Jimmy Pumpkinhead

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One April afternoon, I lay dreaming in the smoking-room, just as I had lain two years before, and mechanically I looked among the tawny Eastern rugs for the wolf-skin. At last I distinguished the pointed ears and flat cruel head, and I thought of my dream where I saw Geneviève lying beside it. The helmets still hung against the threadbare tapestry, among them the old Spanish morion which I remembered Geneviève had once put on when we were amusing ourselves with the ancient bits of mail.

The King in Yellow

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⤓

Whatever happened to the Scarecrow?

⤓

"Hey... sooo, Whatever happened to the Scarecrow?" Jimmy asks the old wizened man with red octagon lensed glasses. Jimmy tottered on his broom stick legs his orange pumpkin face contorted into a terrified grimace. The slightly moldy green and black eyes fixed firmly on the story teller.

Old Dr. Nikidik, his face as bald and expressionless as a bowling ball continued the tale, "Being ravaged and killed by the flying monkey motha fuckers, he was dead and left where he lay, straw here straw there,a little fabric, a little cloth, his painted face head all ripped to pieces"

"And Feathertop in the Hawthorne story became in the end a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes lustreless; with a rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a mouth twisted into a despairing grin? What is to become of me?" erupted Jimmy in an excited panic of terrible realization.

Old Dr. N, the crooked Mollkin magician from Moloch County held out his pepper box and tapped out a line of white powder onto the mirror that sat between him and Jimmy. "Dr. Pipt's Powders, son, will keep you wired for life. I will see to it that you stayed hooked up."

"But I don't like white powders, Doc! Why can't I smoke a pipe like old Feathertop?" whined Jimmy as he wiped his nose and shivered all over with a fresh wave of tension. He could feel his eye holes widen out and his heart, or what ever that served as a heart, race.

"Can't cop it kid! Mother Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name. Nobody came. There is no more smoke to be had in this county," Dr. N snorts with a disapproving scowl. "Besides, kid, this is the same stuff your old granddaddy Jack used to get off."

"We could score some at Prospero's castle; his parties have everything."

"You gotta stay high kid, we don't have the connect. Besides you would not ever get into that party. You'd end up in the basement, your decaying face some freaks mushy moldy fuck-hole," Dr. N replies in a disinterested tone. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, Jimmy: you won't ever make it down the Yellow Sign Brick Road. You'll end up like the Scarecrow long before you even try to crash the party."

Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of the council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities constituting but one man), who stood at the head of society in the neighboring metropolis. The token was neither more nor less than a single word, which Mother Rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant.

"Gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands for thee, when once thou hast given him that word in his ear," said the old witch. "Mother Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice knows Mother Rigby!"

Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet's, chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with delight at the idea which she meant to communicate.

Feathertop: A Moralized Legend

"But what about the Black Man's wardrobe that belonged to Feathertop and the special token? You told me that these were my inheritance as a gentleman. I feel just certain that I can gain admission to the Masque of the Yellow King!" Jimmy's eyes were wide and black with a luminescence that gave even Dr. N a shiver.

"You're all crunked up, kid. Here, let me pour you some more rum into that mug you're drinking from. You getting to excited. You've been drinking too much Meth cola to be doing Dr. Pipt's... you gotta come down some. Think clearly about this. I'm just trying to help you out kid. Crap, I got ya this job and a steady supply of what's going to keep you alive. Why do ya got to go and think about leaving now?"

Dr. Nikidik did, in fact, need Jimmy. He was one of the few persons who could deal to both the vollery of crows and to the squirrel gangs on the west-side. See, Jimmy had married a black bird, giving him a voice among the crow, and his famous granddad was killed by the Squirrel King ("Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse") before the said same old king was deposed by Wild Dagga, who now controls most of the Forest. As it went, when the Squirrel King shattered Jack's pumpkin head, old Jack was rescued by The Wizard of Oz hisself, and the Squirrel King suffered politically from this humiliation, shifting the balance of power. Jack came back around from his short death and worked underground to unite the crows and Wild Dagga in a decisive battle that toppled the monarchy and gave the gang bosses control of the forest.

What could have been great turned sour fast, and the truce only lasted for a little time before the Forest split along an East/West line. Gang war was taking a terrible toll on each side and was bad for business. That's where Jimmy Pumpkinhead came in: he was able to renegotiate the peace when he married a Black Bird— well, he didn't exactly marry her but did accidentally knock her up and this child was a prophesied King of the Forest that both gangs claimed to recognize. So the talk goes; I still wouldn't go walking alone in the West Side of the Forest.

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Dig up this grave, the old lady said
The thing we need lies here dormant, sleeping with the dead
You understand what you ask of me
Not even death can set your soul free


I cast this curse and you will find
An evil darkness deep inside your vengeful mind
God damn you to hell (to hell) he could not restrain
He already has some, the witch did explain

-The Misfits
"Pumpkin Head"

Famous Monsters (1999)

Jimmy Pumpkinhead later that morning while trying to sleep has a disturbing dream... he was at the Masque of the Yellow King. He was wearing a clown face that he found in a jar by the door of Mother Rigby's old cabin. In the dream she had given him the face and gave him the secret pass word to access the Party at Prospero's. In the dream she gave him a pipe that he would need to smoke with, or rather told him where he could dig it up as it lay in an old grave.

He awoke and was about 8:00 and Dr. N was finally passed out. He headed to the grave site that Mother Rigby had revealed in his dream. Once he has this pipe he was certain that he could score the smoke and kick Dr. Nikidik's harsh "powder of life".

He picked his way though the forest avoiding the roads as much as possible. If anyone were to see him they might betray his plan to Dr. N if he were to inquire if they had seen him pass this way. Besides the dubious nature of this quest made it such that it would be best if no one knew that he had entered into the small village and was making his way to the cemetery grounds. As unsavory as the work was that was to be done he was desperate to obtain that which Mother Rigby had hinted to him in the dream.

He filled his belly on withered fallen apples outside a abandoned old cottage, stuffing some of the apples into his shirt to eat later on the road. He then made his way carefully into the graveyard to find the exact spot he would need to find. Oddly fortune favored him with finding an old rusted spade and an axe that were resting neatly on nails on the side of the cottage. It was as if they were placed there for him long ago. He stashed them just outside the graveyard and then making sure no one saw him began to examine the grave stones. It took him a while but just as the sun was setting it the west a orange ray of sunshine slipped though an old scraggly tree and shone on the spot of the very pretty carved stone. It was the headstone of Polly Gookin. He marked the area and then went to conceal himself until it was past midnight.

When Jimmy returned he carefully dug up the grave. Removing dirt until he hit the old wooden box that contained the remains of Polly. He smashes at the hinges and twisted open the coffin. He was surprised but not shocked to find moldering bones intertwined with a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap. He knew this to be Feathertop who has crawled into the grave with Polly Gookin his only love to rest with her for eternity. Jimmy Pumpkinhead stirred the rags and bones and was able to find an old pipe, just as he suspected. He slipped the pipe into his pocket. Then looking back decided that he would take the waistcoat tatters, the peruke, and gold-laced hat, set off with a scroungy dirty white feather. "Why not take it" he thought, and grabbed the scarlet breeches and peeled the white stockings off the brittle twigs that once were the legs of Feathertop.

With the pipe and the tattered rags balled up in a bundle he set out on the road to where he would find The Yellow Sign Brick Road. He was strangely weary, dizzy but the terrible anxiety kept him moving. As the moon came up very late casting a dim light on the road he knew he would have to stop and take a bump of the "Powder of Life". He twisted the small capsule and tapped it gently filling the chamber and took a quick snort. Beads of sweat rolled down his round orange face cutting a path through the grave dust that had settled there. He ambled as quickly as he could on his wooden legs and made a fair amount of progress until he decided to sleep in an old hollow log and wait out the day, travel at night and pick his path to the Masque of the Yellow King.

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Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

-Roud Folk Song Index #20605

Jimmy Pumpkinhead was woken abruptly by the screams of a young woman who ran past the log where he was sleeping. It was around noon or so it seemed because the heat of the day was strong. The log was filled with a steamy dank smell of mold and decay all to similar to the open coffin of the night before. Not helping at all was the apples he had stuffed into his shirt. A sweet sick smell of rotting fruit that smelled faintly like his own musky scent but more fruity and sweet. He tried to ignore the smell and laid his head down only to become more and more aware of the buzzing sounds of flies. Flies swarming around the bundle of stolen grave clothes, the rotting apples and worse his own head that was becoming black and mushy in some spots. He needed more life powder but he shuddered at the thought of snorting another dose so soon. He pulled out the capsul and snorted a bump and then a quick second and felt the energy brace him. Exausted but wired he laid there until the sound of the flies in his head were driving him insane. He ate the apples to try to reduce the attraction of the flies. This did not really help. He decided to get up and wander a bit.

He came across a tuffet where a bowl of curds and whey were sitting on the ground spilling slightly onto the grass. He was still hungry and the cheesy gruel looked good so he looked around and then sat down on the tuffet and began to eat. Flies still buzzing around his head. He could tell they were laying eggs in the soft rotten pulp of his head. This was bad it would only accelerate the decay of his head and without Dr. N to do the repair work or replacement he would be in big trouble.

A large black spider, with furry mandibles and legs, descended on a strand of silk from the tree canopy overhead. Jimmy was too preoccupied to be alarmed of the spider. After all spiders can't harm a pumpkinhead.

"You stink of rotting fruit..." The spider said, eyeing him snobbishly. "I know it...and these flies are drving me nuts!" Jimmy admitted without shame of forethought. "Flies? I think I can help you out." The spider said climbing up a strand of web and then dropping back down on Jimmy's face crawling through his eye hole into the empty cavity of his head. Jimmy could feel the spider crawling around and suspected that he was spinning a web inside his head. Before long flies were going in and not coming out. Jimmy was full and the lack of flies gave his a tremendous amount of relief. "You can come out now." Jimmy spoke to the spider still in his dark hollow head. The spider simply said "It smells like rotten fruit but I think I will stay insider here for a while longer." Jimmy did not like the idea but what was he going to do. "I'm going on a journey up the Yellow Sign Brick Road so you probably want to get out now." "The Yellow Sign Brick Road, huh? Anythings gotta be better then this plague infested village.

They set out. It was not long that they came across the body of a young woman. She was covered in plauge pox and had bled out her nose and eyes. Her body lay in some brambles and her arms were tore up with struggle. "There's the silly twat who was sitting on the tuffet underneath by old tree. She had been cast out of the village when they found out she had the Yellow Death." "That's awful," sighed Jimmy. "She was so young and beautiful."