In the Court of the Yellow King Read online

  “I don’t think so,” Elvis murmured thoughtfully, “I got the mojo, baby. And when that don’t work, well...” His eyes turned to coffin-worm eyespots in my unblinking, swimming gaze. “Well, I invite them to have a little chat with me. A concert from the King...”

  Time froze, and sped up in part, and the end of things drew frightfully near Showtime. Everything that happened after that is hard to put into perspective, being the vomited human ambergris of this Moby Dick nation whose architecture eats itself continuously and shits out the craving for Decency that sweeps away old horrors in favor of more lasting ones. New vessels to set before the King.

  J. Edgar seized the two hundred seven-inch 45’s of “Cassilda’s Song” I managed to press from the little recording-gadget in my shoeheel that my assistant let me borrow before I even left. It got played on a few Negro blues stations here and there on various continents, in the neon backwaters of Hip in various cities, barred out here, confiscated there... but not denounced by Press and pulpit, or censured, even by the most advanced of paranoiacs.

  Because they couldn’t. No definite principles had been violated in the first Elvis Presley bootleg record ever, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged in any court except the United Nation of Art. Yet, they knew. They knew that playing it often enough would make Elvis lose some of his mojo.

  So they buried it, and found some other ways to kill me. But I wonder when they will send their scion to finish me off.

  Every night in this hospital, I hear Him creeping like Cassilda in the hall. I dream the bolts of my door rotting at His touch, and His fingers no longer Presley’s, but someone swollen and bloated and dead. But my end will be worse than that.

  It’s over. He’s spoken one more time, and I already knew. My end was always the same, a bridge which no one passes.

  Even now, I hope someone still has one of those 45’s. I hope it got played enough. Or that some hip kid with a huge record collection still plays one of them, once in a while, late at night when the stars turn black and the sky looks like the sea. I hope she leans in close to the console, and turns that Volume up.

  So we can send Him home again, someday. Or try. Come on. Dance with the Moondog, here.

  Yes, those sounds are drums, and behind them something like a receding surf. Shutters going up. Those are cymbals, and soft Bop brushes. A new broom sweeps clean. In the middle of the horn section will fall the first shell.

  The cops still don’t want you to have a good time, kids. But we’re going to have a party, so we gotta post a guard outside. Come on, everybody. You all know how these questions are settled.

  It’ll be a riot.

  Sacred to the Memory of Alan Freed & Joel Lane

  he should have made her way to Hollywood five years ago, back when she had enough money to travel farther than between Upper and Midtown Manhattan. She would wager that, by now, she could have at least snagged a part in some sitcom or second-rate motion picture — something that would have gotten her name out farther than the next block off Broadway. Finances were tighter than ever, and though she had no problem lining up auditions, landing a role that paid for something more than a few drinks was tougher now than the day she had spoken her first line on the stage at the Fugazi Playhouse, now closed. She sure as hell couldn’t afford to move to a new place, even in a worse neighborhood. By any standard, her cozy apartment in Manhattan Valley was a bargain, though uncomfortably far from the law office where she temped as receptionist, not to mention the theater district.

  Tonight, as usual, the bus was jammed with bodies, but she had managed to grab a seat near the back. To get it, she’d had to physically remove a large shopping bag owned by an older Hispanic woman who had strategically placed it to discourage potential seatmates. On a crowded bus, Kathryn Stefano refused to tolerate such discourtesy, and now the woman, her bag tucked under her seat, sat peering out the window radiating hot, silent hatred.

  Kathryn had felt so good about the last audition. They seemed to love her, but her phone had been silent for two weeks, and they had promised an answer within a few days. Bryon Florey, her ersatz agent, had pestered the director enough, perhaps beyond his tolerance level, clearly to no avail. The damned thing would have paid well, too.

  She was 28, and her time for grabbing choice roles was rapidly slip-slipping away.

  She had never heard of the play before. The King in Yellow, a two-act exercise in surrealism, produced by an unfamiliar company — Mythosphere, it was called — though she knew of the director, one Vernard Broach, who had gained notoriety two decades earlier by helming a production of Jesus Christ, Superstar that took a page from the Gospel of Phillip, in which Jesus and Mary Magdalene were engaged in an amorous relationship, portrayed quite graphically on the stage. For The King in Yellow, Kathryn had read for the part of Cassilda, the queen of a mythical city called Hastur, somewhere on or off the earth, she had no idea. She had not read the entire play, but it supposedly ended on a tragic note, and she’d always had an affinity for tragedies.

  At 109th, she disembarked, her seatmate bidding her rude farewell by way of a low “Reina puta,” and had walked most of the block to her building when she felt her jacket pocket vibrating. It was Bryon on the phone.

  “You got Cassilda,” came his excited voice. “She’s all yours.”

  “Well, thank you!”

  “Rehearsals start this Friday night.”

  “Seriously?”

  “The schedule’s going to be intense. Hope you’re up for it. Can you get to their office tomorrow afternoon and get the paperwork done?”

  “I guess I can take a long lunch.”

  “Do it. I have a good feeling about this one.”

  “So do I. I think.”

  “You impress Broach, things are going to start falling into place. See if they don’t.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “You’d better.”

  She signed off just as she reached the front door of her building, an ancient, nine-story monstrosity that took up half the block between Amsterdam and Broadway. Her apartment was on the top floor, a single-bedroom cubbyhole she shared with her roommate, Yumiko, whom she actually saw about twice a month. She found herself hoping Yumiko would be there now. At first she thought it was because she was excited about sharing her good news, but as the elevator took her up to the dim, deathly silent hallway, she realized she was not excited but nervous. More than that — unsettled, apprehensive. Not the little butterflies that came before stepping on stage but the cold anxiety she might feel if a stranger were to fall in behind her and rapidly close the distance.

  Unfortunately, she discovered as she opened the door and entered darkness, the place was deserted, except for Koki, Yumiko’s cat, who occupied his traditional spot on the windowsill. The gray and white tabby gave her a brief, unconcerned glance and returned to peering at the alley outside. For a moment, the view out the window seemed somehow off, and she realized there was an odd reflection in the glass: some kind of swirly pattern in bright, yellow-gold, as if cast by an illuminated sign at the entrance to the alley, though she knew no such sign existed. The reflection lasted only a few seconds and then vanished, as if whatever was producing it had dissolved.

  That was strange, she thought, but hardly worth dwelling on. Koki was displaying no interest in anything, indoors or out, and if the Feline Early Warning System didn’t go off, all was right with the world. More or less.

  Damned peculiar: the script the office manager had given her was incomplete. A number of random pages had been excised, including the final scene. Still, from it, she pieced together as much of the story as possible.

  The play opened with Queen Cassilda — many thousands, perhaps millions of years old — gazing on the vast Lake of Hali from her palace in the far-off city of Hastur. For eons, Hastur had been at war with its sister city, Alar, and the
endless siege had made Cassilda into an embittered, apathetic, largely impotent monarch. She occasionally entertained the idea of passing her rule to one of her two sons, Uoht or Thale, she cared not which. Both princes desired to marry their sister, Camilla, and Cassilda finally decided that whichever son won her daughter’s hand would ascend to the throne and take the name “Aldones” — the name of every king that had ever ruled in Hastur. Then Cassilda would give to Camilla the royal diadem, which had been worn by Hastur’s queen since the beginning of time. Camilla, however, dreaded such a transfer, for legend told that the recipient of the diadem might also receive the Yellow Sign — a harbinger of death, or worse — from the mysterious King in Yellow: a nightmarish, inhuman being that resided in the fabled, spectral city of Carcosa, which existed somewhere beyond the Lake of Hali.

  One day, a stranger wearing a pallid mask appeared in Hastur. To Cassilda’s horror, he also bore on his garment a representation of the Yellow Sign, a bizarre pattern rendered “in no human script.” The queen’s high priest, Naotalba, declared the stranger the embodiment of the Phantom of Truth, an agent of the King in Yellow. The stranger, however, explained that he was an ally of Hastur, who could wear the Yellow Sign with impunity because the pallid mask concealed his identity even from the all-powerful King. His purpose, he claimed, was to end the stalemate with Alar, for any kingdom that could bear the Yellow Sign as its standard would be invincible. To make this possible, he suggested Cassilda put on a “masque,” wherein the attendees themselves would wear pallid masks in the presence of the Yellow Sign. At the appointed hour, they would unmask and find that the Yellow Sign no longer held power over them.

  Despite suspecting treachery, Cassilda believed the gamble worthwhile, for no matter its outcome, the conflict with Alar would end. Act 2 opened with the masked ball in progress, with Cassilda and all members of her court wearing pallid masks. At the sound of a gong, all removed their masks — all except the stranger, who then revealed that he wore no mask at all. He had deceived them so that Alar, not Hastur, might emerge victorious from the endless war.

  Suddenly, with a cry of “Yhtill!” — a word meaning “stranger” — the King in Yellow appeared. Taller than two men, garbed in flowing, tattered, golden robes, the King struck down the faceless stranger, proclaiming himself a living god who was not to be mocked. He told Cassilda that Hastur would prevail over Alar, but with a heavy price: from that moment on, every inhabitant of Hastur, including Cassilda, would wear a pallid mask.

  Cassilda, regaining her regal manner for the first time in eons, approached the King and boldly refused to accept his terms.

  And there the script ended.

  There was clearly more to the final scene. Whoever had collated this copy, Kathryn decided, was anything but thorough at his or her job.

  Something in the script had seized Kathryn’s attention and, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, sent her mind reeling, as if gripped by vertigo. She flipped back through the pages until she found the passage.

  “The city of Carcosa had four singularities. The first was that it appeared overnight. The second was that it was impossible to distinguish whether the city sat upon the waters of the Lake of Hali or on the invisible shore beyond. The third was that when the moon rose, the city’s spires appeared behind rather than in front of it. And the fourth was that as soon as one looked upon the city, one knew its name was Carcosa.”

  Something about that name, Carcosa. She felt a strange, tingling excitement, as if she had discovered something indecent or forbidden — the way she had felt when she bought her first vibrator all those years ago. She had taken it home feeling dirty, giddy, almost breathless with anticipation. How could she possibly feel this way now?

  That night, she dreamed of a soft, reed-thin voice saying, “The truth is but a phantom — a ghost that can be used or murdered at whim. Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

  The first read-through with the full cast in the rehearsal room of the Frontiere Theatre:

  Upon her request for a complete copy of the script, the production manager, Earl Blohm — a bearded, long-haired young man who dressed as if he had fallen out of the early 1970s — told her it was all she would get. “You’ll find out the ending when everyone else does,” he said. “It never ends the same way twice.”

  “I didn’t think this play had been produced before.”

  “Oh, it’s very old. It’s just that no one alive has ever seen it.”

  Strange, strange man, Kathryn thought. In fact, the whole ensemble struck her as peculiar. Usually, when cast members gathered for the first time, a certain excitement ran through them like a humming electric current, but here, a somber, almost funereal atmosphere pervaded the chamber. Director Vernard Broach, a portly, swarthy man with dyed black, slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin mustache, spoke so softly she could barely make out his instructions.

  “The audience is there,” he said, pointing to the farthest wall of the long, deeply shadowed rehearsal room. “We do not concern ourselves with them. You are in the city of Hastur on the Lake of Hali.” He gave the group his most theatrical scowl, pointed to the opposite corner of the room, and said, “The King in Yellow lives there. We do not look there, we do not speak of there, we do not go there. Now, look at your scripts, look at them. We have Queen Cassilda and her daughter, Camilla. Who is Camilla, where are you?”

  “Here.” An attractive young black woman raised her hand and then pointed to herself. “Jayda Rivera.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Broach said. “Read, will you?”

  Jayda Rivera gave him a questioning look, and Broach replied by staring at her with impatient eyes and stamping one foot.

  Jayda glanced at Kathryn and drew a steadying breath. “‘Forgive my bluntness, my queen, but you have been looking for Carcosa. Again.’”

  “‘The Hyades have not yet risen, thus Carcosa may not appear. I am simply watching the Lake of Hali swallowing the suns. Again.’” Kathryn’s gaze at Jayda was haughty, but her voice carried a wistful note. She felt Broach’s eyes warm with approval.

  “‘If only the lake would swallow our enemy,’” Jayda said, her voice gaining assurance as she began to immerse herself in her part. “‘But, Mother, does it not lie within your power to destroy Alar?’”

  “‘It does not, and you know this.’” She drew herself up and in a commanding voice said, “‘Listen well, daughter. Do not mock me, for I still have power in Hastur, and I would as soon you never live to succeed me.’”

  Jayda’s eyes widened in pure, authentic fear. “‘I do not mock, my queen. You withhold powerful secrets. I desire only to learn.’”

  “‘I should first share them with agents of Alar.’”

  The ensuing silence felt so deep that Kathryn swallowed hard to make sure she could still hear. From the direction that Broach had indicated lay the purview of the King in Yellow, a movement caught her eye. Do not look there.

  She looked. Just for a second.

  A tiny figure, standing in the shadows, barely visible. A child.

  A sudden rhythmic clattering drew her attention back to director Broach. The stout man was doing a weird little two-step dance to himself, a blissful grin broadening his already broad face. The sounds of his feet tapping on the floor were soon joined in syncopated rhythm by another set of echoing, tap-tapping footsteps.

  In the room’s far shadows, the child was dancing as well.

  Three weeks later: lunch at Brodjian’s Café with Jayda, who, it turned out, worked by day in a nearby office.

  “I don’t like those damned masks,” Jayda said, giving her chicken salad wrap a suspicious glance. “They’re creepy and uncomfortable.”

  “Creepier on some than others.”

  Jayda smiled and nodded, then looked back at her lunch. “I asked for no walnuts. Screw it, they won’t kill me. You think this play has a chance of taking off?”
r />   Kathryn’s turkey and brie croissant must have sat on the counter overnight. It was not thrilling. She shrugged. “It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever been in. I tell you, if I were in the audience, I don’t know I’d sit through it — at least as much of it as we can perform.”

  “Please! What are we going to do at the end? Stand there like dummies as the curtain falls? And who’s that little girl? One of the cast members’ who can’t find a babysitter?”

  “Little girl?” For a second, she drew a blank. “Oh, wait. I thought it was a little boy.”

  “Pretty sure it’s a girl.”

  “Okay.” Boy or girl, the kid was a mystery. Always lurking in the shadows, never quite revealing his or her face. Six or seven years old at most. She had never heard the child speak, yet he — she was sure it was a boy — sometimes mimicked the actions of the players during rehearsal. She didn’t think the kid was Broach’s; he was reputedly as gay as they came and had been an old bachelor since before Moses’ day.

  “We still don’t even know who that is playing the King.”

  “Nope. Could be anyone, since we never see his face.”

  “The orchestra’s on tonight. You ready?”

  Kathryn nodded. The play featured a single musical number, “The Song of Cassilda,” in the second scene of Act 1. Till now, she had simply sung it a cappella from the sheet music, which, most curiously, Broach had transcribed by hand. This evening, the prior production having finally cleared out, the theater proper would be open for rehearsal, and she would sing with orchestral accompaniment. She had a fair mezzo-soprano voice, best suited to singing in a chorus, but in college she had held her own as Lady Macbeth in their production of Verdi’s Macbeth, and more recently as Luisa in a revival of The Fantasticks. She had no doubt she could nail the song, yet for some reason she was on edge about it.

  Like about so many things in this play.