Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  ` Jobs're a drag, ma'am," E said. "I've had enough jobs."

  "Once you're captured they'll work you in prison, surely-

  "Goddamnit, shut up-!" The vehemence with which he slung his demand intimidated as intended. I muted, and readied to brake the car if he began flailing, but he didn't. A billboard on our left advertised the Ditty Wah Ditty Tourist Court's clean cabins, six miles downroad. Allowing him time enough to calm, I waited until he again appeared at comparative peace before conversing anew.

  "Why do you ma'am me sometime and lady me others?" I asked.

  "Your husband didn't act like a businessman," E said, ignoring my question as if I'd not asked it, pronouncing biz as bid. "Acts like a teacher I had back in high school."

  "A teacher?" I repeated, astonished by the concept that my husband could so image. "You mean in a reformatory?"

  "Yeah," he laughed. "Humes High. Teacher I had, he taught biology. Mean of sonofabitch. Just looked down on everything and everybody."

  "You've misread my husband, then-"

  "Turned out he was a commie," E said.

  "How uncovered?"

  "Had a map of Russia right there in his house. Nobody was surprised."

  "Who was looking for commies?"

  His lip drew up as he laughed again, evidencing delight at my having to so inquire. "Must do things real different up north," he said. An overalled man guided a plow as his horse clomped through a yellow field on the right, rutting dirt; I perceived by his stance that our appearance startled him as his amazed me. We'd never been awared as to how recently the peasantry had subsisted in such ancient manner in the veldt. "Doesn't"-pronounced dudn't-"Doesn't this feel good now, just runnin' down the road like this?" E asked; I shook my head. "How long you been married?"

  "Fifteen years."

  "How old were you? Fourteen?"

  "I'm forty-four," I said.

  "I don't believe you," said E. "You don't look it. He does. Looks like he's been sewn up so many times they can't find a place to stitch."

  "Generally they do," I said.

  "Why's a good-lookin' woman like you married to an old gorilla like him?"

  "That's none of your business," I said; once more felt him shove his gun against me.

  "I think it is," he said. "Don't be tellin' me otherwise."

  "My business doesn't matter and yours does, that's what you're telling?"

  "Come on, don't get upset-"

  "Take that gun off me," I said; he did. "Did your mother tell you what your business should be all the time?"

  His face slackened as if he'd been sedated; he moved away from me, and was wordless for a moment. "I loved my mother."

  "You snuffed her, all the same."

  He nodded, as if one shouldn't preclude the other. "One time she told me it was harder than I'd ever know, raisin' me. I told her I didn't try t'make it that way but she said it didn't matter, I did anyway. Nothin' I ever did was right, hear her tell it."

  "Where's your father?"

  "I don't know," E said, his color fading until he was almost so pale as me; he so monotoned as he spoke that a stranger might have thought he was talking of someone else's family. "He passed some bad checks. Got caught, went to jail. Never come back. It tore mamma up. We'd just moved to Memphis. She kept sayin' if it hadn't been for that we mighta been all right."

  "What was her job?"

  "Mamma worked for a while as a nurse's aide at the hospital. Mopped floors. Emptied rich ladies' bedpans. Quit once or twice, said she couldn't do nothin' with a bad back."

  "So you worked, then?"

  "Yeah. Didn't want to. Hell, what choice's anybody got?" he said. "Where's the radio in this car?" I switched it on, cautioning my actions so that he wouldn't think I threatened. After he situated the radio he took control of the knobs, moving through the spectrum's static, blurring sound into garble.

  "That problematicked between you and your mother?" I asked.

  "I don't wanta talk about it." He ceased his search when a flourish of strings wafted up, backgrounding a singer. "Dean Martin," E said. "He's okay." However unmemorable the song might have been, E knew the lyrics, and as we drove he began singing along. It evidenced at once that his voice duped exactly the earliest sound of our world's Elvis. Dryco would have no trouble foisting him off on his audience so long as he did nothing but sing; I was grateful that the regooding of the rest of him would be left to them, so long as we got him back. The song ended, and he quieted; the announcer started spieling for an upcoming program.

  "Your voice is one of a kind," I said. "We're music people."

  "Up in New York?" he asked. "What's this job you were talkin' about?"

  "Singing. Performing. We'd heard word of your ability."

  "Heard from who?" He foottapped the floor as an instrumental came on the radio; John added his own counterpoint, assuring me by producing his own percussion.

  "Word rounds," I said. "What goes, comes. You've sung in public before?"

  "One time in Mississippi, last year," he said.

  "Tell."

  "What for?" he asked. "I'm still up for this job?"

  "So long as you don't hurt us," I said. "What happened?"

  "One weekend I took off 'n hitchiked down to the Jimmie Rodgers Festival in Meridian. I was born in Mississippi, that made me eligible to play. I brought my guitar. Sang a couple songs. I didn't play country, though. They started booin' and laughin' at me. Sonsabitches-" His voice broke before he quieted, lending his voice greater youth than it already held.

  "Everyone thinks themselves a critic," I said. "Why didn't you bring your guitar along with you?"

  "I smashed it upside a tree after I got off stage," he said. "Couple old rednecks said it was the best thing I coulda done with it. If it'd still been in one piece I'da beat 'em blind with it-"

  "Then you've no instrument-"

  "Aw, I could always rig up a diddly bo if I needed somethin' to play. It's not necessary to-"

  "What's a diddly bo?"

  "Take a board, drive some nails in it, tie string between em. It'll do the trick."

  "You didn't play country," I said. "What did you play?"

  "Blues," he said. "They don't care much for it in Mississippi, I guess."

  The interstate's wall apparently shielded the local industries from view; every few kilometers more of those cloudhigh chimneys towered above its length, spewing blackness. Scattered along the right roadside, interspersed with clapboard shacks, were oversized houses encompassed by verandas; gleaming copper cupolas supplied their green in lieu of that of the naked trees surrounding. The houses must once have been plantation HQs, I thought; their matches, in our world, were undoubtedly torched during the Civil War, or left to rot into the soil once their support systems were emancipated. But these places looked museum-preserved, appearing new-built through the netting of gray moss hanging from their yards' stripped trees, as if my ancestors were still being used to brighten paint and glaze windows.

  Where were my people? WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI, read a directional beyond the road's intersection with a narrow dirt lane; our car wheels dusted the asphalt as we sped on. Possibly, I thought, they'd all been painted as I'd been, washed of their color to better satisfy someone's notions of decor; mayhap, like Nyasas, they'd hied themselves away before others took charge of their relocation. I conscioused of another's touch, mid-reverie; E stroked my arm with his free hand's fingers.

  "Don't," I said, drawing back, feeling as if roaches were still strolling across me. I slowed as I bumped the car over a wooden bridge; the brown water below resembled dirty honey. Afternoon sun shimmered the horizon; pools of water appeared and disappeared on the concrete distanced. Heat rippled the air above the red and ocher flatland. E flipped through one of his magazines, aiming his gun at my side; looked up when he noticed me judging its angle.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Call me Isabel."

  He laughed, sounding as if he'd just returned from a panty raid;
it appalled me to consider how much longer I would have to semblance calm. I tried to think of ways I could convince him to release John. "Figures, way this car's painted-"

  "What's meant?"

  "Nothin'," he said, softening his drawl. "I like this, Isabel. I like ridin' with you."

  "The weapon's nonessential, I'd think," I said.

  "You're thinkin' wrong, then," he said, looking at his magazine once more. The article he read was entitled I Remember Lemuria.

  "That's science fiction you're reading?"

  "No, this is true," E said. "It's about the Dero. I read this'n lotsa times before but it's good. Mamma wouldn't let me bring magazines into the house when I was little so-" "Dero?" I replayed. "Dero what?"

  "You never hearda Dero?" I shook my head. "This fellow named Shaver found out about 'em during the war. Dero live in caves and in secret hideaways. They kidnap people and take 'em down below and torture 'em, kill 'em sometimes. When they're not doin' that they cause everything bad that happens in the world. They must be minions of the Demiurge."

  His allusions were absent of understandable referents, and I was thoroughly baffled. "I see ..."

  "Some think they're the ones in the flying saucers, the ones that aren't Germans."

  "What do Germans have to do with Dero-?"

  "I think they might have hooked up together, myself. You've never seen one a the German flying saucers?" E asked; I shook my head. "We see 'em down here all the time. They make 'em in the Farben plant, outside Memphis. They won't own up to it of course, but everybody knows whose they are. Fellow I met told me one swooped so low flyin' over him he saw a swastika on its underside."

  "Swastikas?" I said. "Germans are still Nazis?"

  E stared at me, his mouth agape, as if I'd spoken of my own Dero. "You don't keep up on these things in New York? What the hell do you think they are-?"

  He eyed me as if, reapprised, he now distrusted anything I told him. "You hear about them re-forming all the time," I said, hoping to reassure. "I'd not figured they'd ID things such as those."

  "Yeah, usually they lay low," E said. "I don't trust 'em myself, whatever they say."

  "Better red than dead." As I said it I realized I'd transposed, but let it go; he seemed not to notice.

  "I read that there're buildings in New York where if you press the right button in the elevator, you go down to where the Dero live. You never heard about that?"

  "No," I said. "You say Dero cause all that's bad in the world?"

  "That's what they say-"

  "But they didn't kill your mother."

  E lifted his gun, placing it against my cheek as if he readied to fire. "Uh-uh," he said. "Won't be the ones killin' you either if it comes to that."

  "Put it down, Elvis," I said, keeping my eyes fixed roadways, hoping to see any car approaching, spotting none. When he didn't take away the gun I gradually flatfooted the accelerator, speeding us up to sixty miles per. "Shoot now and we'll crash and we'll all die. That's what's wanted?"

  "My mamma doesn't concern you-"

  "There's no reason for shooting her." I heard John tap his foot against the door, awaring me that he was conscious, if unmoving.

  "You weren't there," he said, putting the gun away, thrusting its barrel between his body and his waistband, drawing his shirttail over the bulge. I brought up my foot, slowing to reasonable speed. "You don't know, you weren't there-"

  "What happened, then?" I asked. "Detail."

  "Nothin' happened," he shouted. "Not much. We had an argument. I brought her a present for Mother's Day and she didn't like it."

  "That's why you shot her?"

  "No," he said. "I bought her a Hank Williams record. She said she didn't want t'listen to it, and I should be ashamed a myself for-"

  "For what?" I asked; his face purpled while he muted, recalling, but when he began talking again he'd recontrolled himself, and his words came bereft of emotion.

  "She started tellin' me how no-account I was to be buyin' her records when I had a voice better'n anybody else. Told me if I'd just start learnin' country songs I could start playin' in public and makin' a livin'. But I can't sing that country shit, I hate it."

  "It's blues you want to sing-"

  "Exactly. And who wants to hear that? Nobody, that's who. But she started sayin' I was like my daddy, no good, and I kept tellin' her to shut up and she wouldn't, and she hit me, and so I ran back into my room and got my gun and-" He paused; blinked once or twice, as if emerging from a trance. "That's all she wrote."

  "Your temperament entangles you overmuch," I said. "It hazards sans reason."

  "What'd you just say to me, Isabel?"

  "You can't respond to others so unthinkingly," I said. "You'll kill others and regret later."

  "I don't regret nothin' I've ever done, you know that?"

  "You will, with age," I said.

  "I'm tougher'n most," he said. "I don't take any guff. You know what I did to a fellow I worked with at Loew's theater?"

  "Kill him?"

  "I caught him while he was changin' clothes. I cut him all to pieces. Knocked him down, kicked him in the jaw while he was on the floor. Then I kicked him in the stomach. That was the least I could do. He was screamin' like a dog."

  "How'd he upset you?" I asked.

  "Told the manager I was gettin' free candy from a little girl workin' at the candy counter. I got fired for it. Went right downstairs and dealt with him straight. He got fired too, after that."

  "The usher lived?"

  "Yeah," E said. "What'd you think I am, anyway?" He appeared deeply troubled that I'd thought it necessary to ask. "That job was all right. I liked the uniform." He patted his thin chest as if he still wore it, and wished to display its buttons. "That set you straight about me?"

  "I'd say you overkilled," I said. "You're trying to impress?"

  He attempted his sneer, again doing nothing more than puckering his lip. "What'd I wanta impress you for?"

  I shook my head. "We should get something to eat," I said. If I could loose John from his bonds once we stopped, we stood a chance of recontrolling the situation as we desired, thereafter returning sans delay. Ridding ourselves of E was all I wanted to do.

  "I'm not hungry," he said.

  "I am. John's certainly starving-"

  "All right," he said, his voice highpitching. "Next place you see that's open, we'll get something. Not many places gonna be open on a Sunday. We'll go on a little ways somewhere else to eat it. Gettin' late anyhow."

  Several kilometers along I eyed a frame building larger than most of the shacks we'd passed. A handdrawn sign hanging on a pole beside its parking lot's entry showed two frogs standing upright, holding an outstretched banner between them; upon its length were the words, GREEN FROG RESTAURANT / CHICKEN DINNERS / FROG LEGS.

  "This looks good," E said. I turned the car into the gravel yard, stopping at the lot's far edge, alongside a fenced meadow.

  "What do you want?" I asked, shutting off the engines and the soundtrack.

  "We'll both go in," he said, reaching across me and opening my door, deliberately drawing his arm over my breasts. "Get out."

  He kept his gun waisted as he pulled himself up from his seat. Emerging, I thought I felt rain; realized that the air was so saturated that it wet my arms and face with moist sunshine. "I want to see if John's-"

  "He's fine," E said. "You can see'm once we're clear. Come on."

  The gravel burned my feet through my shoe-soles. Venetian blinds shaded the restaurant's windows; E held the screen door open for me as I entered. The interior was no larger than the Presleys' apartment had been, and sheltered only three unoccupied tables; two young men stood behind the unpainted wooden counter. Both wore smudged white caps; the taller one was missing several teeth, while the other rubbed his palms against his pink, draining eye, smearing both. The odor of frying fat overpowered me almost enough to sicken.

  "What can we get you folks?" said the shorter man, taking his hand from h
is face and wiping it on his apron.

  "Can we get us a couple chickens?" Elvis asked, interrupting me before I might order frog. "Maybe couple pieces a peach pie to go with it. And a couple cola drinks."

  "Three of each, please," I added.

  "Sure thing," said the man, stepping through a doorway into the kitchen to assemble our order. In his absence the man with dental troubles eyed us updown, his stare engorging with warm dislike. I could think of nothing we'd done to bother him. Flies buzzed through the still air; E rocked forthback on his heels, whistling underbreath. In a few min utes the other man returned to the counter, carrying three brown, greasestained bags.

  "That'll be three ninety-eight, mister," he said.

  I fretted for a moment, realizing that I'd left my purse in the car; then recalled that E had thieved my money. "You've got it-" I started to tell him; watched as he pulled out his gun, aiming it at the men.

  "It's to go," E said.

  "This some kinda joke, buddy?" E snatched the bags from the man and handed them to me. The man's smile faded as E unsafetied the gun.

  "You laughin'?"

  The man had started to reach beneath the counter when E fired; he gurgled and dropped, clutching the hole in his neck. The greasy bags slipped from my hands; I slumped against the countertop, watching events cascade as if in slomo. The other man impaled E's unweaponed hand with a two-tined fork as he rested it upon the countertop. One tine pricked E below the knuckles; he screamed as he pulled his hand away and fired again, bullseyeing the other man's mouth. Something gritty and damp splattered my face, and I vomited. E thrust his gun back into his pants and grabbed my arm with such vigor that he bruised it, dragging me out. "Come on," he shouted. "Dammit."

  "Idiot," I said, choking, continuing to heave. "Fool. We had money-"

  "Shut up!"

  "We had money!" I shouted back, but my stomach so pained and my throat so burned that I silenced. Even at the time I didn't remember running to the car and throwing myself in; E pushed his way into the driver's seat, shoving me across the seat as he wheeled himself.