Pocket Changes
Prelude ‘95
Hard to believe it was a long forty-six years ago that I first heard the name Afflerbach. Of course, I wasn’t such an old man then. And not amid the unfortunate circumstance of dying. You can spare me your sympathies! Ninety-one years is enough. I’ve had plenty of life! Only too much! But, back when I was first promoted to Lead Detective of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit—when this strange case first landed on my desk—I was still a young man, out to make a name for myself. And while my fate was to remain quite removed from all the hotly debated incidents surrounding this case, the confounding facts and general absurdity have nonetheless plagued me with many abstracted, sleepless nights. My name is Richard Madden. I was just a rookie gumshoe back in 1949 when this case had quietly slid by all the senior detectives and fallen into my green hands. My superiors seemed put off by the strange details, and because the victim's immigrant widow was nearly impossible to deal with. The victim was a substantial German man named Casper Afflerbach, and I discovered, not without considerable effort, that he and his wife operated a flower shop in Munich for many years. Casper’s true passions, however, were in the musical field. New American jazz music had recently reached his ears, and Mr. Afflerbach convinced his wife to travel with him to the United States in search of work as a jazz bass player. They arrived in New York by way of an ocean liner in ‘47 and somehow settled in a Philadelphia suburb called Phoenixville. Casper greatly admired the musicians in Philadelphia’s music scene and was determined to find his place in the city’s budding jazz community. All who heard him play agreed that Casper Afflerbach was a virtuoso musician. But he lacked the nerve of a performer and this incapacity leveled off his overabundance of talent. The most severe stage fright tormented Casper such that he could display his immense talents only in small groups. Once or twice, he attempted to sit in at the local jazz club called The Zanzi-Bar. But in each instance, he completely froze up and could manage not even a single note. Not long after these disappointing setbacks, Casper started receiving regular visits from Mr. Ellis Relic, another Philadelphia musician of somewhat ill repute. The last time his widow saw Casper alive, he and Ellis were deep in heated discussion, pacing about the Phoenixville property. Some hours later, she stumbled onto his body far behind the house in a shallow grave. There were peculiar markings all around and evidence of a fire. Positioned on either side of the grave, the lifeless bodies of a fox and a doe lay eviscerated. From within Casper’s mouth, a black bat emerged and took wing as responders were first investigating the scene. The coroner discovered three small wounds on the back of Casper’s head during the initial autopsy. He believed these strange wounds were likely the cause of death. However, he could run no further tests as the body curiously went missing or was misplaced by the morgue shortly thereafter. Despite a few red herrings, Casper Afflerbach’s body was never located again with any certainty. I questioned Ellis Relic at his gloomy home in Old City. An unfamiliar sense of dread I hadn’t before felt loomed over me for the entire duration. They called the man ‘Fingerz’. He certainly filled me with unease. Ellis Relic, himself, was an elite jazz pianist in Philadelphia and said he and Casper struck up a friendship in recent months. He saw himself as something of a mentor to the German immigrant. Ellis Relic confided to me that Casper’s mind had become quite unwell of late, with the poor musician loathing himself for his inability to perform. I remember Ellis telling me, “Cas, as brilliant as he was, just had no stomach for red-light time.” Relic said the last time they spoke, Casper was broken and begged him for help. Ellis told me that, out of pity, he was driven to extend an offer; an attempt to ease Casper’s mind. He said he could grant Casper the ‘heart of a performer’, but that the price would be heavy. He said the terrible price was ‘the sum total of all your time and talents.’ Those words made Casper draw back in fear, and he promptly declined the offer. Mr. Relic said he then graciously reached out to Casper and kissed him 'lovingly' three times before bidding farewell and leaving him by the potter’s field behind his home, perhaps emotionally racked but certainly alive. Frustratingly, when I asked Mr. Relic to elaborate on the nature of his offer, he most sincerely proclaimed that he had no earthly idea what he meant or what could have compelled him to say that to Casper Afflerbach. And worse, he swore he had only remembered that part just then, as he was telling me. It was soon after that the Afflerbach body disappeared from the morgue. A couple of years later, after an infamous performance, Ellis Relic, too, vanished without a trace. Numerous and naïve are those who, to this day, swear Ellis Relic performed in those final years with the reanimated corpse of Casper Afflerbach. But neither myself nor the PPD could ever entertain such nonsense.
That damned case only grew colder and colder as time went on. The Afflerbach dossier sat on my desk mocking me, unsolved and unresolved, for years. But, it merely came to be an inauspicious start to an otherwise illustrious career with the PPD’s Detective's Office. In 1969, I called it a career. The PPD gifted me a golden and gleaming watch for my twenty-plus years of service. In the spring of 1971, detectives arrived at my home in Abington, Pa seeking my help. Again, the name of a man I once questioned as a prime suspect in the cold Afflerbach case was tied to a new piece of evidence; to a puzzling story and another body in the morgue. Feeling again that distinct sense of dread wash over me as it had twenty years before, I knew I seriously should prepare myself for what was to come. The following document is what they presented to me that day...(In the years since that meeting, I’ve gathered information and kept track of the primary witnesses for this grim case. I’ve attached everything pertinent to the end of the document. Compiling this information was done merely as the silly pastime of an ex-cop. Some old detective habits are, indeed, very slow-to-die)-R.M.
REQUIES AETERNA PRO MULTIS FIDELIUM EGRESSUS
BY: ray palmer
Allow me to read this with you...
I
I never came close to replicating the musical piece of all pieces. I know that, now, for sure. Never a single correct phrase. Some of us fellas who were there that night, those of us still around, had shamelessly gotten together from time to time, motivated and gullibly reassured that a few more hours of collaboration would yield the secret. But none of us could ever agree on a thing. Nothing! Imagine that, among a group of seasoned pros. All our collective musical prowess—with enough ear training between us to account for ten lifetimes!—amounted to precisely shit. Frustration always ended the collaborative efforts within an hour and only served to put taut strains on old, shaky friendships. I never saw any of those guys again. But I’m sure they remained just as bitter and apathetic as I did. In all honesty, nothing good had ever come of it. Hearing the mystical symphony had only given me stress, anger, and disillusionment. Only the experience itself was retained. The music... The feeling! If I could live it all again, even knowing everything now, I think I’d still choose to hear it. For it was truly mesmerizing. I certainly can’t imagine ever refusing, and still would pity any version of myself who could. In March 1951, I first heard it, and scarcely a moment thereafter ever went by without the thought of it reemerging. Nothing was the same for me after that night. I was cast into a dull and sheenless world when the villainous pianist, Ellis Fingerz Relic, unleashed his audible evil in Philadelphia, though supremely beautiful, it was. Beautiful! Regarding art of this heavenly sort, the word beautiful encapsulates the vast insufficiency of language. God, how can I describe the indescribable? How could one ever articulate paradise with mere words? That night, the music echoing in that old dance hall was glorious and gutting; utterly original and arresting. I experienced the moment entirely entranced in shock and awe. It was the great binding and loosing of souls. The piece was infinite pain by way of absolute pleasure. It was the hangman’s ornately braided noose, so lavish that those condemned turn impatient to feel the rope upon their soft throats. Authentic joy gushes free from within as it tightens around their necks and snuffs out the soul. Once unbound, whatever it was, proved to be the dagger that filleted my life's passion and tolled the death knell of my music career. It wouldn't be until decades later, when Fingerz Relic finally died, that I would be given a chance to rouse my long-suffocated soul to those heights once more.
*Actual Police PhotographsII
I wasn’t the only one there, of course. Many of the Philly greats were at the Zanzi-Bar that night; three-fifths of The Flagship, alone! They saw it, too. Surely, they heard something! And the following sunrise found us all among the greats no longer. We were reduced to mere shells of our former selves. Men who had once been publicly revered and lauded as musical prodigies. Genius players who were truly imbued with innovation and brash artistry. We were the best around; the Flagship.
The Flagship was basically a top-tier quintet, kind of like a city-wide all-star band. We were the five musicians who represented the best of Philly, and we showed the city what it meant to play in the pocket. National acts would often run their tours through Philly’s clubs and venues. And the close-fisted record labels funding them, rather than enduring the expenses of the main act’s typical supporting band, would instead hire the strongest local players for accompaniment. The go-between for these coveted gigs was a longtime Philly booking agent named Juan Hector Rojas, we called him “Cookie”. The guy was a square, but he was alright. He was a failed flugelhornist who maintained relevance only for those lofty national connections he had made. These ties propelled Rojas in his managerial career and ultimately granted him final say over the members of the Flagship. It was mostly on the level, though. Guys would battle it out at the Z-bar in those days, and Cookie Rojas let the playing speak for itself. To the dismay of Ellis Relic, I had steadily fattened my purse and led the Flagship from behind the piano for over six years before that night. Yet afterward, I'm afraid there was no longer a single innovative note left in all of my catalog. I had once been Willy the goddamn heir! But Christ, the absolute piss I produced while woefully seated at the piano after that night. I swear I could feel the spirit of Big King Will turning in his grave. In humiliation, I sought the solace of sparing the living and the dead from the remnants of my once considerable talents. No one bothered thanking me, but you’re welcome.
III
I have mentioned my pedestrian attempts at figuring out the metaphysical musical piece by memory. Of course, our sessions at the Z-bar that night were being recorded, just as they always were. Such musical heroics were so common at the Zanzi-Bar in those days that two Philly jazz stations had set up shop in the club and recorded every sound produced in that joint. Yet, on that night, for the first time in years, both recording boards failed just as Fingerz began. Afterward, the late-night crowd, incensed by the dramatic and singular performance, almost at once began clamoring for the recordings but were crushed by the apparent malfunction. Many in the crowd took the news, and the performance itself, as overwhelming and emotionally paralyzing. Some fainted, and they wept in droves. Relic, too, was all shaken up when he finished. He appeared to not be able to hold his head up and was so drunk or dazed that he nearly passed out coming off stage. When the whole scene regained a bit of composure and sanity, they pressed Ellis about what he had played. He stayed mostly quiet, though, and wouldn't give the crowd much. Finally, someone shouted, “Hundred bucks to play it for us again, Fingerz!”
“Christ, no, let it be over!” Relic said with disgust. “It exists, for better or worse. Let that be enough. And may it ease the torment of my dark lineage.” A strange grin flashed on his face and instantly dissipated. “And it does... exist… doesn't it? And God, how stellar! What timeless beauty!! And no one may play it again! No one may call on it!! It’s mine.. and it was for this night alone!! It’ll be on me!! Ellis Fingerz Relic!! Not Monk, Bud, or Willy the heir. But don't ask me for a reprise! I couldn't replay it or scrawl out even a single measure if you offered me a million bucks. There are no notes to write, no directions to follow. It was you! Your heart’s desires! The Pyramids merely gifted you a free write on the piano!”
“What ya call it?” Shouted someone in the crowd. ”Pyramids?”
“A free write,” Relic said, cutting him off. “That’s what my treacherous grandfather always said… always told me.. and he wou... woul..…would repeat it incessantly after dementia finally spoiled his mind. He’d stare at me through milk eyes and say, ‘A free write, ya hear? Nothing more, boy, but using pitch and pace in lieu of pen and parchment.’” Fingerz messed up his face a bit to imitate his grandfather. Then, just after, his grin returned, and this time stayed put. “I know this won't mean a thing to any of you, but tonight I played The Pyramids perfectly for the first time in my life. Right now, those words will reach your ears in vain, but what they represent, no one here shall ever forget. As for what came after.. it was none of my design. The rest was you.”
Next, Relic briskly exited the stunned-silent room through the crash bar fire doors in the back of the club. He wandered off into the misty haze of the night. And by all accounts, he was never spotted anywhere in town again. His family home in Old City quickly fell into disrepair, and Ellis vanished... was just gone. Everyone expected the swift news of Relic’s demise and wondered if the evil of his looming ghost would soon appear. But nothing ever came. It would be another twenty years until Fingerz truly became a hostile revenant, a foul ghost loose in the spirit realm. Yet, I feared, even after all those years, he’d still set his vile sights on me.
IV
I say again: I came to view the music that shattered my entire reality as utterly unattainable. After years of futile attempts, I gave up on that quest. I came to regard my memory of it as less than reliable. And I thought, So be it. I was barely bothered by it anymore. I suppose it was a small gift. No, in those days, I was haunted by the last musical phrases that penetrated my ears prior to that supernal movement, what Relic called The Pyramids. For, while it too was a bizarre mixture of craft and chaos, it was infinitely easier to recall. It featured an array of diminished triads arpeggiated in whole-tone phrasing and was flecked with dashes of chromaticism and wild leaps of interval. Adding to all this was the most extraordinary and counterintuitive rhythmic pattern that’s ever come upon me.. OVERTOOK ME! It was four measures of alien music that were astonishing in their own right, and this, only just the precursor to perfection; merely the primer before the paragon. But that was the piece of sheet music that strangely appeared at my doorstep on what was my final night. It was on the same stormy night that Relic croaked, you see. Only hours later, the dark box arrived. It seemed that while the daemon-aided artist was breathing his last, he decided that, without a son or a family heir of his own, he’d will his most prized musical possession to me, the next best “heir”, his long-time superior and rival.
V
Before rising to fame and infamy, Relic’s fledgling music career was already littered with peculiarities. First off, he traveled and regularly performed with an unknown ragtag band of ghouls! They could play, but each one was more hideous than the last. His bass player, who Relic only referred to as Stretch, literally looked like a half-dead Frankenstein, his squared head slouched over on stage as he played his double bass. I never heard any of them speak a single word. It was as if Ellis was their owner and spoke for them. Relic often performed for hours on stage with a twisted grin tattooed and unchanged on his gaunt face. He and his creep show band seemed to never tire. No less strange, Ellis would lead his band in a “prayer” with a ritualistic drink and libation prior to their shows. Five shots of absinthe were always requested from the bar, to which Fingerz added one drop of thick red ooze from a worn leather flask he concealed in his breast pocket.
The bars never loved Relic’s crew or his weird tendencies. The most irredeemable act Fingerz was detestably known for was the bird. One night at the Z-Bar, Relic and his unsightly band were particularly hot. Ellis was honestly ripping the roof off the joint, and all with that immovable plastic expression on his face like a mask. During the third tune, as Ellis took a solo before the coda, a majestic raven rose above the crowd, gliding to the stage from the back of the club. The imagery was so far on-the-nose that I swore it was some lame part of Relic’s act. I mean, a ‘ghastly grim and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore’, soaring right up to the most occult musician that’s ever lived? But suddenly, in the next moment, the bird viciously attacked Ellis, pecking at his face and cawing yelps of war and madness. Fingerz endured a short but real punishment from that raven, yet remained totally unmoved. He absorbed the thrashing with the reaction of a corpse. Then, with sharp dexterity, Relic abruptly snatched the bird out of the air with his left hand while his right never stopped ad-libbing on the piano. He caught the fowl by its throat while simultaneously directing his undead-looking band to continue. “Tag the changes!” Fingerz commanded. His face leaked from the severe wounds of beak and talon, as Relic calmly turned toward the back of the stage, then violently stuffed the large bird's twitching body into his fishbowl-style tip jar. His band never missed a beat and vamped on as Ellis closed the attached lid tight. In the next instant, Fingerz returned to playing as if nothing had occurred. He restored his unnerving and frozen visage as before, but now with the crimson addition of his uncleared and leaking wounds. Relic bled, the crowd gasped, and all the monsters in the band grinned hideously. Needless to say, they brought the house down during their finale.
If all that wasn't odd enough, for the next year straight, Fingerz routinely prepped for his shows by cracking open that sealed jar and huffing the fumes of the raven’s trapped corpse, weeks and months dead and decaying. In the time leading up to the unforgettable night, Relic was seldom seen without his darkening putrid glass jar in tow; the stench, even through the fastened lid, was almost unbearable. But Fingerz could be induced, neither by threat nor by plea, to throw off this disgusting and macabre practice; this habitual need of his.
VI
A couple of the boys came to me one night, pressing me, as someone Relic looked up to and a fellow pianist, to try talking some sense into the unhinged musician. The whole thing made my damn stomach turn, but they talked me into it. I made my way to the backstage area of the Z-bar and found Fingerz alone in the green room. He was cradling the black jar in..…
...(missing section)...
…..really set the world on fire, Will,” Fingerz said with thick sarcasm. “Climbed all the way to the top of the big leagues. All the way to the deepest po.. pock.. pocket of the Philly jazz scene; The Flagship! Maybe Cookie Rojas will put you up for accompanying player of the year. A crowning achievement, really. The King mighta actually been proud of ya, huh? But… probably not. The old King was never quite doting on his baby boy, was he? But lemme ask ya Will, whatever happened to your band? Haven’t seen a flier in quite some time. You’re so concerned about my well-being? Questioning my darkness!? But what about you, Will!? Why are you still so clad in darkness? Still cloaked in the massive shadow of your big, bad, dead daddy? Big King Will left us over ten years ago, yeah? But you’re still just Willy the HEIR. Christ, what the fuck do you know about darkness!? When are you finally gonna rise up, Herrit..…
...(missing section)...
……...left the noxious fumes of that room so livid I was shaking. I was more convinced than ever of Relic’s insanity. I’d certainly thrown in the towel on possibly helping Fingerz at that moment.
And I was not alone. Ellis Relic lost a ton of work because of those regrettable oddities in the months leading up to the March 11th show. Fingerz became a pariah. Half of the city of brotherly love was disgusted by his deranged lunacy while the other half intensely feared him. Largely cast aside, Ellis became further introverted and isolated in his gloomy ancestral home on DeLancey street in Old City. A house of horrors, no doubt. The Relics were known to travel down the darkest of roads. Ellis surely did in those final months. He’d lost it! Detached from reality, his mind recoiled into the recesses of his dark inherited dispositions. And he took us all with him. All the poor souls there, at the Z-Bar that night, were gifted an impossible glimpse of the heavens. And thereby, we all found hell.
*Actual Police PhotographsVII
On the night I made my ascent, I hadn’t seen or heard from Ellis Relic in almost twenty years. Amid the storming darkness, I could have sworn I’d heard a single knock on my front door at around three in the morning. I was awake but was unconvinced. I didn't immediately check. But, some minutes later, I threw an eye up to the peephole, and that's when I first saw what had been left for me: a dark and strange wooden box. I knew instantly that it came from Fingerz.
Now, I am tempted merely to plow ahead, but I would truly be remiss, not to mention, just once, the lavish decadence of the handcrafted hexagonal box. It was tediously scorched and burned on all sides in etches of vast and ancient battle scenes. Quite detailed and gory, in fact. It was stellar; loved and crafted with what can only be described as a Lovecraftian ghoulish grace. The artistry upon the lid of the box depicted a large crowd; cloaked, hooded, and bowing in worship to a great pyramid.
I suddenly felt a tinge of panic and for the first time, I glanced up from the chthonic box and scanned the street from my doorway. There was nothing to be seen, but I knew something was watching. I could feel its gaze like never before. Something needed to make sure that I accepted Ellis’ bequest and, by doing so, my fate in this tale. With a physical shiver, I brought the box inside and locked the door.
In the front room, I unfastened the brass clasps on the wooden lid and opened the box to find a small piece of parchment lain within, glowering back at me as if I’d disturbed its slumber. God, it looked old! I'm no expert, but I'd say it was thousands of years old. Across the top was written,
O TEMPUS TUUM PYRAMIDUM
(O TIME THY PYRAMIDS)
The Pyramids, I thought.
The second title, written in English and clearly in a different hand, seemed recent only by comparison. It was likely added to the sheet music sometime in the last few centuries. Perhaps written by another miserable Relic. Perhaps at the same time that its hexagonal casket was being framed and crafted. I imagined the shadowy figure of one of Ellis’ ancestors crouching over his work in some medieval castle’s dank crypt.
Below the titles was a four-measure aria, written in classical grand staff and in line with all the idiosyncrasies found in ancient chamber music of the old world. It must have been from the very advent of composition... of music... history.. time. The ink was still pitch black on the crackling vellum.
What is this evil? I want no part of your dark games, Relic. I’ll never play it..
VIII
Attached to the inside of the lid was a wax-sealed envelope which pronounced in dark calligraphy,
Mr. William Candler Herrit VIII
While breaking the seal, I felt another chill cut through me like in the doorway, and just then - Bang - I heard a similar noise as I did before, this time on the front window. And this time, louder, undeniable. I was already shaken up by the arrival of the box and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the startling thud. In a fog, I clenched my eyes shut and spent a short time trying to convince myself that I was just hearing things. I had been cursed by the actions of Ellis Relic for nearly twenty years. He’d taken everything from me; stripped me of the music... the only thing I’d ever truly loved. Hadn’t I suffered enough? Wracked with fear, I intensely tried to wish it all away. But, it was no good. I set the unopened envelope down while drowning in anxiety, slipped my feet into some bed shoes, and nervously shot out my front door to investigate.
Outside, on the lawn, a large dead falcon was slumped on the grass under my window. I was instantly stunned by the size of this creature. The thing’s sprawled out wingspan was tremendous. Its head was crushed and ground to a nub.. gone! The bird appeared to have, full-speed, flown directly into my bay window. I instantly thought of Relic’s putrid raven and vomited on the ground. That sickness was arresting; thick and repulsive. And, black as that evil raven’s dark plumage. As I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, my downcast eyes shifted back to the falcon. I was horrified to see that the bird’s miserable form was somehow replaced with the grisly decapitated head of Ellis Fingerz Relic. Besides the lack of body, Fingerz looked just like he did on that night twenty years before. His bloody, sawn-off face was fixed into that same leering grin as when he performed. But it was his eyes! His burning eyes gripped my soul with darkness and, thunderstricken, I shrieked in terror. Then I saw a jarring blackness rise up and slam into my world. It seemed to barrel into me with the force of a million molten moons, but made not even the slightest whisper.
IX
The next thing I knew I awoke, lying beside the dead falcon, facedown in the pool of my own dark bile. The front door was still open, and I had no idea how long I’d been out. I was suddenly lifted to my feet. With no intent or agency of my own, I was chauffeured through my front yard by some invisible force. I looked down and marveled at the tips of my slippers grazing the grass upon which I floated and noticed several new dead birds also strewn out on the lawn. The sky was speckled twilight-lavender amidst the incipient sunrise as I reached the doorway. A beam of light cracked through the clouds and illuminated my front room. Relic’s letter to me, now removed from its envelope, was slowly unfolding of its own accord upon the table. I saw, even from a distance, that it simply read,
Arise, Willy the Heir
*Actual Police Photgraphs
Then I saw it, propped up on the music stand of my father’s old spinet piano—which adorned the front room ever since his own father bought it for him at the turn of the century—the piece finally caught the glint of morning, and gleamed forth. The Pyramids sat, perched at the piano’s pinnacle, pleading to be played and performed. The preternatural inertia beckoned me to the piano and sat me down in front of the key bed. The inky notes on the old paper seemed to drip down the page like rivulets of blood as I began to play.
It was that same alien music that Relic played all those years before. The Pyramids! At the end of the first measure, I felt a serenity come over me like twenty years of suppressed joy was released all at once. The music produced by my own hands once again sounded... beautiful. Tears streamed from my eyes as I felt true happiness for the first time in decades. The massive weight of everything I’d ever cherished came crashing upon my psyche at that moment. And I’d never felt more love.
It was an overwhelming rapture of supreme emotion.
Soon, I came to the end of the fourth measure, still, I had exerted little or no mental intent to have moved at all since I awoke on the lawn. As the ultimate note and its sympathetic tones rang out, I watched in amazement as the keys appeared to liquefy beneath my hands. My hands, themselves, then took on a strange hazy unreality. They appeared to be vibrating at an unfathomable speed, while at the same time, they looked to embody complete stillness. Then, cutting through an intensifying white noise, I must have heard the vicious thumps of hundreds of more birds and creatures of the sky seemingly making their fatal impact all over the house’s exterior. Yet, at that moment, I discovered that I couldn't care less for kamikaze birds. My hands had stolen my total focus. I thought they might detach from my arms. The speed at which they soared and vibrated multiplied them endlessly, and the sight of my thousand hands was entrancing. Soon, the piano, the whole room, in fact, swirled and churned in this vibrancy until everything within my field of vision became blurred and mashed like an oil painting. I felt absolutely nothing... everything!
Then, like a dream, the sound softly danced back into existence. It was faint at first, but unmistakable. It was the musical piece of all pieces... the mystical symphony... God.
X
I found myself floating among an angel throng, blinded by their brilliance. They were all indescribable and disgusting, but unquestionably divine. The Almighty Creator loomed centered on a golden and gleaming throne. It sloughed over to me in a hideous fashion. With outstretched suction-cupped tentacles, It tightly embraced me with such sweetness that I felt I was a babe clutched close to his mother’s breast. The god addressed me in a language that was the musical piece unleashed at the Z-bar in ‘51. It was the unattainable music that came after Relic flawlessly played The Pyramids. I wondered if Fingerz had been brought there on that night, too. But, just as soon as I thought it, I instantly knew he had not.
The god informed me that all divine beings spoke in a language that primitively resembled what humans called music. It professed that all those who heard the speech of a god experienced their own unique musical motif. Even if the messages given were universally the same, all would hear something different. It informed me that The Pyramids was less of a musical piece and more like an inter-dimensional key. I asked how such a key could have ever come into existence.
“Villainy,” It sharply replied. (Here, I shall quote the god, but it is merely a translation. The sounds produced would more accurately be described as numerous sine waves of varying pitch, wavering just out and then back into perfect intervals, producing piercing vibrations that shook the energy of my being to its core. STILL, never more clearly or more firmly has an idea been conveyed)
“At the dawn of time,” said the god, “there lived a black raven-goddess called Asenath. She was an Ancient. Restless and bored with immortality, Asenath resolved to concentrate and imprison her unending grief. She spent eons attempting to ensnare her melodious scream in a labyrinth ruled by meter, and composed of both sound waves and silence; of things and nothings; ons and offs. She bound fourteen fractions of her cawing scream into fourteen great pyramids that were made of time itself. Through the goddess’ divine meddling, it was one of those pyramids, containing one-fourteenth of her godly wail, that manifested in your reality as the musical piece, O Time Thy Pyramids. I am sorry it made its way to you, my child. Such things are not meant to be.”
I stared up at my appalling creator with tears in my eyes. Its alien features broke like a doting father. It said, “Fear not, my son. If you so desire, you shall return to that darkness... no more.”
My heart swelled. And once again, I was brought into the folds of the god’s overwhelming embrace. I felt infinite sadness...…infinite wonder... the worry of the infinite universe fade.. and fade... then shift into unbridled bliss, eternal.
- William Herrit, The King
*Actual Police Photographs
TO CODA ⫸⫸
⫸⫸ 𝄌 Notable Attendees at The Zanzi-bar,
March 11th, 1951
(Info taken from Philadelphia PD and *Pocono Summit PD annual reports, filed 12/17/51, 12/19/57, *12/15/61, 12/21/71)
Milton “Hazmat” Hargraves (1/23/1927 - 9/14/1951)
Trumpeter for Flagship • Awarded Bop Player of the Year at 22years old (‘49) • Leapt from the nineteenth floor of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel on Broad Street, just six months after March 11, 1951.
Freddie “Bronze” Bozeman (5/5/1927 - 3/18/1951)
Drummer for Flagship • Died from a heroin overdose on March 18, 1951, one week after hearing the piece at the Z-Bar.
Charles “Shrapnel” Sharpton (9/11/1924 - 6/11/1951)
Respected bass player in the Philly scene • Murdered his wife and newborn baby daughter with an ice pick before shooting himself in the head. It was three months to the day after the infamous night at the Z-Bar.
Juan Hector “Cookie” Rojas (11/29/1903 - 3/29/1957)
Influential manager and booking agent in Philly • Divorced his wife, abandoned his children, and cut all ties within six months of March 11th. He lived another six years until he died of stomach cancer in ‘57.
Nadine “Billie Flapps” Nightingale (12/25/1930 - 10/31/1961)
Legendary jazz singer • On Halloween night 1961, “Billie Flapps” reportedly rode her horse, Ariel, off a cliff in the Pocono Mt. and fell to her death. She was found with “FINGERZ” gouged into her arm with either a blade or her nails. Her horse was found nearly seventy yards away. Reports state that its left eye had been freshly plucked, and the stallion was viciously gelded just prior to death.
William “Willy the Heir” Candler Herrit VIII (3/15/1921 - 2/14/1971)
Pianist for Flagship • Lived another twenty years after the events on March 11th, but never played piano publicly again • Found dead in his living room, sprawled out on his father’s spinet piano. A hideous orgasmic expression was fixed on his long-tortured face and forced his viewing to remain closed casket. This handwritten manuscript was discovered underneath his body, on the piano’s key bed. Despite various events within this written work being proven true, no trace of any ancient sheet music or black hexagonal box was ever found. The police report states that there were, however, hundreds of dead falcons, ravens, and eagles strewn all throughout the Herrit property.
Ellis “Fingerz” Relic (3/16/1922 - 2/13/1971)
Not seen again in public after 3/11/51
Cause of Death:?
THE MISERABLE & THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED
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Bronze Bozeman
Big King Will Herrit (WCH VII)
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Shrapnel Sharpton
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Hazmat Hargraves
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Cookie Rojas
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Billie Flapps
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Ellis Fingerz Relic
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Willy the Heir Herrit (WCH VIII)
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THE MISERABLE & THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED -- Bronze Bozeman Big King Will Herrit (WCH VII) -- Shrapnel Sharpton -- Hazmat Hargraves -- Cookie Rojas -- Billie Flapps -- Ellis Fingerz Relic -- Willy the Heir Herrit (WCH VIII) --
