Death and Mercy: The Reaper's Moll
We might take it for just another one of Mercy's Gothic affectations, but is our flamboyant femme fatale simply trying to tell us something?
CALL her the Bone Diva if you must; Mercy's not complaining, but she'll have you know she's first and foremost the Reaper's Moll.
Actually, we should be accurate here; strictly speaking, she's the Reapoman's Moll.
If that seems a pedantic point, you'd be forgiven, but there is a bone of contention beneath the nomenclature; should we say metaphor?
In the wider scheme of folklore and superstition both names refer to Death personified, but the distinction extends beyond simple concerns of style and lore.
The Reaper is Azrael, the Angel of Death's traditional rendition in popular Western culture; an anthropomorphism seeded of agrarian, pre-industrial societies, with origins in Biblical mythology.
The Pale Rider, Thanatos – of the Four Horseman fame – his nature varies, depending on the tales. In ancient times in this benighted land, he was Father Death, or Smert the Grim Reaper; otherwise known as King Samhain of Terrors.
We all know the image: the robed and hooded skeleton, common from the Middle Ages onwards; wielding a scythe to reap the souls of the dead. Occasionally, he plays chess.
There are versions of old Smert in every human culture; each as different as the folklores that summoned him into being. In some renditions, he is benign; in others a sinister presence who takes life as much as marks its end.
No doubt, Death reaps a grim harvest, but in the main he is but a courier – if we can put it in such terms – simply guiding the souls of the deceased onwards to the next stage of their journey.
In ancient Greek mythology that would be to the banks of the river Styx, where Charon the Ferryman was ready to carry them to whatever afterlife awaited beyond the mortal coil.
Death is part of life, and however unwelcome his arrival, much of the ancient traditions reflect that unremitting truth. Death is fickle and capricious, too.
Yes, you can cheat it, and in some renditions of the mythology he's open to negotiation; maybe you can cut a deal, but sooner or later King Samhain won't be dethroned.
Bring forth the spectre of ruin
The Reapoman, on the other hand, lacks the pedigree of his grim predecessor; unsurprisingly, he's not one for tradition, but we can certainly question his influences.
Visually – at least with the more stylised representations – there's an unmistakeable aura of Mexico's Day of the Dead festival, not to mention echoes of Santa Muerte1, but this manifestation is perhaps all the darker for his origins.
An upstart newcomer, with murky beginnings, the Reapoman – or 'Reap', as he is sometimes known – is entirely a creature of England's sundered, urban world. The skeletal apparition was invoked by the diaspora of displaced youth; those torn from the bosom of their safely predictable childhoods, only to be washed up in the dismal camps that began the Shanties.
Death, in those days, was all around them. The adult world tore itself apart and cast them adrift, bereft of any sense of belonging and security. Life, they learned early, was fragile and ephemeral; easily dispersed by the winds of misfortune.
Even the Shanties – these places of supposed refuge – were no respite from an uncertain and precarious existence.
Dressed to kill
Little wonder they dressed Death in a manner reflective of their harsh reality, poured into him all their fears and anxieties; summoned the phantasm into form. So, the Reapoman took shape.
Strangely, perhaps, given his primordial roots in war-torn strife, 'Reap' little resembles any kind of combatant. You might think he'd be dressed in a soldier's tactical gear, or else some paramilitary's patchwork imitation; quite the contrary.
Typically, he wears a hooded top; a concession to his cowled forebear. The hood masks the spectre's calciferous features in deep shadow; all but the grinning teeth of those fleshless jaws, and two baleful pinpoints of light in lieu of eyes.
To look at him, as he is so often depicted in street murals and graffiti – even makeshift shrines – the Reapoman might be just another disaffected youth; a gang member or a street tough, say, haunting the ramshackle snickets and ginnels of broken England.
The young Reaper's right arm is raised above his head, as if ready to strike; or ward off a threat.
No scythe for this harbinger of demise. Usually – easily missed by a casual eye – he holds aloft a switch-blade, sometimes an old-fashioned cut-throat razor; occasionally, it's a military combat dagger.
Whatever the implement he wields, though, its purpose is singular: to slice soul from flesh so he can carry it away to the realms of the dead.
No, this Death doesn't come calling, in the time-honoured tradition of yore, hourglass in hand to simply call time on a life that's reached its conclusion; natural or otherwise. The Reapoman is a killer.
A lurking opportunist as much as a vengeful spectre, he waits in the shadows, stalks the dark alleys, haunts the edge of urban wastelands; picks off those foolhardy enough to stray too close to the frayed edges of the living realm.
Implacable, capricious, cruel; terrifying and incomprehensible, too. That's the Reapoman. A thoroughly nihilist interpretation of old Smert, he embodies the perpetual threat of violence; the senselessness of the war-time experience and its aftermath. Lest we forget, his presence also casts a shadow of the unspoken anxiety that war skulks ready to return.
The Reapoman, indeed, personifies everything his generation of damaged creators fear.
Payment in kind
For sure, the Reapoman is a grim incarnation; reflective of England's unforgiving self-destruction, but if war was his midwife, he was born in the rubble left in conflict's wake2; symbolic of the bitter truth that we're all on borrowed time.
With that, we turn to the curiosity of his name. The Reapoman is clearly an echo of the Reaper; less obvious is its play on 'repoman' – a kind of bailiff.
The shorthand term for 'repossession men' isn't common here in Europe; it's more a vernacular of the United States, so who knows by what cultural channel it arrived in the former United Kingdom, especially for such a macabre usage.
Still, it gets to the point. The Reapoman takes back what is never really ours – at least not for keeps. Life, time, soul; call it what you will, but we all owe this grim apparition a debt; sooner or later, he comes to reclaim his dues.
Maybe by invoking this hooded stalker, the menace is appeased; pay the Reaper in respect and homage, and live another day. So do some of the tangled tales say; wishful thinking? Isn't it always, where Death is concerned?
There have been death cults before, in other times and places; although 'cult' is probably putting it too strong here; more an emergent slice of underground subculture, but this makes its hold on the imagination no less potent.
Dark fashionista
In many ways, the Reapoman's mythos is still being fleshed-out (as it were). There's as much subcultural fad surrounding the emergence of this pretender to Samhain's throne, as there is any notion of the supernatural.
Quite where Mercy sits on the spectrum – dark fashionista or true believer – is anyone's guess. She's taken him to heart, we know that; ever the Reapoman's flirtatious moll, she makes a playful act out of teasing his favours and tempting his mortal desires.
Sure, Mercy has made her dalliance with Death a totemic metaphor for the life she has embraced, but – true to form – hers is simply a more extravagant show of faith.
The truth is, underneath the lurid imagery and the vivid telling, the Reapoman is an expression of existential dread; a way to articulate the bone-deep forebodings of shattered innocence, and Mercy's is no exception.
But we have to wonder if there's not more to it. Remember those rumours about Mercy's deadly sideline as a gun for hire. The mantle of the moll quite possibly masks a darker truth. She pays the Reaper in souls.
Yes, we can take it as just another one of her Gothic affectations; many do. Then again, by revelling in her relationship with the Reapoman – two 'fictional' death-dealers bound in their unholy tryst – is she actually just flaunting the killer behind the mask?
Strange as it sounds, even Mercy might know that one for sure.
Underneath it all, in the privacy of her haunted soul – if there's any truth to the rumours, of course – does she really rationalise her trade as a way to keep the Reapoman sweet; does she not sense a day of reckoning inevitably waits in the shadows of her primal nightmares?
Deep questions, sure, for the woman who simply wants to bask in limelight and sing the night away; an escape from a shattered childhood.
Like many of her generation here in the Shanties, Mercy's life has been scarred by the mortal terror experienced during those bitter years of civil war. Perhaps her embrace of this deathly manifestation really is just an innocent coping mechanism.
Certainly, she's taken it to the edge of the macabre, but can we really blame her if she seeks to neuter the seared memories of bygone horror in sepulchral mockery? Sometimes, grim Smert does offer solace; as only he can.
Mercy may well be the Reaper's Moll, for good or ill, but unlike her fancy man, our vivacious femme fatale is entirely mortal; some day she'll have to face that truth.
MC
Copyright © October 2024. All Rights Reserved.
1 Cultural appropriation, or creative re-invention? Who can say, likely the distinction is lost on the minds that called this incarnation of the Reaper into being. They have far more pressing concerns.
2 We might note, that's very much something 'Reap' holds in common with Mercy de la Morte.