The Dissolution of the Monarchy
by Joseph Coroniti
"One day Heckstall decided to start a party--an anti-monarchy party." Heckstall and company got a dozen kegs of beer, wore funny hats, and shouted, "Throw the blue-blooded bums out!"
1.
Heckstall never led his troops up San Juan Hill--or down. He incited no goose flesh among men of arms on Saint Crispin's day. There are no reports that he begged the leading of the vanguard at the knee-deep blood battle of Agincourt. Unlike JFK, Heckstall never disguised himself as a jelly donut and led his dear friends once more unto the breach of the Berlin wall. "Breach, smeach," he said. Yet, Heckstall's followers knew their leader had a heart of
gold and a fist most valiant. To a man--and woman--they were heard to say, "I kiss his dirty shoe, and from the heartstrings I love the lovely bully." In a word, the guy had what it
takes.
One day Heckstall decided to start a party--an anti-monarchy party. Heckstall and company got a dozen kegs of beer, wore funny hats, and shouted, "Throw the blue-blooded bums out!"
Heckstall met with his lieutenants in smoke-filled rooms and in damp basements devising the party's cunning plan to do away with the cruelty and injustice heaped upon working men and
women by the cruel and unjust royal family. "This family," said Heckstall, "will commit any atrocity to keep its collective ass on the throne and has so kept said throne warm for nearly three centuries."
Heckstall shouted to his thronging minions: "We can no longer tolerate the monarchy's free ride on the backs of the people. It's time to sell the crown jewels to pay for TB shots and
Jacuzzis. There comes a time in the course of human events when the meek shall inherit the wind. It's time to shout it from the ramparts: we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it--we're moving to the suburbs!"
The minions cheered: "'at a boy Heckstall! Long live Heckstall!" By now they were on their fifth keg of beer and most of the members were happy to wish long life to Heckstall, or anyone else who was footing the beer bill. Life is short.
Heckstall stood atop an empty beer keg and continued his homily: "There comes a time in the history of all great peoples--any people worth the price of a bespattered raccoon on the
highway of history--when the working class must rise up against the tyranny of the...that is to say, crawl out from under the well-polished boot of the oppressor, and (well, to put it succinctly, for the working man is nothing if not succinct as compared to the decadent, one might say mordant, even baroque, loquaciousness of these pompous blue bloods) shoot the fuckers!"
"Yay, hip-hip, way-to-go, 'at-a-boy Heckstall," cried the crowd. "Down with the monarchy!" Heckstall's chief lieutenant, Calvin, had just that moment returned with three more kegs.
One night shortly thereafter, at the winter palace, the Royals were fixing, or, of course, having fixed for them, their popcorn and beer and chocolate cake with royal-blue frosting. The whole lot of them were giggling in anticipation as Prince Freddy plugged in their brand new big-screen TV and Princess Hermione tore the shrink wrap off a fresh copy of Gone With the Wind. Just as the Princess was adjusting the tracking on the VCR and the rest of the royal family was fighting over who got the recliners, Heckstall and a few henchman
(sometimes referred to as Heckmen) stormed through the gates of the palace and surprised the hell out of the King, Queen, and all the fat little princes and princesses, not to mention all the royal cousins and aunts et al who had dropped by because their satellite dishes had mysteriously disappeared the night before.
"OK," said Heckstall, "the party's over. Would your Highnesses please all raise your ring encrusted hands into the air? I don't want to waste the people's tax money by shooting
you in your fat royal arms. The cost of ammunition these days...it just doesn't bear thinking about."
According to the Heckman who went on to publish a best-selling book on his long association
with Heckstall, up went twenty-five hands, eighty-seven costly rings, and God knows how many costly bracelets. Down came a shower of still warm devil's food cake, still fizzling Diet Coke, and a still greasy bushel of popcorn--the unpopped kernels bouncing toward Heckstall's
feet.
"What a mess," shouted Heckstall. "These people--I'm sorry--are such... slobs! There's just no other word for them. 'Divine right' my ass! If it be man's work, I will do it!" And with that, down came twenty-five hands, thirteen bodies, the aforesaid rings, and many other costly things.
All was quiet. You could hear a kernel drop. "Could it be," thought Heckstall, "that in one moment of revolutionary zeal, just a moment during a realpolitik meal, we have rescued our
Motherland-Fatherland? from the strangle hold of despotism and depravity? In one fell swoop we have eliminated the entire bevy? flock? dynasty? of divinely inspired couch potatoes? This is indeed a rare moment in the history of our beloved nation. Calvin, pass me a Coke would you? There's a good fellow."
(Only thirteen bodies came a tumblin' down? A brief historical footnote may be in order here. Prince Jeremy had lost an arm in a divinely inspired game of tug-of-war with the heir to
the Australian throne, a bodybuilder and surfing freak named Dick, usually referred to, by friends and foes alike, as Dukey Dick, or Dicky Duke--you can imagine the possibilities.)
"Their blood doesn't look so blue to me, Boss," said the skinny Heckman.
"Same old red shit," said Carlos, the fat Heckman. "Same's we see day in, day out." Carlos was eternally bored by death.
"OK, you plebes," shouted Heckstall, "let's have a little respect for the dead here. You, McShane, gather up those snacks and let's get out of here. The Royal Munchies--Mounties--whatever, will be here just as soon as they figure out how to get their photogenic horses through the doors.
"We're history in the making!" shouted Heckstall. "We're soon to be a legend in our own time. They'll be singing songs about us in the Berkeley quad for centuries to come. We have, I
think it only fair to say, turned the world order upside down, or, if I may be so bold, we have turned the world order right side up, having established the natural order of the universe, as God Almighty intended it. This blue scum had most foully denied the working men and women of the Fatherland their rights and baked appurtenances. I mean to say, the bastards ate all the cake. Fatherland? Motherland? We'll--I'll-have to decide this point, too. So many decisions, so little time..."
Heckstall went on in this vein until all the snack food had been gathered up in a large mail bag. They had brought enough bags for the remains of each of the royal family, but one of
the little princes must have been away at camp, or visiting a small planet somewhere. By
the time they had stuffed the not-now-so-blue-bloods into the bags and shipped them off to Malibu, where Heckstall had some underworld connections, there remained one small mail bag, as empty as a deflated sea lion.
"Great," thought Heckstall, "a hundred years from now people will read about the mysterious missing prince who survived the shoot-out at the Royal Corral as they munch on bagels n'
cream cheese and sip nicely on expensive French roast. This is an abomination of all
I've fought so hard for, and I'm not afraid to let the world know just how I feel. I refuse to be used as a tool of the bourgeoisie, the first cause of a mystery novel that titillates the yuppies as they huddle over their frothy cappuccino! "Yo! Mushmind," Heckstall commanded, "take three men and scour the countryside, shoot everybody in ruffles you can find. Burn every winter, spring, summer, and fall palace you stumble across. Climb every mountain. Wish upon every star. And don't even think of coming back without the head of that little prince! Oh, and one more thing. When you do find him, do not be taken in by the cute little bastard. If
he asks you in a sweet voice to draw a sheep for him, simply draw a box and stuff him (the prince, not the sheep) in it. Get it?"
"Got it, Boss."
"Good. Because the proposition is really quite simple: it's his head or yours."
"Got it, Boss."
"Good."
2.
As Heckstall stuffed his face with a fistful of chocolate cake, he looked about at the splendor of the palace: the great tapestries, the fine china, the Swiss clocks (twelve of them, each set to a different hour), and thought, "A body could get used to this
sort of life. In a way, I really can't blame these blue bloodies. To spend is human,
to squander divine.
"And when you come right down to it," Heckstall continued, "things weren't as bad as some have made them out to be. I mean, you had your odd hundred peasants dying of starvation and
frostbite every winter, but, in general, the overall fabric of society was kept from
unraveling. God knows what will happen now that the Royals have abdicated. And we always thought they were so responsible, sort of like mega-parents looking out, in a cozy feudal way, for the best interests of their children. You just never know with some people.
Without a monarchy: anarchy, chaos, confusion, the rich could get poorer, these ancient tapestries torn into welcome mats for the peasants' hovels. The poor could get richer. It's
enough to give you pause."
In short, Heckstall was starting to regret sending the Royals on their one-way cruise to Malibu. However, Heckstall was not a man to cry over spilt milk, or blood. It did, however,
really piss him off when anyone spilled cranberry juice on the white Persian carpet in the small study where he wrote his revolutionary pamphlets.
"Morons," he said, "these morons, these 'workers united,' they'll rush into the palace and spill their cranberry juice and cheap beer all over the rugs, tapestries, ancient parquet
floors... The country will be awash in an anarchic flood of egalitarianism and difficult food stains.
"Well, that's it then," Heckstall proclaimed to himself and the odd Royal dog sniffing about. "I will be the new--our fair country needs a new king. By the power invested in me by
virtue of having, let's just say succeeded the previous king, I hereby claim my crown,
my throne, my sacred honor!"
As luck would have it, a large delegation of tailors from the provincial capitals just happened to be passing by. They overheard the royal pronouncement and entered the
palace.
"Long live King Heckstall," they shouted. "Long live the king!" Many "Hurrahs" and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellows" reverberated off the ancient masonry, and there was much carrying on.
For example, the leaders of the large delegation of tailors who just happened to be
passing by lifted King Heckstall atop their shoulders and paraded through the streets of our fair capital.
Since it was four o'clock in the morning, and a fairly cold morning at that, there were only five or six people thronging the parade route as the new king and his entourage were whisked
by on their way to the cathedral for a quick Coronation. "Boy, this is great," thought King Heckstall. "Whoever would have thought that I, the youngest and only son of a Black Marketeer, would rise above the madding crowd to become an honest-to-goodness king? Won't dear ol' Dad be surprised when I have his ass hauled in for undermining the state by smuggling in overcoats from Hong Kong and passing them off as indigenous minks and foxes?"
At a reception after the coronation, King Heckstall addressed his subjects: "My lords, ladies, comrades, fellow countrymen, and worthless vermin. I come before you in a spirit of renewed hope. I certainly hope that I will be able to lower your taxes and that everybody will be able to afford a Volvo so that all the children of the kingdom will be safe from side impact collisions. And speaking of collisions, most of you probably have heard that our motherland? fatherland?--I've formed a blue ribbon committee to sort this one out--was on a collision course with a brand of so-called socialism that would have utterly destroyed your free spirit, your entrepreneurial courage, and your tax shelters. Throngs of immigrants would have stolen your canned goods while you were out working on collective farms for subsistence wages. Well, rest easy comrades--that is to say, fellow citizens--I have hanged the leaders and nipped
their traitorous scheme in the bud!"
The crowd roared. "Way to go Heckstall," cried out one bedraggled subject, who, incidentally, attended kindergarten with the king. The king later had his old school chum hanged for not
addressing him properly as King Heckstall. "A country without respect for its leaders is a country on the brink of disintegration," the king told Zeke, one of his most trusted advisors--so trusted, in fact, that Zeke lasted a full three years before being hanged for treason. Something the idiot advisor had said about the plight of the peasants who labored under heavy taxation and heavy snows. Even under King Heckstall, winter was a cold affair. "Ol' Zeke won't have to worry about shoveling out his driveway anymore," joked His Majesty.
The king concluded his speech before the multitudes: "The nasty types who so brutishly sent the previous dynasty packing have all been taken care of. One of Our first acts as king was
to speed up the gridlocked judicial system. We've abolished all those redundant appeals courts (the judges of those paper pushing courts are now usefully employed in the royal wardrobe department where their experience with ermine robes will be of some value to the state and its people) and dispatched, post haste, those regicidal maniacs to meet their maker.
"Well, that's about it for now, my children. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank a few folks. You know who you are. Without you I wouldn't be here today lording
it over the greatest country in this section of the galaxy. I would, however, like to
express my heart-felt thanks to my mother. Thanks Mom, you're the greatest!"
Mrs. Heckstall beamed. The audience rose to its feet.
"No more washing floors on your hands and knees, mother of mine. I've had the household steward order a brand new sponge mop with an extra durable sponge. So, Momzy, it's up off your knees to stand tall with your king."
"That's my boy," said the king's mom, "always doing what he can to make other people happy. This is the proudest moment of my life. Just think, a brand new sponge mop with an extra durable sponge!"
"Also," the king continued, "I'd like to thank Ricky, Fred, Harry, Ethel, Horace, Lucy, and Makepeace. Thanks guys. Without your help, we'd have been run over by a bunch of commie-pinko card-carrying ACLU'ers--a veritable army of free-thinking bleeding-heart liberals! They'd have come in the night, 'liberated' you from your hard-earned money and then, with your money, integrated the neighborhoods, bussed your kids to ghetto schools, and more or less destroyed civilization as we know it.
"Oh yeah, before I forget, there'll be a big bash for Our birthday--mine, that is. Complimentary sparkling wine for everybody. Lots of party hats and crackers and cheese. Now
you're all understandably excited about celebrating Our birthday, but to ensure the roads
remain safe after the party, it'll be a cash bar."
The crowd whined as one, "Cash bar?!?"
King Heckstall, like a father with an itch for the strap, shot a menacing look at the thirsty crowd, a look that quenched the driest thirst.
The king's speech was followed by cries of "Long live the king," and "Where's the beer, this keg's empty" and half-hearted cheers by those wearing glasses.
The Freemasons wanted to carry the king on their shoulders, but the king had other plans.
3.
On the anniversary of his coronation, King Heckstall confides in one of his Heckmen: "You know, Morris, this royalty business is getting on my nerves. Just constant pressure, one
decision after another. My subjects place in me their greatest hopes and national aspirations. I'm not the goddamn soccer team--I'm a man, a human being. I need a new vision, a new Minister of Public Affairs. I need a drink--and a few weeks in the sun wouldn't hurt.
Within the hour, the king is whisked away to a fabulous Club Med resort on Corsica. An old woman named Annie makes a solemn pledge to knit booties for the king's first born son. (She is unaware, along with most everybody else, that the king had his tubes tied, years earlier, when having an affair with the wife of a central European plumber.)
After a week of gambling and fine dining with the pretty women of Corsica, King Heckstall remains the victim of a vague ennui. The locals, as well as his entire retinue, can't understand what's got into His Royal Majesty. Indeed, the King has had the opportunity
to try many of the things he had always dreamt of. He eats caviar sandwiches with hot sauce, has unbridled sex with women who were only recently on billboards for expensive cognac. All of the women happily agree to any sexual demand he can dream up. They're not stupid. He begins to feel like a contortionist as he holds Emanuelle by the waist as she stands on her head. Before him, the fruits of his labor await his rough or gentle plucking. It's his game. He calls the shots. His whim is reality. The King drops Emanuelle on top of Natasha and shouts, "If anybody needs me for anything important--and I mean really important--I'll be out fishing. I need to clear my head. See you ladies later."
His Highness seizes a large bottle of cognac from Emanuelle and a small boat from a fisherman and makes his way to the sea. Living among sycophants and sex kittens--his own creations, his creatures--Heckstall needs to surround himself with something that will keep him from feeling so alone. "The ocean, at least, can rival my greatness."
It's a fine day for boating. Calm winds. The occasional seagull circles overhead. Heckstall breathes deeply and feels better immediately.
A fish jumps out of the water. The King looks overboard and sees the face of the murdered king staring at him from beneath the royal blue sea. The old king's eyes are dripping with
blood and King Heckstall hears the wind whispering to him, "Die Heckstall, Die, Son of a Black Marketeer and a Mongrel Bitch, Die."
"Wait just a minute," says the King, "I know this story. But I'm not going to let some dog-eared plot get the best of me, no sir, not after having made it this far."
The face of the murdered king then appears in the clouds. Heckstall notices a strong resemblance to Charlton Heston. King Heckstall shouts, "Fuck you and the cloud you came in on!" and makes his way, in a hurry, toward land.
Back at Club Med, the King notices the face of the murdered king shimmering at him from the punch bowl. "This is ridiculous," says King Heckstall to Calvin. "I am the king, and I will
remain king to the end of my days!"
"Perhaps those days are numbered, your Highness, if I may be so bold," says Calvin.
"You may not," says Heckstall, as he runs him through with his sword. "Just like the old days," thinks Heckstall, "when men were men and . . . well, before all this king business.
It's a thankless job."
Heckstall wipes his sword clean on Calvin's white robes. He grabs one of his concubines and tries to free his mind of disturbing images, but just as he is losing himself in the treasures of his concubine's body, her face becomes the face of the murdered king. It's not worth going into what he does to her, poor girl.
Heckstall then jumps aboard the Club's speedboat and rushes out to the spot directly beneath the brazen moon. He looks out at the sea, and, sure enough, there's that face, just a few
feet from the boat. Heckstall screams, "Oh yeah! You're not happy being killed once? Fine! I'll kill you again and again and again, till we get it right!" He raises his sword and, like some "B" movie Viking, jumps overboard--to honor, death, and a school of very hungry fish with big teeth. Heckstall, yet another dead king in the voluminous chronicles of dead kings. The
body of King Heckstall is never recovered, which is not surprising when you consider the size of those fish fangs.
As there's no body, the people of the motherland--fatherland?--decide against a formal royal funeral. "We need to economize," says the former Chief Justice of the Appeals Court. "Besides, our new Prince has just been crowned, and it is time to rejoice in our hardly deserved good fortune. The missing Little Prince of legend has arrived via a 1940's vintage aircraft. The single prop plane is dripping with seaweed and strains of "La Marseillaise," but we are assured by Sotheby's that His Highness is the genuine article. The Dalai Lama couldn't have done a better job of ferreting out our new leader. God knows we need a new leader, one who
will rule by example and nurture our spiritual growth."
"Silly old sod," mutters a sergeant at attention.
The bewigged judge ahems, and continues: "The Little Prince's first command is for everybody to draw a sheep, hundreds of sheep, and then, to count them all as we all take a long,
well-deserved, revitalizing sleep. A sleep that will put the horrors of the last administration behind us."
The crowd outside the palace is led in an enthusiastic chanting of, "Give me an 'S,' give me an 'L,' give me an 'E,' " and so on. The nation is charmed by its new prince. References
to Camelot can be heard at a rate of one every five seconds. What a red letter day for the entire populace of what now can only be called "The Magic Kingdom." Let's face it, the Little Prince doesn't show up just anywhere.
The Little Prince appears on the balcony of the palace, waving that anemic royal wave. (You've seen it; they all do it--just sort of twist the hand at the wrist a bit. Their anemic wave's
often accompanied by this patronizing little smile. What can you expect from those blue bloods of whatever stripe. What arrogance! If only ol' Heckstall were here . . . )
The Little Prince, from atop the shoulders of the Chief Justice, speaks into the microphone. The crowd is hushed. "When you all wake up, my children, from your revitalizing sleep,
you will give back all the alarm clocks, Swiss Army Knives, rolls of masking tape, and
tins of caviar you have stolen from your neighbors over the long years of deprivation and depravity. After we have purged ourselves in this way, we will take it one more time, from the top. Let's see if we can't just get it right this time, OK? Great, I knew I could count on you, my beloved subjects. Night, night."
Joseph Coroniti teaches creative writing and literature at Berklee College of Music and Brandeis University. He has published fiction, poetry, and essays in many magazines and journals, including: Art Times, The Quarterly, Oxford Magazine, Quarter After Eight, Visions International, The Antigonish Review, and Scribner's Dictionary of American Biography. His criticism includes Twentieth-Century Vocal Music: From Stravinsky to Reich. The recipient of two Fulbright awards, he taught in Cameroon (1989-90) and Norway (1995-96). He will be on the road again in 1998-99, directing an M.A. program and teaching creative writing and Irish literature at the University of Essex, England.
