Rick Moody - Demonology

The Dispatcher, as any here will assent, could not be found by searching, because such gray and black places as he sequestered himself were one day apparent down neglected thoroughfares and next entirely vanished. Only prayers of desperation, in combination with the production of ducats and other gold curios, would produce the dreadful troll of a man. Thus, the king, not yet coronally adorned, walked the streets in rags muttering in low tones, Oh, good Christian gentleman Levi, I will give you a tenth portion of my treasury, should I ever ascend to the magnificence of rulership, if only you will dig me out of this infernal quackery into which I have plunged myself At which, finally, like lightning upon meadow, the foul warlock stepped out of a most ostentatious carriage called a sport utility vehicle, and confronted the incipient monarch, while picking encrustments out of his large nose, Wait, let me be an answerer of riddles. Somewhere a neurasthenic lad is converted into a chimp and the humbler who brought to pass this enchantment comes hither to have him restored. The further action of this drama? That shall cost you a pretty sum, my lordship, as you well know.

The king’s pockets were unfortunately spacious, indeed quite ventilated, and therefore he agreed to a special arrangement called margin (I have only passing acquaintance with the transaction), and this arrangement concluded the warlock rose, red curls like a kerosened halo, up above the streets to declaim the following lines of verse, no doubt composed by himself in a joyful interval, Prince, oh prince, once so charming, your fine sports become alarming, yet since your future needs be farming, your apelike features we are harming, during which moment, according to manifold witnesses, a jocose Prince Charming did suddenly appear upon the avenues of our fair city, smiling broadly and bestowing blessings on women of mean reputation, while here in our tale a ghoulish laugh issued forth from the warlock and he performed a number of somersaults and fell to earth before the king, saying, It is done, and now I require of you a token of your esteem. At which point the king ran him through with a dull blade. Manly act of a manly king.

And the king knelt down and prayed to the gods for whom we are justly pawns and made himself grateful. Promptly, upon returning to the court, he ascended to the throne, promptly he was trothed to the queen — until that felicitous day known as Andalucia Charming — and promptly, too, they produced a lovely daughter, the hunting princess named Diana, who wore frocks of blue and bows of red and who married a court musician. For some years all was right in the kingdom.

Wait just a moment, blessed auditor, bestow on me your forgivenesses, for I seem to have misplaced a portion of the tale, such a large helping, in fact, as to be said to constitute a second plate. Fervent apologies. I urge you to return to the enchantment in the courthouse, of which I have earlier spake, having to do with the queen’s sudden and fervid declaration for the king, though he be the man who changed her own brother into a performing monkey, etc. and so forth. This forgotten section of the story, which I append, concentrates on the author of this particular enchantment, namely, the giant of Sandy Spit, known among neighbors and plaintiffs as Maurice.

He wore foul jerkins instead of proper clothes, to begin judiciously enough, blouses that had been sweated through with undignified perspirings for many fortnights or even months; he was fat, he was of such girth that when he ate too much his own house burst open along the joists; his breath smelled of goat’s milk that has been left out in the hot sun to accumulate gobs of cheesy rankness, he rarely even wetted himself down nor wore a gay cologne. And further to his miserable condition Maurice was alone raising up three progeny, a girl in her middle years, flaxen like himself, name of Kurt, a secondborn girl and boy both with dark mien, like the giant’s deceased wife, many years departed. Their names were Elsa and Stibb.

Nearly every inquisitive scamp who hears such tales requires to have satisfied the exact largeness of the giant, and so here I essay solution to the enigma, to common good of both young and old, Just how big was the giant? Since I only saw his children, I give surmise founded upon reports from travelers to distant precincts, who say of him, taller than church spires, taller than the biggest oaks, taller than the cliffs at Mahon, tall enough to reach up to the green cheese in the night sky and steal himself a fermenting hunk, massive enough to light his pipe from the morning sun, giant enough to trample the oceans for footbaths.

As the giant was their father, headmaster of hearth, bringer home of manifold pork products including pork loins and pork lips and sausages, his three children had no choice but to love him, yet for some ages they had noticed that he was very dismally sad, given to fits of grave sobbing and beating of breast, which would then cause floods in the streambeds of our land, this melancholia dating to the demise of his goodly wife, of course; these many years, he had stayed singularly awake into the caliginous night muttering Love is an appellation known to all, and so why must I be so solitary unto the hereafter just my wee children but no woman such as might love me and care for me despite my accursed appearance? Why am I destined to march unaccompanied along my path, all men fleeing my footfall? Upon encountering him, sleepless and cross, in the morning, the children confabulated many wiles and stratagems to distract the giant from woe, including the imposition of elixirs such as St. Johns Wort into his tea, which Maurice liked of such strength that it had been known to corrode iron kettles. None of these stratagems succeeded, alas, and the giant of Sandy Spit would therefore, in the midst of his fever, maraud upon the land, abducting children, devouring livestock, visiting horrors upon gentlefolk. In such a fell mood, the giant one day espied before him in the road, like a poisonous ant that needs to be crushed before habitations of the day can continue, a small fleeing figure, namely the once and future Andalucia Charming, now queen of our demesne, who had been bathing in a small, clear loch, a reservoir of agreeable drinking waters much traveled by lithesome harvesters of corn and other truck, and having spent an afternoon feeding berries to one of these lads, the queen Andalucia, clad only in a womanly undergarment — as mischievous youths had absconded with her further draperies — she now fled home, hoping to arrive at the castle before her most admirable mother, thereupon to make appropriate tributes to the staff such that they might neglect to mention to her pro-genetrix this dishonored state.

Thunder upon the land. The giant caught glimpse of the small, curvaceous, and perfect queen, and soon fetched her up in his fulsome palms, and here the giant held her to his eyes, being much afflicted in the matter of nearsightedness, at which he immediately became a convert to the argument of Andalucia’s beauty. She was like a smoky crystal with its Hindering lights, she was like unto the handsome portraits that hung in houses wherein his parents had once begged for alms, she was lily of field, bird of air, she might make wolves eat only herbs and sing madrigals. Upon my honor, Maurice cried, and of course the sounds were audible across the land, as if a rogue city-state launched infernal bullets and arrows toward our cities, Ibelieve a goddess has crossed into my wilderness and that I must devote myself toher service henceforth and always. The queen attempted to reply, of course, but Maurice squeezed her so tightly in his fist she fainted dead away making no audible reply