by Andrew Fox
“Am I wrong to assume a great big ‘But…’ enters the story now?”
No laughter. “The ‘but’ is that the bees carried the gene to places the investigators hadn’t thought worth looking. Weeds and wild flowers; flora outside the human diet. Once it insinuated itself into these plants’ seeds, the blowfish gene was entirely unencumbered by any protein condom at all. Its spread was only limited by the speed at which insects and the wind could carry it. Our drifter doesn’t discriminate at all. It’s equally happy to infest grasses, feed grains, tubers, legumes…”
“And MannaSantos has managed to keep this all a secret?”
“The government knows. Their researchers discovered the outbreak about ten months after ours did.”
“Why hasn’t the public — or at least the medical community — been in formed?”
“Oh, why do you think, Louis? MannaSantos is one of the wealthiest firms in the country, not to mention the most aggressive. Plus, the feds recognize that the only organization with expertise and resources even barely adequate to begin attacking the problem happens to be — big surprise! — MannaSantos. Can you imagine what would happen to the company’s stock valuation if word got out? Forget for a minute the public’s loss of confidence in the company. Why would Joe and Joanne Public pay a two-hundred-percent premium for Metaboloft-branded products, once they realize they’re getting the same weight-loss benefit from any loaf of cheap, generic white bread? Word of this gets out, and MannaSantos could potentially face bankruptcy within a year. No company, no technical help for the government.”
“If word leaking out could be so catastrophic, why tell me any of this?”
“I’m telling you all this because… because even though right now MannaSantos has every reason under the sun to get this mess back in the bottle, there may come a time when the company’s interests and the interests of, you know, humanity at large… won’t be in synch anymore.”
I don’t want to think about that. “Are you making progress, at least? Surely, with both MannaSantos and the government pooling their scientific talent… you’ll get this cleaned up, won’t you?”
My feeble show of confidence merely makes her sigh. “You can only work with the tools you have at hand. We’ve got, at most, maybe thirty percent of the biodiversity we had fifty years ago. The most incredibly frustrating part of this whole project is that when promising genetic blocks appear in the databases — records we have of pieces of genetic material that could potentially help us build a counteragent to the Metaboloft gene — the donor organisms are gone. Kaput. Extinct.
“Huge chunks of our databases go back to the ‘teens. International scientific agencies were falling over themselves, trying to catalogue the genomes of thousands of plant and animal species before they disappeared. They tried rescuing viable mating colonies, too, or at least preserving cell samples. But in the middle of GD2, there wasn’t any money for that massive a preservation effort. Data was much cheaper and easier to preserve than tissues or organisms. So data’s all we’ve got left. Enough data to make me scream.”
The bison in the picture looks so fat, healthy. Even the Indian looks positively stout. But when the Indian eats the bison which eats the grass which carries Metaboloft… “You’re not saying it’s hopeless?”
“Hopeless? No. Fresh data banks have arrived in the past month from India and China. But even taking these new data pools into consideration, we’ve already mined close to three-quarters of the known stocks of genome information. And we’re shooting blanks. You want to know what kills me? Our best lead, the source of a gene strand that could slap the Metaboloft gene silly and send it crying for momma? You know where that gene strand comes from? The common, domesticated banana.”
I don’t understand. “But Harri, I just bought a bunch of bananas at the market last week.”
“No, you didn’t. You thought you were buying bananas. But what you actually bought was a banana-like fruit, genetically modified to be a delivery system for a whole range of vaccines. You’re a doctor, Louis. When was the last time you gave a kid a vaccination shot for polio, chickenpox, influenza, or even tetanus?”
I remember articles in medical journals years ago about the advances in worldwide vaccination techniques. “You mean to tell me there aren’t any plain, ordinary bananas grown anymore?”
“Nope. The new, genetically altered varieties brought in such tremendously higher profits that growers all over the world yanked up their root stocks and switched over. It didn’t hurt, too, that the altered strains produced fruit which was hardier and took twice as long to rot. You want to know when the last ‘plain, ordinary bananas’ were harvested? I looked it up. It was 2022, in a remote mountainous province in the Philippines.
“And here’s the kicker, Louis. What company brought the genetically altered bananas to market?”
I don’t need three guesses. “MannaSantos.”
“Bingo with a capital ‘B’. The banana project was one of the very first things I worked on. When I was young and altruistic and wanted to help save the world.”
The self-loathing I hear in her voice pains me. “Tell me what I can do. Do you want me to come be with you? I could be in Vegas by tomorrow night.”
Part of me wants her to say yes. Another part prays she doesn’t. “That’s very sweet of you, Louis. But no. You’d be a distraction. And I can’t afford distractions right now.”
When I ask again what I can do, she tells me to stay in touch. And then she surprises me by asking what she can do for me, I ask if she can send someone to visit my father and tell him that I’m all right, that I’ll come see him as soon as I can. She tells me she’ll go visit him herself, as soon as she’s able to take a day off.
I hardly have time to thank her before she gets off the line. I don’t get a chance to wish her good luck. Or ask her to be careful.
Loneliness settles heavily on my shoulders. I open the Bible to look at that business card again. Some adolescent fumblings with Harri fourteen years ago… that’s the most intimate contact I’ve had with a woman since Emily died. I’d hardly know what to do anymore. Maybe letting a professional do it all for me is best.
I feel myself blushing like an adolescent as I dial the front desk. The clerk I spoke to earlier answers. “That offer you made before,” I say. “I’d like to take you up on that.”
The next few minutes are an ordeal of panicked anticipation. Too late, I realize I didn’t specify an Anglo or Indian companion. I hope she’ll be an Indian woman. I don’t care how young or old; I just want a bed companion with solid flesh on her bones.
My companion knocks just as I finish drying myself from a fast shower. I open the door. She’s an Anglo woman, in her fifties or sixties, dressed in an ill-fitting blonde wig. I can tell from the angular lines of her face that she’ll make even Miss Dissel look voluptuous by comparison.
“Mr. Berg?”
“Yes. Please come in.”
She takes off her winter coat and tosses it onto a chair. Her form-fitting knit dress makes her painful to look at, accentuating the jut of bone where the curve of pliant flesh should be.
She reads my face. “So I’m not what you were expecting, huh?” She shrugs her shoulders. “That’s all right, honey. Turn out the lights and it’s all the same. Nice fire; it’s cold outside!”
I don’t want to be cruel. But the thought of seeing her without her dress on… “I — I’m so sorry. I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not —”
She sits on the edge of the bed and rubs her ankles. “There’s no rush. You having equipment problems? I’m pretty good with that.”
I shake my head.
“Okay. The customer’s always right. But I don’t make house calls for nothing, not on a night like tonight.”
I send her away with seventy-five dollars of the Ottoman’s money. The RM headset sits on the dresser, near the second — and last—jar of Emily’s remains. I haven’t let myself use an RM in over twenty years. But everything’
s changed now. Why deny myself her company, or the shadow of her company?
I put it on. The leatherette straps feel clammy on my bare scalp. The brief slide through vertigo strips two decades from me. I’m a young widower again. Only the pain isn’t as fresh.
“Louis? That’s a lovely fire you’ve got going. I’ve always wanted to see the Southwest in wintertime. This vacation was a wonderful idea.”
I slide into bed next to my wife. Her hips have rounded noticeably in the nine months since the last time we used my cannula together. Her eyes grow playful. “I may’ve overshot my mark just a bit, weight-wise. Do you think?”
Pulling her toward me, I watch a log crack in two and fall into the fire, causing a brief flurry of sparks. A throbbing gathers behind my forehead. I sense my metabolic fires burning hotter as the flames in the fireplace begin to slowly die.
CHAPTER 8
Q: So, Dr. Shmalzberg, if the world were about to end, what would you do? Take a trip to Jamaica? Study the Torah?Get laid?
A: I’d drive sixteen-hundred miles to buy or steal a jar of Elvis’s preserved belly fat.
“Dr. Shmalzberg?”
The window slid open without my noticing, nudging me from my musings. “Thanks for being patient, sir. Mr. Swaggart will be out to see you shortly. Please have a seat in the main reception area. And thank you so much for visiting Elvis’s Graceland.”
The receptionist murmurs the pleasantry with all the genuineness of a talking toaster. This Tennessee blonde with the adorable chin cleft and mechanical delivery is the fourth functionary I’ve introduced myself to since my arrival at the Graceland complex. Six and a half hours ago.
My persistence must finally be paying off, however. From the look of my surroundings, I’ve gotten closer to the center of things. This waiting room is a replica of the famous Jungle Room. I saw the original this morning, in the main house. It was enclosed in walls of glass, protected from dust and temperature shifts like a da Vinci painting. I almost laughed, seeing dreck that even my grandmother would be ashamed of protected with such care. Lime-green shag carpeting. Sofas upholstered with fake monkey fur. Smiling tikis embedded in the shiny dark wood of every lamp, cabinet, coffee table, and chair.
“Louis Shmalzberg?”
I turn around. A diminutive man in a gold suit waits to shake my hand. “Thank you for your patience. I’m Daniel Swaggart, Associate Director for Acquisitions and Exhibits.”
His tall, hairless forehead pegs him at middle-aged. But his short stature and smooth, unlined face almost make me believe he’s a preteen wearing a suit and a rubber bald-head for a school play. “Thank you for meeting with me,” I tell him. “Mr. Greenaway isn’t available?”
He smiles. “Mr. Greenaway retired twelve years ago. I took over his job when he left.”
Greenaway was the man I dealt with when I sold the Elvis. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s retired. We conducted that transaction a quarter-century ago, and he wasn’t young then.
“I realize this may sound somewhat rude, Doctor. But before we begin our discussion, I must ask you for some proof that you are who you claim to be. The Graceland Corporation’s greatest asset is the unquestionable authenticity of the artifacts it shares with the public. Preserving and enhancing the sanctity of Elvis’s memory is our business.” He smiles that unsettlingly delicate smile again. “Not that I have any reason to believe you aren’t you. But I have to stick to protocols, you understand.”
“No problem at all,” I say, handing him my driver’s license and my Good Humor Man badge. Plus, I have something else with me that should establish my bona fides even more effectively.
I unzip the large canvas satchel at my feet and pull out a smaller case made of worn black leather. I set it on my lap and click open its tarnished brass clasps. Inside are my cannula and vacuum pump, unused in two decades. A pair of antiques, manufactured in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1998. Outside of medical museums, there probably aren’t more than a few dozen of these left in existence.
I watch his eyes grow big behind his glasses as he realizes what I’m showing him. He reaches out tentatively. “Is that… is that the instrument your father used? What was inserted into, ahh, the belly…?”
His reverent tone masks what must be an acquisitive mania in his curator’s soul. It’s my turn to smile. “No. This isn’t my father’s cannula. His is even older than this one, one of the first ever made.”
“Do you have it?” he asks quickly, hunger creeping into his voice.
I close my black bag and place it back in the satchel. “It’s not with me. But I can put my hands on it. If we’re able to arrive at a deal.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, then. I was told you were offering unique artifacts for immediate sale. Items that I could properly evaluate and authenticate.”
“I only mentioned my father’s cannula as a possible sweetener.” My fingertips glide along the top of the satchel. “I have other items with me which should interest you greatly. Although I’m afraid I did misrepresent myself, somewhat.”
His eyebrows arch slightly. “Oh? How so?”
“I implied I was interested in a straight sale of my goods.” I fold my hands on my lap. “But it’s a barter I’m interested in. Several of my artifacts for one of yours.”
His eyes remain unreadable. “I see. I’m rarely presented with a proposal of this kind. Would you mind taking a walk with me? I’d like to continue our discussion in my office. It won’t take us more than a few minutes to walk there. You’ll have a chance to see some of what we’ve done with the Graceland complex.”
“I’d like that very much.”
We exit the office complex and enter a glassed-in, climate-controlled walkway. Ahead of us, a set of escalators lift pedestrians to a glass and neon bridge that crosses high above Elvis Presley Boulevard.
To our left is the Graceland mansion itself. It looks unimpressive, almost puny, hardly more monumental than the doctors’ and lawyers’ homes in the neighborhood where I grew up. It doesn’t help that the house is dwarfed by the hotels, retail malls, and amusement parks that surround it. I try to imagine the mansion as it appeared back in the mid-1950s, when the thoroughfare that later became Elvis Presley Boulevard was hardly more than a dirt road. It must’ve seemed much more impressive back then.
Riding the escalator to the bridge above the boulevard, I stare up at the gray, angry sky. It might snow at any moment. It feels so strange, rising through a column of seventy-five-degree air while surrounded on all sides by raw, unpredictable winter. Like I’m in the midst of a 3-D movie; and any second now the clouds will peel apart, unzipped by celestial fingers, revealing blue blue ocean and Elvis on a surfboard strumming his guitar, singing to a chorus line of mermaids.
Swaggart gestures for me to join him at the guard rail. “I think you’ll find this one of the most impressive views in the whole complex,” he says. Six lanes of traffic flow beneath our feet, passing block after block of what appear to be — churches? Can that be right? I’d expected to see souvenir shops, miniature golf courses… and I do see some, but they are vastly outnumbered by the neon-striped spires and towers of houses of worship.
“The churches have sprouted up just in the past five years,” Swaggart says. “This place almost went under thirty years ago. Elvis’s original fans were beginning to die off. Attendance at the house was declining ten, fifteen percent a year. The area surrounding Graceland had become a slum.
“My father began the process of changing all that. He wasn’t a member of the family or the inner circle. His rise in the corporation was purely on the basis of talent and vision. He was one of the first to realize how Elvis’s protean nature could be harnessed to ensure a growing profit stream, no matter how radical the shifts in the psycho-emotional needs of the American public.”
I was hoping he’d talk more about the churches. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me…”
His smooth face becomes more animated as he warms to his subject. “More than any
other major American figure, Elvis is a Rorschach blot. His persona, music, and influences encompass an astoundingly wide swath of the American experience. A viewer can chose to see virtually whatever he wishes when he stares at a reproduction of that famous face. For far too long, cultural historians chose to focus exclusively on what they saw as the duality of Elvis’s persona — the ‘momma’s boy’ who worshipped his mother and sang gospel music, versus the ‘rebel,’ the sexual adventurer who introduced the pelvic thrust and black culture to the white teen masses.
“But his ability to encompass opposites goes far beyond that. Even during the most emotionally charged years of the Civil Rights era, he was able to appeal to both sides of the racial divide. In 1957, polls revealed that he excited black teen girls and white teen girls nearly equally. Yet the hardcore Southern white audience never held this against him, because Elvis was so clearly one of their own.
“He also bridged both sides of another of his era’s social chasms, the issue of drug use. At the same time he was collecting police badges and petitioning J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon for status as an undercover Federal narcotics officer, Elvis was slowly poisoning himself with vast quantities of stimulants and depressants.”
“So you’re saying Elvis was some sort of… super hypocrite?”
“Not a hypocrite, no. A hypocrite believes and acts one way while espousing the opposite. Elvis was able to fully encompass contradictions.”
Maybe it’s the glow of all that churchy neon, but his enthusiasm is infectious. “I think I see. You’re talking Louisiana Hayride versus Las Vegas Hilton. The Complete Sun Sessions versus the soundtrack to Clambake. Skinny Elvis versus Fat Elvis.”
Light from the neon Elvis silhouettes mounted on the bridge glints off his glasses, making his eyes look bright pink. “That’s in the spirit of what Fm telling you, yes. Although as you well know, ‘Fat Elvis’ has no place in the current zeitgeist.”
“You said the churches have only been here five years. What was on all that prime land before they were built?”
