The Ballad of Agamemnon, Part One

         “Goddammit Agamemnon, wake up.”
         I woke. A ray of light shone in from the small barred window, but for a moment after opening my eyes, I didn’t notice its illumination. For that moment I saw where I had once slept, on a king-size bed with satin sheets, royal courtesan next to me, in a bedroom large enough to be a house itself, in a lavish neo-Gothic palace where I had lived as the king I should have been.
         Then I blinked and came back to Reality, a dingy converted bathroom big enough for only a rank-smelling cot and a suitcase containing what remained of my material possessions, with a man banging on its door. Slowly I sat up, rubbing my eyes, expecting the door’s rusty hinges to finally give way.
         “Unlock the door.”
         “Fuck you.”
         I fell back into bed (greasy, creaky bed) and contemplated various forms of retribution to mete out to Hieronymus after arising and completing my usual morning ablutions--until I remembered what happened the last time I confronted him; it was a battle not worth fighting. I unlocked the door and sat back on my cot, being careful not to lean back too far (for I was afraid of making any sort of contact with the brown, oily walls).
         Hieronymus walked in, bony fingers scratching at the liver spots on his balding pate. His wrinkled face contorted in a contemptuous scowl, his default facial expression. He crossed his arms.
         “Agamemnon,” he began, voice firm but controlled, “you need to take better care of your friend.”
         “You mean Jacques?”
         “Do you know where he was last night? What he was doing?”
         I looked around the room. “Well, he isn’t here right now, so… I’m guessing he left.”
         “Yes. Come and see what he did in the living room.”
         I rubbed crust from my eyes. “Can’t this wait till morning?”
         “It is morning.” His eyes were crust-free and even angrier.
         The clock said it was 11:30 AM. I never trusted that thing. “Go away, Jerry,” I said, “I’m tired.”
         Just as I was about to pick up where I left off before being rudely interrupted, Hieronymus grabbed me by the arm and, with surprising strength, lifted me from my bed. I protested, but followed him down the hall anyway, my only motive being to attend to this problem and return to sleep.
         Hieronymus walked quickly while I shuffled with my eyes closed. He stood in the center of the hideous room, arms akimbo, staring at me.
         “Well?”
         “Look at the floor,” he said.
         On the floor, in front of his feet, was a pile of shiny goo, gradually shifting from one bright color to the next. Looking at it effected in me a strange feeling of hopelessness and despair incommensurate with its bright colors.
         “Shit, is that all?” I rubbed my eyes again.
         “We discussed these things before you moved in, and I expect you to keep your promises.”
         “You were up, why couldn’t you take care of it? Cut me some slack here.”
         “Our deal was that you pull your own weight. Jacques is your responsibility.”
         As Hieronymus finished, the guilty party entered the room. He stood there, looking at the two of us with his little eyes. Hieronymus regarded him with contempt. Then again, he regards everything with contempt.
         “If you ever let something like this happen again,” Jerry said, “you’re gone.”
         “You know what? To hell with this.” I walked toward the front door. I didn’t care that I was still wearing only a T-shirt and jeans.
         “So that’s it? You’re just leaving?”
         “Damn right.” I whistled, and Jacques followed me. “I have bigger things to worry about than my dog’s magical shit. I‘m going to see Yggdrasil.”
         “You mean your whore?”
         “Go to hell.”
         I left. I would not return for a very long time, but Hieronymus was far from finished with me.

         “Aggie, there are few, if any, things you flat-out can’t do. However, if there’s one thing you simply shouldn’t do, it’s have sex with a laywoman. Trust me on this.”
         My father told me that long ago. And now, years later, I looked forward to finally ignoring that advice.
         Yggdrasil was not my first passion (I hesitate to say love, an emotion that seems as elusive to me as the philosopher’s stone was to the Western alchemists), but she was the first among the laity. I had recommended that we postpone sex under the pretense of religious chastity, or something; I don’t remember exactly. Thaddeus had never told me why I should avoid such relations, and I assumed that it was because the risk of spawning a half-royal half-lay bastard was too great to take. Since the Throne of McMahon was as good as abolished, I no longer saw the use in continuing to deny myself the carnal knowledge I had denied for so long.
         I called Yggdrasil from the phone at the lobby of the apartment building and told her to meet me there. When she did, I wasted neither time nor words.
         “Let’s fuck.”
         Though I couldn’t be sure, if the look on her face was any indication, she did not intend to consider the precise ramifications of what I had just said. Flightiness, thy name is woman.
         “Um… okay. But are you sure? What about the Code of the Order?”
         Right, that’s what I had said. “To hell with those holier-than-thou assholes. Picture it: you, me, bodies twisted, spirits fused, minds merged.” Chicks eat this shit up. “How does that sound to you?”
         “Well, great, sure, but--”
         “No, no ‘but.’ Don’t think. Life is too short to waste it by thinking. How’s your place?”
         “Well, okay. Be there at eight?”
         “No. Let’s go now.”
         “You mean right now?”
         “You heard me.”
         “Okay, I guess.”
         Ah, nary a second thought. I like them best that way.
         We went to her place, and there in the growing morning sunlight, we commenced the conflation of our souls. All of the things that were Agamemnon McMahon and Yggdrasil Calloway, all our knowledge, memories, thoughts, feelings, personalities, hopes, dreams, and fears became irrelevant for those three minutes, the only thing that mattered then being the savagely beautiful, harmoniously cacophonic cosmic maelstrom of energetic metaphysical interplay between our inextricably linked, mindless bodies.
         If any of that abstruse imagery went over your head, I mean we had sex.

         I woke up the next morning with a massive hangover. Which was odd, since I hadn’t imbibed at all yesterday. All I remember doing was being in flagrante delicto repeatedly with Yggdrasil at her house from about noon onward. She was a teetotaler, so I was quite sure I did not drink, but the feeling I had was definitely closer to a hangover than an ordinary headache. I decided some hair of the dog was what I needed, so I told Yggdrasil I was going to hit the bar down the street.
         But something else was wrong. I still don’t know exactly what happened, as my inexplicable illness worsened abruptly, reducing the clarity of my memory. As my disorientation and confusion increased, I remember my vision taking on a reddish hue. The walls looked like they were made of cheese (I don’t know how I came to that conclusion; maybe they were full of holes or something. I don’t remember.) The leaves of her potted plants grew faces, some angry, some dolorous, some cackling with malicious delight. The pictures on the walls spewed pus and bile that boiled once on the floor, and floor itself had become a soft quagmire that made walking difficult. Jacques barked, a hideous, mutated sound something like that of grinding metal. Things became less and less solid until they were but vague impressions of their former selves. I do not know what happened to me after that, for here I blacked out.

To Be Continued