Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  "Let's take a ride," E said. "Tireda sittin' in here with that."

  "Your mother?" E frowned; fumbled through a drawer with his free hand until he found a length of white cord. "Might others have heard as we did?"

  E untwisted the rope, straightening its coils. "Everbody round here's at church. They're all Christians."

  "What are you?" I asked.

  "Hey, you a rough crawler, son?" E said, ignoring me save to hand me the white rope; he slapped my husband's back as if to judge ripeness. John said nothing; remained unmoving. "You tie'm up now. Go on. Tie'm tight with that clothesline. Don't do no slip knot. I'm watchin' you."

  "Why's it necessary to bind him?" I asked, holding the line in my hands.

  "I don't want no barrelhouse," said E. "Your friend here's no spring chicken but he's solid. Go ahead, now. Tie his wrists together. Loop the clothesline through his belt."

  John nodded, allowing permission; he placed his hands at the small of his back. I was no scout, and knew nothing of knots; I attempted to secure my husband's arms tightly enough to satisfy E but not enough to prevent bloodflow. I stood back, enabling E to examine my handiwork; as he gripped the line he yanked it, almost unfooting my husband.

  "Don't," John said, evidencing upset.

  "Don't tell me what t'do." Reaching into the sink E extracted a rag from a dish-stack and threw it at me. "Gag'm."

  "I won't-"

  "Will," said E, placing his gun at my temple. I wound the cloth round my husband's head, fitting it over his mouth before knotting it. E readjusted the rag, stuffing its folds between John's lips; then moved a step or two away, turning him toward us. While he kept his gun on me E lefted John's stomach, felling him. Once my husband floored he booted his ribs, smiling all the time as if keening to hear the snap.

  "Don't!" I shouted, heedless of whether he shot me.

  "I'm not wearin' hard shoes," E said. He laughed until I wished to hurt him more than he'd hurt my husband; John glared at me, willing that I still, evidencing that he'd not been overly harmed. E hadn't kicked hard enough to dent John's underlay; if bruised without, he remained whole within. "Hell, you act like he's your boyfriend or somethin', you-

  "He's my husband," I said. "Don't hurt him again."

  "You're married?" E asked, staring at us. "That beats all. Okay, then, help 'im get up."

  "Don't touch him."

  "Won't if I can help it," E said, laughing, rubbing his fingers along his gun's grip, caressing the stock as if his touch brought mutual joy. "Looks kinda pitiful there like that, don't he?"

  As I righted my husband I recalled that our world's Elvis was one of twins; his brother was born dead, as he would have been a century later. Speculation rifed as to what the nature of Elvis's mirroring brother might have been; the Jesseans, truly, pronounced the dead baby to be their messiah, and were thus excommunicated by all other sects of the C of E. I fancied that the E with whom we were dealing in this world might in ours be the twin who'd not lived, a survivor who'd taken on or been given the name of his brother.

  "Let's go," said E, raising a battered valise from beneath the kitchen table, lifting it over his mother's husk. "You go first. Don't try nothin'. Where're y'parked?"

  "We're fronted."

  As we left the kitchen E shifted his bag beneath his arm and pulled a sheet off the living room's worn sofa. He paused sidelong at the front doorway as we porched ourselves, eyeing the street updown. "That Hudson's yours?"

  "None other."

  "Nobody's around," he said. "Go on. I'm right behind you, don't do nothin' stupid." We crossed the grassless lawn, followed close by E. "Unlock it if it's locked and lay him down in the back seat." While I opened the car's back door I watched E overlook its polychromed metal. "Damn. Y'all get this thing off a nigger?"

  "That word's unwarranted," I said. "Bestill its use around me. Why the question?"

  "The colors-"

  "They're summery and pleasant." He stared at me as if witholding a smile while I guided John into the back, assisting him as I placed him on his side, careful not to disengage his leg's mechanics.

  "Where the hell y'all from, lady?" E asked, tossing his valise into the front seat.

  "North," I said. "New York."

  "Oh, yeah?" E billowed the sheet over John, cloaking him. "All laid out," he said. "All he needs now's coins on his eyes. Might get 'em yet."

  "He'll overheat like that," I said. "Remove it."

  "Not while we're in town. People'll think he's bein' kidnapped."

  "He's not?" I asked. "A covered body won't arouse suspicions?"

  "You know how to drive?"

  "You don't?" During our training I'd been taught; as a New Yorker I'd never learned.

  "Yeah, but not one-hand," E said, waving his gun, motioning for me to move. "Get in. Let's hit it."

  E clambered into shotgun position as I wheeled myself, planting his foot on my purse; his white shoes were so scuffed as a Bolshoi dancer's. His valise sprang open as he floored it, scattering colorful shirts and magazines. As he seated himself he struck his head on the doorframe; I readied to pluck up his gun if he dropped it, but he didn't.

  "Dammit," he said, massaging his forehead; he must have noticed my smile. "Dammit, go on. Drive."

  "Where?"

  "Where I tell you."

  "My husband," I said. "John. Tap your foot if you're AO." Looking in the rearview I saw only his sheeted midsection. I pressed the ignition, revving the soundtrack as the batteries silently charged; heard beneath its roar his shoes rapping against the side of the car. I kicked off my shoe; rested my foot on the accelerator and shifted to drive after assuring clearance.

  "Watch for kids, pullin' out," E said. The car was a smooth runner, but I didn't want to drive those interstates. "Hang a left at the light." He positioned his arm against his knee, tenting his gun with our newssheet. The signal changed from orange to blue as we approached, and I steered the car left, toward the town center. "What kinda Hudson is this?" he asked, studying the dash's gauges and dials. "Looks like a fighter jet in here."

  "You're familiared with jets?" I asked. "Were you blue yondered?"

  "Can't you talk straight, lady?" he asked; I wondered how many anachronisms were slipping into my speech. "I seen pictures a jets, who hasn't?"

  For a short distance the neighborhood upscaled. Midsize houses stood newroofed and clear-windowed, polished cars shone in the sun, residents clipped green grass before breaking for one of several daily meals. "What's the destination?" I asked, switching on the AC so that John wouldn't broil.

  "Mississippi," he said. "I'll be tellin' you how to get there."

  "Why Mississippi?"

  "Cause it's not Tennessee," E said. "Quit askin' so many damn questions, lady, I don't want to shoot you."

  "You shot your mother," I said.

  "That's nobody's business but mine and hers," he said, his voice uninflected. "Left again, at this stop sign."

  I steered the car onto Third Street, entering the commercial zone's outskirts. Three blocks distant, the interstate's overhead provided a long, cool tunnel; when we emerged we were in downtown's thriving midst, its streets lined with office buildings no higher than a Westchester cineplex. Mem- phiseans-caucasoids all-thronged the wide awninged sidewalks as their cars and buses gridlocked the avenues. Most stores' signs were illuminated as if it were night, flashing multihued neon displays. Its small size notwithstanding, Memphis's center semblanced an urbanity I'd known only from films, here seen technicolored and holo-sharp. My dress was no less unstylish here than it had been in New York; most men wore wrinkled seersucker, stained between the shoulderblades. Standing outside the ornate entrance of a larger structure called the Peabody Hotel was a metal placard in bird's outline, announcing that all should Come See the Ducks.

  "What ducks?" I asked.

  "They come walkin' cross the lobby there ever' day to go swim in a fountain inside," said E. "Hotel makes a big to-do 'bout it. President, movie stars come to to
wn, mayor takes 'em down to see the ducks. It's sorry, but true."

  "Why do they have ducks in a hotel?"

  "Think I run the place, lady? I don't know." Even he seemed surprised by his anger; he settled, staring windowways, allowing his eyes to unfocus while he reveried. "When I was a kid there was a boy lived next door to us in Tupelo. His parents, they were Christians, they gave him some baby ducks for Easter." To the right, blocking any riverviews, stood a number of sprawling stone buildings whose forbidding designs inferred that they housed government functionaries. "He took 'em out in the back yard, buried 'em up to their necks and then run over 'em with the mower."

  "That's senseless," I said. "Did he murder, later on?"

  "I said, you want to kill 'em, just kill 'em," E said. "No need to make a big thing out of it. Crazy mixed-up kid."

  I eyed the placement of the Alekhine button on the dash, in the event immediate transferral essentialed; glimpsed the magazines strewn among his clothing as they spilled from his bag. Limned upon one of the covers was a man wearing a winged helmet and staring into what appeared to be a TV screen programming a shot of an aerodynamically improbable rocket.

  "Science fiction?" I asked, nodding downward. E lay his shoe upon the magazine as if to hide it. "You read it?"

  "It's not what you think," he said, grunting his reply. "It's not all made-up." Beyond a number of older houses on our left was a larger stone building with columns. A sign impaled in its surrounding greensward announced, in badly drawn letters, Tonight's Lecture: How Red Is The Little Red Schoolhouse?

  "That's a school?" I asked.

  "Library," E said, chewing at his lips. He facaded calm, whatever roiled within him, and it seemed unlikely that he would kill me within the next few minutes. Still, whether he replayed within his mind the reasons for having shot his mother, pondered how to dispose of our bodies, or simply thought of what he'd had for breakfast as he sat there was unguessable to me.

  "You got gas in this car?" E asked.

  "We're fueled."

  "How much money you got on you?"

  "Much as you need," I said.

  "Nobody's got that much money, lady," he said, laughing. "Where is it?"

  "It's pursed," I said. "Down there."

  E retrieved my clutch from where I'd left it and dumped out the contents. Unbilling my wallet, he shoved my money into his pants. Finding John's copy of Knifelife, he picked it up, and perused its pages as we drove on, a book in one hand, a gun in the other. "What kinda book is this?" he said. "They're talkin' about how t'kill people in here."

  "That's intended," I said. "You need lessons?"

  "Damn. `More solid than stabbing a pillow so long as ribs-' " E dropped the book, as if by touching it he'd heard a victim's screams. "That's sick. That is."

  "It's my husband's book. A trainer's text."

  "Like a schoolbook?" I nodded. "He's not a gangster or anything, is he?"

  "A businessman," I said. A sign in a window passed announced the arrival of new model television sets, some with built-in bars. "You shouldn't literal all the text, I'm told."

  "Good thing. Some of it reads like science fiction but the rest-"

  "There's nothing in it of moons or Martians," I said.

  "I mean the attitude," said E. "I can handle stuff with Martians in it. I been readin' Amazing Stories, all of 'em, since I was a kid." His attentions shot elsewhere; uprighting himself, he smoothed the newssheet over his gun, and glanced back at John. "Shit. See that police car over there? Don't do nothin', just keep drivin' or I'll shoot." The police's black-and-white passed us, heading downtown; the cop within stared ahead, as if debating whether to respond to a call. He held the look common to all enforcement junkies, a wash of ennui so absolute that only the greatest levels of violence, experienced either actively or passively, could stir them. John considered police the worst sort of amateurs. As the car distanced, E sighed; he'd held his breath as we brushed.

  "He must be going to see your mother," I said.

  "Maybe," E said, closing his eyes. "Don't wanta talk about it."

  `John?" I heard two taps in reply, and spoke to E. "Your gun's unneeded. Please stuff it."

  "Won't fit in my pocket," he said, and I thought he japed me; when he said nothing more, I discerned that he believed his reason valid. "Almost outta town. That's good."

  "What do people do in Memphis?"

  "Get out of it, first chance they get," said E. `Just stay on this road."

  On the road's right side was a prime familiarity. "This is recognizable," I said. "I've seen pictures." Visible behind a high fence and grove of trees was a stone house standing atop a hill. "Graceland," I said, sounding the word, seeing the shrine as it stood in pre-Presley days. The roof sagged, many windows were broken; the columns needed paint. Its setting was nearly rural, entirely unlike the house's grounds in our world, reconstructed and prettified and circled round by tetzeltowns, where all manner of indulgences were peddled to the coin-ringing faithful.

  "That old barn," E said, glancing over. "It's not as old as I am and it's already fallin' down."

  The road Graceland faced, the route by which we departed Memphis, had been renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard while its namesake still lived. I debated whether this moment suitabled to point this out, and aware E of why we'd come for him; decided that, as circumstanced, he was probably in no more mood to hear than I was to tell. The road narrowed as we left town; its two lanes straightarrowed into deeper south. Clumps of brown pine and bare-leafed deciduous were interspersed between gas stations, diners and shacks, and I espied the interstate and its accompanying atmosphere coming close. Its wall curved toward our road, rising above the fields some two hundred meters off to the left, paralleling our route.

  "When can we untie John?"

  "That's his name?" E asked. "Drive and don't worry. It's air-cooled in here, he's comfortable enough. He's really your husband?"

  "Why would I lie?"

  "I didn't say you did. He looks ten years older'n you."

  "Two."

  "I said he looked it," said E. "Can't say I buy that, ma'am. Pretty woman like you wouldn't marry some old dog like him."

  "Don't macho me," I said. "Did your mother do something to you?"

  "Lady, it's nobody's business but mine-"

  "I'm involved in your business."

  "You got yourself involved, walkin' in without knockin'," E said. "Nobody ever teach you manners?"

  "Manners? You murder and you talk etiquette to me-?"

  I noticed he'd slackened his grip on his gun-seemed, in truth, almost to have forgotten he held it. Lunging for it while driving seemed to me an unsound response, and so I didn't attempt seizure. As I sized him sidelong, my glance repeatedly returned to his eyes; I was almost certain that he'd mascaraed his lashes, as had our world's Elvis. Without doubt I suspected that he used his mother's makeup.

  "I don't wanta talk about that," he said. "Damn women-

  "Women? You're alive, she's not."

  "Alive in body," he said. "Hell, lady. When you get acted on, what're y'gonna do? Devil owns this world, you know that. Man can't do nothin' 'cept take it as it comes."

  "You're talking as if you're scripted," I said, estimating it best that I continue to assuage and misdirect, talking him into deeper distraction. One approach I could have taken was one John couldn't opt for; but I imagined no condition which would cause me to attempt seduction. Recalling so well as I could my younger days, when Judy and I conned as willed those we wished to bend, I earplayed my way through, drawing upon technik I'd forgotten I had. "You're disassociating blame. No devil killed your mother."

  "You don't get it?" he asked. "You Christian?"

  "What are you?" I responded.

  "Damned," he said, intoning with such melodrama as only a teen can muster. "Might as well talk to the wall, then."

  The road countrysided, passing flat fields on the right; the riverplain must have been some unseeable distance beyond. The interstate's wall
rolled on, leftward, as before. High oak and loblolly pines erupted along the borders of lots. Six small signs no larger than floorboards sequenced along the shoulder, each bearing white-lettered sentences enscribed upon a sunbleached red field, and reading WITH GLAMOUR GIRLS / YOU'LL NEVER CLICK / BEWHISKERED / LIKE A / BOLSHEVIK / BURMA SHAVE.

  "What's Burma Shave?" I asked. "An art project?"

  "Lady, you kill me," E said, smiling as if he liked me. "Tell me where you're really from."

  "New York, told as said. That's our city's newssheet, true?"

  "Looks like it," he said, opening the Mirror's pages. However loosely he held his gun, his aim kept true. "I've heard people from New York talk before. You don't sound like 'em." He snorted, as if his lungs imploded.

  "Are you choking?" I asked.

  "Laughin'," he said. "Listen to this. `Panty raid turns violent. Twenty University of Kentucky coeds assaulted, three dead.' Just havin' fun, says-" He paused. "Participle-"

  "Participant," I said, reading the word which so troubled.

  "My kinda fun, sounds like."

  The incident's charm eluded me; then again, so had his. "That's monstrous," I said. "Those poor women."

  "Hell, they just didn't interview the ones that liked it."

  "Mayhap those were the ones killed," I said. Rearviewing, I glanced at John's middle as it shook with the roll of the car.

  "They musta asked for it-"

  "As we did?"

  He gazed my way; smiled. "Maybe."

  "What are you going to do with us?" I asked. E pressed his gun's muzzle against my side and scooted closer to me, pushing its tip against my ribs.

  "You never did tell me how you know my name," he said, "or why you're lookin' for me."

  "We've a job for you," I said. "We came to flagpole the idea and see what flies."