Losing Graceland

by Micah Nathan

  Expectant silence and then he wailed the opening lines of “Jailhouse Rock.” The crowd applauded as he performed a decent imitation, complete with creaky hip swivels, spastic leg, and limp wrist. Ben shot a look at the old man, who drank his beer and plucked the last of the crispy bits off his shrimp plate.

  “Well?” Ben said.

  The old man wrinkled his high forehead. “Well what.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Terrible. They’re always terrible.”

  The wrinkle-free khaki man finished with another belch and was replaced by a youngish red-haired woman crooning “Love Me Tender.” The next man got halfway through “Suspicious Minds,” then asked if he could switch to “Treat Me Like a Fool,” but the crowd turned him down with boos and catcalls. One of the bikers gulped a shot before leaving his table, and he strutted onto stage while his brethren whooped and hollered, and he ripped off a savage rendition of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” that brought the house down. When he finished he strode off the stage. One of the suburban husbands gave him a high five. He slapped the husband’s hand and grabbed his wife, picking her up off her feet, and she squealed and kicked her high heels while the husband forced a laugh and patted him on the back of his leather jacket. “You should get up there,” Ben said.

  The old man ignored him and sucked the crumbs off a shrimp tail. The blond woman with high hair stepped back onto the stage.

  One of the bikers looked over at the old man and hollered, “What about him?” Everyone turned to stare. The old man held up his hand, shaking his head.

  Glasses rattled and the blond woman onstage whistled into the microphone. The wrinkle-free khaki man began to chant, “El-vis, El-vis.” Soon the entire bar chanted, stomping their feet, banging their beer mugs on the tables.

  “Get up there,” Ben said. “You said no one would believe you anyway.”

  The old man looked down. “I know what I said, goddammit.”

  The old man smoothed back his hair and stood. His hip hurt. He scanned the room: openmouthed faces, alcohol-reddened eyes, and French manicures. An Elvis clock sat above the bar, man-child in a slim dark suit with his arms the hours and minutes.

  He began his march through the crowd, hands pressing against his white sweatsuit, fingers clutching at the lion’s head belt buckle. The duct tape finally gave, and it clattered to the floor. He bent over and his lower back seized, so he squatted, holding on to a table, fumbling for the buckle while a woman wearing a tight white blouse, blue eye shadow, and cherry red lipstick that seeped into the creases around her lips leaned toward him, leering.

  “Where’s Priscilla?” she said, and her husband laughed as she planted a kiss on the old man’s forehead. He found the belt buckle and stood, slowly, feeling her saliva cool on his skin.

  He looked at her and thought, Lord, if this was thirty years ago, I’d have you eating out of my asshole.

  “Priscilla’s dead,” the old man said, and he walked on.

  He stepped onto the stage. The crowd quieted. Ben sensed it was the sort of silence before a tragic revelation, as if someone had brought out a pan of water for Jesus and asked him to walk atop it even though everyone knew he’d get his feet wet. The old man picked up the microphone and cleared his throat.

  “Where’s Priscilla?” someone shouted. People laughed. The woman in the tight white blouse looked around her table because she wanted them to acknowledge that she’d said it first.

  “I’ll do one song and then I’m leaving,” the old man said.

  “ ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ ” one of the bikers shouted. The bartender called out, “ ‘See See Rider’ ” and soon everyone was shouting out a song. Ben saw it amid the drunkenness and irony—an old man in a white sweatsuit clutching a gold lion’s head belt buckle in one hand and a microphone in the other, with all eyes on him and people already clamoring for a better view. A throng of bikers pushed their way to the front. The blond woman with high hair took a seat atop the bar next to the bartender.

  The old man cleared his throat again. “No music this time. I’m just gonna sing it myself.”

  He closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and sang.

  Come ye weary heavy laden

  Open wide stands mercy’s doors

  Jesus ready waits to save you

  With your killers and your whores.

  Come ye weary heavy laden

  Lost and ruined by the fall

  If you tarry till you’re better

  You will never come at all.

  He finished and set the microphone on the PA, still clutching the lion head. Holy shit, thought Ben; the old man was crying a little.

  The crowd said nothing as he hobbled off the stage. Ben rushed to help him but the old man pushed his hand away. When they got back to their corner booth, the old man fell into his seat. He wiped his eyes and laughed.

  “Goddamn, that was something else,” the old man said. He held up his hands, and saw they were shaking.

  The bartender flicked the lights and announced last call while the old man thumbed through a fold of twenties and pinned them to the table with an empty beer mug. Their table was littered with empty peanut shells, crumpled napkins, and a menu that had a phone number written on it in red lipstick. The woman in the tight white blouse had stumbled over after the winners of the karaoke contest were announced.

  “You should’ve won first place,” she’d said to the old man. She pulled a lipstick tube from her alligator-skin purse and started writing. “Consider this your consolation prize.”

  Ben returned from the bathroom and slouched into the booth, yawning. Singles made their final pitches at the bar, offering whatever spoils remained—a cigarette, a recycled pickup line, a jangle of keys, an offer of a ride home.

  “See that table in the middle of the room?” the old man said to Ben. “The one with two women and two men?”

  Ben nodded.

  “I been getting dirty looks from the big guy,” the old man said. “His wife’s the one gave me her phone number. Same one kissed me on the forehead when I dropped my buckle.”

  “Maybe there’s a back door we can sneak out,” Ben said, and he smiled to himself. He hadn’t been this drunk in years. His seat was warm, and he wondered if he could nap for a few minutes before getting back on the road.

  The old man hitched up his pants. “We’re leaving through the front. But keep an eye out.”

  Halfway across the parking lot Ben heard a woman raise her voice, and he turned to see the big guy pull away from the woman in the tight white blouse and begin stalking across the gravel toward them. The man wore a suit but his jacket was off, tie loosened and hanging to one side. His friend walked slowly behind, looking back at his wife with his hands held out helplessly as if his feet were moving of their own accord.

  The big guy jabbed a finger in the air. “You think it’s okay to flirt with another man’s wife?”

  Ben stepped in front of the old man. “We’re all a little drunk, and I think we—”

  “Shut up.” The big guy began rolling his sleeves. “I don’t care how old he is. Doesn’t give him a free pass. Step aside unless you want some—”

  A tube of metal shot past Ben’s face. The old man’s arm was outstretched, handgun at the end.

  “Walk away,” the old man said.

  The big guy froze, mouth open.

  “I’ll say it once more.” The hammer clicked back. “Walk. Away.”

  He did as he was told, slowly, hands clenched at his sides. His wife ran up to him with arms outstretched. They hurried away in silence, disappearing beyond the fringe of the parking-lot lights.

  The old man tucked the pistol into his waistband.

  “What the fuck?” Ben said.

  “It was about to get bloody. I made sure it didn’t.”

  “Jesus Christ, you can’t just pull a gun—”

  “Goddamn right I can, and don’t you use the Lord’s name in that manner. I don’t need you trying to drive with two swollen e
yes from some drunk sonofabitch—”

  Ben heard a bonk and the old man lurched forward. Tires spit gravel and a red Volvo swerved out of the parking lot. The woman with blue eye shadow was screaming at him from an open window.

  “Fuck you! You don’t even look like Elvis, you crazy old fuck!”

  Ben caught the old man. Blood streamed down the side of his face, black under the lights.

  “Someone shot me,” the old man mumbled, clutching his head, eyes rolling.

  Ben saw the empty beer bottle lying on the ground.

  “Nadine,” the old man whispered. He tried to stand and staggered again. Ben’s legs buckled under his weight. “This is how it ends, son. I dreamt it all the time.”

  5.

  he old man and Ben were taken to the home of Darryl Sikes, president of the local chapter of Hell’s Foster Children. Darryl Sikes was a tall, thick man with hands hard as marble and blue eyes hidden deep behind red fleshy cheeks. He had a vague superhero look, Ben thought, with a square jaw and a prominent forehead and dark hair cut short for a biker. He wore a leather jacket, creased and creaky, Hell’s Foster Children emblazoned across the back in bloodred Gothic font. A baby devil in leather diapers stood behind the H in Hell, its pitchfork making the E. The more Ben thought about it, the more Darryl didn’t look like a biker at all. He was too refined, too coiled with muscle. He could have been a former college athlete, softened a bit by time and beer. His fellow bikers looked the part, though: long haired, dusty jeans, tan arms marked with tattoos and veins running over their biceps.

  Darryl and his gang had watched the old man pull a gun on the yuppie, then watched the yuppie’s wife chuck the bottle at the old man’s head, and they’d all leaned back on the seats of their bikes and laughed until the old man collapsed in Ben’s arms.

  They’d carried the old man to his car and Ben followed Darryl to his house atop a wooded hill accompanied by a convoy of roaring bikes. In the living room of his five-bedroom new build they laid the old man on the blue-and-white striped couch and Darryl’s wife, Myra, dressed the wound. The rest of the bikers stood around Darryl’s living room, arms crossed, mouths tight with concern.

  Ben sat in front of the fireplace, Darryl next to him in a poofy leather chair. The living room opened into a kitchen with a breakfast bar, staircase along the far wall leading to a catwalk that looked over the first floor. The house smelled of new carpet and fresh paint. The bikers had taken off their boots in the foyer. A china cabinet held little porcelain dogs, framed photos, and engraved beer mugs from Darryl and Myra’s travels: Vegas, Charlotte, Raleigh, Baltimore.

  “It was a damn fine performance,” Darryl said to Ben. “I’m not a fan of gospel, but he made it sound good. Real good. Too bad he didn’t win. It’s a disgrace, really.”

  “If it’s based upon stage presence, then no question he wins,” one of the bikers said. “But it was Elvis night and the rules say you have to do an Elvis song.”

  Frank, the oldest member of Hell’s Foster Children, shook his head and crossed his thick arms over his chest. His tattoos were faded, lost amid graying forearm hair. “Bullshit. The man pours his heart out onstage and you’re telling me he loses to some yuppie because of Roxanne’s rules?”

  Darryl spoke to Ben while the others continued their argument.

  “Where did you say you were from?”

  “Cheektowaga,” Ben said. “It’s near Buffalo.”

  “I take it you two are headed to Little Valley.”

  “Where?”

  Darryl grinned. “Little Valley, Tennessee. For the Elvis Tribute Contest. My wife and I are big fans. I know a pro when I see it. He doesn’t really look like him, but he owned that stage. I mean, he owned it. I closed my eyes and could’ve sworn it was the King.”

  Darryl glanced over his shoulder at Myra, who sat near the old man with an ice pack pressed to his temple. The old man’s eyes were closed. He looked asleep.

  “So, listen.” Darryl lowered his voice and leaned forward with his hands clenched together, elbows resting on his knees. “You and the old man should come with us to Little Valley. We’re making a vacation out of it, Myra and me, maybe a few of the boys and their wives. We know all the good ’cue joints between here and there, and a couple places with the kind of women you’ll tell stories about in your old age. It wouldn’t be a lonely trip, know what I mean? What I’m trying to say is you’ll get laid. We got all sorts—blond cuties with pigtails and cutoffs, long-haired brunettes with nails that’ll claw the hair off your back, pierced chicks, shaved chicks, chicks with tats, fighting chicks, drinking chicks, chicks with limps and harelips—”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t think we can make the detour. The old man is determined to get to Memphis.”

  Darryl grinned. “Of course he is. I guess you two are headed to Graceland.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Ben said.

  * * *

  The last time Ben saw Jessica, he knew it was over because she brought her best friend, Mindy, to their weekly lunch at Rigoletto’s, an Italian bistro in the Palisade Mall with wall paintings of grape vines crawling across a sunlit field. Mindy was a doe-eyed girl with a nice laugh and a permanent ponytail, and she and Jess kept exchanging looks as if Ben didn’t notice. They finished lunch and Mindy went to the restroom. Jessica started chewing her thumbnail. Ben fished ice from the bottom of his glass.

  He crunched a cube. “Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Come on. I already know.”

  “Okay. It’s over.”

  “Hold on. I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m so relieved.” She smiled. “I thought for sure you’d freak.”

  “I am freaked.”

  “You don’t look freaked.”

  “I’m freaked, Jess. Trust me.”

  “Well, whatever. I’ve said it and that’s what I wanted to say, and I’m sorry for doing this in public, but I just thought you’d go crazy.”

  He lowered his voice. “You’re seeing someone else.”

  “Please. I’m leaving for college in a month.”

  “Then wait a month.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Ben thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  Jessica nodded as if to say, Exactly. Then she peered over her shoulder. “Here comes Mindy. Please don’t put her in an awkward spot, okay?”

  Mindy sat down and smiled politely. She and Jess exchanged another look—Ben realized they’d had it all planned from the start—and Mindy said, as if on cue:

  “We should probably get going. It’s my dad’s birthday and I want to get him a tie at Harold’s.”

  “What kind of tie?” Ben said.

  “Silk.”

  “Italian?”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Great,” Ben said. “I’ll join you. I worked at Harold’s last summer.”

  He followed them to Harold’s, to a sporting goods store where they bought a six-pack of socks, then to a soft-pretzel kiosk and a coffee shop. As they sat in the food court, drinking from paper cups and watching old people shuffle past, Mindy’s cell chirped and she walked away.

  Jessica grabbed Ben’s arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Enjoying my day.”

  “You’re not going to change my mind.”

  “I know. But since this is our last date—”

  “It’s not a date.” She let go of his arm and sat back in her chair, arms crossed, chin lowered. “Mindy thought you were really rude to our waiter at lunch.”

  “I hate the waiters at Rigoletto’s. They always flirt with you.”

  “I don’t even care, Ben. I really don’t. You want to know why I dumped you? Because you always get like this.”

  “Like what? Pissed because some waiter is flirting with my girlfriend?”

  “No. Like you’re desperate. Like I’m the only thing you have going on, and now that it’s over—”

  “But I am desperate. I don’t want this
to end, so if I’m having a difficult time with it, just be patient. This is how it works, anyway.”

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “I guess I’ve always been desperate,” Ben said, and he sipped his coffee. “Even when we first started dating. I knew this would happen, you know. Not quite like this …” Ben nodded toward the legions of mall walkers and moms with strollers. “But I’ve been waiting for this day. If that makes me weird—”

  “It makes you pathetic.”

  Ben said nothing. He finished his coffee with a gulp and crumpled the cup. Then he walked away, hands in his pockets. On the way to the main concourse, he pulled Mindy aside. She covered her cell and frowned at him.

  “I’ve always had a thing for you,” he said. “Meet me tonight for dinner.”

  “What?”

  “I know I was rude to our waiter but that’s not who I am. They always flirt with Jessica—”

  “Gross,” Mindy said. She yanked her arm from his grip and walked back to the table.

  This is self-destruction at its most refined, Ben told himself. You don’t even like Mindy. Jessica was right: You’re pathetic, a college guy still trolling for high-school birds.

  He got drunk with Patrick that night and blew off class the next day. Cheektowaga was perfect because he could go to the mall in sweatpants and no one stared. The pool of mediocrity was warm and inviting; Ben felt he could swim in it for the next ten years, just float on his back, gazing at the sky. Mall Muzak played REO Speedwagon, Aldo Nova, and Elvis’s Vegas years. Fucking brilliant, thought Ben. Fucking perfect. Fucking pathetic.

  * * *

  They put Ben in the upstairs guest bedroom, on a high bed surrounded by lacy pillows, in a room with soft white walls and a soft white carpet. An armoire stood against the far wall, fake ivy trailing from a blue-and-white ceramic pot sitting atop the cabinet. A white teddy bear wearing a Harley Davidson leather vest lay on its side, entangled in the ivy, peeking out from its plastic jungle.