by J. R. Rain
And now, every Saturday evening, an old man who sounded remarkably like Elvis Presley, sang songs to the children at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, carrying on Beth Ann’s tradition.
It was the least I could do.
Chapter Seven
Kelly was my on-again/off-again girlfriend. Mostly we were off-again, as we had some serious issues. Mostly they were trust issues. As in, she didn’t trust me. As in, she felt I was holding something back. Ya think? Presently, we were on-again.
“I have a confession,” she said.
Don’t we all, I thought.
I waited. We were in a small restaurant here in Echo Park, a one-time cop-shop called The Brite Spot—and it was a rather bright spot on a fairly bleak stretch of Sunset Blvd. We were sitting across from each other in an old-school booth with deeply padded vinyl cushions. Kelly, normally calm and confident, was looking increasingly nervous and agitated. She was drinking some freshly squeezed orange juice and couldn’t decide whether to hold it or set it down. I was having decaf coffee, which I didn’t have any problem holding. As I sipped, the steam from my coffee obscured Kelly’s face into a sort of wavering, haunting mirage of a one-time beautiful actress who had taken the non-enhancement high road and let herself age gracefully. Now, too old to find steady work, she worked behind the scenes managing young talent. Well respected in the industry, I knew her to be fair and honest, a true bright spot of her own in this sometimes seedy business.
“I’ve hired a private investigator,” she said suddenly, blurting out the words.
I said nothing, although my heart rate immediately doubled the moment her words registered. I waited, viewing her from over the coffee mug, using it to hide my face. The Brite Spot didn’t serve alcohol for reasons unknown. I hate that.
Kelly took a swig of her orange juice, knocking it back. Very unlady-like. I continued saying nothing. Continued hiding behind my mug until I could get control of my emotions.
“Yes, a private investigator,” she said again, averting her eyes from mine. “I know how secretive you are and I knew this would upset you, but I don’t care anymore, Aaron. For us to move forward—for our relationship to really move forward—I need some answers, and I’m not getting them from you.”
I finally set down my steaming mug. A private investigator was digging into my past, perhaps even at this very moment. A past that needed to stay hidden. A past that needed to stay dead to the world. Blood pounded in my ears.
Kelly, unfortunately, was a one-woman gossip mill, unable to keep even the smallest of secrets to herself. Hell, half the rumors in Hollywood were spread because of her. It was because of this that I could never fully trust her with my own secret. One of the reasons why we were mostly an off-again couple.
When I disappeared from the world, I knew dating and having a girlfriend would be risky. Secrets were spilled, and mistakes were made. Which was why I mostly hadn’t dated, and why I lived alone. You can’t divulge secrets when you’re alone.
Of course, all that went out the window the day I met Kelly. It wasn’t love at first site, granted, but the chemistry was right and the connection was real. But my inability to trust her with my innermost secret continued to sabotage our relationship. She knew I was holding back, and it was driving her crazy.
It was a quagmire, sure, but I did my best to navigate through it. And if it meant fibbing to her on occasion, well, that was just too bad. Too much was at stake.
“I see I’ve upset you,” she said. Her fingers were moving rapidly, touching everything within reach. Currently, she was molesting a fork.
I reached out and took her wrists gently, calming her. Now was not a time to show anger—or even panic—over what she had done. I had to diffuse the situation now. True, I had taken great pains to conceal my past, even from the most aggressive of private investigators; still, anyone could get lucky and stumble on something I had missed.
As an investigator myself, I knew that as a fact.
I said, “I should have been more up front with you, yes. But I’m very private by nature. I don’t mean to be. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, Aaron, we’ve been dating for nearly three years and I feel I barely know you.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said. “I’ll work on it.”
“Then work on it now, dammit.”
“What would you like for me to do?”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Aaron. Hell, tell me anything.”
“Anything,” I said, thinking hard. I had a very detailed script that I used as an old standby. I recalled it now.
In that moment, two cops came in and sat in the booth behind Kelly, wearing the tighter uniforms of biker cops. Or, as I like to think of them, the cool cops.
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“California.” A lie.
She frowned, picked up a spoon. Set it down again. Twisted her napkin. Untwisted it.
“Yes, you’ve told me that. Aaron, my investigator tells me he can’t find any birth records in California. Or anywhere, for that matter. Can we talk about that?”
I had to give her something now or she would keep pushing, and keep pushing, and her investigator would keep investigating, and this could all blow up in my face.
Luckily, I had a little something prepared.
“I grew up poor, Kelly. I’m not proud of that; in fact, it’s damn embarrassing. I was schooled at home. I never went to high school or college. My father died when I was young and my mother was too sick to work.” I took a deep, shuddering my breath. “I dropped out of school at age thirteen and have been working ever since. Look, it’s a time of my life that I would just as soon forget.”
Hell of a performance, if I do say so myself. My voice had even cracked a little. Who said I couldn’t act?
Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The napkin in her hands had been twisted into shreds.
“But why no birth certificate? Why no military records, no real estate records, or marriage records, or even credit history earlier than a few decades ago. There’s nothing.”
I looked at her for some time. She held my gaze defiantly. In the past, I would have changed the subject. She knew that. But she was pushing this, and unless I gave her something to chew on, something that would really hold up, this woman could potentially cause my whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
“Kelly, I’ve done some bad things in my past. I was in trouble. I would have gone to jail...unless I gave up some names.”
I kept my voice low and even. No one heard, no one cared, and no one knew what the hell we were talking about. The cops were talking quietly among themselves while keeping a casual eye on those around them. Kelly caught on to me immediately.
“So you gave up the names,” she said, conspiratorially. She was loving this, perhaps too much.
“Yes.”
“And now you’re in the witness protection program.”
“Could you say that a little louder?”
“Sorry.”
The waiter came by, a very metrosexual-looking kid with rectangular glasses and mussed hair. He topped off my decaf, asked Kelly if she wanted more OJ. She shook her head sharply once; he got the hint and split.
She said, “Can I ask what you did that was so bad?”
“No, not yet,” I said, mostly because I didn’t know yet myself. “Let’s pace this a little, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, but I could see that she was humming with excitement, bursting with a need to spread this news. I felt bad for lying, but the bigger picture was far more important.
“This has to be our secret, okay?” I said.
She nodded slowly. Almost reluctantly. “It will be, I promise.”
“If you can keep this one secret, perhaps I will tell you more. But you have to prove to me that you can keep this one.”
“You sound like you’re lecturing a little girl.”
“Well, you are fifteen years my junior.”
“Okay, fine,” she said, sticking out her bottom lip. “I can keep a secret.”
“You need to call your investigator off, too.”
“Okay, I will,” she said.
We were silent. Three loud young men came into the restaurant, spotted the cops and quieted down immediately. Kelly reached out and took both my hands. Her palms were moist.
“I’m sorry, Aaron. I really am. I know this isn’t easy for you.”
I couldn’t let her off the hook. I needed this issue to go away, and I needed to show her how much I was bothered by this. Perhaps then, in the future, she would think twice about pulling another stunt like this.
“No, it’s not easy,” I said. “Not to mention your private eye might very well jeopardize my life. Kelly, who I was in the past is dead. You have to let that go.”
She nodded slowly, and then more vigorously. “I understand, and I’m sorry. I’ll call him off tonight.” She kept holding my hands, running her thumbs over my thick fingers. “Maybe with this out in the open we can finally move forward. Do you want that?”
I looked up at this beautiful woman who had put up with me for the last few years. Sure, we had our ups and downs. Sure, the downs were mostly because of me and my secrets. But she had persevered. She loved me and did not want me for my wealth or fame or because I was the King. She wanted me for me, because I made her feel good. And that made me feel damn good, too.
“Yes,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I want that.”
Chapter Eight
Dr. Vivian Carter was a small woman with big glasses. She was also my therapist, and as I stepped into her office and eased down into her wingback chair for my weekly appointment, I could feel the weight of her considerable stare upon me now; a weight, no doubt, made more considerable due to her incredibly thick glasses.
A month ago, in one long rambling session, I disclosed to Dr. Vivian my super-secret Elvis identity. I never intended to, but I found myself trusting her deeply, and since all my other problems were tied to this one big issue—this one epic issue—then I was going to have to come clean.
And so I did.
Now, of course, the good Dr. Vivian thought I was a nutcase. And why shouldn’t she? Just another loony claiming to be Elvis. Still, this loony had given her evidence—proof—that I was, in fact, Elvis Presley. Whether or not she chose to believe the evidence was another matter.
Now we were in her office, located on the ground floor of her stately two-story bungalow-style home here in Echo Park. Dr. Vivian sat behind an executive desk that seemed entirely too massive for her small office. Had she been a male therapist, I would have suspected penis compensation issues. Being a female therapist, as it were, I was out of theories. The blinds behind her desk were partly open and the sun was pouring in. As I looked out the window, the small shadow of a small bird flitted by and alighted on a nearby skeletal tree branch. The bird twittered pleasantly. Seconds later, the silhouette of a cat appeared on the window’s ledge, creeping toward the bird.
Ah, the wheels of life keep on turning....
Dr. Vivian was forty-seven, petite, and quite the looker; that is, if you liked the nerdy type. And with her it was easy to like the nerdy type. Luckily, no pocket protector.
Admittedly, I had the hots for her. In a bad way, actually. Officially, she was a family and marriage counselor. Unofficially, she took a sort of holistic approach to people and their problems, which is what appealed to me in the first place. After all, I didn’t want to know why I was messed up. I wanted to know the greater purpose behind why I was messed up.
“What would you like to talk about today?” Dr. Vivian asked, completely unaware of the cat stalking the bird directly behind her. And, no doubt, completely unaware that I had it bad for her.
“Let’s talk about me for a change,” I said.
She smiled but said nothing. Dr. Vivian didn’t find me nearly as entertaining as I found myself.
“Actually,” I said. “I would like to talk about who I really am.”
“Who you really are?” she said, and I could hear the slight disapproval in her voice.
“Unfortunately, doctor, I still think I’m Elvis.”
She shifted in her chair and tapped the eraser end of her pencil against a poster-sized desk calendar spread over the surface of her voluminous desk. Numerous scribblings covered the desk calendar. Unfortunately, I was sitting too far away to read the scribblings, although I was admittedly curious. What did therapists scribble about, anyway?
“Fine, let’s talk about it. So what is it, exactly, that you want from me, Mr. King?”
“I want you to believe me.”
“To believe that you are Elvis Presley?”
“Yes.”
“Last week I had a patient tell me he was God.”
“Did he turn your Liquid Paper into wine?”
Again, she didn’t smile.
“You see my point,” she said.
“Yes. You deal with a lot of crazies.”
“We don’t use the term ‘crazy’ here. Delusional, perhaps.”
“You think I’m delusional?”
“My beliefs are not the issue here.”
“I beg to differ,” I said. “I need a therapist who believes me, who believes in me. A therapist who does not patronize me.”
“You’re asking a lot of me,” she said.
“I think you’re up to the challenge.”
She studied me. “The easy diagnosis is that you suffer from a dissociative identity disorder.”
“In English.”
“You think you’re someone else.”
“Maybe I should have picked Brad Pitt, then.”
“This isn’t funny, Mr. King.”
“Of course not,” I said. “So what’s your diagnosis?”
She took in some air, held it, tapped her pencil on the calendar some more, then looked me squarely in the eye. “You don’t have a dissociative identity disorder.”
“I don’t?”
“No, Mr. Presley, you don’t.”
* * *
I stopped breathing. Had I heard her right?
A hint of a smile touched her lips, then spread to her entire face. As it did, a fabulous weight fell from my shoulders and I nearly wept.
“You gave me proof the last time we met,” she said. “I checked your proof. Everything checked out.” She suddenly stood, leaned across her desk and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Elvis Presley. I’m Dr. Vivian Carter.”
Too stunned to speak, I reached numbly across her desk and took her hand.
Chapter Nine
“You believe me then?” I asked.
She didn’t immediately answer, nor did she release my hand. Instead, she stood there looking down at me, her eyes searching every square inch of my face. Beyond Dr. Vivian, framed nearly perfectly in the window, was the silhouette of the tomcat sitting motionless on the window ledge. The bird, clueless, went about its business energetically, hopping contentedly from branch to branch. Finally, the good doctor released my hand and sat back in her chair.
“I do, Mr. King, but this is highly irregular.”
“Highly,” I said.
“You have a lot of issues.”
“More than you know,” I said.
The lens of her considerable glasses caught some of the afternoon sun, nearly blinding me. From behind her desk, she carefully crossed one leg over the other, and from where I sat, I could see some of her exposed knee. Hubba hubba.
“So what made you finally believe me?” I asked.
“The list of names you provided. The plastic surgeon, in particular.”
“You called him.”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing at first. Until I gave him the password. Cute.”
“Well, we all have a little hound dog in us, doctor,” I said. Hound dog, was, of course, the password. Dr. Castro, my plastic surgeon so many years ago and a wonderful friend, had been sworn
to silence. Unless he was given the password. “So what did Dr. Castro tell you?”
“He described the surgery he performed on you. Radical face-altering surgery. Nose job, chin implant, reshaping of the ears, mouth, eyes.” She paused, studied me again. “He did a wonderful job, you know. You look nothing like him—or you. You know what I mean.” Her face actually reddened.
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “I know what you mean.”
“But now I can see the similarities.”
“Lucky me.”
The clock on the wall behind me ticked loudly, filling the big room with its small noise. The bird hopped over to another branch, then to another, moving ever closer to the statuesque cat.
Dr. Vivian said, “Admittedly, I was slow to move forward, slow to believe. I mean, you have to understand my hesitation.”
“I understand.”
“But everything checked out. Everything. Especially the surgeon.”
I smiled. “And here you thought I was crazy.”
She smiled back at. “The verdict is still out, Mr. King. You did, after all, fake your own death.”
“You should try it sometime; it’s very liberating.”
She ignored that. “We’re going to have to start over with your sessions, you know.”
“I understand.”
“Everything has changed. I mean, you went from being Aaron King to Elvis fucking Presley.”
“Such language for a therapist.”
“I think our once traditional doctor/patient relationship might have flown out the window.”
Much like the bird. It suddenly darted off the branch, swooped down, then disappeared from view. The tom watched it go, flattening his ears, his wound-up energy dissipating in an instant. He flicked his tail once, then slinked off.
Dr. Vivian was studying me, completely unaware of the drama behind her. “You have issues with guilt,” she said. “And now I see why. You abandoned your daughter.”
“You get right to it,” I said, shifting.
“You’re paying me to help you, not gush over you.”
