Terminally Ill

by Melissa Yi

“I saved you a spot!” Tucker said, barely turning down the volume. I realized that, for him, this was the equivalent of a Beatles concert in the ’60s, or attending Will & Kate’s wedding for my monarch-loving friends.

  “Thanks,” I murmured.

  “I knew you’d come! How could you resist it! Me and Elvis! You’d have to be crazy!” He pumped his fist in the air. “This is gonna be epic! Now, say cheese.” With barely a pause, he pointed a giant camera lens at me. Not your friendly neighbourhood phone camera, but one of those professional-looking monsters, encased in some sort of transparent plastic bag to protect it from the rain.

  I barely had time to muster an “eek” expression before he snapped a few pictures and cackled. “That’s one for the record books.”

  I socked him in the arm. “You’d better delete those.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You get veto power.” He showed me all three shots, and even I had to laugh at my horror-struck face before he trashed them. He said, “I’ll take better ones later.”

  “No sketchbook today?”

  His eyes flickered. We hadn’t talked about the time he’d sketched me on the train. But he just shook his head and pointed at his backpack. “I brought a small one, just in case. But right now, I’m going digital.”

  I shouldn’t have brought up the sketch. The vibes had altered. I cleared my throat. “Sweet. So how did you know I was here?”

  His eyebrows shot up under his hood. “Mireille texted me.”

  That didn’t surprise me. McGill residency felt a lot like high school sometimes, always getting up in each other’s bizness. You’d never know we lived in a city of almost four million people, the way we kept tabs on each other. Tucker played with the zipper on his rain jacket, and I squinted at the shirt he wore underneath. “What’s that?”

  He ripped the zipper open and pushed out his chest so I could peruse the black-and-white photo emblazoned across his pectorals and abs. The resolution wasn’t great, but I easily made out two guys tugging on a chain in order to lift a third man upside down over a water tank. That man’s ankles were chained into a block of wood. He was suspended head-first above a tank of water, much like Elvis Serratore had just done on-screen, except this guy wore a short, white unitard instead of sequinned jumpsuits.

  I nodded, but before I could correctly identify him, Tucker burst out, “It’s Harry Houdini! Doing his Chinese water torture escape!”

  “Nice. But I bet Elvis’s people would prefer you to wear his gear.”

  “I’ve got a T-shirt in my backpack. I bought one for you, too!”

  Oh, no.

  He pulled out two shirts, one black, one dark blue, both with ELVIS LIVES emblazoned on the front, with each letter made out of gold circles that reminded me of sequins and spotlights. On the back, it said Elvis Serratore, Escape Artist, with a list of tour dates, like a concert T-shirt. “Wanna put them on?” said Tucker.

  “It’s raining,” I demurred.

  Tucker held out his hand to test the air. “It’s stopped. I’ll do it if you will. On the count of three.” He shoved his camera in the backpack and held the bag between his knees. “One. Two. Three!”

  He tossed me the blue shirt. He was already ripping off his rain slicker and popping his head inside his shirt before I’d unzipped my jacket.

  Okay. It was a little trippy that Tucker was so heated up, but I respected it, in a way. First of all, I’d rather he got hetted up about something instead of yawning and saying “Whatev” at everything. Apathy is boring. And secondly, no offense to Ryan and the rest of his crew, but I’d rather he got excited about Houdini than Jesus.

  A minute later, I smoothed the blue shirt over my midriff. It was about twenty sizes too big, and made out of real cotton, so it just hung on me and made me look like I was playing dress-up in my dad’s clothes, if my dad wore T-shirts that screamed ELVIS LIVES.

  “You look fantastic!” raved Tucker, shrugging his jacket on, but leaving it unzipped to reveal his T-shirt. “Now we match!”

  It was better than an “I’m with stupid” shirt, anyway. I smiled at Tucker. It was my day off. No one knew me here. No one knew or cared if I were a doctor, a baker, or a candlestick maker. I could wear a shirt and look dumb and watch a man tempt death in front of a crowd. I left my jacket unzipped, too.

  “You know what I love the most about Houdini?” Tucker said, stringing his camera back around his neck and taking a few shots of the crowd.

  I shook my head. Houdini was still a murky figure to me, a black-and-white photo of a guy instead of a real person.

  Tucker lowered the camera and looked directly at me. “He never gave up.”

  I felt a bit uncomfortable with the intensity of Tucker’s brown eyes. I twitched and stared at my cherry-brown rain boots. “You told me that when he was on his deathbed, he said, ‘I can’t fight anymore.’”

  “Right. When he was out of his mind and the bacteria had ravaged him. But basically, he was one of the biggest fighters I’ve ever heard of. When he first started out on the circus circuit, he was ‘Harry Houdini, the King of Cards,’ basically doing tricks for pennies. No one gave a crap about him. He got so low that he decided to sell his entire act for twenty bucks—and no one would buy it!”

  So he’d tried to give up another time, too, and fate wouldn’t let him. I tried to imagine how desperate and humiliated Houdini must have felt before he turned it around. “So what made him change his mind?”

  Tucker smiled. The rain started up again, as did Britney Spears singing “Till the World Ends,” but he ignored both. “I’m not sure. I heard his wife helped him with his act. And he got a good agent. But I know Houdini reinvented himself when he was 24.”

  Only two years younger than I was now. Three, if you counted my birthday next weekend. Interesting.

  “He dropped the card routine and went with his escape act all the way. He would just strut into a new town, book a theatre, and say that no man could contain him. He started off with ropes.”

  Tucker. Ropes. Tying up. Mm. My mind started to wander, and not in a Houdini kind of way. I tuned back in when Tucker said, “He was famous all over the United States. But they didn’t know him in Europe. So he walked into Scotland Yard and told them he was an escape artist. A police officer handcuffed him to a pillar and said, ‘We will see you in an hour, young man. This is what we do to Americans who come over here and get into trouble.’ The officer and the Superintendent busted their guts laughing, until Harry Houdini threw the cuffs at their feet and said, ‘And this is how we Americans get free.’”

  I smiled, but I said, “You know, I read a little about Houdini before I got here. I heard he actually said, ‘Wait, I’ll come with you’ and threw the handcuffs on the floor.”

  Tucker slapped his thigh. “Ha! You caught the Houdini bug.”

  “A little.”

  “Either way, it’s an amazing story, right? He sold out his show. Packed the theatres for six months. People couldn’t get enough of him. But he had a brilliant mind for lots of stuff. Did you know he invented a new diving suit? And he was the first person to fly a airplane in Australia.”

  That made sense to me. The daredevil, the constantly teeming brain. I liked it. But I was aware that the university students behind us had stopped playing with their phones so that they could hang on Tucker’s every word. They whispered stuff like, “That guy knows everything!”

  “I know!”

  They burst into giggles.

  Ew. That made me play the devil’s advocate one last time. “Okay, okay. So Houdini was a brilliant guy. But that’s what I don’t like about history, I guess. It’s over. He’s dead.”

  Tucker grabbed my arm. “It’s not! Elvis Serratore is alive and well. So are dozens of escape artists. Have you seen the video of the suburban mom who lets people chain her up and then she has to escape from the bottom of a swimming pool?”

  As usual, I hadn’t. I sighed.

  “Let me show you!”

  “I believe you.” />
  “I’ll send you the link. The point is, we can all do this! We can all fight hard and escape whatever it is we need to.”

  That hit home. So many people had lost their jobs, their homes, and their dreams in the 2008 financial meltdown. Maybe they needed to see someone like Elvis, or Houdini, beating seemingly impossible odds.

  Heck, maybe I did, too.

  When I went to Paris in the summer before medical school, I read a few lines in the Lonely Planet guide that stuck with me: métro, boulot, dodo. Subway, work, sleep (only, like most things, it sounds better in French). It means all Parisians do is work and sleep, basically. What better way to summarize the life of a resident?

  The only times I deviated from that pattern, I ended up risking my neck, my heart, or both.

  So yeah. I needed to escape, too. I wanted fun in the sun, lounging in a bikini, where the biggest danger was a stray ball from the beach volleyball court. But failing that, I was so glad I’d made it today, where Elvis could play a real-life game of jeopardy while I clapped and cheered safely from the sidelines. I smiled at Tucker. “You win.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I said, “I get it now. It’s cool. Thanks for inviting me.”

  He hugged me to his side, hip to hip. “I knew it! Elvis lives—and Hope Sze knows it!”

  I rolled my eyes, trying not to enjoy the firm length of his body against mine. Next thing I knew, he was trying to dance by my side, singing along with Jennifer Lopez’s monotonous dance hit of the summer, “On the Floor.” Excruciating. I tried to extract my arm from around him, and he just sang louder and danced worse.

  The pretty brunette in McGill yoga pants looked at me and said, “He’s cute.”

  I called, “Take him. He’s yours.”

  She laughed.

  “Hey, you’d have to buy me dinner first,” said Tucker, but all of a sudden, his body froze and his hand tightened on my shoulder. “He’s here.”

  Chapter 4

  I jerked my head to look behind us, gently breaking away from Tucker while he was distracted. I could hear other people yelling, “El-vis! El-vis!” and see the crowd milling and parting at the north side of the quay, though not exactly what was going on. I glanced at the TV. It now showed a bright red pickup truck nosing its way on to the wharf, behind a fenced-off area. A lineup of people now stretched well into the walkways of the Old Port, trying to get in behind the truck.

  The timer countdown now displayed 48 minutes and 57 seconds until show time.

  The truck advanced slowly, driving along the edge of the quay. A line of fence separated it from the crowd, but it was a sheer drop into the St. Lawrence River on the other side. The long drive also gave us lots of time to admire the ELVIS LIVES logo and website emblazoned in large white letters along the truck’s hood and doors.

  When the truck got to what seemed like spitting distance from me and Tucker, it pulled to a halt with the passenger door facing us. We could see Elvis faintly through the glass — or at least a guy with a black pompadour dressed in black — but not many details. A TV cameraman backed off to the east side of the quay. The flat screen TV’s livecast just showed the truck at a standstill, until the cameraman panned the crowd and our rapt expressions.

  I held my breath, eyes fixed on the truck.

  The music abruptly cut off the last seconds of “On the Floor” so that only a faint buzz emitted from the speakers.

  I glanced at Tucker. He was taking a video of the whole thing with his monster camera, but I could see the tendons standing out in his neck and his temporal artery pulsating.

  The truck’s passenger window smoothly rolled down. I assumed the wind had changed, and the rain had died down again, or else Elvis would have gotten soaked. Of course, he’d end up dunked in the St. Lawrence River pretty soon, anyway, so maybe he didn’t care about that.

  Two guitar chords split the air, followed by two drum beats.

  The crowd screamed. It took me that second to place the song: “Jailhouse Rock.” By Elvis Presley, of course. I had to laugh. What a perfect song to play before jailing yourself in a coffin.

  Just as the first hollers of recognition died down, two feet kicked out of the open window, right on time with the next two guitar chords.

  More screams, especially when the hips bumped out of the window, in time with the drum beats.

  The next guitar chords brought one hand each on the window frame, and on the next two drum beats, Elvis hopped on to the concrete wharf, already lip-synching and swinging his hips, much like his idol.

  And that wasn’t the only tribute to the past. I gave a delighted laugh at Elvis Serratore’s outfit. Although I only vaguely knew Elvis Presley from grainy YouTube videos, I recognized the black jeans, black jean jacket and horizontal black and white striped T-shirt. It seemed like a more dignified choice than the jumpsuits, since he was performing on Houdini’s death day.

  Not that this was all about dignity. Elvis planted his legs wide apart, shot his arms in the air, and twitched his hips from side to side. The McGill students behind us screamed, whistled, and all but flashed their chests at him. A white-haired couple started to jive, which was cute. Tucker kept filming, silent and rapt.

  Elvis II was more muscular than I’d thought from the blog photo, although still slim built. His pompadour was gelled more than Tucker’s, since it didn’t even shake while he danced, and I approved of the sideburns. He had an out-of-season tan and non-descript features hidden by sunglasses, so not as good looking as Elvis back in the day, but not too awful, either. You could imagine him singing “Hound Dog” on stage without embarrassing himself, especially when he flashed a big, slightly crooked smile.

  Meanwhile, the driver drove the truck to the west side of the rectangular wharf, near the crane and, I couldn’t help thinking, so that the crowd and the cameras could feast on Elvis alone. Radio Canada, CTV, and two other stations had planted news crews on Elvis’s side of the fence. Must’ve been a slow news day.

  When the driver climbed out of the truck, I recognized him as Elvis’s brother and manager, the one with an unusual name. Archer, that was it. He looked much older than Elvis—I would have guessed in his thirties—although maybe that was partly the wrinkles around his eyes and the few extra pounds around his waist. He signaled to the crane, and the operator gunned his engine.

  The crane’s arm slowly lifted a large brown coffin into the air. The arm extended a good twenty-five feet skyward and rotated toward Elvis, who danced on the ground with the coffin dangling above his head.

  I twitched. What if the coffin slipped off its hook and came crashing down on him?

  The breath hissed out between Tucker’s teeth. He was using his camera screen, so I could see a miniature version of Elvis strutting beside me, as well as the live version in front of me, and the close-up of Elvis’s face on the flat-screen TV.

  The crane gradually lowered the coffin to the concrete wharf behind Elvis. It settled with a loud thump. Elvis jumped on the lid and whipped his hips side to side for the final few beats of “Jailhouse Rock.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis is alive and well in Montreal, Canada!” called Archer, his voice amplified by a hands-free mike attached to his ear.

  We all screamed our approval. If nothing else, they had an amazing sense of showmanship. I figured I’d gotten my $25 worth already.

  “Let’s hear it for Elvis Serratore, the world’s most daring escape artist!”

  We cheered some more. Elvis held two fingers up in a victory sign, and I laughed.

  Archer said, “We drove all the way here from Winnipeg, Manitoba—”

  A few Manitobans or Manitoban sympathizers whistled their approval.

  “That’s right. All the way from Winnipeg to the heart of la belle province. In honour of Harry Houdini, the Prince of the Air, the greatest escape artist who ever lived, Elvis is going to perform one of the most dangerous stunts of all time.”

  Elvis did a hip roll. He was such a card, it was h
ard to imagine him taking it seriously.

  Still, I had to smile. Something about Elvis reminded me of Tucker. That playful spirit, that showmanship, that kind of willingness to look dumb or over the top, like a Labrador Retriever who just doesn’t care because he loves you so freaking much.

  “Elvis will be chained with real, steel-link chain, padlocked and nailed into this coffin, before the crane lowers him into the St. Lawrence River. Elvis will have to fight his way free from the chains, the nails, the coffin, and the raging current of Mother Nature, in less than four minutes, before he runs out of oxygen or drowns or both. We will begin with the chains.”

  A woman sashayed out of the truck, wearing only a tiger print bikini and orange stilettos, even though it had started to drizzle again. I shivered in sympathy. Her balloon-like breasts and deeply tanned skin would not keep her warm. Neither would the silver chains she kept bundled in her arms. She paraded toward Elvis, chains clinking and ass swaying. Somehow, it reminded me of the horse-drawn carriages I’d just admired, probably because the horses’ hooves clopped on the cobblestones and their bells jingled. Or maybe it was just the way she walked. My eyes kept straying to her ass.

  “With the exquisite assistance of our beautiful Lucia, we will wrap Elvis the Escape Artist in not one, not five, but fifteen feet of chains! Would someone from the audience like to come test the chain, to make sure it’s real?”

  “Me! Me!”

  “Ai! Ici, Monsieur, on a un petit garçon…”

  “Over here!”

  “I’ll do it!”

  “Meeeeeeee…”

  All around us, people were stomping and whistling and jumping up and down with their hands in the air. Tucker looked agonized. I signaled that I would take the camera, and he held it still while I took it in my hands. Then he hollered and waved with both arms, “I LOVE ELVISSSSSSSS…”

  It was a good ploy, but not good enough. Archer chose another guy, a six-foot bodybuilder type who marched right up to Lucia. She extended the end of the chain, displaying all her white teeth in a wide smile.

  The bodybuilder said something.