Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  "His reaction could disrupt the project if he sees you're not as he's believed and then acts accordanced to his background," he said. "We've discussed this, Isabel, you're magnifying superficialities."

  "It's not superficial-"

  "I don't see why you've not adjusted better to your look," he said. "It's-"

  "Preferable?" My shout must have upset him; he shook his head so vigorously that I thought he might send it sailing. "I'm devoting half my life to him for you, Leverett. He can take me as I am. I want to cease Melaway intake."

  "He's racially backgrounded," Leverett said. "You can't, Isabel, it's unquestioned."

  "I want to cease Melaway intake-"

  "You have to make it so damned hard for me?" he said, his voice rising only enough to infer an anger with which he was growing too familiar. No sooner had he flared than he calmed anew. "You're deliberately not understanding me. We've got success by the throat. If you recolor now, Isabel, that could handbasket all to hell. Please, a short time more. That's all I ask."

  "How long?"

  "A short time. Trust me as he trusts you."

  "Not enough trust," I said. "I'll stay housebound, then, like John. I've ceased home intake already."

  "Isabel-"

  "If he trusts me, he'll trust me however I am, once he understands," I said. "If this is unsuitable, then fire me. Now."

  His eyes widened; for a moment I saw far enough into him to discern how afraid he was before he blinked, and reshut- tered his soul. He leaned forward in his chair, clasping and reclasping his hands as if wishing to pray and forgetting how. "I understand this is important to you," he said. "Very well. I'll aware the technicians so they can begin overseeing withdrawal. But-"

  "What?"

  "I'd think you'd be concerned for your baby. For the effects withdrawal might have on it. Even if you're unconcerned for me, or your company, or the project-"

  "Meditexts inform that Melaway withdrawal won't impact my baby," I said. "Proven, Leverett. Don't guilt me."

  "Then if that's what's desired, I'll notify," he said, thrusting his lower lip out, as if evidencing a sulk. "You'll not reblacken overnight, true. Mayhap he'll adjust. Tell him you're spending more time in the sun-"

  "He'll not believe that, Leverett-"

  "If he upsets," he said, "if the screen blanks, your responsibility topmosts. That's understood?"

  "Understood," I said.

  "Fetal development thus far normal," my doctor said, concluding my check, several days later. If a computer died and returned in ghost's form to haunt its former office, its night cries would echo with like tonality, possessed of being sans soul. "Disruptions generally evidence after the initial month, as forewarned. Nothing can be assured until then."

  "Awared," I said.

  "Melaway withdrawal proceding sans untoward effect on either subject or fetus. Graduated reduction assures against unnecessary systemic shock. Have all options been reconsidered?"

  She was forbidden to mention termination, as termination was illegal; still, as the law could be with ease bypassed by Dryco if circumstances demanded, the procedure could have onwent as I lay there, so long as through her phrasing I gathered her inquiry's subtext.

  "No," I said. "Can the parentals be genied yet?"

  "As of next week," said my doctor. "Fetal contamination risk rises tenfold with such procedure, as warned. The test's desired?"

  "Desired," I said. "But I'll not chance. What of my headaches?"

  "Indirect result of pregnancy along with nausea, as explained. Reappoint for tomorrow, then. Avoid all teratologic factors and mutagens as recommended."

  "Including air and water?"

  "Not unless you wish to precede your child," my doctor said. I lifted myself from the table. Tugging my jacket closer around me, I stared at my browning hands.

  When they rehoused E the next week they moved him to the seventieth floor of a Concourse building, a lime-green spike driven through a century-old six-story base. The first time I met him there he sat on the floor by one of the windowwalls, staring into Manhattan's sea-haze and the strata cottoning the tower.

  "What's sighted?" I asked, walking toward him after the guards nodded, allowing me entry. The rooms were so depersonalized as a hotel's, and nothing within was as it showed: stone was plaster, brick was vinyl, ceramic was polystyrene, and glass was lucite. E didn't stand as I approached; I knelt on the floor beside him. At that point we'd been so proximitied for so long that I suppose I could have kissed him hello; I didn't.

  "What'd you do to your hair?" he asked, staring at me. I'd dyed it black the night before, prepping myself to see him as John lay silent in our bed. The darkness only paled my skin all the more, delaying any full realization he might yet make.

  "What's thought?" I asked.

  "Looks good," he said. "It's all right. You sleep on it wrong or somethin'? It's stickin' up real high in back." Lifting my hands, I patted my hair smooth, reshaping its lengths. I'd not yet readjusted to its unironed kinks. "What've you all got planned for me today? Am I really gonna get outta here? This's no different than the hospital."

  "Soon-"

  "How soon?" The room's cameras whirred, sharpening their focus at the source of the shout, taking account of movements. E's treatment during the preceding month had domesticated him enough so that I no longer disliked being alone with him; still, he hairtriggered, so that my guard never dropped, and at all times I readied to contain him if he bolted. It never came to that; generally all that was needed for me to do was glower, and that would still him. I imagined that his mother's look, too, must once have had that effect.

  "Leverett's arriving shortly," I said. "You know as much as I do. Let's ask him."

  "He's not gonna tell me anything. Like talkin' to a brick wall." He regarded the outer world once more, the odd towers and silhouettes eking through the clouds. "I never saw pictures a New York where it looked like this."

  "It's a different city," I said, finding it unsurprising that he couldn't yet locate himself in either space or time. "Years later, as well. And over here, not there."

  "Looks like somethin' on one a my magazines," he said. "Those little helicopters atomic powered?"

  "Hardly. Wouldn't be ecobuddiable-"

  "This's all like a dream, Isabel," he said. "I don't get it, I really don't. What is it y'all want me to be?"

  "Being you suffices," I said.

  "I'm not nobody and it's hard enough bein' that. You want somebody supernatural. I can't be that, nobody can. It just doesn't happen."

  "People here believe it does."

  "They believe crazy, then." He muted and, closing his eyes, handrubbed them, as if to prolong his awakening so as to assure that he wouldn't still be in his dream when he reopened. "It's all crazy, Isabel. Valentine tells us, anybody comes sayin' they're not a this world, they're either lyin' or they're a demiurge come to do mischief and harm. How can I pretend to be Satan?"

  "You're not," I said again. "That's not what's thought-"

  "I'm not no Dero," he said, "and I'm sure's hell not nothin' bigger."

  "That's not the spec here, E," I retold. "By being here and being yourself you'll do so much-"

  "What can I do for anybody?" he said, standing and walking away from me, toward the northfacing windowwall. "Can't even help myself. People'd be fools to wanta get anything outta me. I can't give 'em anything."

  "You don't have to give," I said. "You just have to be. That's all that's wanted, nothing more-"

  "Don't you mean they want me to be him, not me?" said E. "How can I do that? He wasn't even him, near's I can tell."

  "You're advantaged," I said. "He had no expectations of what would happen. No warning. All that ensued overwhelmed until he mindlost. But we've awared you of what's ahead, good and bad."

  "You're the only one talkin' to me 'bout anything bad."

  "The bad's seeable to any who look," I said. "You've looked." He nodded. "You're prepared, and he wasn't. But your life's your own,
and will stay your own."

  "Not to hear Leverett tell it," E said. "He showed me this schedule he's cookin' up for me once this act gets rollin'. He's got me flyin' here, runnin' there-"

  "Leverett's unhappy unless he sees everyone else being so busy as he believes he is," I said.

  "Won't know if I'm comin' or goin' or already been there." He sat on a purple sofa and propped his feet atop a glass table. "And nobody t'talk to but you, the whole time." "That's minded?"

  "Doesn't do much good," he said. "You're married to a mean bastard, Isabel. I'm not gettin' in his way if I can help it."

  "Friendship's the most I'm offering," I said, feeling my answer wasn't entirely truthful even as I gave it. Still, I wasn't willing to elaborate, as I wasn't certain what I'd already offered. "That's not enough?"

  "Isabel, you're, I mean-"

  "You're attracted to me?"

  I awaited his response, suspecting I knew the answer even if he didn't. We looked at one another, eyegazing; he turned away first, and lapped his hands as if to hide them. "You're older'n I am, Isabel," he said, and his sneer reappeared on his lip; estimating it unintentional, I didn't personalize. "And you're married, like I said. You're really pretty, you are, and I-"

  "What?"

  "I don't know," he said. "Maybe I do like you, Isabel. I never met anybody like you before."

  "Understandable, I'd think-"

  "I don't mean all this. I mean the way you are. It's not like anybody I know."

  "Detail," I said.

  "I never knew anybody who was in control of themselves before," he said. "Not my mamma or daddy. Nobody at school. Me, least of all. But you are."

  "You think I'm in control of myself?"

  "You don't?"

  I smiled, considering the notion so alien as to charm even as it befogged me. Whether I'd been utterly misviewed or, like my husband, E could at intervals discern personality traits inevident to all others, including the personality's possessor, I couldn't guess. "Rarely," I said. "The river rises, and I float with the flood. That's all any can do."

  "You can do more'n that," he said. "Don't let 'em fool you.

  "Understood," I said. "You've a lever here too, you know."

  "What're you talkin' about?" he asked, looking around.

  "If you don't participate, the project hangs. If the project goes, you should have some say in what's done. True?"

  "I don't see I got much choice."

  "Mayhap I haven't either," I said, examining my deepening tan; remembering how easily Leverett rolled, once I pushed him. "Tell them what you choose before they tell you, if you can. It's bargaining, after all. Two steps forward, one back, two forward-"

  "What if you're walkin' through a swamp?" E asked. Before I could reply I heard a buzzing echoing through the rooms, followed by the ring of Leverett's voice.

  "Conversing well?" he asked, entering the room as the door slid away. E turned his eyes upward, as if to look into his head and see what might remain there that was still his. "What a view, isn't it? In clear air you'll see New Hampshire from here."

  Clouds dampened the glass, obscuring the sight of all that lay without. "You're early, Leverett," I said. He seated himself on the couch between us; I scooted away from them both. A small man entered the room, his progress slowed by his weightload; he lugged a portfolio nearly so tall as he was, if flatter.

  "Elvis, Isabel, this is Walter. He's our project's imagist."

  "He's my what?" E asked.

  "We're formulating the presentation of appropriate looks, dependent on circumstance. Walter's prepared examples for your approval. Walter? What's troubling?"

  Walter stared at E as if watching his house burn down. "Forgive," he said, headshaking. "The resemblance uncan- nies."

  "Intentionally unavoidable," Leverett said. "One and the same, that's him. The one and only. Show Elvis what we've brought. Show him how others see him."

  "Don't these people already know what I look like?"

  "You're no stranger to advertising, surely," said Leverett. Walter opened his case, withdrawing and unrolling a lifesize poster of E. "For the domestic market, befitting 19 to 22 dems," said Leverett. "Stunning, isn't it?"

  I saw at once that they'd not retained the artist who'd captured the Drydens' image. E's figure showed half-shadowed; such lower extremities as were seeable faded into mist, as if he had emerged imperfectly from a lamp rubbed the wrong way. His one-eyed gaze targeted all onlookers. Enough of his chest puffed out against the black to reveal our emblematic there imprinted, its circle aglitter with jewels.

  "That supposed to be me?" E asked.

  "The hint of unreality is not only desirable but demanded," Leverett explained. "Artistic improvements on nature. Nothing personal."

  "You can't even see who or what I'm supposed to be-"

  "That's inferable. An image modicum is suitable for those particular dems. Outlines hold depth enough," said Walter. "Black's their color, certainly." From his case he pulled a second roll, of similar size and format. "Image two. For the Northern European and Russian market."

  Image two consisted of a photo of our own E, his features so retouched that he resembled any postcard image of the Central Asian dictators. A jumpsuit so white and beglim- mered as a filmscreen was painted over his form; he gazed heavenward, as if sighting the land upon which his followers would one day be allowed to pitch their camps. The sun backdropped him; whether it rose or set depended upon the onlooker's attitude. No face scarred its golden orb, though the yellow was assuredly that of Dryco.

  "Didn't you tell me I wasn't gonna haveta wear those sissy suits?" E asked. "And you got me weighin' four hundred pounds in that picture. I told you I wasn't gonna get fat."

  "This image holds global acceptance, even allowing for racial variation," said Walter. "Simplify, dealing with the simple."

  "People see you as they choose," Leverett said. "Actual weight's unimportant. They'll reconstruct you after you've been viewed as they see fit."

  "A bulking diet was considered," said Walter, "but to attain such size within two months, thirty thousand calories daily would essential. Difficult. Here, now." He extracted a third look from his binder, and opened it before us. E's bloated head was haloed by the world's globe; his features were so drawn as to suggest he contained all races within himself. Below his glow was the lettered command, DO GOOD. FEEL REAL.

  "A bit overt," said Walter, "yet possesses full shopability while retaining Elvisceral heritage."

  "What's thought, Elvis?" Leverett asked; resumed spieling before E had a chance to answer. "Well, I knew you'd approve." He motioned that Walter should stow what he'd brought. "We're going to break you in England, it's been decided."

  "Why England?" E asked. "What's there?"

  "Your British followers were first to formally recognize your divinity."

  "No such thing."

  "Elvis, please," said Leverett. "They're the most serious of your counterpart's followers. He never went there, while he was alive. Half the populace is yours outright, the moment you deplane. It's the natural stepoff for all else."

  "They'll think I lead the sons of darkness," E said.

  "In a picturesque sense, perhaps," said Leverett.

  "That's unnatural. They're worse'n heatherns if that's what they think-"

  "We'll see to their souls, so remain unconcerned."

  E shook his head; windowgazed as if wondering whether to throw himself through. "I don't get it," he said. "I don't. I just don't get it-"

  "Calm," Leverett said. "As we've told you, your unwillingness to innergrate problematics more than is necessary. Just calm, calm, calm. Close your eyes and take deep breaths. Like this."

  "You've something besides these visuals planned, haven't you?" I asked, interrupting Leverett's hyperventilation. He shifted his attention to me, appearing irritated that I needed to speak.

  "What's meant?" he asked.

  "These posters'll do fine, thirdworlding it. They'd have been fine here
, thirty years ago. Outmoded now, don't you think?"

  "We've many plans arranged, Isabel," Leverett said, turn ing back toward E. "Unconcern. Calm, calm, calm. All's arranged-"

  "It occurs to me that these'll be overlooked, if publicity's intended," I said; the veins along Leverett's temples throbbed, as if he'd been running. "Are environads designed? Online services? These prints are nothing."

  "These prints are my idea, Isabel," he said. E said nothing; eyed us as I proceeded.

  "And thirty years ago they'd have sufficed," I said. "The public's mediaed out, Leverett. It seems to me that there should be a plan for directly entering info into those sectors of the public you wish to influence, otherwise they'll never pick it up. My point's seen, isn't it?"

  "All's under control," Leverett repeated, stating it with such surety that I knew it couldn't be so. "Unconcern yourself and we'll continue."

  "I was advocating, no more," I said. "If everything's controlled, then all should go as desired." Leverett sighed; stared at me a moment longer than I would have expected before continuing to speak to E.

  "It's essentialled we reveal you within a performance medium," he said. "Our London office will arrange a suitable setup before departure. Cast aside fear of being sewn into one of those jumpsuits, Elvis. At present an earlier look, your own, should probably suffice as required."

  "Good, 'cause I told you I wasn't gonna wear one a those gladrags." E glanced my way; by his look I gathered that he was enjoying our contrarying Leverett so much as I was; Leverett, sandwiched between us, appeared not to notice our delight, and continued relating his scheme.

  "We'll see each sight in turn," he told E. "Now, practice essentials in prepping you to onstage. No speeches'll be necessary, the first time out. Later we'll supply you with appropriate phrases and answers to those concerns your people may have-"

  "They're not my people," E said. "They're his."

  "They're Dero, as it were-" I offered.

  "I'm gonna be singin'?"

  "I have a playlist readied," Leverett said.