Meet Your Figureheads: Dr. Robert J. Murk

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Darkness, and then a sudden light. Groggy, I fumbled upwards towards the light, my head swimming. I blinked and the world began to resolve itself into a multicolored blur. Gingerly I probed the back of my skull, finding a lump there the size of a hen’s egg. My mouth tasted of ashes. Where the hell was I? At last my double vision began to clear. I was sitting in a hard-backed chair. I appeared to be in a well-appointed study. Across from me on the other side of a heavy mahogany desk sat Dr. Robert J. Murk.

“What…what the hell happened?” I asked, rubbing my neck.

“I sent for you,” said Murk. “I told my men to be ungentle.”

“Christ, you could have asked!” I said.

“I think not. I did it this way because it pleased me, and to prove that I can.”

“What’s to stop me from leaving?” I said, defiant.

“I can kill you eight different ways from this chair without changing my position in the slightest. Do not test me. Besides, even if you did manage to get out the door, you would never leave the house alive. My wife is out there…somewhere.”

I shuddered. Dr. Murk stared at me. Minutes passed. He continued to stare. I felt a bead of sweat roll down my forehead. Still his eyes bored into mine, daring me to move. And then:

“Now,” said Murk, “I shall tell you my tale. And you shall listen. And while you listen to my tale, you will listen to the sweet soundtrack of my life.” He pressed a hidden button, and the room was awash in strains of Midnight Star’s “No Parking on the Dance Floor.” As the song began to play, Murk visibly suppressed a sob. “This song chokes me up every time,” he said, and then began his story.

“I grew up a young boy in the Apennines Mountains of northern Sicily,” said Murk. “My father worked long days as a goatherd, leaving with the flock before the sun crested the horizon and not returning until well after dark, reeking of sheep. Sheep stink. Oh, how they stink.

‘We lived in a lean-to, my father and I, made of sheepskin. We drank unpasteurized goat’s milk and ate goat cheese and gamy mutton. When I got older, I would be expected to tend the flock with my father. My life, in short, revolved around sheep. I am not proud of all the things I have done. I was a lonely boy in a world of sheep. Draw your own conclusions. At last I could bear it no longer. One day I drugged my cruel father with fermented goat’s milk—“

“Are you shitting me?” I asked, incredulous. “I KNOW your father! He’s a great guy! You expect me to believe—“.

“If you speak another word before I am finished, you will die in that chair,” Murk said.

I stopped talking. Murk glared at me for a few seconds, then continued:

“While my father was drugged, I stowed away on a Turkish freighter bound for Valparaiso and left the hated life of a goatherd behind. The crew were mainly Turks and Greeks; strong, virile men with the easy camaraderie of those born to the sea. Such an abundance of swarthy Greek flesh proved too much of a distraction for me, and I never made the trip around Cape Horn. I went ashore in Cuba, where I made a few friends, deposed a government and lived the carefree life of a marlin fisherman for several years.

‘Then, one night while watching “Solid Gold” on American TV, I saw the man who would influence my life more than any other person before or since. I speak, of course, of the great Waylon Flowers, and his lap-puppet, Madame. I marveled at his total domination of the hapless woman, and I realized that if such skill could be learned, there is nothing that could stand in my way of complete control over any who would oppose me. To that end, I traveled the world to exotic locations—Vienna; Nepal; Schenectady, New York— where I learned arcane sciences and how to cloud the minds of men.’

“I will not bore you with the details of how I amassed my great wealth and how I came to own this palatial estate. It is enough for you to know that I have these things, and that you do not.” The door behind me opened, and Murk’s Asian wife entered silently, bearing in her arms a warm, golden and very fragrant apple pie, straight from the oven. “Ah. Here are two more things I have that you do not,” said Murk, as his wife set the pie on his desk and served him a generous slice. It was without question the most beautiful pie I had ever laid eyes on.

On her way out, Mrs. Murk raised her fist as if to strike me. I flinched. She laughed contemptuously and left the room.

Dr. Murk put his face close to the pie, his whiskers brushing the flaky crust, and inhaled the sweet scent of cinnamon and sugared apples. “And now,” he said, “while I enjoy this delicious slice of pie, I will allow you to speak. Just this once, you may ask me about my business, Piper. One question. Ask.”

The obvious question was to ask for the pie, so tantalizingly out of reach, but I knew what the swift answer to that request would be. Instead I asked, “Why is it you never take your hat off?”

Dr. Murk forked a piece of pie into his mouth. He chewed slowly, the look on his face orgasmic. Watching him was torturous, the scent of the pie driving me mad with desire for its golden promise of gustatory bliss. At last, he spoke.

“This delicious pie has put me in a good mood, and so I will answer truthfully. Some think that I cannot doff my hat; that in fact I had the top of my cranium removed surgically and the hat now serves to encompass and protect my enormous brain. In effect, the hat is my skull now. Others think that I am horribly disfigured beneath the hat, much like Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Neither one of these theories is true, however. Here is the real reason.”

Murk reached up to his hat band and I heard a slight click. Instantly, the brim of his hat was encircled by a razor-sharp blade. I gasped in wonder. “A Scott Hurst original,” said Murk. “In my hands my hat becomes a flying death Frisbee. I have become quite adept at throwing it. But, like all of Hurst’s blades, it cannot be returned to its sheath (or in this case, my head) until it tastes blood. Removing it is no minor matter. Would you like me to remove it presently?”

“N-no…” I stammered.

“Then you may go." Murk returned his attention to the pie. "Now.”

I got up and hurriedly made my way to the door. “Wait!” Murk called. I looked at him.

“PULL THE STRING! PULL THE STRING!!!” he yelled, spewing flakes of pie crust and pantomiming a sharp pull downward, as if turning off a light. I screamed and fled, his maniacal laughter at my back all the way.

I still hear it in my dreams.

Next week: Angry Veteran and Dr. Mantodea.