Johann Jakob Astor is the most famous Lich King in the United States as of writing this. Once a powerful merchant with a monopoly that stretched from coast to coast he settled down after death in the city bearing his name, Astoria Oregon.
Let me stop you right there. Right before you ask me something stupid like, “so where to do find John Astor, he’s dead.” Well, first of all he went back to his German name after he was unhappy with certain American politics back in 1982 (he wasn’t a fan of Ronald Reagan) and secondly – you will find him atop the Astor Hotel most of the time, at midnight – DUH. And if you have to ask me if the Astor Hotel is in Astoria I’m just …I’m so done….can I finish? Please?
So JOHANN henceforth known as Mr. Astor is the biggest supporter of the arts the world has ever known and would continue his patronage if he had a bit of money. As it is though he lost track some time ago of the worldy affects that most of us take for granted. Being a Lich King really put his priorities in a different order, but I have it on good account he’s an art lover which how we struck up a conversation after one bright morning in the woods when I was able to do him a favor.
Most of Astoria is grim, dark, foreboding and rainy most of the year (perfect for a Lich) but there are a few spots due to elevation and hills that are inexplicably sunny most of the year. This is how he sadly got trapped. He was drifting along the Fort to Sea trail and had gotten off over on Kwis Kwis by accident and at the top of the second big hill there is generally sunshine. The day corresponded with a malignant scout troop from some big city we all shun. I had seen the bus parked outside the Visitor Center before checking out my radio, my rain poncho, greeting the Rangers on duty, and securing my Volunteer badge to my forest green polo shirt.
Out on the trail I heard the children before I saw them. I scowled, how can you appreciate the lonely wailing calls of ravens circling overhead or the distant bleat of an elk in the fog with that cheerful nonsense.
There were six or seven nasty little children with sharp sticks circling poor old Mr. Astor the Lich who was hopelessly trapped in the sunshine looking just terrible for a Lich King. His dried grey hide sizzled with the dim light that shot through the heights of the alders on top of the hill and landed on skin. They laughed and prodded him and danced around in a circle. I called in on my radio, “Visitor Center 2-0-0 I have a tormented Lich King over at the top of Kwis Kwis mountain, be advised I’m escorting him back.”
The children stopped dancing and looked in shock and horror. I wielded the power of the checked out radio. The green volunteer forestry cap and polo shirt shook them to the core with fear and they fled. I pulled out my emergency blanket from my pack and hastened him out of the sunlight into the lower levels of the woods and back toward the Visitor Center. (I do take my volunteering very seriously…)
Shaken we got him back okay. I left him with my full name, address, phone number and e-mail just encase he might need anything. I carefully wrote out my report and lodged it in the big book of other reports.
I was surprised as heck when upon a dark rainy afternoon mid-typhoon he dropped in to see me at the art studio hidden in a rather dank part of the 39th street pier, at a part where you would expect to find parking but instead you’ll find me. The wind was whipping the waves from the Columbia river against the pylons below my workshop and making a terrifying racket that somehow I find soothing. I sipped a large coffee and showed him some of my work. I was mesmerized with the tedium of my latest piece displaying 3 perfect specimens of blooming early spring Skunk Cabbages. You could almost smell them I had them that perfect.
Now I didn’t know it at the time but old Johann Astor was quite the patron of the arts back in the day and he asked me very satisfying questions about my work. I explained that I was a member of the local art guild, unfortunately a full 50% of the entire town were for all intensive purposes out of work artists so the guild was so chockablock full of artists that the typical ‘Art Walk Friday’ now lasted an entire week out of the month just so more artists would get a chance to get their work looked at.
This misfortune took Mr. Astor aback, he told me back in his day an artist of my calibre would have been celebrated. He said he owed me a favor and since he was a Lich King – not some regular Lich – nor a zombie – and definitely not a vampire (because those obviously don’t exist) he would grant me a wish.
I laughed in a hollow way – “well the only thing that would fix this sad state of affairs Sir is if I was in some sort of alternate dimension!”
So that’s what happened. I won’t bore you with the details of the magic silver dial and the diamond of truth and the year long adventure in a world so pure and positive and bright where I became famous and rich and loved – where my name was synonymous with beauty and talent….no that’s neither here nor there….something terrible was about to drag me down to earth.
There was a detail – one detail – and it ruined it all for me. In the end I was pleading to be let back home. Begging.
My friend Connie had just the pet for me. I had been thinking for awhile of getting a dog, maybe a Corgi they seem cute, and now that I was setup with fame and fortune and opportunities just flying into my lap faster than I could address them – I thought, sure, now is the time to get a dog. But she wouldn’t give me a single hint about what the pet was or its name, nothing. She was coming over from the Clastop County animal shelter with my new pet.
She hefted a big crate out of the back of her mini-van and then out it crawled. One ginormous, hairy, black, bristly, multi-eyed, large fanged, eight legged spider. I think I was mid-scream when I fainted. When I woke up it was back in the crate but just seeing it all over again I screamed and ran and then I fainted totally away again. After that it was all over.
Everywhere I went, people were walking those damn things. Giant ass spiders. They would let them crawl up walls and take photos with them. They bought them cute little outfits and eight little spider booties for their feet. People expected you to love their spiders too. They would push them in strollers, take them into stores, have them in carriers on their back….and….I couldn’t take it. Money. Fame. Prestige — it meant nothing now!
I had just booked a solo exhibition at a large gallery in Vancouver British Columbia – but there I sit on the floor of my newly renovated studio – crying. I wanted to go home. NOW!
Well Mr. Astor had given me directions and reluctantly I returned losing the last bit of magic up, which is how I’m the nobody that is here with you at present. But I still like to name drop and tell people about how I personally know Mr. Astor although that has been a few years ago and not sure he still remembers me. Lich Kings are very busy you know.
