My Kingdom Will Always Be At War-Chapter 4: Burn Like Death

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction' started by Skeletor, May 22, 2016.

  1. “And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him.”

    -Jack London Call of the Wild


    Screamfeather dervished about his hovel soaked in sweat and coated with the grime of 3 days without a bath. It was a sweltering mid-July pre-dawn morning in New Orleans. Scarcely any breeze blew off the still and black, gurgling Mississippi River...practically 100 feet over the mound of a levee from Screamfeather's back porch area. It wasn't a back porch proper...just a pebbly concrete slab with a few dying exotic cacti plants in sad plastic pots, and sloppy assemblage sculptures strewn about with no real sense of design-oriented aesthetic.

    Screamfeather called this area his sculpture garden. There were no real neighbors within nearly an acre or so. As such, he pretty much had this barren grass land area to himself...indeed even a patch of river to himself...save the trespasses of a gang of young, housing project hoodlums swaggering through to fight their pits down by the river.

    He cranked up his 2800 BTU rusted-out window-unit air conditioner to the max, but the machine was a relic. The machine wheezed as its clanking fan produced hot air. Screamfeather also ran the air conditioner during the winter as a heater. On nights like these- he'd usually tack up a bag of ice in front of the blower, but on this night he lacked the wherewithal to pick up a bag of ice. He figured he might as well give the AC a try though. At one point the year before, he could have sworn that it worked a couple of days...blowing cool, crisp air. Screamfeather called the machine Hal after the robot in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    “Hal...you a pal. Yeah you right. You gonna have to explode this clam shack before I get rid of you my old comrade. You've seen some things up in here. Yes indeed!”

    Screamfeather typically spoke in private or to unwitting northerners in a full-bore imitation of a Yat New Orleanian native accent. Otherwise, he only put it to subtle use. It was actually decent enough of a pantomime to fool most New Orleanians that he was born and bred amongst them.

    Screamfeather blasted the air conditioner in his bedroom where Stalin, a two-year old Caucasian Ovarchka, tried vainly to take refuge from the heat and from Screamfeather's erratic herky-jerk motions and war whoops. For Screamfeather was working on painting a large canvas. He was also in a sour mood. An aggressive mood. He'd snorted a few bumps of bad cocaine earlier that night and was coming down off a dirtbag high.

    Even in a less hostile frame of mind, Screamfeather's painting was a highly physical affair. Screamfeather prided himself on this. He made elaborate mention on his process in the only semi-publicized remarks on record. They were made in an obscure webzine devoted to local underground artists....the webzine didn't attract much traffic and went defunct after the Tulane graduate that ran it moved back to Connecticut to get a real job...but nevertheless, it was a real highlight to Screamfeather that his portion of the profile of the 7 underground artists featured was in his estimation...the most interesting.

    He believed he came off in the profile as a Rabelaisian art hero with a genius vast as the cosmos compared to the other 6 charlatans. The scene of bad New Orleans artists was much larger then the scene of decent/viable New Orleans artists, but it was still small enough. As a result, he'd encountered all these artists from time to time with varying degrees of familiarity. He even considered a few friends, but he did not respect any of them. He felt their art was pedestrian and lacked the true obsessive mania that was made explicit in even his most inferior of works.

    Screamfeather was secretly delighted to discuss the prospect of being featured in the college kid's webzine. In his exuberance, he didn't fully understand that the webzine article wasn't fully devoted to him. The college kid...Screamfeather never bothered to learn the webzine publisher/writer's name. He just kept on referring to him to as “this college kid that is writing an extensive profile on me.”

    Screamfeather convinced himself that the college kid would become a sort of Boswell to his Johnson. There would also be an accompanying portrait of the artist on the site. For this...Screamfeather posed himself in the small courtyard of his photographer buddy, Jon Traviesa's French Quarter home. The backdrop was some of the artful detritus collected by the bohemian photographer. It included an antique phone booth and a decayed centaur carousel figure. Dissimilar to Screamfeather's “back porch”...Jon Traviesa's object d'art were tastefully laid out with a thoughtful design.

    Screamfeather bought some pig tripe from Robert's grocery store and duct taped it all over his face. He mocked a scream for the shot and he was very proud of the result at the time. He especially liked how his neck veins and muscles were accentuated. He also thought that he kind of looked like “Neal Cassady at his Beatnik Saint apogee with a shot of Chtulhu thrown in for good measure” ...as he described it to himself.

    This photograph would later appear in a book of portraits of New Orleanian bohemians post-Katrina. Jon Traviesa's works all resonated with a kind of authenticity in which even the most contrived of the bohemians appeared beautifully all to human and real. Ecce Homo. They permitted themselves to be and become part of that instance in time, part of destiny.

    Screamfeather's portrait was the one exception. It was the least subtle and Screamfeather sadly realized a few years later when viewing the photo... “It is like I'm trying to be the class clown, but I'm the 3rd or 4th funniest kid in 5th grade. And no matter what I do..No matter what I say. Nobody notices me except to briefly notice that I'm trying so hard to just be noticed with my bleating goatcall jests....and though infinitely more refined and expansive with my wit than my peers...absolutely lacking in timing and confidence of delivery. The memory of my selfness eroded into dust... My name forgotten and my few deeds and actions attributed to the collective memory of others.”

    The college kid offered to take the photo of Screamfeather himself, but Screamfeather insisted that he provide the photo shot by his photographer friend. The other artist photos were all fairly staid and quickly snapped by the college kid. The college kid was only a serviceable photographer, but as with the portraits of the bohemians, these photos all somehow better illuminated a certain, earnest striving toward their subjects' art. Screamfeather's portrait made a mockery of the webzine piece.

    To make a long story kind of shorter, Screamfeather launched into the following vulgar farrago on his art and process to the poor college kid who had to transcribe the recorded interview:

    “See...I guess I'm all about attacking my canvases...not in the manner of say some opportunistic cad like Pollock with his drippings...you know...in the way that I'm being all visceral and manly with the actual effort I'm exerting in making my paintings...and in fact I truly do get a good bit of violent calisthenics out of painting....there's I don't fully know how to explain it...but with my work there is a kind of old world savagery. It is like I am always present and lurking behind the scenes of the painting. It's 1693 and I'm stalking you in the alleyways of Turin. What I'm getting at...is my art is ultimately soul capture domination. Flaying. Because after I slay you...I flay you...I also slay and flay the spirit possessing me to do this thing called art. Slaying and flaying because I seek vengeance. I have been wronged since I was a little bitty infant...wronged by the demon wearing this corporal body as its shroud draped over my little boy body and soul. Possession! I battle it as hard as I can, but I can never resist. I could state a much more lofty goal to my art, or even be all casual and glib...tell you that my art is just a life medium to score babes..and on some levels it is...but at the bare essence...it's all about possession. I attempt exorcism with carnal tenebrism. I victimize the canvas with whatever art implements I find...crayons, watercolors, expensive oil paints I pilfered from the art supply store, kids finger paint sets, man brine, the blood of me and mine, the blood of vermin, feces, even my hollerins...like stabs of cold steel blades in hot muscle meat...I kind of think my better paintings are not so much paintings, but soul dominator traps. These superior works even trap in my hollering, my growls, my tears. They trap your soul. My soul. In my art...I don't know man...I guess I trap us both...and one of us is going to have to kill the other to get out of this trap...and let me tell you something Bruh Breaux Binks...it ain't going to be you.”

    “As such, you could say that there is a kind of shamanic brutal rite covenant I enter when I commit myself to a new canvas. I start to wardance. To the unattuned onlooker...I'm just some kook crackerjack all hopped up on some filthy bobcat pills...as I flail around...but to the true initiate of my vibe....I'm probably tapping into some deepcore collective unconsciousness fertility cult rhythm movements. It might be the former or it might be the later. I'm just always riding the Cobra Queen, man. I'm in line, because I purchased a ticket for the orgy parade. Better let me in, honky...or I'll flay you as I slow slay you like pit barbecue. The flay is always my foreplay...and by Jove!...you don't even want to know how evil and grimy I get with the actual dirty McGirty!”

    He went on quite a bit more in his artist's statement. The college kid expunged most of it. The many times Screamfeather would look at the website online, he would never notice that all the other artists were granted more of a give-and-take type dialogue, but this same opportunity was not afforded him. He did take note that his comments were pruned down quite a bit, but he chalked this up to the college kid feeling the need to share some space with some of the other artists. He felt like at any moment, the college kid would call him up and want to do another article. This time an article solely on him. Maybe the college kid would want to follow him around. Go to work with him on his Tuesday morning gig bartending at The Beachcomber, a pathetic old man alcoholic bar located in a bland almost suburban area of Upper Mid City. In truth, the college kid most likely regretted his decision to open up his site for Screamfeather's bloviating self-aggrandizement.


    Screamfeather's real name was Adam Revolte. He was 40 years old and had lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade. He had given himself the name Screamfeather in a vision quest right before moving to New Orleans. Screamfeather went camping for a week in the northern hills of Alabama right outside of Birmingham where he was born and had largely grown up. During this same vision quest, it dawned on Screamfeather that he should leave Birmingham and quit his job as the assistant manager of a failing GNC franchise.

    That night...his last night of vacation...he lit a road atlas of the United States aflame in the dying embers of his campfire. He decided that whatever city was left visible...he'd move to and start a new life. If the whole atlas burned to a crisp with no trace of a city, town or hamlet...then so be it. Screamfeather decided that with this solemn augury...he would just steam up his last tincture of coffee, wander off into the woods like an old beast...and die. So be it.

    As fortune would have it...New Orleans was the one page left..though all roads to it were singed and blackened to the point of annihilation.

    Screamfeather looked upon the city of New Orleans surrounded by the char of burnt crispy pages. He hurriedly packed up his rucksack. He hiked the 5 miles back from the campsite to his car at a breakneck gallop. He drove down to Birmingham, went into his bank and withdrew all his money. He left Birmingham behind without giving any notice to his landlord or to GNC that he would be gone and would never ever return.