Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  On one wall was a series of framed prints, featuring a serpent similar to that in the bar mural at the hotel, with the feathered bird over it. He told her that in Mexico the snake had been a prevalent symbol in native art when Hernando Cortés had come to the New World, only a few years after Columbus. Believing he was the incarnation of their god, Quetzalcoatl, they welcomed the Spaniard, little knowing that he was to destroy them. After the great Montezuma was slain, when Cortés was further exploring the country, legend had it that he had come to the village of Ixcal, afterward christened Boca de Oro, the mouth of gold. The legend told that high up on the Sleeping Maiden was a temple to Quetzalcoatl, a great gateway with stairs and a sacrificial altar in the shape of a jaguar, whose eyes were jade. Quetzalcoatl was called the Plumed Serpent, and was represented by the snake, whose crown of plumes was the feathers of a bird, and whose robes were the leaves of the jungle itself. Though she had already heard Pedro telling most of this to the tourists, Lorna nodded solemnly, listening in rapt attention. No one had really seen the temple, Bob said, but old villagers still spoke of it, a few claiming ancestors who had accidentally stumbled across some ruins, and there were tales of the flight of stairs leading upward, where Quetzalcoatl had ascended to heaven. The stairs were called Las Escaleras Que No Conducen a Ninguna Parte—The Golden Stairs That Lead Nowhere.

  Pat O’Connor, the doctor, arrived late; he’d been treating a patient for snakebite. The Plumed Serpent? Lorna asked; no, just culebra de cascabel—rattlesnake. At dinner, Pat, who came from West Virginia, described the outlawed snake-handling cults in Appalachia congregations, who fondled poisonous reptiles, believing so devoutly in their ability through God that their faith overcame any danger. Handling, caressing, even kissing the venomous snakes proved the domination of Godly power over the Devil, virtue over sexual desire. Didn’t the snakes bite? Lorna asked. Frequently, Pat said. Lorna shivered; it was a devotion she couldn’t contemplate. Still, she said, if you truly believed, you could possibly overcome the reptile’s natural instinct to bite by controlling its natural fear. It was probably something conveyed from the human to the reptile, like the music Indian snake charmers played to make a cobra rise from a basket and dance; she’d seen one in New Delhi on her second honeymoon cruise. She went on to say that such faith was not unlike what had happened that day in Italy when they were shooting The Miracle of Santa Cristi and Willie Marsh had that old woman die in his arms. The woman, a peasant, had believed that Willie, in his clerical robes, was a priest and had asked his blessing; Willie had been so moved that he had converted to Catholicism and become a very religious type of person. It really was a moving story and—Oh, dear, she was rattling again. She leaned across and asked Mrs. Tashkent how Santa Monica was these days.

  Pat was seated on Lorna’s left and she realized that Joan had invited him on her behalf, so she would have a man. She wasn’t sure she appreciated the favor. Still, he was a man. She’d had several margaritas and felt suffused by a warm lethargy she hadn’t experienced in some time. She’d been careful not to have more than any of the others, but with the wine, she felt a little giddy. Then there were after-dinner liqueurs, and she took just a touch of Kahlúa with her coffee. Pat’s face was quite red by that time, and he had taken over the conversation, in an obvious attempt to impress her. She remained unimpressed. She urged him to help Joan with the dishes while she talked to Bob Somers again—being “early to bed,” the Tashkents had said their good nights—but Pat wanted to go over to the cantina for the dancing. For some time they had been hearing the sounds of the mariachis across the bridge, the cries and shouts, while the locals got drunk on beer or ricea, the native brew, which Joan said tasted like kerosene. Well, Lorna said, she would go if Joan and Bob did, so when the dishes were done they all went together.

  It was the mariachi band from the hotel, playing near the long wooden bar, and around the wall the tourists were watching the natives dance. The girls wore pretty if modest dresses and pretty if modest expressions; the boys were mostly in white, white pants and long white shirts that hung out and were embroidered white on white around the yokes. The first thing Lorna saw was Emiliano dancing with Rosalia. She let Pat buy her a beer, Dos Ekkies, and asked him to light her cigarette. She refused his invitation to dance, but swayed with the music to indicate that she had the rhythm, her attention divided between watching Emiliano and listening to Joan, who was on her left. Behind her was Bob Somers; he seemed subdued. Lorna decided that Joan must have said something to him about spending so much time with Lorna before dinner. There were other guests from the hotel, and she nodded graciously to them, deciding that this was perhaps the best way to confront them after the burro incident; she wanted them to see the type person she really was. Then she saw Bud and the rest of the tennis players; they were with the secretaries, and Miriam Seltzer’s dress was bright with native flowers and kitchen rickrack everywhere: obviously she was going native. After a while Pat excused himself and went and asked her to dance; they were out on the floor making absolute fools of themselves, trying to do those intricate steps. Emiliano and Rosalia were another story; they moved with such agility, hands behind their backs, feet crossing in front of them, their eyes locked with those secret lovers’ smiles on their lips. Lorna felt a tightening, a physical gathering in her stomach. How young they were; Emiliano was not much older than Jeffrey, but still she had to look at him and think the things she was thinking.

  These private thoughts were intruded upon by Bud, who had appeared at her elbow. Joan and Bob had gone to talk with someone in the orchestra, and she was alone. Hey, come on, Bud said, don’t be mad at me. She wasn’t mad, she said formally, merely disappointed; she had taken him for a different type altogether. No, thank you, she didn’t care to dance. She hoped that Pat would come back to her, but he was engrossed with Miriam now. She regretted not having accepted his invitation to dance. She smiled over at Bob, but he only smiled back and returned his attention to Joan and the rest of the group.

  Well, she said finally to Bud, if he’d be a little nicer to her she might dance with him. Oh, he said, he’d be nice. They danced.

  She really enjoyed herself then, and told herself everything was all right again. Bud held her close and she liked the feel of someone’s arms around her; it had been so long. Nothing was mentioned about Stan Wyckoff, and for a while she felt herself being calmed and lifted out of her depression. Perhaps it was just the ricea, which Bud insisted she try; it tasted not like kerosene, but a little like Japanese sake. She asked the bartender to cut it with grapefruit juice. He punctured the can and poured her a glass, and Bud added the ricea. Not too much, she told him; she didn’t drink. They danced again, and she was feeling warmer and more relaxed, and she hadn’t had this good a time in she didn’t know how long. Joan and Bob had left, and she reminded herself to write a little thank-you note for the nice dinner. Then she dragged Bud over to the musicians to see if they could play “Elmer’s Tune”; they didn’t know it, but they knew “One O’clock Jump,” and she was out on the floor jitterbugging the way they used to in college. Then she saw Emiliano and got him out on the floor and tried to make him jitterbug with her, and she could tell that Rosalia didn’t like that. The others did; they were all laughing, she could see them. Then the band played a slow number and she held on to Emiliano and insisted he dance again with her, clutching him tightly and pressing her body against his, until Rosalia went out the door and Emiliano, embarrassed, followed her. Why were Latins always so jealous? Lorna wondered vaguely.

  She looked again for Bud, who was waiting for her at the bar, filling the half-emptied grapefruit juice can from the bottle of ricea. He took her arm and propelled her through the back door, where some of the others had gone, then across the yard of the cantina to the rear of the next building, where people had grouped themselves as an audience around a series of wire pens housed under a ramshackle roof set on posts. Lanterns hung from the posts, and in their flickering light she saw the face of the man cal
led Ávila. He was standing behind one of the pens, in which was a large culebra de cascabel. Bud put his arm around Lorna’s waist and drew her to a position where they could watch as the man took up a chicken whose leg had been tied to one of the posts. Holding its wings against its body, he extended the chicken toward the wire screen. The snake coiled, and its rattles sounded a warning. The chicken struggled frantically, and made muted sounds in its throat. Lorna wanted to look away, but couldn’t, she watched with the others in fascination. The snake’s rattles sounded like the dried gourd seeds in a maraca. On its back were the same bright diamond designs that bordered the rattan around the windows and doors of Lorna’s cabaña; the same as in Bob Somers’s wall prints. Ah, they said, the culebra de cascabel, the snake of the rattles. The man lifted the top of the pen and thrust the chicken inside; it flew to the corner opposite the snake and stood trembling. The rattling ceased and the snake struck. Lorna stared as, fangs bared, it uncoiled and flew across the pen to bite the chicken. It drew back, then struck again. The chicken moved, wobbled, toppled. People applauded. Bud was drinking from the grapefruit juice can, then handed it to Lorna; she felt it burn as it went down. When she looked again, the chicken’s wings were flapping, and occasionally it kicked, while the snake waited, watched. Then whatever movement the chicken made was only motor reflex, and it was dead. Thinking it was all over, Lorna started to move away, but Bud gripped her arm. The snake was sliding along the bottom of the pen, and curling up around the dead chicken. It unhinged its enormous jaw and slid the chicken’s neck in under the fangs and began ingesting the bird. Lorna could not stop watching with the others. It was a disgusting process, and when the entire body of the chicken had disappeared, inflating the snake’s neck to the size of a small football, she finally yanked away from Bud and ran back across the yard. The cantina was practically empty—even the mariachis had gone to see the show—and she hurried out through the front. She passed the church and went across the bridge. The lights were off at Joan’s; they must have gone to bed. Were they making love? She was at the yacht club when she heard the mariachis start up again in the cantina; the dancing would probably go on all night. She walked along the sand, thinking first of Emiliano, then of Richard, then of Bob Somers, then of Emiliano again, and hearing the lilt of the marimbas, the rise of the muted trumpet, and she was crying. Whatever happened to the good old days and “Elmer’s Tune”? Someone was running along the sand behind her. He came upon her with a rush and a low chuckle; it was Bud, with his grapefruit juice can and ricea. He wanted her to come back and dance, but she would not, so he walked along with her. She said the chicken and the snake was a horrible sight, but he only laughed and said it was something she could write home about.

  Home, she thought, engulfed in a wave of emotion she could only faintly understand. Sobbing, she threw herself against Bud and felt his arms go around her. She laid her face against his chest until her tears subsided, and she let him walk her along the wet sand, his arm encircling her back. When they got to the hotel she didn’t want to go to the bar, so they went instead to her patio, and sat in the moonlight, and poured from the grapefruit juice can into her drinking glass, which they shared until the can was empty. Then Bud suggested smoking a joint, so they shared it between them. Then he came and put his arms around her again and held her, and said he wanted to take her inside. No, she said, he’d tell everyone. No, he said, he wouldn’t. Eck cetera.

  She told herself next morning, with her awful hangover, that she remembered little of what had happened, but she couldn’t convince herself of this, for even with its fuzzy edges, she could vividly recall most of the rest of the night. He made love to her—Bud, who, like Emiliano, was young enough to be her son; but that didn’t matter. When it was over, though, she had felt—she didn’t know exactly how, but she was sad, and she’d thought that if they made love again she would be able to find joy. But he had said he was tired, and that the bed was too narrow, so he had left her. And then someone else had come in, this was Gil, and she’d let Gil make love to her, and she had her eyes closed, and when she opened them she saw that they were not alone: Bud had returned and the two others with him, and they were watching and after Gil both Barry and Dick wanted to make love to her, and they kept telling her she was really fabulous, really great, Lorna, sensational, and she wanted to show them how great, how fabulous she could be, and then, suddenly, they were all gone, and she heard them talking as they went along the walk, laughing about Stan Wyckoff and saying she wasn’t really so great after all, there was this girl in Cincinnati, and she had stumbled from the bed, out onto the patio, where she hung over the railing, shouting at them, telling them what she thought of types like they were, not caring how loud her voice was or who heard her screaming….

  By the time breakfast was over there wasn’t anybody who didn’t know about it. She took her coffee and rolls at the corner table, with Atlas Shrugged propped up in front of her, and paid assiduous attention, then smiled brightly at Rosalia, who served her. Rosalia wasn’t smiling back, though.

  Later, under her umbrella, in a bikini she hadn’t worn before, Lorna sat waiting for her depression to pass. She always felt guilty after such foolishness, nothing more, nothing really to get upset about. Her book was on her knees, but she was not reading. She was watching Emiliano, over by the turtle basin. He was wearing cut-off Levi’s with frayed edges, the denim bleached nearly white against his bare brown legs. She thought a picture with the turtles would be nice, and she had her camera with her in her raffia bag, so she brought it over to where Emiliano was squatting. Along the protruding knobs of his spine she could see golden blond fuzz, and there were gold hairs mixed in with the darker ones on his forearms. She said how gay the dancing had been last night; he said sí, señorita, that was all. She asked him to tell her about the turtles, and he said they were sea tortoises, their meat was in the stew she’d had two nights ago. Oof, she said, making a face; turtle. She snapped several pictures of the turtles, including Emiliano generously in the shots, and then called to Cupie to snap the two of them, never mind the turtles. Emiliano seemed reluctant and stood rigidly beside her when she put her arm through his and smiled for the camera. She could see Rosalia going by, carrying a load of bedding out back. As she went into the laundry room she stopped and gave Lorna a little jealous look, but Lorna tilted her chin defiantly and placed her leg next to Emiliano’s.

  Los pies, she told him, muy bonitos. Very pretty feet. He ran off onto the beach, his brown legs working against the bright sand, the muscles in the backs of his thighs tensing and elongating, the calves bunching. She did not know the Spanish for legs.

  When he had gone she insisted Cupie come over to the horse palapa with the camera and take another picture. There were a lot of people on the beach, and she hoped they were watching as she hugged the littlest burro to her, putting her cheek right next to its head and telling Cupie to hurry, catch this one, and she hugged and smiled while the rest of the roll was exposed, and everyone could see that she would never hurt the little creature.

  That afternoon the tennis players left. Secluded in the library, she watched them go out in the small boats to the larger one. They were wearing their alligator shirts and had their tennis rackets in matching green covers, and they held up their drinks at the rail, toasting Miriam and the other secretaries, who waved fluttering scarves at them and shouted that they would see them in Mexico City. Lorna wished them the joy of that; she was not unhappy to see Bud and the others leaving, but she told herself, whatever blame you could put on the ricea, they were not very nice boys.

  She watched the boat out of sight, and heard the music die away, saw the beach grow calm again. She wondered how long she had been at Boca, but had no precise idea. One day had melted into another in succession, and she could only mark one from the other by the bad things that had happened to her. This day she had got sunburned, that day she had seen the stingray, that other day she had struck the burro, last night she had got drunk. Today s
he was back on the wagon, where she would stay. She ate only a little dinner, but all her dessert—chocolate cream pie—and tried to read. She heard the dancing from the bar. She went and lingered on the edge of the patio, hoping to catch Emiliano’s eye, but he did not throw it. When everyone had left she sat at the bar and had an orangeade. Steve asked when she’d started smoking again. She didn’t really, she said, she’d just picked these up—they were the French kind, like Jack smoked. Oh ho, watch out for Jack, Steve said. He mentioned her bill, which had remained unpaid that week; she said money was being wired. No problem, he told her, be our guest. She mentioned the possibility of a trip to New York; shopping, theaters, Fun City. He came around the bar and sat on the next stool and put his knee against hers. Have a drink, he said. No, she was on the wagon. Sure, have one, he said. Well, maybe just one.

  After he closed the bar he brought his flashlight and showed her to her cabaña. He wanted to come in; she wouldn’t let him. Come on, we all know about you, he said. She slapped him and heard his laugh as he went back down the walk.

  It was dark and quiet. She sat smoking and staring at the terrazzo floor. She admitted to herself that she was bored, and that somehow things weren’t panning out again. She tried to read; the lantern light danced; her eyes felt itchy. She took her raffia bag and went out along the pathway to where they stored the housekeeping supplies; she put bars of soap with Los Cinco Palmas on the wrappers, and boxes of tissues, and other things in the bag and took them to her cabaña and hid them. She slept badly and next morning brought Atlas Shrugged back to the library, chucked it on the shelf, and began a Mickey Spillane.