The Cadillac jerked into motion with an ostentatious squeal of rubber. Once across the Red River, which still ran steaming with gunmetal pre-dawn mist, they were out of North Dakota and into Moorhead, Minnesota. The streets of Moorhead were empty—not so much as a garbage truck out yet. “Sleepy little burg,” Valens commented. No one responded. They pulled up to an undistinguished six-story brick hotel in the heart of town.
The hotel lobby was cavernous and gloomy, inhabited only by a few tired-looking potted rubber plants. As they walked past a grouping of battered arm chairs and sagging sofas toward the shadowy information desk in the back, dust puffed at their feet from the faded grey carpet. An unmoving ceiling fan threw thin-armed shadows around the room, and everything smelled of old cigar butts and dead flies and trapped sunshine.
The front desk was as deserted as the rest of the lobby. Blemings slammed the bell angrily until a balding, bored-looking man appeared from the back, moving as though he were swimming through syrup. As the desk clerk doled out room keys, still moving like a somnambulist, Blemings took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “I spoke with your road manager, must’ve been right after you guys left the Surf Ballroom. Needed his okay for two acts I’m adding to the show.” He paused. “S’awright with you, hey?”
Holly shrugged. “It’s your show,” he said.
Holly unlaced one shoe, let it drop heavily to the floor. His back ached, and the long, sleepless flight had made his suit rumpled and sour-smelling. One last chore and he could sleep: he picked up the bedside telephone and dialed the hotel operator for an outside line, so that he could call his wife Maria in New York and tell her that he had arrived safely.
The phone was dead; the switchboard must be closed down. He sighed and bent over to pick up his shoe again.
Eight or nine men were standing around the lobby when Holly stepped out of the elevator, husky fellows, Southern boys by the look of them. Two were at the front desk, making demands of the clerk, who responded by spreading his arms wide and rolling his eyes upward.
Waiting his turn for service, Holly leaned back against the counter, glanced about. He froze in disbelief. Against all logic, all possibility, Elvis Presley himself was standing not six yards away on the grey carpet. For an instant Holly struggled with amazement. Then a second glance told him the truth.
Last year Elvis had been drafted into the army, depriving his fans of his presence, and creating a ready market for those who could imitate him. A legion of Presley impersonators had crowded into the welcoming spotlights of stages across the country, trying vainly to fill the gap left by the King of Rock and Roll.
This man, though—he stood out. At first glance, he was Elvis. An instant later you saw that he was twenty years too old and as much as forty pounds overweight. There were dissolute lines under his eyes, and a weary, dissipated expression on his face. The rigors of being on the road had undone his ducktail, so that his hair was an untidy mess, hanging down over his forehead, and curling over his ears. He wore a sequined shirt, now wrinkled and sweaty, and a suede jacket.
Holly went over to introduce himself. “Hi,” he said, “I guess you’re playing tonight’s show.”
The man ignored his outthrust hand. Dark, haunted eyes bored into Holly’s. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, son,” he said. A soft Tennessee accent underlaid his words. “But I’m packing a piece and I know how to use it.” His hand darted inside his jacket, emerged holding an ugly-looking .38.
Involuntarily Holly sucked in his breath. He slowly raised his hands shoulder-high, and backed away. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “I was just trying to be friendly.” The man’s eyes followed his retreat suspiciously, and he didn’t reholster the gun until Holly was back at the front desk.
The desk clerk was free now. Holly slid three bills across the counter, said, “Change please.” From the corner of his eye, he saw the imitation Elvis getting into the elevator, surrounded by his entourage. They were solicitous, almost subservient. One patted the man’s back as he shakily recounted his close call. Poor old man, Holly thought pityingly. The man was really cracking under the pressures of the road. He’d be lucky to last out the tour.
In the wooden booth across the lobby, Holly dumped his change on the ledge below the phone. He dialed the operator for long distance.
The earpiece buzzed, made clicking noises. Then it filled with harsh, actinic static, and the clicking grew faster and louder. Holly jiggled the receiver, racked the phone angrily.
Another flood of musicians and crew coursed through the lobby. Stepping from the booth, ruefully glancing back at the phone, he collided with a small woman in a full-length mink. “Oof,” she said, then reached out and gave him a squeeze to show there were no hard feelings. A mobile, hoydenish face grinned up at him.
“Hey, Sport,” she said brightly. “I love that bow-tie, and those glasses—! Jesus, you look just like Buddy Holly!”
“I know,” he said wryly. But she was gone. He trudged back to the elevators. Then something caught his eye, and he swung about, openly staring.
Was that a man she was talking to? My God, he had hair down to his shoulders!
Trying not to stare at his amazing apparition, he stepped into the elevator. Back in his room, he stopped only long enough to pick up his bag of laundry before heading out again. He was going to have to go outside the hotel to find a working phone anyway; he might as well fight down his weariness, hunt up a laundromat, and get his laundry done.
The lobby was empty when he returned through it, and he couldn’t even find the desk clerk to ask where the nearest laundromat was. Muttering under his breath, Holly trudged out of the hotel.
Outside, the sun was shining brilliantly but without warmth from out of a hard, high blue sky. There was still no traffic, no one about on the street, and Holly walked along through an early morning silence broken only by the squeaking of his sneakers, past closed-up shops and shuttered brownstone houses. He found a laundromat after a few more blocks, and although it was open, there was no one in there either, not even the inevitable elderly Negro attendant. The rows of unused washing machines glinted dully in the dim light cast by a flyspecked bulb. Shrugging, he dumped his clothes into a machine. The change machine didn’t work, of course, but you got used to dealing with things like that on the road, and he’d brought a handkerchief full of change with him. He got the machine going, and then went out to look for a phone.
The streets were still empty, and after a few more blocks it began to get on his nerves. He’d been in hick towns before—had grown up in one—but this was the sleepiest, deadest damn town he’d ever seen. There was still no traffic, although there were plenty of cars parked by the curbs, and he hadn’t seen another person since leaving the hotel. There weren’t even any pigeons, for goodness sake!
There was a five-and-dime on the corner, its doors standing open. Holly poked his head inside. The lights were on, but there were no customers, no floorwalkers, no salesgirls behind the counters. True, small-town people weren’t as suspicious as folk from the bigger cities—but still, this was a business, and it looked as if anyone could just walk in here and walk off with any of the unguarded merchandise. It was gloomy and close in the empty store, and the air was filled with dust. Holly backed out of the doorway, somehow not wanting to explore the depths of the store for the sales personnel who must be in there somewhere.
A slight wind had come up now, and it flicked grit against his face and blew bits of scrap paper down the empty street.
He found a phone on the next corner, hunted through his handkerchief for a dime while the wind snatched at the edges of the fabric. The phone buzzed and clicked at him again, and this time there was the faint high wailing of wind in the wires, an eerie, desolate sound that always made him think of ghosts wandering alone through the darkness. The next phone he found was also dead, and the next.
Uneasily, he picked up his laundry and headed back to the hotel.
The desk clerk w
as spreading his hands wide in a gesture of helpless abnegation of responsibility when the fat Southerner in the sequined shirt leaned forward, poked a hard finger into the clerk’s chest, and said softly, “You know who I am, son?”
“Why, of course I do, Mr. Presley,” the clerk said nervously. “Yessir, of course I do, sir.”
“You say you know who I am, son,” Elvis said in a cottony voice that slowly mounted in volume. “If you know who I am, then you know why I don’t have to stay in a goddamned flophouse like this! Isn’t that right? Would you give your mother a room like that, you know goddamned well you wouldn’t. Just what are you people thinking of? I’m Elvis Presley, and you’d give me a room like that!”
Elvis was bellowing now, his face grown red and mottled, his features assuming that look of sulky, sneering meanness that had thrilled millions. His eyes were hard and bright as glass. As the frightened clerk shrank back, his hands held up now as much in terror as in supplication, Elvis suddenly began to change. He looked at the clerk sadly, as if pitying him, and said, “Son, do you know who I am?”
“Yessir,” whispered the clerk.
“Then can’t you see it?” asked Elvis.
“See what, sir?”
“That I’m chosen! Are you an atheist, are you a goddamned atheist?” Elvis pounded on the desk and barked, “I’m the star, I’ve been given that, and you can’t soil it, you atheist bastard! You sonovabitch!” Now that was the worst thing he could call anyone, and he never, almost never used it, for his mother, may she rest in peace, was holy. She had believed in him, had told him that the Lord had chosen him, that as long as he sang and believed, the Lord would take care of him. Like this? Is this the way He was going to take care of me?
“I’m the star, and I could buy this hotel out of my spare change! Buy it, you hear that?” And even as he spoke, the incongruity of the whole situation hit him, really hit him hard for the first time. It was as though his mind had suddenly cleared after a long, foggy daze, as if the scales had fallen from his eyes.
Elvis stopped shouting and stumbled back from the desk, frightened now, fears and suspicions flooding in on him like the sea. What was he doing here? Dammit, he was the King! He’d made his comeback, and he’d played to capacity crowds at the biggest concert halls in the country. And now he couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten here—he’d been at Graceland, and then everything had gotten all foggy and confused, and the next thing he knew he was climbing out of the bus in front of this hotel with the roadies and the rest of the band. Even if he’d agreed to play this one-horse town, it would have to have been for charity. That’s it, it had to be for charity. But then where were the reporters, the TV crews? His coming here would be the biggest damn thing that had ever happened in Moorhead, Minnesota. Why weren’t there any screaming crowds being held back by police?
“What in hell’s going on here?” Elvis shouted. He snatched out his revolver, and gestured to his two bodyguards to close up on either side of him. His gaze darted wildly about the lobby as he tried to look into every corner at once. “Keep your eyes open! There’s something funny—”
At that moment, Jack Blemings stepped out of his office, shut the door smoothly behind him, and sauntered across the musty old carpet toward them. “Something wrong here, Mr. Presley?” he drawled.
“Damn right there is,” Elvis raged, taking a couple of steps toward Blemings and brandishing his gun. “You know how many years it’s been since I played a tank town like this? I don’t know what in hell the Colonel was thinking of to send me down here. I—”
Smiling blandly and ignoring the gun, Blemings reached out and touched Elvis on the chest.
Elvis shuddered and took a lurching step backward, his eyes glazing over. He shook his head, looked foggily around the lobby, glanced down at the gun in his hand as though noticing it for the first time, then holstered it absent-mindedly. “Time’s the show tonight?” he mumbled.
“About eight, Mr. Presley,” Blemings answered, smiling. “You’ve got plenty of time to relax before then.”
Elvis looked around the lobby again, running a hand through his greased-back hair. “Anything to do around here?” he asked, a hint of the old sneer returning.
“We got a real nice bar right over there the other side of the lobby,” Blemings said.
“I don’t drink,” Elvis said sullenly.
“Well, then,” Blemings added brightly, “we got some real nice pinball machines in that bar too.”
Shaking his head, Elvis turned and moved away across the lobby, taking his entourage with him.
Blemings went back to his office.
J. P. Richardson had unpacked the scotch and was going for ice when he saw the whore. There was no mistaking what she was. She was dressed in garish gypsy clothes with ungodly amounts of jewelry about her neck and wrists. Beneath a light blouse her breasts swayed freely—she wasn’t even wearing a bra. He didn’t have to be told how she had earned the mink coat draped over one arm.
“Hey, little sister,” Richardson said softly. He was still wearing the white suit that was his onstage trademark, his “Big Bopper” outfit. He looked good in it, and knew it. “Are you available?”
“You talking to me, honey?” She spoke defiantly, almost jeeringly, but something in her stance, her bold stare, told him she was ready for almost anything. He discreetly slid a twenty from a jacket pocket, smiled and nodded.
“I’d like to make an appointment,” he said, slipping the folded bill into her hand. “That is, if you are available now.”
She stared from him to the bill and back, a look of utter disbelief on her face. Then, suddenly, she grinned. “Why, ‘course I’m available, sugar. What’s your room number? Gimme ten minutes to stash my coat and I’ll be right there.”
“Room four-eleven.” Richardson watched her flounce down the hall, and, despite some embarrassment, was pleased. There was a certain tawdry charm to her. Probably ruts like a mink, he told himself. He went back to his room to wait.
The woman went straight to the hotel bar, slapped the bill down, and shouted, “Hey, kids, pony up! The drinks are on Janis!”
There was a vague stirring, and two or three lackluster men eddied toward the bar.
Janis looked about, saw that the place was almost empty. A single drunk sat wall-eyed at a table, holding onto its edges with clenched hands to keep from falling over. To the rear, almost lost in gloom, a big stud was playing pinball. Two unfriendly types, who looked like bodyguards, stood nearby, protecting him from the empty tables. Otherwise—nothing. “Shoulda taken the fat dude up on his offer,” she grumbled. “There’s nothing happening here.” Then, to the bartender, “Make mine a whiskey sour.”
She took a gulp of her drink, feeling sorry for herself. The clatter of pinball bells ceased briefly as the stud lost his ball. He slammed the side of the machine viciously with one hand. She swiveled on her stool to look at him.
“Damn,” she said to the bartender. “You know, from this angle that dude looks just like Elvis.”
Buddy Holly finished adjusting his bow-tie, reached for a comb, then stopped in mid-motion. He stared about the tiny dressing room, with its cracked mirror and bare light bulbs, and asked himself, How did I get here?
It was no idle, existential question. He really did not know. The last thing he remembered was entering his hotel room and collapsing on the bed. Then—here. There was nothing in between.
A rap at the door. Blemings stuck his head in, the stench of his cigar permeating the room. “Everything okay in here?”
“Well,” Holly began. But he went no further. What could he say? “How long before I go on?”
“Plenty of time. You might want to catch the opener, though—good act. On in ten.”
“Thanks.”
Blemings left, not quite shutting the door behind him. Holly studied his face in the mirror. It looked haggard and unresponsive. He flashed a toothy smile, but did not feel it. God, he was tired. Being on the road was going to
kill him. There had to be a way off the treadmill.
The woman from the hotel leaned into his room. “Hey, Ace—you seen that Blemings motherfucker anywhere?”
Holly’s jaw dropped. To hear that kind of language from a woman—from a white woman. “He just went by,” he said weakly.
“Shit!” She was gone.
Her footsteps echoed in the hallway, were swallowed up by silence. And that was wrong. There should be the murmur and nervous bustle of acts preparing to go on, last-minute errands being run, equipment being tested. Holly peered into the corridor—empty.
To one side, the hall dead-ended into a metal door with a red EXIT sign overhead. Holly went the other way, toward the stage.
Just as he reached the wings, the audience burst into prolonged, almost frenzied applause. The Elvis impersonator was striding onstage. It was a great crowd.
But the wings were empty. No stagehands or go-fers, no idlers, nobody preparing for the next set.
“Elvis” spread his legs wide and crouched low, his thick lips curling in a sensual sneer. He was wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit, white scarf about his neck. He moved his guitar loosely, adjusting the strap, then gave his band the downbeat.
Well it’s one for the money
Two for the show
Three to get ready
Now go cat go!
And he was off and running into a brilliant rendition of “Blue Suede Shoes.” Not an easy song to do because the lyrics were laughable. It relied entirely on the music, and it took a real entertainer to make it work.
This guy had it all, though. The jumps, gyrations, and forward thrusts of the groin were stock stuff—but somehow he made them look right. He played the audience, too, and his control was perfect. Holly could see shadowy shapes beyond the glare of the footlights, moving in a more than sexual frenzy, was astonished by their rapturous screams. All this in the first minutes of the set.
Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois Page 24
