Losing Graceland

by Micah Nathan

  “He sure took a lot of those pills,” Ginger said. “My mom used to take pills. She said it was for panic attacks.”

  Ben fell into the easy chair pushed against the wall. He stared at Ginger.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t look like it’s nothing.”

  “I dreamt about my dad this morning.”

  “So.”

  “So he died last year and I haven’t dreamt about him in a long time.”

  “Oh shit.” She frowned. “I’m sorry. What was the dream about?”

  “Dreams always sound stupid when you tell people what happened.”

  Ginger flipped onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands. “I don’t care. I like hearing other people’s dreams because I never dream.”

  “Everyone dreams. You just don’t remember them.”

  “Same difference. So tell me.”

  Ben told her his dream. When he finished he stared at the brown carpet and remembered yelling at his mom a month after the funeral because his dad’s mud-caked sneakers were still in the foyer, sitting in the corner atop a yellowed sheet of newspaper dotted with dried mud.

  His mom had stood at the kitchen sink with her graying hair pulled back tight. She was barefoot. Through the small window above the sink Ben saw the cloud-darkened sky.

  “Let me make you a sandwich,” she said. “Would you like a sandwich?”

  “Throw those sneakers away, Mom. They’re useless.”

  “I will. But you have to eat. You don’t look well.”

  It was summer break and two months earlier his dad asked him to hose off his sneakers because he’d gotten them dirty while unclogging the drain tile in their backyard. Every day he reminded Ben and every day Ben forgot. One month later he was dead, yet there they remained, blue-and-white Nikes, encased in cracked mud, still smelling of his dad’s feet.

  “I’m not hungry,” Ben said. “Don’t change the subject.”

  She turned to him, and Ben realized how old she looked. The way the freckled skin on her neck crinkled like crepe paper. The way her bones showed through her clothes.

  “Please don’t touch them,” she said.

  “But he doesn’t need them anymore.”

  “I know,” she said. She looked like she could scream; all he could do was walk away before he screamed, too.

  One year had passed and whenever Ben came home to visit they were still there: blue-and-white Nikes, laces frozen in mud. Soon they moved to the closet, where he figured they remained, buried under forgotten gloves, hats, and winter scarves.

  He stared at the motel room ceiling and pushed his sadness down to wherever it was supposed to be. It had been one year and he felt that was long enough. They build skyscrapers in a year, he thought. And airports and suburban developments. Get over it. Move on.

  Ginger pulled off her shirt. She giggled and flung herself back, bouncing off the mattress. She pulled the sheet to her chin, grinning. Her lips were very red, her teeth very white. A clump of mascara clung to the tip of her eyelash.

  “Let’s fuck,” she said.

  Ben leapt onto the bed and she screamed with laughter.

  11.

  hey knocked on the old man’s door after sunset and when he didn’t answer Ben walked in. The lights were off but the TV was on. In the flickering dark Ben saw the old man lying on the motel bathroom floor, head propped against the wall, spilled complimentary mouthwash in a green puddle, bath towel clutched in one hand. Dried vomit crusted to the side of his face, and his red sweatpants smelled of urine. When Ben touched his shoulder he opened one eye and started to sing.

  “TodayIstumbledfrombedwiththundercrashinginmyhead.”

  Nine P.M. Shelby Hospital waiting room. Nubby orange office chairs and coughing children. Ginger slept with her head on Ben’s shoulder as he checked his voice mail. The Elvis biography sat in his lap.

  Benny boy, where the fuck are you? Call me. My name is Steve and we used to play basketball together.

  Hi, it’s Samantha. I’m driving home from work and I was going to stop for a beer at Jack Astor’s if you were around, but I guess you’re not, so bye-bye.

  Ben. Rent is due. Call me.

  It’s Jess. Listen, I’m going to be back home only for a week and I wanted to know if we could meet for some coffee. I’ll be in my room all night unless Alan comes over. Call me before you go to bed.

  Ben saw the doctor walking toward them. He nudged Ginger awake.

  The doctor squirted a dollop of Purel into his palm and rubbed his hands together. He forced a smile at Ben, wrinkled his forehead at Ginger, and put his hands on his hips. “Your grandfather is resting comfortably,” he said. “His pinky, though—it’s infected. Can you tell me how he lost it?”

  “He slammed it in a car door,” Ben said.

  “He must have slammed it pretty hard.”

  “You should’ve heard the scream.”

  “I bet.” The doctor raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t quite believe Ben but was willing to let it slide. “Anyway, we cleaned it and I have him on Cipro for ten days. As to the overdose, we found these.” He held up an orange pill bottle. “Which we believe he purchased in Canada. Made any trips to Canada recently?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’d keep an eye on his Internet use. Most seniors mail-order nowadays. It’s a wonder we don’t see more cases like this.” He handed Ben a white slip of paper. “This is a prescription for Percocet. Not as heavy as what your grandfather was taking, but still, keep the bottle on your person so this doesn’t happen again.”

  “Can we see him?”

  “Sure. He’s groggy, so it might take a little song and dance to get his attention.”

  Ben thanked the doctor and they started to walk away, but the doctor cleared his throat.

  “You should know your grandfather’s exhibiting signs of dementia.”

  “Like Alzheimer’s?” Ben asked.

  The doctor plucked a clipboard off the intake counter and glanced at a chart, whistling quietly through his teeth. “It appears to be in the early stages. Of course we’d need to run some tests before saying anything definitive.”

  “So it is Alzheimer’s?”

  “The best we can do at this point is make an educated guess. But his behavior indicates some sort of impairment. The pinky accident may point to a loss of motor ability.… Tell me, is his whole Elvis getup a personal preference?”

  “He loves Elvis,” Ben said.

  “I got that. He called for his daughter before we inserted the stomach pump.”

  “Lisa Marie?”

  The doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Who else?”

  The old man’s room was small but private. The vertical blinds were pulled tight. A small TV hung in the corner of the ceiling.

  The old man stared at Ben with unfocused eyes and tried to sit up. His hand was wrapped in fresh gauze. “Mercenaries,” he whispered. “Before we hit Shake, we need mercenaries. Many as we can afford.”

  Ginger touched the old man’s hand and he smiled, so she kept it there. His green aviators sat on a small table near the bed. The single lamp burned dim.

  “How are you feeling?” Ginger said.

  “Tired,” the old man said. “Told the doctor I’m on four hundred milligrams Lortab every three hours, just like the PDR says. I’ve been off Nardil for a month, so he doesn’t need to worry about contraindications. He took my pills anyway, even though I told him four hundred milligrams Lortab every four hours. Just like the PDR says.”

  “I don’t think we can make it to Shake,” Ben said.

  “We have to.”

  “I checked your rice sack and there’s fifty bucks left. We don’t have any money. We barely have enough to get back to Cheektowaga.”

  The old man tried to shout but a wad of mucus foiled his plans and he launched into a wet coughing fit. Ginger poured him a cup of water.

  “Nadine needs me.” He breathed hard. “A life w
ith Hank isn’t any sort of life. That’s why I hired you. That’s why I stepped back into the world I left behind—”

  Ben held up his hand. “Does Nadine even exist?”

  The old man paused with his cup in midair. “Sugar, get my wallet from the nightstand drawer.”

  She found it next to an empty pack of chewing gum and a dog-eared copy of The Essential Kabbalah.

  “Behind my Wegmans Shoppers Club Card there’s a photo,” the old man said.

  She took it out and handed it to Ben. A black woman held an infant, tiny wrinkled face captured in mid-cry.

  “Nadine Emma Brown,” the old man said. “Emma sent me that photo two months before she died of heart failure.”

  Ben handed it back but the old man shook his head. “You’re holding redemption right there. Keep it as a reminder.”

  “I can’t get an apartment in Amsterdam with redemption,” Ben said.

  “What do you need an apartment in Amsterdam for anyway?” the old man said. “The French are assholes. Christ’s sake, they think Grace Jones is a genius.”

  Ben stared at the photo. “We need money.”

  “Then find money.”

  “I have two hundred bucks in my account.”

  “I don’t even have an account,” Ginger said.

  The old man squeezed his eyes shut and tried to order his thoughts. Think. Think of something.

  Jet rides and round beds covered in purple velvet. Those sweet twins in their little pink panties giving him a rubdown after that show in Buffalo. Then there was the time he and Lamar broke into the Embassy Hotel kitchen and ate an entire twenty-four-pack of kosher dogs. Washed it down with a handful of ludes and spent the next day puking up processed meat.

  Used to be he needed money and one tour sufficed. Three hundred thousand a week in 1973. Money always in his pocket. Grab a thick fold and yank it out. Fifties. Hundreds. Stack of dead presidents six feet high. Unfathomable now. Made his living selling memorabilia on eBay. One thousand for a signed scarf. Two hundred for a backstage pass.

  Then he remembered the poster.

  Elvis Tribute Contest!

  Little Valley, Tennessee. Saturday, June 10

  Cash Prizes, Food, Family Fun!

  “I got an idea,” the old man said. “But first get me in the shower.”

  He made Ben stand in the bathroom while he showered, standing in his soaked red sweatsuit with his eyes shut, water pattering against the velvety nap like rain on moss. His bandaged hand soaked through and blood dripped from the gauze, snaking down the drain in a winding tendril.

  “It’s two hours to Little Valley,” the old man said. “Hundred bucks should get us a room for the night. Tomorrow I’ll clean up, enter that contest and do my thing. Then with cash prize in hand, we’ll head off to Shake and take care of business.”

  “What about clothes?” Ben asked. “Don’t you need an outfit of some kind?”

  “One-fifty should get us a decent pair of slacks, decent shirt, decent shoes, and decent belt repair. I’ll have them sew up my lion’s head buckle. Sight of that sonofabitch alone should land first prize.”

  He soaped his armpits through the red sweatshirt and spit water like a Greek fountain. Then he laughed and spit again, and Ben thought about Ginger squeezing his hand when the doctor said dementia.

  Ben sorted through the clothing racks, the scrape of hangers on metal rails reminding him of school shopping with his mom. He shifted his cell to his other ear.

  “We’re going to the Allentown Art Festival tomorrow,” Patrick said. “Eric’s meeting us at Pano’s and we’ll probably walk there.”

  “I can’t make it.”

  “Art chicks, Ben. Easy art chicks as far as the eye can see. Nothing but nipples and pierced belly buttons.”

  Ben lifted a pair of pants and held them up for Ginger, who shook her head. “Sorry, man,” Ben said. “I won’t be home until next week.”

  “Where are you?” Patrick said.

  “At a Wal-Mart in Tennessee.”

  “Awesome. Are you shopping?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “For the old man?”

  “Who else.”

  “What happened to Memphis?”

  “Long story.” Ben lifted another pair of pants, and again Ginger shook her head.

  “Do you still think he’s Elvis?” Patrick said.

  “Get serious,” Ben said. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “What about that hot girl who wanted to fuck? You said no, which is something only an idiot—”

  Ben winked at Ginger and she stuck out her ass and slapped it. “I got someone else,” he said.

  “Let me say hi,” Ginger said, and Ben tossed her the phone.

  “Hello? Is this Patrick?”

  “Yeah, this is Patrick. Who’s this?”

  “Ginger.”

  “Well, hello, Ginger. Are you Ben’s new girlfriend?”

  “No. Ben’s my new pimp.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ben went to grab the phone but Ginger pulled away. “You heard me,” she said. “Pimp. P-I-M-P.”

  Patrick laughed. “Pimp as in hookers and pimps, or pimp as in hip-hop parlance—”

  “Pimp as in a man who owns my ass and rents it out.”

  “You’re serious,” Patrick said.

  “Totally. Ben bought me from my old pimp. Clarence. Dude had one eye.”

  “Let me talk to Ben.”

  “Don’t you like talking to me?”

  Ben grabbed Ginger’s arm and pulled her close. With his other hand he grabbed his cell but she kept listening, rising up on her toes and craning her neck.

  “I do like talking to you,” Patrick said. “But this is just fucking unbeliev—”

  Ben closed the cell. It twittered moments later. He stuffed it in his pocket and kissed Ginger long and hard. They stood in the middle of the men’s clothing aisle, under high fluorescent lights with Muzak playing “Burning Love.”

  When they gave the old man the pants they’d chosen, he slung them over his shoulder and gazed across the store, eyes narrowed, mouth tight. “You got good taste,” he said. “I’m going to find a pair of boots. Think you could get me a shirt with a dragon on it? Or any kind of predator? Something powerful. Like a lion or tiger.”

  “What about an elephant?” Ginger said. “They’re powerful.”

  “They’re not a predator.”

  “And a dragon is?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do they eat, then?”

  The old man thought for a moment. “People, I guess. Ben?”

  “People,” Ben said.

  Ginger and Ben searched the racks for a shirt, and she told him stories about her childhood—how she’d lived with her mom in a small town in Wisconsin, in her grandparents’ farmhouse with a rickety porch and grapevines curled up the siding. There were only one hundred students in her elementary school, ice-cream cones only cost a dollar, and the town doctor wore a hat and bow tie. Ben thought the sound track to her childhood should’ve been the music that played during those “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” commercials with Sam Elliot sounding like his throat was stuffed with gravel and you could almost hear the bristles of his mustache scratching against the studio mic.

  Ginger said she’d never known her father, and a succession of her mother’s boyfriends always hurt them both in some way. Some were drunks, some were meth fiends, some touched Ginger when she was a little girl, and even though she squeezed her legs shut they touched her anyway. There was one, Ginger said, the most normal of the bunch, who carried a Bible and spoke of Jesus and forgiveness, until Ginger came home early from school and found him in the living room standing behind her friend Susan’s dad with his suit pants down around his ankles and the TV showing Matthew Modine’s E! True Hollywood Story.

  Then there was the year of panic attacks, her mother holed up in her room with a box of tissues, a mumbling TV, and a steady supply of pills. Ginger said she’d tried the pills a few
times but they made her dizzy and gave her nightmares, and the one time she came to school high, the teacher called child services. Soon after that her mother started dating the child services investigations worker.

  Ben didn’t believe Ginger’s stories but he didn’t care because the telling of stories had always been his favorite part. Sometimes he wished for a new girlfriend just so he could hear new stories and tell his own stories to fresh ears. It was like the slow unveiling of a painting, slipping off the white sheet inch by inch and discovering every new brush stroke and splash of color. He’d honed his own stories for maximum effect—the dramatic pauses, the ironic twists, the hand-to-your-mouth betrayals and sly admissions of bedroom prowess mixed in with self-deprecating asides of neuroses and obsessions. In his tales he was the perfect rogue, a victim of self-destruction and poor judgment, but there was potential in there, his stories promised, if only he could find the right woman.

  And while he knew Ginger wasn’t that woman—he couldn’t imagine bringing her home, with her mid-nineties-style tight jeans and overdone makeup and possibly fucked-up childhood—he was content to pretend for a little while. One week ago he’d been contemplating a retail job, a drive to visit Jessica at college, and his Amsterdam fantasy. None of them were particularly realistic. None of them were close to what he had going on now—shopping for Elvis clothes with a hooker in a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart.

  If this isn’t anthropology, Ben thought, I don’t know what is.

  They found a silky button-down shirt with a rattlesnake sewn over the breast. A desert landscape printed on the back showed a milky blue moon high above a mountain ridge. They brought it to the old man, who sat in the shoe aisle on a small stool and labored to squeeze his foot into a shiny black boot. Sweat dripped from his high forehead, making dark spots on his red sweatpants. Shoppers shuffled past, zombie eyes staring straight ahead.

  Ben held up the shirt.

  “That a rattler?” the old man said.