Hound Dog

by Richard Blandford

Well, could I do it? Could I take on the hardest mental case in the London underworld in order to preserve my dignity? Of course I fucking couldn’t. One day I came home and heard them at it in the bedroom. I thought about walking in on them for about half a second, but in the end I just stayed downstairs and had a stiff drink, and waited for them to finish. I guess I found out how the lady felt when she caught me screwing her daughter that day. Anyway, they both came downstairs afterwards, and I said hello to Johnny and offered him a drink. He said no and that he ought to be going, things to do, nice to meet me. I was going to tell Nanette I wanted a divorce but she beat me to it. She and Johnny got married as soon as it was finalised and they’re still together to this day, although of course Johnny has always had about a hundred girls on the side as well.

  Meanwhile, as soon as word got around that Nanette had left me for Johnny, I was dropped like a stone. Respect for me went out the window now I was just the dozy twit husband of Johnny Brooks’s new girl. Opportunities stopped coming my way, and eventually I was forced out of the car lot, even though I was doing a good job. With the work drying up, and Nanette running off with half my cash, it was hard to make ends meet. I was in a pretty sorry state when Eddie suggested I do Elvis again at his club. So that’s where I ended up, dressed as Vegas Elvis in a wig and a jumpsuit and singing to a bunch of gangsters and their birds, including of course, Johnny Brooks and his new wife Nanette. Well, there you have it, a little insight for you, a little glimpse of how I got to where I am today. And where am I? Right now, I’m booked to sing at the birthday party of the man who fucked my wife in my house, and stole her away from me. Not only that, I’m doing it in the club of the man who raped me pretty much every night in the nick for nearly three years. And I bet you’re thinking, what the hell’s wrong with him, where is this man’s pride? Well to be honest with you, I don’t recall ever having any to begin with. Maybe I traded it in years ago in order to stay alive. Since then, I’ve been fucked over again and again, but I‘ve stayed alive, and that‘s what’s important.

  There was a wife number three of course, but I don’t think you’d want me to go into that right now. Anyway, these trips down memory lane leave me in fucking dark moods I can tell you. So forgive me if I spend this evening watching telly, doing some charlie, and masturbating until the top comes off. Anything to stop me thinking about wife number three.

  Chapter 10

  I wake up from the dream again. It’s always the same thing. Eddie’s after me, sometimes he even gets me, but always, I’m rescued by my sister Bridget. Sometimes me and Bridget talk, but I don’t remember much of what we say when I wake up. All I managed to cling on to this time was her telling me that I looked like my dad now I’d gotten old. That’s it really, except, just like I always do, I asked her why. She still looked eighteen, of course. Every time I have that dream it puts me in a weird frame of mind for the rest of the day. It’s like my brain’s a shingle beach, and everything gets shifted about in the tide, so things that are buried underneath just turn up on the surface. I suppose I think about it that way at the moment because it’s made me remember a seaside holiday we went on when I was little. Donkey rides and sandcastles, Bridget wearing a grown-up swimming costume for the first time. My dad smiling for once, Mum as sullen as always. I’ve been having the dream a lot lately, although I’ve been dreaming various versions of it for years. It’s one of the few things that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning, rather than just lying there and playing with myself like most days. Right now I’d do anything to forget it, so I head straight for my stash and do a line of charlie.

  It takes my mind off it all right, and lets me work out what to do with the day. It’s Sunday, I can’t get on with anything useful, so that means I should spend it in relaxation. The time is long overdue to see my ladyfriends, I feel. And seeing as I’ve neglected them all for so long, and my head’s such a mess from all that’s happened to me and the dream coming back, I’m not going to stop at just one. Oh no. In fact, I am going to fit as many of them into this one day as is humanly possible. I am going for gold. You probably think that’s being greedy, and maybe it is, but they get as much out of it as I do, if not more. Anyway, you’ll see what I mean.

  It’s important that I make the necessary phone calls, get myself dressed, and be on my merry way before the charlie wears off and I go on a downer. I make a start immediately with Shirley, getting the phone to autodial her number while I look for my good pair of pants. Shirley’s the head of the entertainments committee at the social club in the next village to mine. Her husband walked out on her years ago, and I’ve been servicing her since ’98 or thereabouts after she hooked me at the club and demonstrated her own unusual approach to artist hospitality. She’s not exactly a looker, and her body’s sagging like nobody’s business, but she’s got a cheeky smile and she’s pretty good in bed. I’ve got one leg in my underwear when she picks up the phone.

  ‘Hi, Shirley,’ I say, ‘this is Elvis, and I’m phoning to say I’m going to get you All Shook Up this morning.’

  ‘Well, Elvis,’ she replies, ‘how do you know that I’m not busy? I might just be on my way to church.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘No,’ she laughs, ‘it’s not very likely is it?’

  ‘I don’t think they’d let a naughty girl like you into church.’

  ‘Elvis, you’re a very bad man.’

  ‘I’ll see you in half an hour, you naughty, naughty girl.’ Next I call Maureen. Mo’s an old time rock ’n’ roll fan who goes out jiving with ageing Teddy boys. When I met her at a fifties festival in some pub, she was going out with a genuine rocker who’d beaten up mods on Brighton Beach. Then he died of a heart attack, and she started turning up at all my gigs. I could tell what she was after, and I ended up giving it to her partly just to get her to stop following me. It ended up just encouraging it, but fortunately her health took a turn for the worse and I was saved. Mo must be gone sixty by now, but she still dresses like she did when she was fifteen. It’s pretty sad to look at, and I only go round there when none of the other girls are available because she gives me the creeps. Still, I’m trying to set a personal record here, so she’s on the list.

  ‘Hello there, ma’am, this is Elvis Presley.’

  ‘Good golly gosh, is it really Elvis speaking to me on the telephone? My girlfriends are gonna be so jealous…’ She speaks in an American accent. It’s painful to listen to.

  ‘Uh, I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble that is, if I could maybe come round and visit this afternoon…’

  ‘Oh yes, Elvis, I would love that! Are you going to Love Me Tender?’

  ‘Uh, I’m going to give you a Big Hunk o’ Love baby.’

  ‘Ooooh, I can’t wait.’

  ‘I’ll be round at two. Make sure to Treat Me Nice.’

  ‘Yes, Elvis, yes!’

  It’s funny how many old birds will sleep with me just because of the Elvis thing. Mind you, it’s not just women who come on to me. After a gig, sometimes I catch blokes who are meant to be straight as a post nervously trying to rub up against me in the car park. Of course, I’m having none of it, and tell them to fuck right off or they’ll be sorry, but Elvis must do something to them. It’s like that actor, Nicolas Cage. He loved Elvis so much, he married his daughter, just so he could get to have sex with him and for it not to be gay. It would be nice if some of the younger birds reacted to Elvis like that, but they never do. I had high hopes when that ‘Little Less Conversation’ song got to number one, but it didn’t change anything.

  I try to call Sue, some bird I know in Cambridge who breeds dogs, but no one answers, so I decide to take a risk and phone Sandra instead. I hang up at the sound of her husband’s voice. Anyway, it’s time to get a move on, so I get out the door and start walking down the country roads, whistling as I go, past the fields and on to the next village.

  ‘Hi, Elvis,’ says a stoned voice from behind a hedge.

  I look round
, and poking his head out from behind his privet is Lawrence, the hippy whose skunk I sell. His eyes are saucer-shaped and red. ‘Hey there, Lawrence,’ I say. ‘How’s tricks?’

  ‘Oh man, I broke the rules. I got high on my own supply.’

  ‘Lawrence, you’re always high on your own supply.’

  ‘Yeeeah.’ He breaks into a strange whistling laugh, like an old kettle boiling. ‘What are you up to, man? Got any gigs lined up?’

  ‘I’m playing Elk on Tuesday.’

  ‘Elk? Oh man, that place is full of trolls.’

  Trolls. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  ‘See you later, Lawrence.’

  ‘Yeah, see you. Tell me when you need more stuff, yeah?’

  I wave goodbye and make my way to Shirley’s house down the road. I ring her doorbell. She opens the door a part of the way and beckons me in with a finger. The hallway is dark, and as I close the door behind me, I find her standing by the stairs in a black silk dressing gown. ‘Hello, Elvis,’ she says, and it falls to the floor. She’s wearing some tarty negligee underneath.

  ‘Elvis, take me upstairs and fuck me like a bad girl,’ she says.

  ‘Hmmm, put it in your mouth and I’ll think about it,’ I reply, and she takes it out and does just that in the hallway. Then we go upstairs and I fuck her hard from behind. You know, of all the ways you can do it, I like going from behind best, because it feels like you’re really fucking somebody. None of this making love crap, you’re just doing it to them, fucking them really hard and giving them a good seeing to. It’s honest, and there’s usually very little honesty when it comes to fucking. You have to lie to get it, then you have to lie about how amazing it made you feel for you to get it again. Shirley screams her head off all the way through, so even though I can never make her come, I’m pretty sure she’s had a good time. I hold out as long as I can, then when I’ve finished I lay myself down on the bed next to her.

  ‘That OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh, it was wonderful, honey,’ I say. It wasn’t really, but it was OK.

  I know I’m about to go on a downer from the charlie, so I roll a spliff to smooth it over and share it with Shirley. I think it’s fair to say my honeymoon period with charlie is well and truly over. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m addicted, although I suppose I do take a hell of a lot of it. And it always gives me a buzz, even though the downs are getting more severe. But it’s certainly not as much fun as it used to be, that’s for sure. But then, neither is sex. Mind you, the charlie’s still good for something. I always take it when I have to do Elvis, because it helps me get into the role, and seeing as he was out of his mind on prescription pills anyway, it actually makes it more authentic. On the downside, I have nosebleeds all the time, and one of these days I’m going to sneeze and my whole fucking nose is going to come off. Then I‘ll have to do Michael Jackson impersonations. At the end of the day though, I guess I take it because for half an hour or so it gives me a bit of rest from all the noise in my head, which comes on three times stronger once the downs hit me. But for the moment of quiet it’s worth it.

  I tell Shirley to lie still, and I lay a line of it down between her breasts.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I reply, and in one big snort, I hoover it all up. She giggles like a naughty schoolgirl. I offer her some but she shakes her head.

  ‘Shirley, do you reckon you could do me a favour and run me into Cambridge?’

  ‘Off to see another one of your girls?’

  ‘No, don’t be silly. Got to see a man about a motor.’

  ‘The Elvismobile pack up on you?’

  ‘Yeah. Need a new one.’

  ‘Course I can, love. Just get your head down there and get me to come before we go.’

  She drives a hard bargain. Suffice to say we both get what we want and three-quarters of an hour later, Shirley drops me in the vicinity of Mo’s house. On the way, I try Sue again, but still get no answer. So I phone Sandra. She answers this time and she’s not happy.

  ‘I told you never to phone here at the weekend. What is it?’

  ‘I just want to see you babe. Uh. listen, honey, I was wondering… if I was Elvis, would you screw me?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake… OK, Bill will be out at seven. Come round at half-seven but don’t stay long.’

  ‘Don‘t you worry, I’ll be in and out in no time.’

  ‘Yes, I daresay. Bye.’

  Sandra’s a schoolteacher. I found her on a park bench one day last year looking lonely and I persuaded her to take me home for the afternoon to see if a good orgasm wouldn’t cheer her up. It did, and I‘ve been providing her with the odd one ever since, usually whenever it’s the school holidays or half-term. Her husband is a dull fuckwit, but she can never quite bring herself to leave even though she detests the very sight of him. I think they have kids, but they’ve grown up. She’s prim and proper and stern, and needs a good seeing to now and again to stop her from being too uptight even to breathe. She’s never seen me as Elvis, but I do it anyway to wind her up, which is funny.

  Meanwhile, I get to Mo’s, and she answers the door to me in a pink prom dress straight out of Grease. In the background I can hear some slow Elvis playing. I walk right in, put my arm round her waist and ask her to dance.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she sighs.

  I gently lead her into the living room, where it’s still 1959, or at least the 1959 that had the Fonz in it. It’s not even her own youth that she’s reliving, but some crappy TV version of it. An old vinyl record plays ‘Love Me Tender’. I softly sing along, catching the last verse before it ends. I pull her close to me and kiss her.

  ‘Maureen. I want to make love to you,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ she gasps.

  ‘Yes, Mo, very much.’

  And I take her upstairs to her pink fifties bedroom and fuck her slowly, as ‘Treat Me Nice’, the next track on her original copy of Elvis’s Golden Records plays underneath us. I fake it pretty good, but all the time I’m wanting to fuck her hard. So to calm myself down, I just think about Jen’s furry bush, and daydream about stroking it and resting my head there. Mo comes long before I do with a whimper. I just want to finish it off and pound her, but I know from past experience it would make her scared, so I politely move it in, move it out, move it in, and out… until I come. Then I have to get out of there. I’ve only been there barely ten minutes, but it already feels like some freakish pink prison, with the sickly taste of someone else’s misery heavy in the air.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I say, in my normal voice.

  ‘So soon? Couldn’t you stay just a bit longer?’ She’s still speaking in her awful American accent.

  ‘No, sorry. I’d like to, but there are things I have to do.’

  ‘You’ll come again soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will. Very soon.’

  ‘Next week maybe?’

  ‘Probably not that soon. Business is very busy at the moment.’

  ‘Of course, of course. I’m being selfish.’

  She shows me to the door, puts her hands to my face and kisses me gently on the lips. ‘I love you, Elvis,’ she whispers to me.

  I don’t say anything and close the door behind me.

  I wasn’t expecting that to be quite so traumatic or so quick. Now I have hours to kill before my next appointment at half-seven. There’s really no other option but to find a pub for a quiet pint or three, which is exactly what I do. There, I lose track of time daydreaming between the pints, as well as misjudging how long it will take to get there by a long shot, so when I finally get to Sandra’s it’s gone quarter past eight.

  I can tell she’s pissed off from the moment she opens the door.

  ‘Look, if I say half-seven, I mean half-seven. We’ve barely got three-quarters of an hour before Bill’s back home. And you smell like a brewery, Jesus.’

  Even on her day off, she’s dressed like a schoolteacher. Smart shirt and skirt, sen
sible shoes. She leads me into her immaculate minimalist living room, takes off her shoes and pulls down her tights and knickers.

  ‘Well come on then, what are you waiting for?’ she asks.

  ‘Aren’t we going upstairs?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you’d make the sheets smell. Now will you please stop messing about and get on with it?’

  She takes off her shirt, skirt and bra, and lies on a wool rug with her legs apart. I get undressed and on top of her as quick as I can. I haven’t touched her at all but inside she’s soaking wet. She presses down on my buttocks to make me go deeper inside. We both come quickly and nearly at the same time. I’m exhausted by the end of it, but immediately start to make a move, seeing as we’re running late.

  ‘No, don’t go just yet,’ she says gently, and caresses my chest. We lie there for a few minutes, stroking each other in silence. Then she gets up and sprays the room with air freshener to get rid of the smell of beer and sex.

  Chapter 11

  It’s Monday afternoon and I now possess a new Elvismobile, a white Volkswagen diesel that’s just crying out for a large stencilled Elvis on the side, crudely drawn-on cock optional. In the back of the van is a new PA, loud enough to bring down the roof of your average social club, or at least cause serious structural damage. Picture the scene – Buddy Holly’s round my house again, where I’m giving him further guidance on stagecraft. This time he’s not made the mistake of dressing up for the occasion.

  ‘You’re singing too close to the mike,’ I tell him. ‘You need to push the top half of your body way back, so you can get deep breaths and you don’t pop your Ps and Bs. No, no further back… further, a little bit further…’

  ‘If I go back any further I’ll bloody fall over,’ he says.

  ‘That’s a risk we all have to take in live performance. Luciano Pavarotti once fell backwards during a concert and killed two members of the chorus.’

  ‘That’s not true is it?’

  ‘Absolutely true, mate. Now deep breath, bend back… that’s… don’t breathe out, not yet! Now sing!’