Losing Graceland (7 page)

“Well, I’ll make sure to let your father know. And please be careful, Ben.”

“I will.”

He closed his cell and rubbed his head with both hands, then pressed his thumbs into the pressure points above his ears.

The Triple Warmer Meridian, it’s called. He’d read a massage book a few weeks earlier,
The Art of Erotic Massage
, copyright 1978, found in a box in the basement of his apartment building, next to piles of dirty linens, empty vegetable crates with Chinese script painted along the side (possible fire code violation), and stacks of rusted oil paint cans and turpentine (definite fire code violation). The massage book was hilarious—age-yellowed glossy paper, and the women all had enormous bush. One woman with pendulous breasts lay on a crocheted orange hammock, legs spread, her nude man standing behind her with both hands on her shoulders, both of them with the come-hither stares of professional swingers. Satisfying women isn’t just about the clitoris or the G-spot, the caption insisted. It’s about
kundalini
. The energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine. The dragon’s fire.

He thought about calling Jess.

What’s that? You want me to visit you? You know I’d love to but I can’t. I’m driving Elvis to Memphis in search of his granddaughter. That’s right, I said
Elvis.
The one and only. He even looks a little like him
.

Downstairs he heard more laughter. The old man was like a light switch, Ben thought. From dark to blinding just like that.

But maybe I can stop by on my way back home. Work on your kundalini for a while. I’ll bring the hammock
.

Motorcycles roared into the driveway, and Ben jogged downstairs.

Darryl Sikes walked into the living room and looked around slowly. He wore his leather jacket and heavy, dark boots. His face was flushed, sweat running down his temples.

Ben stopped on the bottom step. Myra tied her robe shut. Darryl’s leather jacket creaked like a redwood in a windstorm as he stomped into the kitchen and turned on the faucet.

“You’re bleeding,” Myra said.

He scrubbed his hands with soap. “This isn’t my blood.”

The gang of bikers burst through the front door. They carried a bloodied man between them. They put the man on the floor and Frank gritted his teeth.

“T-Rex hit KC in the face with a ball-peen hammer,” Frank said. “Sons of bitches must pay.”

Ben stared at the bloodied man. His cheek was split open and bits of tooth poked through the glistening flesh. He breathed from the other side of his mouth, swallowing blood and trying not to cough.

“They hired Screaming Eagles to bust the strike,” Frank continued. “So KC dropped the first scab. Next thing we know, someone hits Petey over the head with a two-by-four.”

Myra put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, no—”

“Then T-Rex nailed KC. Didn’t even give him a fighting chance. Just popped him with the hammer and let him fall.”

Darryl ran his fingers through his hair and stalked around the living room. KC began to cough. Blood sprayed from his mouth and soaked into the carpet.

“Call the police,” Myra said.

Darryl shook his head. “No cops.”

“Darryl—”

“No cops. Not this time. We’re Hell’s Foster Children. This time we do it my way.”

The door to the basement opened and the old man stepped into the living room. He had changed into his red sweatsuit, hair combed high, a pair of green-tinted aviator glasses resting on his sagging cheeks. He held a laundry bag in one hand and a mimosa in the other.

The old man walked around the couch. The gang of bikers stepped aside as he craned his neck to look at the man lying bleeding on the floor. He set the laundry bag down and sipped his mimosa. He stared long and hard while KC sputtered and spit, then he gulped the rest of his mimosa and wiped the dribble off his chin with his sweatshirt sleeve.

“Details,” he said.

“Union hired us to protect their picket line,” Darryl said. “This morning they tried to bust the strike.”

The old man frowned. “You also union?”

“Some of us,” Darryl said. “Local 210. Frank here is president.”

“What’s being built?”

“Miniature golf course,” Frank said.

The old man nodded to himself. “Ben, pull the car up.”

“It’s already parked close,” Ben said.

“Then pull it closer. My back is killing me.”

The old man turned to the group and held out his empty glass. Myra took it away.

“Saddle up, boys,” he said. “I’m leading a charge of the righteous.”

hey pulled up to the construction site, led by a wisteria-on-white Caddy with a young man at the steering wheel and an old man who looked like Elvis by his side. Behind them a convoy of roaring Harleys, sun gleaming on chrome, black enamel, and mirrored sunglasses.

“You ever been in a fight?” the old man asked.

“Ninth grade,” Ben said. “Bill Pippen got me into a headlock for fifteen minutes. My friends chucked basketballs at his head until he let go.”

“Man, I mean a real fight. Just you and some sonofabitch trying to rip each other’s heads off.”

Ben thought about Patrick. “Not really.”

The old man sucked air between his front teeth. “Keep your hands up and your chin low. Bend your knees. Strike fast and hard, use the strength from your
hara
.”

“What’s a hara?”

“The center of a man’s energy. Three finger widths below the navel.”

“Is that anything like a kundalini?”

“A what?”

“I’m just fucking around,” Ben said. He saw the rival gang at the construction site, large men sitting on plastic chairs, their feet up on coolers.

“Get serious,” the old man said. “Hara, son. Center of your power. Let’s do this.”

The old man pulled himself out of the Caddy and walked across the gravel parking lot. Ben walked with him, members of Hell’s Foster Children close behind, Darryl and Frank in the lead.

The foreman stood by a row of Porta-Pottis, looking down at his clipboard. A circle of bikers sat on folding chairs, working their way through a twenty-four-pack. Behind them, rolls of plastic putting greens, stacked like logs. Ben saw a half-assembled wooden dragon, a Swiss clock tower, and boxes of fake bricks. He saw dozens of sand mounds like giant anthills with shovels sticking out of them.

“I understand you’re using non-union labor for this job,” the old man said.

The foreman looked up from his clipboard. He had the tanned, leathery face of a man who’d worked his entire adult life in construction. His arms were ropy and long, veins running from shoulder to wrist, blue on tan, with a tattoo of a screaming eagle on his forearm.

The foreman slipped his pen behind his ear. “Are you an inspector?”

“I’m a concerned citizen,” the old man said.

“No shit,” the foreman said.

The old man thumbed over his shoulder, toward Hell’s Foster Children, who stood in a leather-clad pack. “See those men back
there? Those men are the backbone of this nation. Union men who work an honest day for honest wages. Now, your ragtag bunch of mercenaries—” The old man swept his hand across the circle of men sitting in folding chairs. “I don’t know where you found them, but you’re better off putting them back. I’ll tell you a sad story. At a show in Meridian, Mississippi, my manager hired non-union for stage construction, and wouldn’t you know it, two of my backup singers fell right through the stage. One of the Jordanaires busted her ankle. Poor girl was laid out for two weeks.”

“Get the fuck off my construction site,” the foreman said. “Before I throw you out.”

“You’d do that to an old man?”

“I wouldn’t.” The foreman plucked the pen from behind his ear. “But he would.”

He pointed with his pen at the circle of men sitting on folding chairs. The biggest of them stood, slowly, and stretched his arms over his head. His black leather jacket had
T-REX
emblazoned across the back with a graphic of his dinosaur namesake riding a chopper.

T-Rex walked toward them and stepped in front of the foreman.

“There a problem?”

“Hell’s Foster Children hired a spokesman,” the foreman said.

T-Rex looked the old man up and down. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Liberace,” the foreman said.

“No, he looks like that English dude with the faggot name,” T-Rex said. “My mom was a fan. Dinglebat-something.”

“Engelbert,” the old man said. “Engelbert Humperdinck.”

T-Rex grinned. “That’s right. Is that who you’re supposed to be?”

The old man sighed.

“Okay.” The foreman put the pen back behind his ear. “T-Rex, get these two the hell out of here.”

T-Rex nodded at Hell’s Foster Children. “What about them?”

“Waste of time,” the foreman said. “Now get to it.”

T-Rex grabbed the old man’s arm and the old man stepped back, lowering himself into a karate pose, feet spread wide, fists held low. Pain flared in his hips and his knees popped like cherry bombs, but he steeled himself even as sweat dripped down his sides, his leg muscles quaking in protest. Sometimes he dreamt of karate routines, the old days of sweat and taped fingers and grungy mats in California dojos with that clean white California sun you couldn’t find anywhere else. Light streaming across the dojo floor, across his toes, which he saw less and less of as the years ticked by.
Well, hello there. My it’s been a long, long time
.

The foreman burst into laughter and T-Rex grinned and lunged for the old man, but the old man stepped into his punch and it landed in the center of T-Rex’s throat. T-Rex grabbed his neck and gagged, stumbling to his knees as the old man’s green-tinted aviators fell off his face.

“Christ
almighty
, I tore a muscle,” the old man said, and he clutched his side while T-Rex squirmed on the dirt, trying to catch his breath in giant whoops like the call of some prehistoric bird. Plastic lounge chairs were kicked aside and the Screaming Eagles rushed forward, knocking over their beer cans, gurgling foam into the dirt. Ben heard battle cries behind him as Hell’s Foster Children joined the fray, a stampede of boots like the charge of cavalry.

“The charge of the righteous!” Ben heard the old man shout, then he raised his fists, lowered his chin, and bent his knees, and
the foreman swung, and Ben’s eye felt like a gong struck with a mallet.

They celebrated at Lil’ Rascals Neighborhood Bar and Grill, gorging themselves on Bourbon Street shrimp, Cajun steak tips, and pitchers of Budweiser Select. The old man sat at the head of the table between Darryl and Myra. Hell’s Foster Children bore the marks of battle—rips in their jackets, torn collars, busted noses. Nostrils ringed with red crust. Eyebrows matted with blood. Swollen knuckles.

Ben stood in the dark space between the restrooms marked
Bulls
and
Lambs
. He paced with his head down, cell pressed to one ear and a finger plugging his other ear.

“I just wanted to talk, Jess. That’s all.”

“You’re not talking, Ben. You’re yelling.”

“Sorry. It’s loud in here.”

“Are you drunk?”

He shut his eyes and leaned his head against the rough wooden wall. Tiny splinters poked his cheek. His head throbbed. “I was in a biker brawl today.”

Jessica gasped. “Seriously?”

Ben nodded even though he realized Jess couldn’t see him.

“Did you actually hit someone?”

“I did. A few times. Knocked him down, but that was after he punched me in the face and I couldn’t see out of my right eye.”

Silence. He listened for dorm sounds. He could see Jess lying on her bed, feet up on the wall, playing with her long blond hair and wearing a nightshirt that reached just below the tops of her thighs. Any number of freshman dogs scratched outside her door.
Paws on her dry marker board. Whining. Tails wagging. Scrapping.

“Can you see now?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah, but my head is killing me.”

“Maybe you have a concussion. My cousin got into a car accident last year and banged his head on the steering wheel and he thought he was okay, but the next morning they rushed him to the hospital because he had an aneurysm. Now his face kind of droops on one side and he can’t play basketball anymore.”

“I don’t have an aneurysm, Jess. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

Ben paused. Why does this have to be so hard? he thought. Every sentence begins a journey over spikes and land mines. I always promise myself it will be the last time but it never is. “Do you have a boyfriend yet?” he asked.

Jessica sighed.

“I’m just curious.”

“I know, but it’s none of your business.”

“So I’m supposed to pretend I don’t care if you have a boyfriend.”

“Do whatever you want. Just don’t ask me that question, because it makes me feel weird.”

“Then why are you talking to me?”

“Because we’re friends and there’s a million other things to talk about other than my dating life.”

“No, there isn’t. Your dating life is all I want to talk about. I’m sick of pretending I’m okay.”

“Ben—”

“Just listen. For once just let me get this—”