Classics Mutilated (30 page)

The raven flapped its wings. The tower of books creaked, and with a little snap of sound the bird hit the air, to alight, moments later, upon a bust of Pallas. Jim followed its short flight with glazed eyes. He sat against a stone wall and waited for this to be over.

Was there a quicker way out? Jim glanced around Poe's room. It was a grand space, confined by the detritus of creativity: the books and the bust, of course, along with crates and coffins that spewed exoticisms: an angel of the odd; the musings of Thingum Bob, Esq.; an oblong box; a loss of breath. The crates were stacked to the vaulted ceiling. There were window ledges, but no windows, only the shapes of windows carved into the stone. Likewise there was no door. The wooden floor ticked and thumped, and oval portraits (depicting yet more oddities) trembled on the walls.

No way out.

The raven rapped and tapped upon the bust, demanding Jim's attention.

"Thought I," it said, "that a man whose coat is worn and frayed will simply acquire a new one. Could the same not be done with a man's life ... to cast aside the cracked shell and inhabit one of fortitude? My diminished mind certainly believed so, and thus began my peculiar endeavor."

Jim looked at the shapes of the windows, seeking some seam of light, something he could rift. There was nothing. He studied the gaps between the floorboards, which sighed with every frantic crash of his heart.

Rap-tap
upon the bust again.

The raven ruffled its feathers. "It was a desperate period for me—seeking a new body, one not so forlorn, so broken. For the simplest transition, I sought an individual not unlike myself, slightly younger, perhaps, but ablaze with the fire of creativity. In time I made the acquaintance of a brilliant young poet named Christopher Reynolds, and through wile, device, and dementia attempted to possess his physical form."

Jim looked at the raven. He imagined souls floating in the breeze, a glowing menagerie, seeking some warm place to land.

"You have to remember," said the raven, "that I was very sick ... confused."

"That's what happens when you crawl back in your brain," Jim said.

"For several days we struggled, clawing and biting. I assumed his clothing, but nothing more; Reynolds's soul was lion-shaped and it bested me. He threw me—shattered and delirious, still dressed in his clothes—to the cold streets. The fight was over; I had lost. My life was finished. In the passages of delirium before my final breath, I realized my mistake, and vowed that it would be different next time. ‘Lord help my poor soul,' I uttered, and turned then to my raven form. And for these last one hundred and eighteen years I have flown Night's Plutonian Shore—an ancient lunatic—waiting for the right soul ... the right
poet ...
so that I might swoop and live again, young and beautiful, infinite with creativity, as dark as sin."

Jim tilted his head and blinked. His heart thumped harder.

"And here you are," the raven said.

"Except none of this is real," Jim said.

"If that's true, you have nothing to fear." The raven bristled, its feathers so slick they looked wet. "I'm taking your life, James. That's why you're here."

Jim got to his feet. He pushed away from the wall and took two sideways, unsteady steps. "You're just a dream. Or some freight train of hallucination barreling through my consciousness. I can't believe this is happening."

"Think of me as an angel," the raven said, "with wings where I had shoulders ..." It held up one talon. "... as smooth as these claws."

"I want to wake up now," Jim muttered.

The raven cawed and, once again, rapped its hooked beak upon the bust. Cracks appeared in Pallas's smooth white eyes. "I'll not make the same mistake again, James. The eyes, you see ... the eyes are the windows to the soul. This time I know the way in."

Jim shook his head and screamed.

WAKE UP!

"Be not afraid," the raven said, and Jim heard its wings snap at the air. "You don't want your life, anyway. Your audience—your world—is full of scavengers, tearing you to pieces. They don't understand you.
Nobody
understands you."

Jim remembered the grabbing arms and camera flashes. His heart slammed like an earthquake and he saw, in his mind's eye, his audience: a million frenzied birds, ready to claw.

"No," he said. His voice seemed far away.

Even the band ... different creatures.

I'm alone,
he thought, and closed his eyes.

"From the thunder and the storm," the raven said. "And the cloud that took the form/(when the rest of Heaven was blue)/of a demon in my view."

Its wings made thunder, and all Jim saw was darkness.

Follow me down.

Dawn sun. A blind red eye, unblinking in the east. The smell of oil and sand and the sound of weeping ... of hurting. Jim stood among the chaos, naked, violated. Blood dried in the dead Indian's hair. His brown hands touched nothing. A breeze rippled his clothes. Jim felt the soul-lizard inside him, twisting like a child. He embraced it and kept it warm.
NOW YOU'RE MINE AND I AM YOURS.
He felt the stroke of its tongue, the flick of its tail. The chaos made crazy shadows. Jim looked at his. It slithered and pulsed and Jim thought,
SEE ME CHANGE.

Time is running slight.

I understand you, James.

We're quite the same, you see.

Follow me down.

CHANGE.

CHANGELING.

It opened its eyes.

I am the Lizard King.

The lizard's blood ran cold and slick and angry. Its scales flushed with fresh color, and it squatted close to the trembling floor. The raven swept low and dragged its talons across the lizard's rigid back. The lizard hissed and flicked its tongue. It struck with one claw, but the raven was out of reach. It flapped its wings and ascended to the top of the book tower.

"I'll destroy your soul," said the bird. "I'll leave your body empty and gasping, and then I'll simply glide inside."

"And if my body dies?" the lizard said.

"It is young and strong," the raven replied. "And not ready for death."

"You should know I'm not afraid."

"The foolhardiness of youth." The raven shook its feathers. "You think you know darkness; you write songs about ‘The End' ... but you know nothing. When you have lost the one thing you truly loved ... when the eye of madness glares long and hard upon you ... when shadows touch your every waking moment and fill your mind with screams ... only then will you know darkness. But you, lizard, are yet a shimmer; and I shall fill that beautiful body, and take it to incredible places."

With a passionate cry the raven took wing, rising from its perch and soaring toward the lizard. It extended its claws, screeching, wanting to strip its thorny skin. But the lizard flexed its spines and lashed forward with snapping jaws. They collided with harsh cries and an explosion of black feathers. The lizard felt its tough skin tear, its cold blood drip. It raked its claws across the raven's wing, shedding yet more feathers, and then the bird was rising again, to the lip of a crate, where it squawked and dragged its wounded wing.

The lizard showed its forked tongue. "You're going to have to do better than that."

The raven rapped and tapped in anger. "As will you, lizard."

And so began the clash of souls. No way to tell how long it lasted; no sense of night or day about the room—only the thud of Jim's heartbeat, running alternately fast and slow, connected to his soul as it fought, and then rested.

They attacked in spells, coming together in a mad and angry tangle. The lizard would clamp its jaws on the raven's wing, and the raven would gouge and peck, finding the soft flesh between its scales. They formed a new shape, a new monster: a lizard with wings; a raven with scales. This twisted creature would roll and scramble across the dusty floor, swishing its tail and spraying feathers, until—too exhausted to fight—it would separate to its component parts, blood-streaked and hurting, needing time to catch breath.

"You can't beat me, raven," the lizard said. Its yellow eyes flashed.

"Give me time." The raven's feathers dripped red. Its beak was notched and dull, like an old spearhead.

"You've had your time."

Another clash, squawking and crying. The raven covered the lizard's eyes with one wing and pecked at its unprotected stomach. The lizard twisted and whipped its tail, spines smashing against the bird's body. They rolled across the floor, scattering fragments of Poe's mind. The tower of books crumpled with a monstrous groan, old pages tearing loose and splashing across the floor. Crates toppled, spilling their arcane contents. Portraits were punched from the walls, and sagged in their cracked frames.

Puddles of blood. Two bruised, torn souls. The raven flapped with wounded wings to the lid of a split coffin. The lizard slithered into the shadow of an overturned crate and licked its broken scales.

"Almost over," the raven said. "Time is running slight."

The lizard trembled. How long had it been here, trapped in this fog-covered nightmare—this unforgiving trip? Days? Months? Its life before seemed like a long-ago thing. It recalled the baked earth of authority, and the cool nights of love. It recalled crawling into the public eye and seeing its blindness. Verses and choruses tumbled across its memory, as thin as matchsticks. Pamela's hair, smelling like smoke and honey, and the touch of her lips. Sleeping on rooftops and in the backs of cars. Mescaline and acid and the cold, constant drip of liquor. What was real? Could it be that the life it thought it had been living—the rock star, the poet, the Lizard King—had been an elaborate dream all along?

Had this dream stopped?

Jim's heartbeat drummed through the floorboards, but it was slower now. Weaker.
That's my body,
the lizard thought.
Slowly dying.
And with this realization came the knowledge that the heartbeat was the doorway. It was the
only
real thing. The only way out.

My heart.
The lizard shifted its bleeding body.
My life.

Beating slowly ... slowly.

The raven attacked again (motivated, also, by the rock star's dying body). It swooped with heavy black weight and sent the lizard spinning into one corner. It followed with its talons and beak, tearing the lizard's hard skin.

"His body is mine," the raven cried, blood dripping from its claws.

The lizard blinked its yellow eyes, puffed out its spines, and fought. Another long and wearing clash, entangled for hours, biting and scratching, lurching through the scattered ruins of Poe's mind. There came a final, fatigued flash of anger, and then the souls separated. The raven limped to its refuge and hid beneath one fractured wing, while the lizard pulled itself to the center of the room.

My heart,
it thought.

The sound, now, was all too slow.

My life.

It was beneath the floorboards. Beneath this place of dark invention.

The only way out.

While the raven cowered and bled, the lizard gathered its remaining strength and, with claws flashing and tail slapping, assailed the trembling floor. It sought—as had been the case all night—the merest seam of unreality, and eventually found one: a crack in the floorboards, which with one hard lash of the tail became a split, and then a rift. The heartbeat grew louder, and cool blue light fanned from the wide seam. The lizard worked furiously, smashing and clawing great chunks of the floor away. The closer it got to—

life

—
escape, the brighter the light became, the louder the heartbeat.

The raven fluttered from its perch and limped toward the lizard, dragging both wings. It screeched and showed its talons, defiant, but powerless. Its eyes were dull black stones and its feathers were crumpled. The lizard spared it a single glance, and then struck with its tail, connecting hard with the bird and flinging it across the room. It thudded against the wall, a broken thing. Blood-mottled feathers settled around it, as thick as oil.

The lizard roared—more lion than reptile—and clawed away a jagged section of floor. The light that erupted was geyser-like, rushing to the high ceiling, filling the room like music. The lizard had to turn away, momentarily blinded, and when it was able to look again it could see the source of that brilliant light.

His heartbeat. His life.

A door.

It shook in its frame as the life it knew—rock star, poet, and lover—pounded on the other side. And as the lizard crawled into the light and through the doorway, it heard two things clearly. The first was the raven:

"This is just the beginning," it squawked from its shattered place. "I will get you soon ...
soon ... SOOOOOOOOOOOON
."

The second sound was softer, kinder. The lizard clung to it as it fell through the doorway and into the light. Pamela's voice, like rain on piano strings.

"
Don't leave me, Jim,
" she said, and the lizard closed its eyes—could feel her hair, and the sweet touch of her breath. "
Don't leave me.
"

He opened his eyes and looked, immediately, for the raven, but all he could see, blessedly, was Pamela's face. Her crystal eyes and freckled skin. She kissed him. One of her tears fell on his upper lip. He smiled and licked it away—thought for one moment that his tongue was forked.

"All right, all right," he said. "Pretty neat, pretty good."

Beyond Pamela, the Baltimore night was glittering black, skimmed with cloud. No fog. No raven. Jim sat up and Pamela kissed him again.

"We thought we'd lost you," she said. "We came out here looking for you, but you were nowhere to be found. We looked everywhere, and when we came out again ... there you were."

"I guess I was in the shadows," Jim said. He got to his feet, brushing grit from his leather pants. The rest of the Doors were there, clustered around the backstage entrance. They looked concerned ... frightened, even.

"One of these days, man," Ray said. "You're not going to wake up."