Elvissey (18 page)

"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 his 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.

"Where's the key?" he screamed, pressing his bleeding
hand against his shirt. "Gimme the key-" I pressed the
dash's button, engaging the batteries, upping the soundtrack. He'd watched my actions while I drove, evidently, and quickly found the shifter, guiding it into reverse. After backing out we sped out of the lot, skyshooting gravel in our wake
as we tore downroad. I cleaned my face, staring through the
windshield; noted that the interstate's wall ended in a
cleared swath ahead and to our left. That stretch of the road
was still under construction, I saw, at last sighting as well
some of my people. Ten to twenty black men carried bags of
cement across the clearing, overseen by uniformed guards
wearing hard-hats; the men wore striped clothing, and appeared roped together in some way. As we flew by I realized
that a long chain beaded them; they were attached by rings
fastened around their necks. A work program, I told myself;
prisoners at hard labor, whiling away their appointed time.
That hardly explained the absolute absence I'd noticed, all
the same, and as E took us farther into Mississippi, I began
to wonder if they'd stored us all away somewhere.

"What'd you do to soup up this car?" E asked; lefting the
wheel, he turned us down a narrow road several kilometers
south of the construction site. "Ever' Hudson I ever drove
was a piece a shit but this thing runs like a dream."

"Why?" I asked, ignoring his question, sickened by him
and by everything I'd seen. "Why'd you kill those people?"

"Look what he did to my hand." He raised it, showing me;
the puncture was small but deep, and a thin red stream
trickled from the hole.

"They were defending," I said. "You senseless fool-"

"Shut up, I told you," he shouted. "I'll wreck us, I swear
I will-"

"Fuckall," I screamed. "Do it! Do it! Do-"

Tree branches scraped the sides of our car as if attempting
to restrain our flight. I examined my dress, seeing my stains,
angering so as to hold in all tears. Throughout our marriage
John had never involved me in his work; I'd not witnessed
violence at close range since childhood, and it traumaed
now as it traumaed then, its remembered familiarity notwithstanding. I hated E for dragging me into his madness so much as I regretted John burying me beneath his. Staring at
the Alekhine's red button, I considered pressing it, hurtling
us back into our world; calming, told myself repeatedly that
I had no wish to die, however much I'd earlier pleaded for
a wreck. The will to preservation but barely soothed; turning
around, I looked over to where John lay on the seat. He'd
worked the sheet off his head, but his gag remained where
E had stuffed it. I started reaching over, wanting to untie
him; E swatted back my hand away.

"Don't do it," E said, onehanding the wheel, nursing his
injury. I glimpsed his gun protruding from his pants, not
reachable unless I chose to send us into spinout. Again, I
caught myself thinking unthinkables. "You're in this deep as
I am now."

Keeping my hands lapped I turned to look at my husband,
thinking again that we might, after all, be optionless in the
face of E; that in some manner I would have to risk us, and
should therefore consider our survival an uncertain possibility. John twisted his head, jerking it up and down, working
the sheet farther away from his face. He winked at me, as if
to assure; I smiled, understanding at last why he so wished
that we'd go together when we died.

When I faced front again I sought the dash's compass, wanting to ascertain our placement, only to find its needle downdangling; though I couldn't certify what had dysfunctioned
it, I suspected our borderbreaking had produced this untimely effect, and I wondered if anything else had been
damaged. I flinched as the car sideswiped pine branches,
racing along the road; troubled deep over John's inexplicably cheerful mood. He'd conceived a plan, I tried to convince myself, ignoring as I could my fears that his drugs had
erased my husband's mind, leaving him so braindead as
Mister O'Malley's sister. My heart doubletimed; bile bittered
my mouth. "Stop us," I shouted to E, unable to bear another
minute sealed with him in the car. "I'm maddening-"

E swerved, bouncing us off the trail, steering our car
through a junk-strewn meadow before stopping at the edge
of a bordering woodland. "All right," E said. "How's this
thing turn off?" Laying my hand on the steering column,
finding the button, I shut down the engine. E tore away a
strip of his shirttail and wrapped his injured hand; I exited sans permission, rushing rearward to fetch my husband.
Opening the door, lifting him from the seat, I pulled the gag
from his face and kissed him, uncaring of complaints E
might register.

"You're AO?" he asked me. "Iz-"

"What about you?" I heard the door slam shut as E got
out. "You must be dying. Oh, John-"

"What ensued when we stopped?"

"Murder," I said. "A breakaway essentials, whether with
him or not. Let me untie you-"

My head was suddenly whiplashed; E fisted a length of my
blondness, sprawling me backwards. As I lay on the ground
I vizzed him in reverse, as if he hung upside-down from the
sky above my head, appearing from this angle something
less than simian. "You better not untie 'm, Isabel," he said,
taking out his gun.