The Tyrant's Tomb

her exposed chest and arms. Her long-sleeve tee was quickly turning into a
short-sleeve tee.
I channeled my worst King of Cool. I imagined I was on a Las Vegas
stage, a line of empty martini glasses on the piano behind me. I was wearing
a velvet tuxedo. I had just smoked a pack of cigarettes. In front of me sat a
crowd full of adoring, tone-deaf fans.
“VOOO-LAR-RAAAAY!” I cried, modulating my voice to add about
twenty syllables to the word. “WHOA! OH!”
The response from the ravens was immediate. They recoiled as if we’d
suddenly become vegetarian entrées. Some threw themselves bodily against
the metal girders, making the whole tower shudder.
“Keep going!” Meg yelled.
Phrased as an order, her words forced me to comply. With apologies to
Domenico Modugno, who wrote the song, I gave “Volare” the full Dean
Martin treatment.
It had once been such a lovely, obscure little tune. Originally, Modugno
called it “Nel blu, dipinto di blu,” which, granted, was a bad title. I don’t
know why artists insist on doing that. Like the Wallflowers’ “One
Headlight” obviously should have been titled “Me and Cinderella.” And Ed
Sheerhan’s “The A-Team” should clearly have been called “Too Cold for
Angels to Fly.” I mean, come on, guys, you’re burying the lede.
At any rate, “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” might have faded into obscurity had
Dean Martin not gotten ahold of it, repackaged it as “Volare,” added seven
thousand violins and backup singers, and turned it into a sleazy loungesinger
classic.
I didn’t have backup singers. All I had was my voice, but I did my best
to be terrible. Even when I was a god and could speak any language I
wanted, I’d never sung well in Italian. I kept mixing it up with Latin, so I
came off sounding like Julius Caesar with a head cold. My newly busted
nose just added to the awfulness.
I bellowed and warbled, screwing my eyes shut and clinging to the
ladder as ravens flapped around me, croaking in horror at my travesty of a
song. Far below, Reyna’s greyhounds bayed as if they’d lost their mothers.
I became so engrossed in murdering “Volare,” I didn’t notice that the
ravens had gone silent until Meg shouted, “APOLLO, ENOUGH!”
I faltered halfway through a chorus. When I opened my eyes, the ravens
were nowhere in sight. From somewhere in the fog, their indignant caws