The Good Humor Man

by Andrew Fox

  “Louis, please don’t look at me like that. Go pee with the Elvis hanging on your chest. But someday… you’re gonna have to trust me.”

  She’s absolutely right. She’s done nothing but show me again and again that she’s worthy of my trust. I slip the carrier off and hold it up so Margo can put it on.

  “You’re sure you’re okay with this?” she asks.

  My heart is pounding twice as fast as it should be. “I’m okay with it.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Louis.” She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, pressing the Elvis into both our chests.

  I push open the bamboo doors. The bathroom seems to stretch on forever: a trans-Atlantic tunnel lined with white and green ceramic tiles and gleaming porcelain. Disorienting. At the far end of the bathroom there’s another exit, so distant it looks like a door for Cinderella’s dwarfs.

  I’m alone. Twenty urinals to choose from, my bladder on the edge of bursting, but instead of choosing the closest one, I walk down to one in the middle. Typical male precaution. Few situations evoke more vulnerability than when you’re trapped facing the porcelain piss-catcher.

  Ah. Ahhh. Yes. As satisfying, in its own way, as the vision of the Colossal Elvis. Or was my vision satisfying? I didn’t see the end of it. What would’ve happened when Colossal Elvis’s boots touched, when the walls of the chasm were forced together? Will I ever learn the secrets that would’ve been revealed?

  I was robbed. By some clown in a Minuteman suit. I abandoned my home, made the quest, liberated the Elvis, took the drugs — all for half a vision. As useful to me as half a toothbrush, half a rowboat, half a goddamned urinal —

  A thud, behind me. The sound of a stall door swinging open and banging into the stall next to it. I thought I was alone in here.

  Well, no matter. In a couple of seconds, I’ll hear him turn on a faucet, rub his hands under the water, then turn on a hand-drier.

  Except… except I don’t hear anything. Not even a footstep. He’s standing there, by the stall. Behind me. Watching me.

  My stream has slowed to a trickle. One more second, two, I’ll be able to shake myself off, reinsert myself, zip up.

  I turn around.

  It’s Elvis.

  A normal-sized Elvis, staring at me with a blank expression. He’s wearing a white jumpsuit with a bald eagle embroidered on it. His body is full, well-padded, the body of late Elvis, 1977 vintage. But the face, partially hidden by dark sunglasses, is thinner; the face of Elvis circa 1969. Maybe this is a continuation of my earlier vision — the Elvis that bridges the gap between Thin America and Fat America? Will he show me the vision’s ending now?

  I wait for him to say something. My image of him is amazingly sharp and clear. The earlier vision seemed real, too; but dream-real, not like this.

  His silence is disconcerting. “Speak to me, Elvis,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

  He tugs on the gold pull-ring at the neck of his jumpsuit, unzipping it. The unzipping reaches the great bulge of his belly, then stops just above his crotch. Across the mound of his stomach, his golden shirt is massively stained. Dark blotches, still wet and glistening.

  “Gimme it back,” Elvis says.

  Blood.

  “Gimme back what your daddy stole from me.”

  I reject this vision. This is a flashback to my childhood guilt that my father had killed the King.

  “Gimme back what your daddy stole from me,” the false vision repeats, more insistently.

  I can prove this isn’t real. All I need do is poke it, push my finger through its nonexistent substance, and it’ll vanish.

  I walk toward the open stall. It could’ve just drifted open due to metal fatigue. I reach for the place where my eyes falsely tell me I see blood.

  My finger touches something solid.

  It’s not blood. The “flesh” my finger pokes into isn’t flesh, either. It’s some kind of padding.

  I’m being scammed.

  “Elvis” grabs my hand. Instead of pulling away, I push against his chest. He stumbles backward, into the stall. His head hits a pipe.

  Two other stall doors swing open. Two more Elvises. Young Elvises, pink shirts and Western jackets. No padding.

  My body is afire: the Dexedrines take over. The false Elvises move in slow motion. I run toward the doors I came in through. Then realize I can’t lead them to Margo and the true Elvis.

  I stop. One young Elvis is almost on top of me. I reach up, grab a handle on the wall and yank. A baby-changing platform crashes down on his head.

  I’m rewarded with a moan. His partner stops to help him up. I run past them, toward the other exit. Slam the doors open. Brace myself in case there are other Elvises waiting outside.

  There aren’t. The sun is blinding. People all around. Where do I go? Try to blend in with the crowds? The doors slam open behind me. Run.

  I elbow people aside. Shouts, curses, surprised dismay. I’m Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes, running from the gorillas, fleeing through Ape City. No one will help me. Everywhere I turn, apes apes apes —

  Hands grab at me from behind. Faster! Up ahead, hanging bridges swinging between rooms in a giant tree — the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. Maybe I could hold off the Elvises until security guards arrive?

  I push through a line of twenty people. Nobody tries to stop me. I run up rough plank steps. Behind me, more commotion in the line. Louder outcries — the Elvises are being rough. Who are they? Who sent them? Trotmann? The Ottoman? Could Swaggart have sent them? Have they been tailing me since I left Graceland?

  First room is a play room, full of toys made from coconuts and twigs. Up. Nearly twist my ankle. Christ. Clamor of steps behind me. The exertion. Feeling it in my lungs. My heart.

  A library. Shelves, books, parrots. Weapons? I yank on several of the books. Then the bookcases. Bolted down. No good. Shit.

  Higher. Across a swinging rope bridge. A kitchen next. Oven made from a ship’s boiler, hand-cranked bamboo carousels to wash dishes —

  Lungs burning. Have to stop. But they’re right behind me. I stumble into the next room, bombs exploding behind my eyes. Long wooden table. Get around the far side — I can keep it between them and me. If there weren’t two of them…

  Up feels like down. I stare at the plates on the table. Seven of them. They swirl around, leafs in a whirlpool. When they stop moving, I see what’s on them —

  Peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches. Seven peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches.

  Oh. Oh, God. Oh my God.

  It’s the second half of my vision. The missing piece.

  I close my eyes, then look again. What’s on the plates are plastic pork chops and turnips. The false Elvises storm into the room. But I’ve got my second wind. Enough of a second wind to breathe life back into America. If I get out of here.

  They split up, stalking me on opposite sides of the table.

  “Love me tender,” the first one says.

  “Love me true,” says the second.

  The plates are glued to the table. I yank one loose, fling it like a frisbee at the Elvis coming at me from my right. It careens off his temple, takes a fake sideburn with it.

  “Aahh! Fuck!”

  I pull two more plates off the table, brandish them like discuses. “Tender” rubs his bruised head. I feint a toss at “True.” He flinches.

  “Vernon, don’t be a wuss!” the first Elvis shouts, checking his fingers for blood, after touching the side of his face. “He’s just an old guy. Let’s rush him. On the count of three —”

  Distant clamor. Men rushing up the path?

  “— three!”

  I swing wildly with the plates, but they’re on top of me. A fist buries itself in my stomach. Can’t breathe — knees hit the floor, then my palms. Bad bad taste in my mouth…

  “Oh disgusting, he’s puking —”

  “So don’t step in it, okay? Just grab him, help me pull him over near the edge —”

  “Don
’t want no old-guy puke on my new denim…”

  I feel wind on my face. When I heave again, I don’t hear a splat. I open my eyes. My vomit falls like chunky rain, to the ground fifty feet below.

  “Now tell us where you’ve stashed the fat —”

  “Or you’re followin’ that puke down to the sidewalk.”

  The great height sharpens my thoughts. They can’t drop me. If they do, they’ll never get what they’re after. So long as they aren’t too stupid to realize that, I’m fine.

  Four stories below, in the middle of the crowd, I think I see Margo. Yes, it’s her, the Elvis nestled against her chest. Trying to get my attention. Pointing to my left —?

  Ah. A clamor of boots. Park security. If they can just do this without gunplay —

  “Stand away from the ledge!”

  “No sudden moves!”

  Rent-a-cops. Now I’m frightened.

  The Elvises drop me. My rib cage hits a restraining rope. Losing my balance — I grope wildly, but I’m sliding over —

  Screams from below. Hands grab my legs. I’m moving backward instead of forward. A good thing. A very good thing.

  I hear the Elvises putting up a fight. It doesn’t last long. Someone helps me down the tree. Someone else wraps me in a tufted jacket that smells like a locker room. Numb. I’m numb all over.

  There’s an electric cart waiting for me at the bottom. And Margo. It’s so good to see her. She squeezes me tightly, then helps me lie down on a platform in the back of the cart. She sits next to me as we pull away.

  “I had a vision.” Forming each word is like pushing a dull needle through thick oilskin. “The rest of my vision. We have to get to the car.”

  “Who were those men? They wanted to steal the Elvis?”

  Passing rows of turnstiles. We’re near the parking lot. “We have to get to the car.” I feel myself slipping away. “The printout’s there. In the car. Might mean… everything.”

  Everything…

  I awake to something cool and wet being pressed on my forehead.

  “How are you feeling?” a woman’s voice asks. Not Margo’s. A nurse stands over me. I glance around for Margo. “Better,” I say. “Margo?”

  “I’m here,” she says, rising from a chair that was just outside my line of vision. “Are you really feeling better?”

  “Where are we?” I sit up, slowly.

  “You shouldn’t be sitting up just yet,” the nurse says, firmly pushing me back into a prone position. “Our paramedics brought you to the infirmary outside the front entrance of the park. Our on-call physician is coming in to have a look at you. We’d like to keep you under observation for a while. And the chief of security has some questions he needs to ask.”

  No. We can’t get entangled in this. “We need to leave. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I’m afraid leaving is out of the question. You need to rest. And the officers will want to know your connection with those other men.”

  “I was attacked. Randomly attacked. I’d appreciate recuperating in my own hotel.” I sit up again, feeling somewhat stronger. “The officers can reach me at the Royal Citrus Resort on International Drive. Last name Merlin, M-E-R-L-I-N.”

  She edges toward a phone. “I’m so sorry, but if you try to leave, I’ll have to call security.”

  The third Elvis is still out there. And this entire park is a MannaSantos facility. I have to see that printout. I glance desperately at Margo.

  “Daddy’s heart medication is out in the car,” she says. “He was supposed to keep it with him, but he left it in the luggage. If I could just pull the car up —”

  “I’ll have security accompany you to your car,” the nurse says.

  “All right, enough of this shit,” Margo says, pointing our gun at the nurse. Our big, cruel-looking gun. “We’re out of here.”

  It’s good to have such a decisive companion. I don’t like frightening this undoubtedly honorable woman, but her fright is a small price to pay for the world’s survival. Margo holds the gun while I strap the nurse to a chair with surgical tape.

  The parking lot is a Sargasso Sea of cars. My stomach churns violently, evidence of more pills that want to come up. Let them come. They’ve already done what I needed them to do.

  We reach the car. I trade Margo the keys for the Elvis. I barely get my door shut before she stomps the accelerator, pushing my little Nash for all it’s worth.

  “Where are we going?” Margo shouts.

  “I — I don’t know yet. Just get us away from here.” I won’t know where to head until I see that printout. Why the hell did I throw it so carelessly in the back seat? I dig through piles of clothes and CD cases. Did my father ever tell me what he accidentally sucked out of Elvis’s stomach? Did I overhear it as a child? Was that bit of knowledge stashed in the attic of my brain, waiting for this moment?

  Paper. Crinkly, smooth-grained paper. I dig it out from beneath my shirts. Begin scanning the long list of chemical compounds and substances. The drugs had been all I was interested in. Didn’t bother reading past the list of drugs —

  At the beginning of the second page… there it is.

  Grouped with the stomach contents, just where I prayed I’d find it.

  “Margo, I need to make a phone call.” My throat has constricted to the width of a pin. “Find a pay phone.”

  She digs into her purse next to her seat. “Here, here’s my cell phone. I don’t want to stop — we’re barely a mile outside the park —”

  “No! The call has to be secure!” I accidentally knock the phone from her hand, and it slides beneath my seat as we round a corner. “I’m sorry, but it has to be a pay phone! Pull over as soon as you see one!”

  It’s 11:20 A.M. here, so it’s 8:20 A.M. in Las Vegas. She’ll already be at work. But I can’t wait. I’ve got to share this.

  Two or three miles later, we see a produce stand. And a public phone. Margo pulls over, gravel crunching beneath the Nash’s skinny tires. The phone’s push buttons are sticky with citrus pulp. I dial Harri’s home number from memory.

  Her recording picks up. “You’ve reached the residence of Harriet Lane. Wait for the tone, then you know what to do.”

  Yes, I know what to do.

  — beep —

  I know what to do now.

  “Harri, this is Louis. I have your twentieth-century bananas.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Harri, this isn’t a joke.”

  My evening phone conversation from my motel room near the Pensacola airport hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts.

  “I appreciate your effort to relieve my stress, Louis. Look, I’m really glad you recovered your family heirloom, and I hope it gives you much pleasure in the time we have left. But let’s not try to make this more than it is.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Louis, salvation doesn’t hide in a jar of fat. Didn’t you suffer a blow to the head recently?”

  Three minutes later…

  “Okay, Louis, I’ll at least concede that you believe what you’re telling me.”

  “I performed the analysis myself —”

  “Right before you took a fistful of narcotic drugs, correct?”

  “I’m sorry I told you that. Do you want me to fax the printout to you? I’ll be happy to.” Then I remember something. “Muthukrishnan. The USDA man you said you were working with. Why would someone from USDA be looking for me? He must’ve somehow found out that non-bioengineered bananas might be preserved along with the Elvis fat. Call him. Verify what I’m saying.”

  Forty-five minutes later, she calls me back. Her tone is so changed that she sounds like a different person (salvation does hide in a jar of fat). However, skepticism is hardwired into her DNA, so I listen to ten minutes of her qualms about the viability of the banana-matter after exposure to stomach acids, and whether the analysis machine gave a false reading. If she were on her deathbed and met a welcoming angel, she’d insist on examining his credentials.


  Still, I call the airport and book a flight to Las Vegas for Margo and me for tomorrow afternoon at 2:25 P.M., the earliest available. I’m uneasy about landing on MannaSantos’s home turf. What Harri told me about possible sabotage of her team’s efforts — inside sabotage — is profoundly disturbing.

  When I call her back with the flight information, she puts Muthukrishnan on the line. “Dr. Shmalzberg, it is very good to hear from you again. I apologize for being so circumspect when we first spoke. But now all is turning out well. You are to be commended on what I understand was a difficult retrieval of the biological remnants. I wish that I could have offered some assistance.”

  Is he for real? It’s impossible to tell over the phone. I mention my uneasiness regarding the corporation his department is in alliance with.

  “I will not lie to you, Dr. Shmalzberg — the matters you speak of are of great concern. I can offer some reassurance regarding your personal safety, however. The Bureau of Investigation has detailed a team of agents to support my group in Las Vegas. I can offer you a pair of armed agents to serve as bodyguards during your time at MannaSantos. They will also ensure the security of the biological remnants. These agents will greet you at the airport, along with Ms. Harriet Lane and myself. Is this satisfactory?”

  It should be. It would be, if I could be absolutely sure that Muthukrishnan is who he says he is. “It’ll do,” I say, not having much choice but to go along. “One more question. How did you know what you know about the Elvis?”

  “Ahh,” he says, a hint of laughter in his voice. “That, as they say, is a long story. Let me share it with you over a good cup of coffee. Have a good evening, Dr. Shmalzberg. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

  I tell Margo about the conversation. She’s on the bed next to me, with the bedspread pulled up to her chin. She’s been complaining of stomach cramps for the past hour. I offered her a Dexedrine, but she refused it; she wants to stay clear-headed. “It doesn’t feel right,” I say. “Walking into MannaSantos’s main campus… I feel like a mouse sniffing cheese at the edge of a mousetrap.”

  “Even with two FBI agents watching your back?”