Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  Someone had left a raffia bag by the lower steps, and she inched her way toward it. When she could reach the cord she dragged it back with her into the shade. She opened it and took out the things. There was a package of wet cigarettes, matches, a bottle of suntan oil, emery boards, and another bottle, a pint of ricea. She unscrewed the tin cap and tilted it to her mouth. She struck her head on the stone behind and felt a blinding jab. The liquor was hot going down her throat, but it was wet and she drank, drank again. She was panting as she took away the bottle and held it in her lap. On the printed label was a picture of a bird clutching a snake in its talons; where had she seen it before? She drank again, trying to remember. The ricea tasted both hot and cold, and she shivered in spite of the sun all around her. She sat staring at the wall of green, watching as the wind hypnotically shook the leaves, green, unequivocally green. The wind died and the leaves fell still, then moved again, slowly, sinuously, agitated by the unseen currents.

  It was like a garden, for all through the green were bright flowers, and above them flew a little bird, bright with colors. It hung in the air with the green behind it, the way a hummingbird hangs, supporting itself by nearly invisible wings. There was a cluster of insects and the bird darted among them, pecking, picking, snatching. She laughed, holding out the bottle to it; the bird paid no attention. She drank again, and felt the liquor flowing through her, the sharp pain slowly ebbing to dullness, and she was overcome with lassitude, and it seemed that in this green and gold and flowered garden nothing mattered that she could think of. While she drank she undid her halter, and when she could get to her feet she took off the rest of her clothes. Why, she did not know, but she felt she wanted to be naked, and she put down the bottle and uncapped the suntan oil and began dribbling it along her arms and thighs and massaging it in. Her skin was a deep, golden brown, almost like a Mexican’s. She let the oil run sensuously over her shoulders and down her spine, and put her head back and let the oil drop there, rubbing it in on her forehead and cheeks. She ran the oil between her thighs, sliding her hand between them, trying to comfort the soreness.

  The snake drew in along the platform from her left, from behind the base of a broken column. She was not frightened, nor even surprised, but watched it with interest. The snake was large, about four feet, perhaps even longer, and it moved with a curious sideways motion. It slid along the stone blocks, perhaps a foot at a time, then would laze itself into a wiggly pattern and lie still for a few moments, then come farther on, idly, provocatively. She thought it was coming toward her, but no, it paid no attention. It had glittering patterns along its thick back, a kind of artistic geometry, like the pieces of mosaic you saw in old Italian churches, and along its softly rounded sides were shiny metallic scales, and hollow pits beside the nostrils, and the little forked tongue rippled wetly from the blunt snout. The snake paused, in that slack half-wiggled shape, its head lifting half a foot from the stone, the head swaying one way and the other, and she could see its pale underbelly, segmented with broader, large scales, like plates of bone-white armor, and the head swung to and fro, and the eyes shone. It stayed that way for some moments, then the head lowered and it came farther on.

  Now, she told herself, it would come toward her, but it didn’t; it moved past her to the far pillar, where it stopped again. It lay without moving in that sloppy, loosely formed S shape and for all she knew might have gone to sleep. She remembered something Pat O’Connor had told her about the snake handlers, the Appalachian people who believed so devoutly in their God-given ability to control the snake’s movements, and how their faith could inhibit the reptile’s natural instinct to bite. It was an act of faith; if you believed, if you truly believed … She went on staring at the snake, which lay motionless in the sun. The wind played with the green leaves behind, softly rushing, lifting and turning them, rustling the green wall, and again the little bright bird flew out of it, hovering above, where the insects massed in a dusky cloud. The movement caused the snake first to stir, then to slide back across the platform until it was under the bird. It waited there, coiled, its brilliance suddenly muted, brown like the stones it lay on, then the head lifted slowly, so slowly, the long body tensing as it rose higher and higher, the little bird swooping brightly over its head, like a bright-colored crown of feathers, and then with sudden knowledge she realized who the snake was, Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, and this was his temple, with the golden steps that led to nowhere. Divine snake, divine crown, snake and bird together, symbolizing that ancient deity, whose ruined house this was.

  A holy place; she had come to a holy place, and this bright scaled and feathered creature was its spirit, master, guardian. It had dwelt here all the years of that lost civilization Cortés had destroyed. Here among the billowy green it had remained hidden, and through some miracle it had been made known to her. A revelation. The god-miracle she had sought. She would tell of it one day, tell how the Plumed Serpent had come from the green plumed jungle and had held its private ceremonies, and that where it now strained upward to achieve its feathered crown there had been an altar, an altar to the sun, and these steps beside her were the golden steps to the sun and those others were the next flight, upward, upward, for surely there was a God in heaven, it had been promised to her, and with a rush of sudden insight she beheld the epiphany, saw a bright clear picture of what the god had been, what it was and would forever be.

  The god Quetzalcoatl lived in the green, where he hid in the shadows, and came forth to behold the sun, and the bird came to make his feathered crown, and through some mysterious accident of fate it had been allowed to her to discover the place and to witness this rarest of happenings. She had never seen a god before, and few crowns, but here were both before her. She inched away from the column and came nearer. The snake paid her no attention, stretching its long neck upward, rising on strained muscles from the stone floor, while the bird danced overhead, amid the black life it fed on. Then, like a scaled lance, the soft, limpid coils tensed, became stick-straight as in a blur the snake shot upward and tore the bird down out of the air. The bright feathers beat wildly as they hung from the clamped jaws, the upper overthrusting the lower where the fangs pierced. Then the jaws jacked open and the bird fell to the floor, hopping around, mutilated, dazed from the attack, while the venom eased through it until it toppled, a small mass of crushed colored feathers. The snake had gone soft again, and lowered itself, watching the bird’s feeble movements, curving itself along the stone.

  She crawled nearer and reached to take up the bird. She held it in her hands and felt it throb against her shaking palm. Her movement had caused the snake to coil again, with a warning buzz from its tail. It reared up, the god Quetzalcoatl, and she offered the bird to it, sacrificially. She stretched her nude oiled body along the rough stones, reaching out her hand with the bird in it, holding it to the head of the god, inching forward, longingly, toward the scaled god, presenting it with the feathered crown.

  The snake struck. It drew deep into its coil, the triangular head sharply angled, the neck engorged, the body thickened like a flexed muscle, then it erected itself with sudden swiftness and struck, sinking its curved fangs into the soft flesh of her forearm. Eat, she said, eat me. Partake. Have me. She hardly felt the pain, so enraptured, so enamored was she of what was happening to her. She caught up its full length in her other hand, gripping with her fingers that hard taut body, entwining it about her head, brought it nearer, while it struck her again. Near and nearer, strike followed by strike, flash upon bright flash, until she could touch with her lips the plated scales, the brilliant designs along the back, and the ivory fangs drove again and again, paired punctures into her skin, her hands, arms, shoulders, breasts. It bit methodically, without hurry, decisively yet with indolence, the rippling muscles contracting, then elongating as the jeweled head drove at her, the jaws hinged wide, and she could see into the pale wet tunnel of the throat, the fangs suppurating as the venom poured from the sac behind the jaws, those godly ju
ices. He struck at her cheek, kissing her, once, twice, and she returned the embrace, kiss for kiss, her lips pressing against the warm, scaled flesh, crooning and sighing, not feeling the pain at all as she thrust its rigid form down, down to her abdomen and along her thighs, and at last to the place where she wanted him most. There she felt his kiss again, and she was crying with joy: she had captured the god, in her hands, with her flesh, and with a wave of intolerable ecstasy she sensed that her female body was dominating that powerful thing, that thing she had worshiped all her life; that now, finally, she was mastering both herself and the god together, the feathered serpent. It was something she would remember always. A passionate engagement, the man and the woman, the god and the mortal, for he was not merely one god to her but all men, and whatever it was that Willie Marsh had known on the church steps in Italy at the moment of his spiritual illumination was now revealed to her on these steps, the golden ones that led to nowhere. And when she had loved the god and in turn had been loved by it, time after stinging time, she flung it away with one sharp triumphant cry and watched it grow weak and soft again, watched it crawl in its S shape back to where it had come from, out of the cool shadows behind the pillar where the green leaves rushed and billowed.

  She lay back against the steps, relaxed, exhausted, feeling release and an incredible rush of warmth, smelling the heavy scent of flowers and the dimly remembered aroma of suntan oil, and her eyelids drooped languidly as she watched the bird, still palpitating in its feathered splendor—so bright, so terribly bright—and she wondered why the serpent god had not taken with him his crown.

  For two days they had searched the green mountain, men and boys on horseback and burro, with sticks beating on pans and calling, spreading along the trails like beaters on safari. La Loca, quite mad to have gone up there alone; and they found signs—a broken necklace, then the horse, gutted—then, almost at the top, her body out on the covered-over trail where she had somehow made her way. A blessing, they said, that she had fallen where she did, for surely if the vultures had found her they would have left little of her. Even so, she was not a pretty sight. Her flesh was mottled dark red and green, the colors of sinister jewels, with double holes everywhere. They had never heard of a culebra de cascabel striking so many times, an orgy of bites, her face, breasts, thighs, even the more intimate place. They took blankets and made a crude package of her, stiff and bloated, and slung her between two burros, and that was how they brought her down. Flies followed in swarms. The people from the boat called MorryEll came ashore and identified the body. One, a man called Richard, arranged for the remains to be sent first by boat to Mirabella, where it would be flown to Los Angeles; she had children there. He was, he said, surprised to find her in this place; in any case, he scarcely knew her. He used to see her in the movies, though. Then they went back to the boat and weighed anchor just before sunset, while the mariachis were playing on the beach, marimba, accordion, and maracas, and the last of the fishermen came in with their catch, while the beach was turning blue and the hotel guests gathered in the bar, drinking their coco locos.

  Bobbitt

  EVERYONE MUST HAVE A name, but since he said he did not, he was called Mr. Thingamabob. Sometimes they called him Mr. Thingamajig or Thingamacallit, but these names sounded more or less the same, so it didn’t much matter. For variety’s sake he might be Mr. Spritzsinger, or Lord Calliope the Fifth, or J. Farquewell Harboomsteen. “What’s the ‘J’ for?” they would ask him. “Jack? Joe? John?” “Joke,” he would say. Of all the many street entertainers in the park that spring, he was the best. Every day through the fine May weather, when the children were still scratching themselves out of their winter woolens, while under their yellow and blue umbrellas the Sabrett hot dog vendors were selling Italian ices, and the balloon men were blowing up balloons, and leggy adolescent girls floundered on roller skates or chalked out hopscotch squares or jumped rope, and their younger brothers sailed toy vessels in the boat basin just north of Seventy-second Street, on almost any day through that springtime would come Mr. Thingamabob (or Mr. Thingamajig or Thingamacallit), rattling his tambourine with the colored ribbons on it, or tootling his whistle, or squeezing the black rubber bulb of his curly brass horn that went hwonk! hwonk!—not like a duck but like the horn of something rare and grand, say of a big Rolls-Royce. And when the children heard him coming, his nonsense pack bouncing on his back, they would troop along after him, he nodding and winking and urging them to follow, so it became a sort of parade, and he would go dancing on ahead, bowing and strutting or doing a funny jig, leading them around the curve of the boat basin, until they arrived at the little park-within-a-park north of the Conservatory Water. Here were the Alice in Wonderland statues, a group of sculpted bronze figures including the White Rabbit checking his large watch, the Mad Hatter, and between them, seated atop the broad cap of a bronze mushroom, Alice herself. This was where Mr. Thingamabob would set up shop and entertain the children. He always wore funny clothes: sometimes cut-off baggy trousers with gingham patches and a polka-dot shirt and clog shoes and a flower behind his ear and a crazy hat on his head, and a clown’s nose made from a red sponge ball and held over his own by an elastic band, and a big orange wig; or sometimes he would be dressed as a gypsy; or sometimes in white tie and tails with a tall top hat which would flip open and a bird would pop up on a spring and twitter. Out of his nonsense pack he would bring oranges or hoops to juggle, or put puppet figures on his hands and make them talk to one another or to the children, or do a clog dance—he could leap straight up in the air and knock his feet together, side to side, before they ever touched the ground again. When the children—the grownups, too—were gathered in a circle around the statues, then Mr. Thingamabob would suddenly jump up onto the mushroom in front of Alice, where he would sit cross-legged, with the children watching and waiting below, and when everyone had quieted down—there was always a good deal of laughing and talking—he would waggle his big bushy eyebrows once or twice over his enormous glasses, twitch his nose from side to side, until the laughter had finally died away, and he would begin.

  That was when Mr. Thingamabob became the Storyteller, and for an hour, perhaps even two, he would keep his young audience spellbound while he sat on Alice’s mushroom telling stories to them. The grownups would have taken places along nearby benches and the children clustered around the mushroom while Mr. Thingamabob spun his tales, seemingly out of the air, for that was part of the magic of Mr. Thingamabob: everything seemed to come out of thin air, from nowhere.

  There was one thing about him: he would tell his tale, but always he would stop just at the best part; he would peer as though to check the time from the White Rabbit’s watch, and then he would utter some foolishness like “Ohmigoo’ness, it’s late—” and he would stop, as if he had to hurry away right then and there; the children would jump up and shout and plead with him to stay and finish the story, and cry More! More! but no, that was all for today. Tomorrow, he would say, come back tomorrow for the end. But would he come tomorrow? they would clamor. And oh, yes, he would come tomorrow, or if not, the day after. Then he would pass his funny hat around to the grownups, who would put money in it, and off would go Mr. Thingamabob, tootling his whistle and rattling his tambourine with the colored ribbons, his pack on his back, the children tumbling along behind him, skipping and running and shouting and laughing.

  But nobody ever knew where he came from, nobody ever knew where he went, nobody knew who he was.

  Now, one afternoon late in May, two elderly ladies came walking in the park. It was one of those perfect days New Yorkers see all too rarely, when everybody seemed to be out in the park watching everybody else out in the park, when everything seems clear and clean and lovely, as if a giant broom had suddenly swept out all the corners of the city, swept all the ugliness under the rug, so that the eye could view the world as it should be seen, a lovely place to live in.

  At least this was what Nellie Bannister was thinking as she and her best
friend, Hilda, came into the park on that fine fair afternoon. They often liked to take a stroll together, or to sit on a bench, chatting and feeding the pigeons, and though they seldom ventured farther than the south end of the park, around the Sheep Meadow or along the Mall as far as the band shell, today they walked longer and farther, all the way to the boat basin. It was a gay scene, with the white-sailed toy boats cutting across the water in the breeze, with dogs running free of leashes, and people playing their radios as they sat sunning on the benches. Nellie gave Hilda’s hand a little squeeze; it was just so good to be alive, wasn’t it? They walked on until they arrived at the Alice in Wonderland park, where they found places on a bench, sharing it with three nursemaids in a row, their shiny blue perambulators close by so they could keep an eye on their charges. Then, faintly in the distance, above the sounds of traffic from Fifth Avenue, were heard the sounds of a tootling whistle and the rattle of brass bangles on a tambourine, and down from the crest of the hill came the strangest sight.

  “My stars,” said Nellie, “look at that.”

  “Mr. Thingamabob,” one of the nursemaids was heard to say, and along the fellow came, around the boat basin, collecting children every step of the way. He was dressed outlandishly in a long embroidered robe of red, like a wizard’s gown, and a blue Arabian turban with a feather curling up at the front and held with a jeweled pin. More and more children came trooping after him, as with comic pomp he proceeded to the bronze mushroom. On one earlobe was hung a gold hoop, and he wore a long hooked nose with a wart on the end and bristly mustaches that swept out left and right like two shoe brushes, a pair of bushy black eyebrows that moved up and down, and large round tinted glasses, the color changing as he moved his head, sometimes pink, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow. He put his whistle and tambourine inside his nonsense pack, and after some shenanigans which kept the children giddy with laughter, he clapped his hands until they were settled quietly all around him, then took up the thread of his story.