Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  "You're a-"

  "I am. What of it?"

  E sidled closer to me, edging over as if ready to run had there been anywhere to run. Holding out his hands, he drew them back as quickly, seeming to fear that my touch might tar him. The faceted glass sewn into his suit sparkled so as to leave my eyes afterimaged. For a moment more we stood apart, looking at one another; I thrust out my lower lip, not to seduce but to threaten. That did it; stepping forward, his pants rustling like a taffeta slip, he embraced me. His belt buckle pinched as it dug against my stomach.

  "They told me you were sick," he said. "I was afraid you were gonna die on me."

  "Not yet," I said.

  His face crumpled, as if someone thoughtlessly had wadded it to toss away; before he could rein in his tears he made faint groans that sounded nothing other than words freed from the oppression of meaning. "You all're worse'n Dero," he said. "What the hell're you people doin' to me?"

  "E. . ." I pried myself from his clutch, grasping his shoulders as he swayed, hoping to keep him upright. "How long have you been in here?"

  "Last night," he said. "How'm I supposed t'know what's straight around here? I can't even tell what y' are-"

  "I got wired the wrong way," said Elvis.

  "My look so offends?" I asked. "I'm Isabel, all the same. This is as I am."

  "I can't take this. I can't. How'm I supposed t'believe anything you say?"

  "I'm showing you truth."

  "Yeah, today. What about tomorrow? Or the day after that? Then what'll y'be? What'll y'have me doin' then?"

  "I'll be what I am," I said. "I don't know what you'll be doing. I'm not the juggler here."

  "This is really what you are?" he asked, stepping back, drying his face with the back of his hand, taking care not to scratch himself with the bracelets with which he was wristed. "I mean-"

  "It bothers you that I'm black?" I asked.

  "No wonder y' didn't like me sayin' nigger," he said, his perfect obliviousness seeming to return to him as he calmed. "Why'd you make yourself up like you was white?"

  "If I'd shown as I am, what would have happened to me in your world?" I asked. "What would you have done, over there?"

  He lowered his head; for an instant I thought he prepped to withdraw it inside his collar, and so hideaway from me. "I'm not like the rest of 'em," he said. "It wasn't right, what they did. It wasn't right."

  "Nor is this," I said. "What's thought, then?"

  "About you? Like this?" I nodded. "You're still you, aren't you?"

  "I think so."

  "That's good enough for me, then. You gotta stay with me, Isabel. I don't know what's up or down around here."

  "Didn't know you was going to see a crazy man," said Elvis, "did you? Well well well well-"

  "They've been playing this nightlong?" I asked. E grimaced.

  "Never stops," E said. "He musta been crazy by the time they got through with him. He musta been."

  "Leverett," I called out, turning and shouting behind me, marveling that he'd so restrained himself from interrupting us. E cringed, and moved some meters away to one of the roomcorners as the door slid open and Leverett walked in. "Mute it," I said. "Mute it or we're not talking." He reentered the hall and pressed the appropriate switch; Elvis's voice stilled, and only the AC's sound dulled the silence. "Why's he suited so?" I asked. "You promised-"

  "They'll have him no other way in England, the London office tells," Leverett said. "There's no roundabouting it. That's what we told him yesterday, but there was no listening-"

  "Would you wear it?" I asked.

  "He has to," Leverett said. "It's the image, Isabel, it has to be matched. It's a shame but there you are."

  "Why can't they have me as I am?" E said, huddling against the walls. Eyeing his suit's decolletage I sighted more clearly his unhaired chest; his musculature ws that of a boy's, and I supposed reconstruction had not ensued below the neck save to effect repairs.

  "Elvis," Leverett said, placing one hand on my shoulder, gesturing toward me with his other as if to enumerate my sales points. "Why couldn't you have Isabel as she is?"

  "I can have her like that-" E started to say.

  "Nobody can have me," I said, jerking away from Leverett's touch, distancing myself from them both.

  "The principle holds," Leverett said. "Close in, Elvis. Over here. Come here." E looked at me; saying nothing, I motioned that he should approach, and so settle Leverett before he began offering biscuits. "That's good, Elvis. Now we're awared that the outfit's not as you'd wish-"

  "I like clothes much as the next guy but not this shit," E said. "Excuse me, Isabel. You told me flat out I wasn't gonna have t'wear a sissy suit. This's 'bout as sorry as it comes."

  "You replayed that timeover, Leverett," I said. "There's much you've told us both that doesn't hold."

  "That's unfair, Isabel-"

  "May be, but she's right," said E. "You told me I don't haveta wear one of these suits and I'm not goin' to."

  "Not until we go to London," said Leverett. "You've no firsthand experience with your followers. You don't understand what they expect."

  "They better start gettin' an idea of what I expect, then." My presence, in whatever shade I showed, seemed to recharge E, enabling him to confront Leverett as he'd apparently not been able to while I was gone. It didn't comfort me to see this transpire; that E found in me the spine he lacked, and the resulting support he could take from it, only assured I'd have another remoraed onto me whenever I tried to move.

  "I've enough of an idea," Leverett said. "Contract with me, then. One time, that's all that's needed, on opening day. Wear it one time and no more."

  "I'll be in public," E said. "People'll see me-"

  "That's the point. Is anything still misunderstood? You're mountaining this molehill more than it needs."

  "One time?" I asked, replaying his words as if by so doing I might record them. Leverett nodded. "E, if that's truth, then I'd think it could stand."

  "You don't have to wear it, either-"

  "It's dealable," I said, looking over the suit's trim, gold piping delineating collaredge and cuffs. "If it's what that audience desires they'll know no embarrassment. You'll send them out smiling." My concluding statement was, I think, a safe assumption.

  "Let me sleep on it," E said. "Can I leave here now? I wanta put on something else if I can go."

  "You're always unseen in transit," Leverett said. "Can't you-

  "I can't," E said. "I see me. That's one too many."

  "Very well," said Leverett. "Your apartment clothes are in the office across the hall. Change there."

  "Good-"

  "All present are somewhat overtensed, I think. There's something I'd like to show you in the morning. You consider what I've said and we'll further discuss at morningside. AO?"

  "You already know what I think," said E. "And I got a say in all this. Isabel told me that."

  "Did she?" said Leverett, raising his head as he looked at me. "You have a say, true. We'll talk again tomorrow. Rest this afternoon. Now that Isabel's back with us we can return to our original program."

  He nodded to us both and exited. E waited until we heard his footsteps' echo fade before reconversing. "I didn't know what to do when you were gone," he said. "See how quick he gave in while you were here?"

  "He's not giving," I said. "He'll contrary, I believe."

  "Maybe," said E. "I'm tired of fussin'. I just wanta get back to the hotel."

  "You were here all night?" I asked.

  "From about eight o'clock on. Didn't tell me what I was gonna be tryin' on till they put it on me. I guess I flipped. They shut me up in here and then after a couple hours, they turned on the phonograph. Didn't sleep a wink last night. Man, Isabel, that was rough."

  "E, even when you have your say there's only so much that can be said," I told him. "Bend with the wind when you can, you'll be bettered for it after-"

  "Maybe so," E said. "You goin' back to the hotel with me?"


  "No," I said. "It essentials I talk to my husband. We've problems to straighten. I'll meet you in the morning before we see Leverett, if possible."

  "What problems you all got?" he asked. "He must lose his temper a lot."

  "Not really."

  "He don't beat you, does he? Seems like the kind who would."

  "We beat each other," I said. "Tomorrow, E. Get sleep, dream true."

  For some minutes after I gave him his reinstatement paper John said nothing; with eyes so lifeless as a doll's he stared at it as if wishing to divine tomorrow's events from a white, wordless sheet. A scratching sound in our room's walls tickled my ears as we sat on our bed; I fantasized the mice racing through their tunnels, suddenly realizing their lost companion's absence. "What's thought?" I asked, trying to read his moodless face.

  "Remember Harvey?" he asked, leaning over and kissing my cheek. "He was a midtown guard-"

  "All showed as one after so long, John," I said, grateful that I was unable to contain my emotions so well as he contained his.

  "He thirdrailed himself yesterday on the Pelham line," my husband said. "That's seventeen since we returned. There'll be no Security to oversee, soon enough."

  "You'll be positioned as before," I said. "With greater pay. „

  "Doing less," he said. "Enabling others to go preretirement. How'd they ever notion regooding? It's unjustifiable, Iz, we're being hung and dried. Our training condemns us, and they had us trained. What's it accomplish-?"

  "What they desire, I suppose," I said. `Judy claims Leverett demanded that the guards be treated. He infers that she did."

  "Who lies?"

  "Both, mayhap," I said. `Judy's no longer trusting me, however much she denies. When I confront her, she sidesteps. And as for Leverett ..." No sooner had I replayed his name than I regretted it; mentioning him shot into John's mind remembrances of our trip, might-have-been thoughts of beginning and end; and to speak of Leverett was to speak of E. My husband's face sagged as hate galvanized his stare. "Don't freeze me, John. Reopen."

  "Bedaway," he said, reclining, holding his knee as he lowered.

  "I'll not wallshout, John. Look at me." Propping himself with his elbows, he fullfaced my way as I turned to confront. "Leverett's my overseer. He's been yours, as well. Whatever his doings, he has to be named-"

  "Leverett's ruined us," he said. "His project-"

  "We've ruined us," I said. "You negate the good that's come from this."

  "No good's been brought. None. Worse than none-"

  "What's meant?" I asked; he stilled, and looked away from me. "Do you mean our baby? That's worse than none? Is it?"

  "Iz, please-"

  "Our baby. Our baby, John. Say it." He tried to stand up; I pushed him back down onto the bed and leaned across him, pounding his chest with my fist until my hand hurt. My husband evidenced neither alarm nor surprise, but only lay there dispassioned while I iterated what I knew to be truth. "Ours, not his. Ours. Ours."

  "The test essentials," John said. "Why won't you take it?"

  "The baby'd suffer the effects, as told-"

  "I'm suffering now-"

  "Believe me!" I screamed, clasping my hands and slamming them down, beating as if to concave his underlay. He shifted onto his side, escaping my blows; clamped his arms around himself, and tried to catch his breath. "Won't you believe me?"

  "It's understandable-"

  "I told you he didn't assault me, I told you timeover. If you don't believe me, can't you even show me disrespect? Can't you even call me a liar-?"

  "It must have terrified, Iz," John said. "I understand-"

  "You don't understand," I said, falling away from him, collapsing onto my side of the bed as if I'd been deflated. "He attempted, I defended. Am I helpless, John? Am I?" My husband shook his head. "He tries a kiss, I toss him off and you mindspin into madness-"

  "He . . . " John began to say; started running fingers across his chest from shoulder to waist, as if suddenly cognizant that I'd hurt him. "I read his feeling, early on. I jealoused when it seemed-"

  "You've been jealousing since, sans reason-"

  "It isn't logical, Iz," he said. "They clipped me. If I father, I father death." The lowvoiced, melodramatic tone of his concluding statement made me suspect it was a quote from Jake's book. "But there's no shame, Iz, not with me. I don't want your denials-"

  I sighed, staring at the ceiling as if an escape route might yawn in its whiteness; accepted that his mind had concreted, and there'd be no chipping away with truth. "It's our baby, John. Unquestioned."

  "It can't be."

  "Unquestioned," I said. `John, I love you-"

  "Mutual," he said, sitting up, eyeing me as he had whenever our emotions crossed; as if I were Godness and he, a flylike worshiper.

  "But I can't live with you anymore, not like this."

  John seemed not to have heard me at first, or at least evidenced no sign of understanding; I wished I could run off and hide away from all of them, even run back into that other world. Our world grew all the crueler, the more it regooded; by that evening, I felt regooded unto death.

  "A separateness, first," I said. "A trial alone, maybe not forever. If we change we can reappraise, but not for a while. Are you hearing me?"

  "Yes," he said, his face so unpassioned that as he spoke he lipstilled, and appeared to have been dubbed. "Why, Iz?"

  "We're beached as we are," I said. "You're disbelieving me. I'm fearing your actions. There's no escaping our jobs and their effect. It's tearing me to see what you're doing to yourself, what we're doing to ourselves-"

  "It's deserved-"

  "It's not," I said. "I'll talk to you daily, I will. I know I'm hurting you, but you've brought much on yourself. And that's killing me, John. It's unbearable and I can't help you-

  "You've tried," he said. "You don't see how you help me, that's all. You're what keeps me living against reason."

  "What I'm seeing's killing me," I said. "Killing me against reason. We have to split, John. You go your way, I go mine-"

  "Our way," he said. "I don't want divorce, Iz. I want you."

  "Same," I told him; told him in truth.

  "Then can't we-"

  "Time to ourselves essentials. It's impossibled as matters stand. You're untrusting me and I'm watching you rot. We're imploding and time only waits until we blow apart."

  My husband sat on the bed's edge, his reinstatement papers loose in his grip. As I looked his way I thought anew of our time together, its troubles and blessings. Mayhap I should have heeded what Judy told me, years before; but there was no regretting what we'd had, only what it came to. I wondered, idly, if I looked so old as John suddenly did. "I'll do as desired, then," he said, adjusting his knee so that he could stand sans danger of falling. "Forgive, Iz."

  "Forgiven," I said. "Let's earplay it, John. We're not disconnected, after all. Only driven apart. When we parent-"

  "If we parent," he said. "This is such a world, Iz. Should we assist in its continuance?"

  "Yes," I said, uncertain why; knowing it, all the same. "It's our baby..." He lowered his head; walked over to the closet. "My baby."

  "Yours," he said, slipping on his jacket. "I'll lowroad tonight. The office has space to house me, now that I'm al lowed to return. I'll come back at morningside to collect my goods, once you've left-"

  "If that's preferred." He nodded. "Forgive, John. It's impossibled, any other way."

  "Naught to forgive," he said. "It's as it is."

  "You'll not hurt yourself," I said. "Please don't ..."

  He shook his head, and smiled. "You'll know when time comes, Iz. We'll both know."

  Walking over to me, he leaned forward and kissed my forehead, shadowing me as his body eclipsed the bedlamp's light. "John," I said, "the evening before I blinded. Where had you been?"

  "Walking, as told," he said, fixing his eyes on our door as he readied to leave; seeming to stare at the circle of scars left in its wood. His fruitbag's twis
t-tie protruded from his pocket.

  "What did you do, while walking?"

  "Nothing unpredictable," he said, exiting into the hall. John was so accomplished at gansering as E. When I asked, had I wanted truth? For reasons I preferred not to specify I was as glad he hadn't told me. "Good night, Iz."

  "Good night." I waited until I heard our apartment door close and lock behind him before releasing; even afterward, once he was gone, I could only impress tears, and not truly cry them. Our break accomplished with such wicked ease; however relieved I was to do it, I'd have never imagined that disposing of so many years could be so matterfactly done. For hours that evening I lay awake, more conscious of presence than of absence; thinking of what had been pulled from my head, wondering how long I could retain what still remained within my womb.

  "What you'll see will fascinate, I'm certain," Leverett said as we drove into Manhattan the next morning. He sat in the jumpseat facing us, appearing more keen to observe us than our too-familiar surroundings. "Lookabout, Elvis. Your first trip heartways. This is New York as it was."

  "As it is," I said. "There're inhabitants, still."

  Leverett nodded; his smile so widened that I could number all his remaining teeth. "You could call them that."

  Rivercrossing into Harlem, we southed on Fifth Avenue, far from the more secure Broadway route along the West Side's upper range that we'd taken during our training. E windowgazed, peering through his ski-mask's slots; Leverett insisted he incognito himself whenever he outed. We passed burned-out projects and their surrounding mudflats, strewn with long-lost residents' scattered belongings; fenced round by torched Army PVs and graffitied bus-shells. Our driver swerved us around holes larger than cavern-entrances, appearing deep enough to engulf trucks.

  "People still live here?" E asked, staring at flames cornicing a brick cruciform slab on our left; the smoke blackened the rain, inking our car as it fell.