The Graceland Tales

by Donna D. Prescott

  KIRK THE EVANGELIST: (looking up from the game he is playing on his phone) Are you sure you didn’t see this on ‘The Three Stooges?’

  FRANKLIN THE REAL ESTATE MAGNATE: It sounds like a city version of the bawdy farmer’s daughter jokes—the merchant’s daughter, instead of the farmer’s daughter. I spent some time in Iceland, and they love off-color farmer’s daughter stories along the lines of this one.

  DONNA THE NARRATOR: And in Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale, not only the miller’s daughter but his wife, too, ends up in the beds of the wronged students, just as Malina and Mrs. Quicker end up in hotel rooms with John and Alan.

  ORIEL: True story. I swear to Saint Julian, the patron saint of travelers who’s looking over us now. At any rate, I had arrived at work for the day by that time, and the desk clerk had filled me in on the situation. To smooth things over, I upgraded the Quickers’ breakfast from continental to breakfast buffet. John and Alan checked out soon after breakfast and by noon, all five had gone on their merry way. Now, we can’t really say what happened between the consenting adults in Alan’s room and John’s room that night at the Tabard. However, a year later, newlyweds Alan and Malina and John and the former Mrs. Quicker, now Mrs. Harder, showed up at the Tabard to celebrate their nuptials. Alan and Malina clearly found young love. Alan had taken to calling his wife ‘Milady Malina.’ Regarding John and Mrs. Quicker, she later confessed that in John’s room full merry a fit she had not had in a long time. John had a prickly wit, and they touched on deep matters.

  In the aftermath of that fateful night, Malina had revealed her father’s bookkeeping irregularities to her lover. Mrs. Quicker, who had not been privy to Quick Vic’s thievery, had another reason to divorce her husband, besides the fact that she had fallen in love with John. The two couples then went to Las Vegas where they married in a double ceremony at an Elvis chapel—true story, I wouldn’t lie. Quick Vic surrendered Quicker Liquors in the divorce settlement to his ex-wife on threat of being turned over to the authorities, so John and Alan had their own liquor store, now Harder Liquors, where they could sell their Bayard Bourbon. The two couples return to the Tabard once a year to celebrate. John and his new wife have a young daughter of their own, and Alan and Malina have two children.

  ORIEL: (looking at THERESA) May heaven help us all, great and small! So goes my nice story.

  “At least, the Tabard did not turn into the Heartbreak Hotel,” Bella the Academic says, nudging Hector the Elvis Tribute Artist.

  Theresa stands. Blanche the Lawyer laughs, her dark-lined eyes glowing, “Far from it! Mrs. Harder became a cougar! Good for her!” Franklin the Real Estate Magnate squeezes her shoulder and smiles.

  Dwight the Lay Minister says, “It reminds me of that old country song, ‘I’m My Own Grandpa.’ Malina’s mother became her sister-in-law and her half-sibling is also her niece. And for Alan, Mrs. Harder is both his sister-in-law and mother-in-law.”

  Joyce the Evangelist’s Wife says, “That’s all too complicated for me,” and continues her crocheting.

  Dmitri the Hacker asks, “If this is a true story, whatever happened to Quick Vic?”

  “Evidently, Quick Vic went through a few businesses of his own in the aftermath of the divorce. He tried selling used furniture at Quick Vic’s Pick-a-Stick. When that didn’t work out, he opened a mattress store, Quick Vic’s Pick-a-Tick, but that one didn’t last long. The last anyone heard, he was somewhere in the Midwest selling used cars at Quick Vic’s Pick-a-Wreck,” Oriel says. As she returns to her seat, she offers business cards to the travelers. A few take them and tuck them away. “I’ll give a ten percent discount at the Tabard to any of you based on availability if you present this card.” When she gets to her row, she takes off her pin striped jacket and drapes it carefully across the slumbering Rose.

  Before Theresa can attempt to call on Hubert again for a story, Gita the Cook stands up, tucking her sketching materials in the seatback pocket in front of her and absently scratching at the bandage on her arm. “Oh what a fun story! Young love wins and a good marriage replaces a bad one. In your country, people have choices when it comes to picking a marriage partner. In my country, it is not so. I would like to tell a story from my country, a story of an arranged marriage.”

  Theresa looks at Hubert, who shrugs noncommittally. Theresa sits down.

  “An arranged marriage is the only way your parents will marry you off,” says Sir Kay a Techie.

  “You’re no prize yourself, Geek Boy,” says Gita.

  “Did I say that out loud?” says Sir Kay.

  “Hey, you back off,” warns Elaine a Techie. “Just because you are both from India does not mean you can be mean to her.”

  “Whoa, the girl with the head scarf has some gumption,” says Ernest the Businessman. Looking up from his KenKen puzzle book he adds, “I thought your type was supposed to be seen and not heard.”

  ASCII-me a Techie stands and addresses Ernest from across the coach, “Dude, she’s from the Girls Who Code program. I wouldn’t mess with her if I were you. She’s fierce.”

  Theresa intervenes. “Enough. Remember, the rule here is ‘Be nice or leave.’”

  Gita shoots a look of triumph at Sir Kay who focuses his attention on his screen as she steps into the aisle, her yellow sari glowing in the muted light of the coach.

  Gita

  THE COOK’S TALE

  GITA: In India where I am from, young people do not have a choice in picking a marriage partner. Families arrange marriages.

  RUTH THE DOCTOR’S WIFE: That practice is common still in some Jewish communities, too. Even in the United States, you can find professional matchmakers, particularly in large cities.

  GITA: But isn’t there some choice in these matches? Don’t the two people finally agree to the marriage rather than be forced into it by family?

  RUTH: I guess there is more opportunity for people to turn down a marriage, but they still face heavy pressure from family to marry. I’ve seen children become estranged from their parents because they don’t marry the person their families pick for them.

  GITA: Supposedly, I came to America to learn to cook so I could return to India to help my family prosper. However, my family had another purpose. I fell in love with a man from our village. We met at a market one day. I was shopping and he was working on a building nearby. It wasn’t love at first sight, but we kept running into each other around our village. My parents could see us becoming attached but did not have a marriage prospect for me yet.

  SANDRA THE SENATOR’S DAUGHTER: (looking up from her Cosmo) Why couldn’t you two marry since you, like, fell in love before your parents had arranged a marriage for you?

  GITA: We are from different castes. As merchants, my family is of the Vaishya caste. My beloved was of the Shudras, the caste of the laborers. In India even today, it is forbidden to intermarry between castes. Although his family is respectable and has a respectable income, our parents and society would never approve of a marriage between us.

  SANDRA: Oh, how sad.

  GITA: So in truth, my family sent me here to get me away from this man while they found a husband for me. Cooking is just the larger excuse.

  SANDRA: Like, couldn’t he join you over here? Then you could get married without their interference.

  GITA: Even for love, neither one of us is ready to make that kind of break with our families. It would also be possible that my male relatives would hunt us down here and kidnap me or worse.

  (SANDRA sighs loudly and returns to leafing through her magazine.)

  GITA: So, here is my story. Some arranged marriages work out well. You can hear stories of all kinds, where the marriage partners find true love, to where they tolerate one another, to where bad things happen. Sometimes, husbands kill wives. Sometimes, one partner is in love with someone else. (GITA stops speaking and bursts into tears. She covers her face with her hands.) I’m so sorry. I cannot continue. Please let someone else tell a story now.

  Linda digs through he
r purse and hands a tissue up to Gita. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose quietly before slipping back into her seat in front of me. As if on cue, Dwight the Lay Minister offers a loud blast into his handkerchief, a thunderous ‘Polo’ in answer to Gita’s sniffling ‘Marco.’

  Joyce the Evangelist’s Wife stands and looks towards Gita. Joyce’s hair still looks as if not a strand has moved since I first saw her at the reception at Union Station. Strobe-like, lights from a passing settlement blink through the car. “Honey, you should think of staying over here for a while, OK, not going back just because your family says you should.” Joyce steps over her husband into the aisle and approaches Gita. “My husband, Brother Kirk, and I have started a church, the Spirit of Love Church. The first letters of Spirit of Love spell S-O-L, sol, which means ‘sun, S-U-N’ as in the earth’s star. ‘Sun, S-U-N’ sounds like ‘son, S-O-N’ as in the Son of God, who is also the earth’s star. Do you see what I mean?” John the Pastor closes his Bible and listens as Joyce continues. “We began the Spirit of Love Church in a storefront as a refuge for those who did not feel at home in the big, traditional churches, for people who just wanted to praise the Lord, OK, and not have to follow rules and pronouncements from some big office far away. We’ll offer you sanctuary, light, and love.”

  Gita sniffles, “Thanks, but I am Hindu.”

  “That’s OK, honey. We have lots of different kinds of people in our church. Some of my best friends are Hindus. We’ve been so successful in welcoming people into our church that we just completed construction on a new house of worship, just off the interstate. Jesus loves you just as you are, Hindu or not.”

  During this exchange, Theresa stands and says, “Joyce, we’re not here to evangelize, at least not for Jesus.” She lightens her tone, “We’re disciples of Elvis—on this trip, at any rate.”

  I chime in, “Elvis’s marriage was sort of arranged. Supposedly, by the time Priscilla got old enough to marry and not truly be a child bride, he felt obligated to marry her.”

  “And we all know how that marriage ended,” says Bella the Academic. “Girl,” she turns to Gita, “Stand your ground. Take a lesson from the life of Elvis. Don’t marry until you find someone you want to marry.”

  “I notice you did not say ‘love,’” says Rene/e the Transgender Woman.

  “Ha! Love is highly overrated. Even when he was married, Elvis had lots of side action. I say go for the good sex—forget about love!” says Bella.

  “I, myself, am looking for love,” says Rene/e.

  “Enough of this chatter,” intervenes Theresa. “Let’s get back to the storytelling. Joyce, since you’re already here at the middle, why don’t you tell the next tale?”

  Joyce

  THE EVANGELIST’S WIFE’S TALE

  JOYCE: OK, sure. Umm. (She thinks for a moment.) I hadn’t planned to, but let me see. OK. I know. I‘ll tell the story of a young lady, Cece, from our church. She attended our Youth Education Program—or YEP—where we counsel teens about how to face the demons in the world today by saying ‘yep’ to virginity and ‘nope’ to pre-marital sex. Our motto is ‘Clean bodies, clean thoughts.’ Our program teaches teens to respect their bodies, OK, and so we encourage our teens to sign virginity pledges, where they pledge not to engage in sexual relations—or do ‘married people things,’ as I like to put it—until after marriage.

  ADAM THE SENATOR’S AIDE: I’ve heard of those pledges. I’ve heard they’re not very effective in preventing teen pregnancy or the spread of STD’s. Shouldn’t you teach other methods in addition to abstinence-only? (He looks to SENATOR PAM for approval and then back at JOYCE. JOYCE meets his eyes, defiantly.)

  JOYCE: Oh, at our church, the pledges work, OK. Our teens take this issue very seriously. They’re making a pact with God, as well as with themselves.

  HECTOR THE ELVIS TRIBUTE ARTIST: Elvis sang a gospel song, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ that fits your program.

  JOYCE: Yes, Hector, our teens walk with God. So Cece signed her pledge. After graduation, she went to a medium-sized college where she met a guy, Leo, at the Students of Any Religion Center, known as the SOAR Center. Like our Spirit of Love Church, the SOAR Center reaches out to students of any and every faith. (JOYCE turns and touches ELAINE A TECHIE on the shoulder.) Honey, you’d be just as welcome, too, as anyone at our church. You and Gita should come and worship with us sometime, OK. (ELAINE simply stares at JOYCE.) You could even wear your head scarf. We wouldn’t mind.

  ERNEST THE BUSINESSMAN: With all the foreigners shooting up places these days, I’d be careful who I invited to my church if I were you.

  KIRK THE EVANGELIST: (leans towards the aisle and looks back over his left shoulder at ERNEST) Sir, we have security measures in place. We have cameras and panic buttons. We want to keep the doors to the Lord’s house open. Honey, go ahead with your story.

  JOYCE: OK. As it turned out Leo was not serious about religion but was just looking for a place to hang out that wasn’t a fraternity. Cece and Leo interacted during many of the activities sponsored by the SOAR Center. She found out that he came from a troubled background, a broken family with money problems and a variety of step-parents, bless his heart. They became closer as friends, and he confided to her that he’d had problems with drugs when he was in high school and still occasionally used. She developed a soft spot in her heart for this young man who had such a different background from hers. They never truly dated, OK—Cece wasn’t interested in him in that way—but she was concerned for his soul. When she came home during college breaks, she would update us about Leo, and we prayed for him.

  One weekend, the SOAR Center took students on a retreat. After the evening prayer session, students scattered around the grounds to enjoy the night sky before heading to their cabins. Cece found herself alone near the edge of the grounds with Leo. They sat on a log by a pond and enjoyed looking at the stars, OK, seeing which ones between them they remembered from astronomy class. Leo slowly scooted closer. Suddenly, he tried to kiss Cece. She squirmed away from him, but he put his arms around her.

  ERNEST: (groans, flipping through his KenKen book) Oh, no, not another rape story.

  JOYCE: No, this story ends well, I promise. (ERNEST shifts in his seat and starts a new KenKen puzzle.) Cece told Leo that she liked him but not in that way. She told him of the YEP motto, ‘Clean bodies, clean thoughts,’ and about her virginity pledge. He respected her choice, took her ‘no’ as a real ‘no,’ and walked her back to her cabin. Soon after the retreat, Cece convinced Leo to come home with her one weekend. She brought him to our church, OK, where two of them attended a special youth program during the regular service. During this time, the people of the church prayed that Leo might be saved, and lo and behold, he accepted Jesus that weekend.

  Kirk stands up. “Hector, you probably know that Elvis also sang the gospel tune, ‘It is No Secret (What God Can Do).’”

  “It’s on my set list,” says Hector.

  “Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale is about protecting virginity,” I offer. “As it happens, God protects the virginity of St. Cecilia in this tale.” Joyce smiles at me.

  “So did Cece and Leo get married?” asks Sean the Deacon.

  “It would be nice to say that they married, but Leo was not a virgin and Cece wanted to save herself for a virgin.”

  Dmitri the Hacker smirks. “So did she find herself a virgin to marry? Where is she going to find a male virgin?”

  “You’d be surprised at the number of guys who are virgins because they’re afraid of sex. I know men who buy their sons prostitutes for their sixteenth birthday present to get them over that hump, as it were,” says Sean.

  “That’s terrible!” says John the Pastor, “To spoil what should be a sacred event in that way. My wife and I got down on our knees on our honeymoon and gave thanks to God that He led us to one another.” John’s wife blushes.

  “I’ve been hearing more about guys in today’s world who are tired of having to fight against what were on
ce called ‘women’s libbers.’ They aren’t taking formal pledges, but they’re increasingly keeping their lives separate from women,” Adam the Senator’s Aide says.

  “Exactly how does that work?” asks Bella the Academic.

  “From what I hear, men are tired of facing the fear of sexual harassment claims. Some men feel women truly aren’t as good at some jobs as men are. These men choose not to date and otherwise limit their interactions with women as much as possible,” says Adam.

  “Men truly are better coders than women,” says Lance-bot a Techie.

  “Speak for yourself,” shoots back Elaine a Techie.

  ASCII-me a Techie warns, “Dude, remember she’s fierce. I’d back off. Truth be told, she can code circles around you.”