the book and flees . . . His cold life mask lies on the table . . .

  Fredric smiles at her in the mirror. Kisses her bare shoulder.

  “You are truly, beautiful.”

  She smiles and thanks him with her eyes.

  On the dining room table rest their masks. Hers, a timid bird of green feathers, flecked with blue. His, a rabbit face.

  He hands her hers and laughs. “Shall we?”

  ~*~

  Drinks in manicured hands. Champagne. Gowns and tuxedoes. Masks; angels, demons, comedians, animals, ghosts, owls; blue and red and white and black face; jeweled and beaded, painted; some with wings, one with insect eyes, one of the laughing sun; smiles and leering grins, rejoicing . . . A band, blue and low, swings slowly . . . Warm-toned greetings, as if this was a pleasant country and these were nice people . . .

  Behind black curtains at the rear of the great hall they disrobe . . . Down a circular stairway, he, a tiger of sure step, she, somewhere far off inside . . . They step into the Garden of Sugar . . .

  The room is sparsely lit by antique lanterns that cradle short black candles. Each lantern is hung from a rope. The uncarpeted floor is a black and white checkerboard. Each white tile has the image a “compass” in it. She focuses on one, thinks it whispers only to her. “Come home,” it says. Black ceramic bowls of strawberries and white grapes and white ceramic bowls of cocaine sit on the mirrored tops of low tables . . .

  Every body, young and not so young these days, fit and firm, tanned or pale, hirsute or expensively waxed, or aging and sagging, naked, except one; a man in a Lone Ranger mask and white hat sports a leather cowboy holster with two silver six guns and a bullwhip . . . 100 firewalkers with remodeled bodies, redesigned by 100 knives in London and Phoenix and Miami . . . The smell of $200 cigars and marijuana is in the air . . . The music of the band upstairs piped in. They’re playing “Ships in the Night”. The clarinetist quotes phrases from “The Nearness of You” and “Makin’ Whoopee”, the piano and the double-bass seem to say, “Me too.” “Me too.” . . .

  Fredric leads her to a large black sofa collared with red roses. He gives her hand to a tall man in a pale yellow mask. The stranger opens his fingers to take her hand . . . She thinks his fingers look like rope. On a red sofa, collared with black roses, across from Susan and the stranger, Fredric sits with three young women . . . The pale redhead in the dove half-mask is on her knees, her mouth and tongue at play. Green Man mask facing the ceiling, the dark-skinned brunet lies cooing as Fredric’s fingers stroke her Venus-clef. The other redhead, in a Janus mask, slides his mask up and pushes her nipple into his mouth . . .

  Susan watches Fredric’s episode while the man in the pallid mask unceremoniously fucks her without a word or sounds . . . His breath reeks of gin. She wants to cry, to scream . . . Wants to be across town . . .

  She is staring at the ceiling . . .

  Wants to be far away in a pleasant country . . .

  This is all a mistake . . . I must get out of here.

  ~*~

  The Truth and the Hunger, images dreaming in the mirror . . . The moon, here, freed from its exile behind the clouds . . . A quiet cello dreams between blue promises. The slow dance blooms . . . A flower nursed by a different river, she, born in a different country, was born to bloom . . . in someone’s eyes . . .

  She is naked, lying on the bed, one leg raised. He stands dressed only in an unbuttoned shirt. He passes her a joint, exhales . . . He sips brandy. Stirs it with his finger. Circles her nipple with the finger, then licks it.

  Fredric has never asked about the small, red scorpion-like tattoo on her ankle. Something from her younger, wilder days in art school when she ran with that sculptor that hung himself, or maybe something from one of those artsy plays she adored and was always reading or running off to see.

  Post-modern, multi-linear bullshit! Surrealistic bullshit! Fuckin’ avant-garde, what about dialogue and plot? All that slow moving gibberish—He hadn’t let her drag him to a play since Titus Andronicus. More artsy bullshit. Madness, rape, dismemberment, revenge. He’d rather see a movie with plenty of jokes and lots of tits.

  He took another hit off the joint. Looked at her feet and her ankle. At the tattoo. He really didn’t care when she got the tattoo, or how, or where, he loved the thing. Loved kissing it. And she knew what he wanted when he pressed his lips to her tender ankle.

  He lifted her foot and kissed the tattoo. Her fingers eased down her belly . . . He watched—in the mirror—as the long, slender demons danced in darkness . . . When she had finished the dance she sat up. Fredric, gorged on her scent-in-full-bloom filling the room, eyes still observing the hungry game of skin in the mirror, rubbed the head of his cock against her nipples, slowly rubbed the shaft against the undersides of her breasts. She held her breasts together for him and he pushed and pumped between them until he was spent . . .

  ~*~

  She circles the suicide chamber . . . The sky is grey. The Phantom of Truth rises from the bench and walks to her. He reaches out for her hand and leads her to the bench. She sits. Unbuttons the buttons of her blouse. Reaches under her sk
irt and slides her panties off. The Phantom of Truth kneels before her and takes off his mask—His face is a skull. She closes her eyes. His fingers part her Venus-mound. He puts his head between her legs . . . His fingers, angels to her demon, stray . . .

  ~*~

  “Fucking spies. Why are you always watching me? Does he make you? Do you report my comings and goings to him?”

  Zemo cocked his head.

  “Oh, you understand me. Don’t you? I know you do.”

  Cosette, sitting behind Zemo outside the kitchen doorway, backed up at the harsh crack of her voice.

  “Do you whisper in his ear when I’m sleeping?”

  Susan had been walking the cold rooms of the house all morning. She’d had half a bottle of wine and a few pills . . . She’d had Fredric’s pistol sitting on the kitchen table for the last three hours . . . She’d had enough. Of Fredric. Of The Guilt. Of The Lies. Of having to fuck other men while Fredric watched her. Had enough of having to watch him fuck other women . . . Had enough disappointments . . .

  “Fuck him!”

  The half empty bottle of wine shattered against the kitchen wall. Rivulets of red run down the wall . . .

  Red. Dead babies . . . Her father’s blood . . .

  Her father throws The Book into the fireplace. The flames take it. He raises the glass of brandy to his lips. One last sip of this life . . . Places the barrel of his pistol to his temple . . . and travels to another, far, country . . .

  She comes home from her date. The light is on in father’s study. She goes to say goodnight . . . He is in her arms. She is crying . . . Screaming . . .

  She reads his note: “Good-bye, Day.” Is all it says.

  Red. The whole of the world red. Bleeding. The whole of the world, cold and dark, ready to strike . . .

  God-damn fucking red; her muddy skirt, the babies—Her daughter had had doll’s eyes . . . All the eyes and prying fingers following her . . .

  The dogs are standing, barking. Zemo two steps closer than before.

  “What the fuck are you staring at? Shut up! Please . . .”

  Susan picks up the handgun, walks to Zemo. Blood and brains and bones and a bullet exit the back of his head. Rivulets of red run down the wall . . .