by P. F. Kluge
“Love songs,” Biggest Elvis said. “When I was in my twenties, I went to all my friends’ weddings. I was best man twice and usher half a dozen times. And, after church, there was always a reception at a restaurant or hall or under a striped tent in someone’s backyard. It was June. Always June. But the custom was the first song the band played was for the bride and groom. Their song and they danced it alone, with everybody looking on. Taking pictures. Smiling. Songs like ‘Love Is a Many Splendored Thing’ or ‘True Love’ or ‘Tonight, Tonight.’”
When Biggest Elvis mentioned those songs he sang a little bit of them, just tossed off a line or so. He had the audience now, not like Dude had them, by the short and curlies, but he had them wondering what was coming next. So did I.
“A marriage medley,” Ward said. “I’ve lost touch with all those people. Not even a Christmas card, anymore. But whenever I hear those songs, I wonder how they’re doing and whether or not they made it.”
A pause. A question he asked himself. A decision to take a chance.
“I attended my own wedding and it was my turn—our turn—to dance. I left the choice of song to the woman I loved. And she chose a song by the Carpenters, ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’”
There was a sprinkling of applause from the audience. Some Carpenters fans out there. You never know.
“I knew right there, right then, that something was wrong, something that couldn’t be fixed. And I was right. And it was wrong. And ever since I’ve thought that if we’d only gotten the song right, we’d be okay. Years pass and now I’m Biggest Elvis. And this time I’ve got the right song. And the right woman for the song. And so this is to her. And to you.”
Biggest Elvis took a deep breath and sang and the band just stood there because the decision was that he’d sing it alone, a capella, and it was “Unchained Melody,” and this one was too good to dance to, they just stood and listened to him, saw him standing tall, then folding down onto his knees, like he was praying, and when he got done it was like a hymn, nobody applauded, and that was the way Biggest Elvis liked it, even at Graceland. Silence, he said, was the ultimate applause.
“Okay,” Dude said when Ward came back to us. “Better than okay.”
“We’ll never have another night like this,” he said.
Albert “Dude” Lane
After we finished up in Singapore we flew to Malaysia, where we had two weeks at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, their capital city, and another two in a beach resort at Batu Ferringhi, which is on the west coast, near Penang. And that was when things began to fall apart, big-time.
Maybe Uncle Pete was hoping that we would see the world while we were touring. For a while, we tried. But it didn’t come natural. In Olongapo, we’d gone our own ways. We each took our own tour of the Philippines. What we had in common was those two shows a night, four nights a week, and that was plenty. Now, on the road, Ward went into his professor act and organized these field trips. We walked through fish markets and flower markets, markets that opened at the crack of dawn or stayed open all night. We saw monkeys and birds for sale. We visited bat caves and snake pits and enough Buddhist temples to last a lifetime. And we drove poor Ward out of his mind. We were like two kids again, in the back of the family car. “He touched me!” “He started it.” “Is there a bathroom here?” “Are we there yet?” “Is this it?”
We missed Olongapo. Would you believe it? There wasn’t a city we visited that didn’t make Olongapo look like a dump and not a country that didn’t have thousands of Filipinos in it, legally and illegally, and grateful to be there. But we missed Olongapo. Chester missed Christina and Ward missed Malou. That was easy to see. What I missed was the Olongapo buzz, the action and angles and connections and deals. I’d taken my work along with me and yet, with all the time we had on our hands, I couldn’t write a word. Something was missing. So I put my paper away and watched cooking shows on cable TV.
Ward could be full of more shit than any human being I’ve ever met and I told him so, more than once. But sometimes he was right. He’d said the act wouldn’t travel and, when we traveled, I believed him. We were just another band from the Philippines. That we were an American band from the Philippines didn’t make it any better either. Maybe worse. Not even the local Filipinos, the contract workers, came out to see us. Oh, sure, sometimes we filled the house, but with tourists, sunburned and goofy. Other nights, the rooms were half empty. Through it all, the management kept smiling at us, treating us well, pleased as punch to have us there, apologizing to us for the poor audiences, instead of us apologizing to them. It was off season or a national holiday or there hadn’t been time to give us the promotion we deserved. I knew what they were paying us. They had to be taking a hosing. Why were they so nice to us? I wondered. And I’m the one that solved that particular puzzle. We were in Sri Lanka by then.
Chester Lane
Colombo sits right on this beach that runs forever. The city just stops and the ocean begins, waves rolling in from like halfway around the world. Mornings in Colombo, six A.M., I’d walk along the beach with Ward, joining all the other folks who got up for the first light and the breeze, walking, stretching, flying kites, and there were crows all over the place, swooping and cawing, like breakfast was late. In Manila, the morning feels like, oh, hell, here we go again, like the eighth inning of a ball game the local side can’t win. The mornings in Colombo felt like the beginning of the world.
“Any luck last night?” Ward asked one morning. We’d both been trying to call Olongapo. He’d tried Elvira’s apartment and the phone just rang. Same thing at Graceland. He’d been trying so often he could tell, he said, just from the way the phone rang that no one would be answering. You call a place where someone is home, he said, and the phone sounds perky and hopeful, like it knows it won’t take more than two or three rings before someone comes along and says hello. Other places, it sounds like a lost cause from the first ring. That’s the way his phone calls to Olongapo were sounding.
“I got through,” I said. “Father Domingo answered the phone and I asked for Christina. And he hangs up. That’s expensive.”
“I’ll try. Maybe he’ll speak to me. We were friends.”
“There’s another thing,” I said. “Dude brought a woman into the room last night. I was asleep, the light snaps on and he’s there with her, asking if I’d mind sitting out at the swimming pool for a while. Then this woman whispers something to him. And Dude—my own brother—gives me the strangest look. ‘She says she’ll take care of both of us. One at a time … or … same time. It’s your move, little brother.’”
“What did you do?”
“I ran out of there and sat outside like he suggested.”
“Good.”
“It didn’t feel so good to me. I felt stupid. And another thing …” I caught myself wincing, choking up, forcing it out. “I wanted that woman myself. Ward, she had this thing on, like she was rolled in a fancy curtain, needed unwrapping, and skin which was like polished wood and these big eyes and I sat down at the pool, saying why the hell not why shouldn’t I, it’s there for you, right for the taking. …”
Dude was waiting for us downstairs in the lobby of the Lanka Oberoi Hotel and he acted like he’d been waiting for us awhile. “Come with me,” he said, “right now.”
He led us out of the lobby, toward a wing of the hotel that was still under construction. They used it for workers and staff quarters. That’s where they put the low-ranking foreign help, Chinese cooks and Filipino entertainment, our guys and a bunch of others. The Filipinos were all in one room, with luggage and mussed-up beds and the clothes they performed in hanging from a line in the bathroom. When we came in, they were all there, just hanging out, the way overseas Filipinos do, as if they were two ships at sea, the crew of one coming onto the deck of the other to talk awhile.
“Hi guys,” Dude said. “You know the other Elvises, Ward and Chester.” He nodded at us. “These guys belong to Jun Velasco and the Music Messengers. That’
s Jun over there.”
Jun was a good-looking, Spanish-type Filipino, hunkered down next to a hot plate, poking into a pot that had fish in it. Three other guys and a girl made up the rest of his group. We all said hello.
“I talked to Jun last night,” Dude said. “It seems his group was playing here before we came. And, after we leave, they’ll be back playing here. Meanwhile—”
“Hey, I’m sorry you got laid off,” Ward jumped in. “If there’s anything—”
“Just listen,” Dude said. “Don’t talk. Listen.” He nodded at Jun. “Just tell Biggest Elvis what happened around here. The same as you told me.”
“Mr. Pandit is the entertainment manager,” Jun said. “He is telling me that a special contract is bringing you from the Philippines for two weeks. I’m asking about our contract.” Jun was young enough not to be automatically polite to Americans. He hadn’t stood up when we came in, he’d stayed busy stirring that pot of dead fish they were looking forward to. He hadn’t said “sir” yet either.
“I’m thinking where do we go? Also … why do we go? Because we are doing well here. We are doing better than you do now.” Jun hadn’t liked giving up the stage. He thought he was good. And he didn’t say how much he loved our show. “Mr. Pandit says no problem. We stay here. We get paid. I say okay. But how can they pay for two band when they can only use one?”
He was satisfied with what was going on in the pot. Now he rocked back and forth on his haunches and sat down. Filipinos, whenever they’re together, it’s not like they’re sitting around. It’s more like they’re camping out.
“Mr. Pandit tells me this time the hotel will be making money. He is laughing. If no one comes—if every table is empty—no problem. The band’s agent guarantees money for every show. I’m wondering, what kind of band is this? Then, you come.”
After we left the Filipinos, we walked down to the swimming pool, the same place I’d sat out last night. It was still early. They were hosing down the concrete and cleaning ashtrays on tables. And there were crows all over the tables, making double sure cigarette butts weren’t bread crusts. Mainly what I remember about Sri Lanka is the crows. It felt like they’d be the last birds left on earth, when the robins and the hummingbirds were gone. The meek wouldn’t inherit dippity. At the end, it would be crows and cockroaches, with nobody watching.
“So I got a little drunk last night and there’s this woman down at the end of the bar,” Dude said, “and I said to myself, I deserve a break tonight.” He reached out and mussed up my hair. “Sorry to disturb your sleep, little brother.”
My sleep wasn’t what he’d disturbed, though. It was what I thought, after he woke me up. And what I wanted, while I sat out back by the swimming pool.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Dude said. Now he faced Ward. “I guess you could say I was feeling like a whore. But at least there’s this. We’re not just another Filipino band, out scuffling for a living. We’re special. We’re sponsored. We’re a no-lose situation. We’re a no-fault accident. I was wondering why they were so glad to see us. Why they couldn’t be nicer.” He stopped awhile. Thinking, I guessed. Then he smiled at me. Not a nice smile. The same smile I’d seen last night, when he offered to share. “Anyway, she got her money’s worth. That woman.”
“She what?”
“Got her money’s worth, I said. She told me so.” I didn’t like the look on Dude’s face, that punk sneer. I’d seen it before, but only onstage. That was acting. This was something else.
“She paid you?”
“That’s … entertainment!”
I looked at Ward to help me decide whether Dude was putting us on. I wasn’t sure. Neither was Ward.
“Little brother, when the market for Elvis concerts dries up, you can recycle your talent. There’s a lot of women out there who loved Elvis. There’s action for all of us, all three. They start out with the young Elvis. That’s you. They get me next. Yum. And then they wind up with Biggest. It’s like a Red Cross lifesaving class. You go from beginner to intermediate to advanced. And if the money’s right you can do it in one night.”
“What’s become of you, Dude?” Ward asked.
“What’s become of me? You’re the one who’s always saying how we have an advantage over the Original. We can get closer to people, we don’t seal ourselves off behind gates and bodyguards. We meet the people on the people’s terms. Am I right? They can get closer to us than to him. They can touch us. Sit on Saint Elvis’ lap … attend ceremonies with Saint Elvis … walk with him and talk with him. Well, I just took it a step further, Professor. I put on my leather for her and I let her take it off and I say this is my body, darling, broken for you, come have a little piece of it. Or a big well-marbled hunk. And you’re asking me what happened?”
Dude’s voice trailed off and his anger drained out of him. We all just sat there. After a while, he shook his head. “Okay, I’m sorry. Ward? Chestnut? It didn’t happen that way. Okay. It really didn’t. I was bullshitting. Okay?”
“Then how … did it happen?” I asked. He smiled at me but he didn’t answer. So I guess I’ll never know.
Albert “Dude” Lane
So we were tourists. We were on a free vacation. We kept on playing in Hong Kong and Macau and Taipei. We should relax and enjoy it, Ward said, look at that Hong Kong harbor, the way the water caught the neon signs off the skyscrapers, and the hills were piled high with lights, and the ferries scuttled back and forth in a place that never rested. Or check out those lost, pretty Portuguese buildings in Macau, a little bit of the Mediterranean surrounded by high-rise condos and casinos, an ancient harbor stuffed with landfill, pipes and dikes and cranes. We took it in, we nodded respectfully, we even spent a day at a Taipei museum the size of Fort Knox, all of China on display. But we were wondering what was going to become of this.
What was Uncle Pete thinking? Did he figure we’d never find out he was footing the bill? Did he reckon that, once people caught our act, they’d be anxious to have us come again and to pay for what we’d given away? A free Elvis sample, was that the idea? That’s what Chester decided, after he’d given it some thought. I said, yeah, sure, Chestnut, I guess you scoped it out. He was happy again, he cheered right up.
There was another way of looking at it, though. Uncle Pete had backed us up every step, starting with when we dragged him down to the Tiger’s Cage. He’d done it all, from Guam to Saipan to Olongapo. So far, so good. It was wild oats, youthful adventure, seeing how the other half lives. But then—just maybe—it got out of hand, out of his hands, anyway. Other things took over: Ward Wiggins, Olongapo, Graceland, Elvis. It had given me the willies, sometimes, when I saw what had happened in Olongapo and it might have done the same to Uncle Pete, long-distance, one son fixing to make a movie, another planning marriage, and eldest Elvis going ten rounds with the Catholic church. I doubted Uncle Pete would put up with that for long. Or that Olongapo would be there for us when the tour was over. I felt it down deep, down in my legs and stomach, in all the places that you feel before you think.
We tried to call Olongapo. We should have known better. You’ll never get a Filipino to figure out how a telephone works. At home, you sit by your phone, you get more wrong numbers than right and usually it’s the same person making the same mistake again and again. They dial numbers like they pray the rosary, the same fingers over the same beads, hoping that sooner or later they’ll get through to heaven, no matter how many times they hear it’s a wrong number. And when you try calling the Philippines, it’s even worse. Now you’re the one on the rosary. Dial a prayer. Pray for a dial tone. Static, silence, disconnects, maids and children. It broke my poor brother’s heart, trying to get through to Christina. He kept the number by the hotel phone, tried every night. Until the night in Taipei I got Ward to try for him. “Don’t ask for the girl,” I said. “That’s the mistake. Ask for the priest. Your buddy. He won’t talk to Chester. But he might talk to you.”
“Where’s Chester?”
“Down moping in the lobby.”
“Shouldn’t he be here? If I get through?”
I gave Ward the look I gave him when I wanted to link right up to him: one smart man to another. “He might not like what he hears.”
“Okay, Dude,” he said. He knew what I meant. We were at that stage where things were happening that we couldn’t control. So no news was good news and what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you … for a while. This time the phone call went right through. Ward identified himself. “Your old friend.” He said we were in Taipei. He said he missed Olongapo. He missed Father Domingo, he said. Sure, they’d had problems but they were friends. That’s how he would feel, if it ended tomorrow. He said that poor Chester had been trying to get through, again and again, it was breaking his heart and whatever stand Father took on the marriage, couldn’t he at least let them talk awhile, while they were so far away? Then Ward heard something that must have startled him. His face turned serious. He listened, just listened, not saying anything more than yes and I see and I believe you and good-bye. And when he hung up, he looked around the room, to confirm that Chester still wasn’t around.
“He says that when Chester called he told him that Christina wasn’t there. He says that’s the truth. And he didn’t mean she’s not by the phone or not in the house. He means she’s left. … She took off.”
“Christina took off? His own sister? The schoolteacher?” It came as a surprise, till I thought of the way she’d driven us down from Baguio that night.
“She packed her bags, he says. He didn’t go into it but I think he leaned into her one time too many about Chester.”
“No clue where she went?”
‘That part was odd. He was thinking, all this time, that she was with us. So when Chester called again and again, Father thought he was rubbing it in, that Christina was with him, with us, in a hotel room someplace.”