The Biggest Elvis

by P. F. Kluge

  When I had finished at UP, I returned to Olongapo. Now, Commander Andy was short, headed home. His wife was already stateside. In a hospital. I knew all this. I was Andy’s houseguest. And, once again, I was his project, answering questions about courses, grades, transcripts, prospects, boyfriends, all of it touching and tiresome, and, lurking beneath it all, was the knowledge that he still wanted me. It was in the air, in his every word and look. His life was at a crossroads. Down one road, an alcoholic, neurotic, sickly wife. Down the other, his Malou: his pride and friend and partner.

  I worked and slept late and he was gone during the day. Those were the hours I loved, when I had the run of the house. I stretched out in a tub of cold water, I read a book in an air-conditioned bedroom, looking out the window at the wall of bamboo, and sometimes, when the wind blew, I’d hear the bamboo clicking, like so many chopsticks, tapping out a message. And the message was soon … soon … any minute now.

  All the time I was there, I waited for him to come into my room some night. I wished he would. I tempted him. I tortured him. I felt sorry about the guilt he felt for me. I also wanted to use that guilt. And I realized what a weak foundation it was. At Graceland I charted dozens, hundreds of penetrations, all without love and without guilt, yet Commander Andy was filled with both. So I wanted to go to him and I waited for him to come to me, even as the days before his departure dwindled. I waited too long. I waited until the night before his departure. Then I decided the future wasn’t for Commander Andy to decide. It was up to me. I left Graceland early and was in my room when he came home at midnight from a farewell dinner at the Officers’ Club. I heard him open the sliding doors, step out onto the terrace, sit heavily in a chair. I walked softly across the living room and stood in the doorway in that delicious, wasteful place where cold air meets the humid night, where you could feel a cool breeze at your back and yet hear the sounds of birds and bamboo.

  Commander Andy was sitting there, looking into his last Philippines night. I tiptoed behind him, put my hands on his shoulder. I leaned forward and my hair, left loose, came down upon him. I kissed him on the forehead, the way a daughter would kiss a father, saying good night. Yet he could feel my hair, when I leaned down to kiss him. And my breasts, just behind his head.

  “May I join you?”

  “Malou,” he said. He touched my hands, which were still resting on his shoulders. “Yes. My God. I was just thinking …”

  “Think aloud,” I said.

  “… that I’m supposed to be happy, getting out of here. That was the theme of the evening. Nobody seemed to know how happy I’ve been. Except for you, Malou! You were my big screwup. There was nothing you couldn’t have done. Now you’re back here keeping tabs on … let’s face it—a whorehouse.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  “I was there at the beginning,” he said. “I got you started. I really believe it.”

  “You blame yourself too much.”

  “I’ve wanted you every night you’ve been here, Malou. I thought it was over. I was set to go back … you know … do my duty. Now …”

  “Commander Andy,” I said. “It’s not the things we do that we regret. It’s the things we don’t do.” And this time I left no doubts. I kissed him on the lips, I gave him my tongue, I pressed against him. “It’s up to you, Commander Andy.” I went back to my room and waited for him to come. How hard could it be for a man to choose happiness? How long could it take? I waited. I showered. I prepared myself … not that preparation was required. He was mine.

  Then, after half an hour, I heard a door close. I heard him starting his car, backing out, driving away fast, as though he were rushing to separate himself from me. In the kitchen, I found house keys and a duplicate set of keys for the car, which he had left at the gate, before hiring a driver to take him to Manila. The house was mine for two more months. He had also left an envelope with ten $100 bills and a letter.

  Dear Malou—

  This is not the ending I hoped for. Believe me when I tell you that if it were in my power, I would be staying here, even if it meant staying forever, and you would be the one boarding the plane, even if it meant you’d never come back. There was another ending I pictured. You did too. The two of us going on that plane together. Impossible but I wanted you to know that I spent every night—including this last one—picturing that. That was the dream I had. You tell me we regret the things we didn’t do, not the things we did. All right then, this money is for the things I didn’t do. Goodnight, Malou. Goodbye.

  Yours,

  Andy

  I showed the letter to Elvira. She read it and laughed. “No sale.” Then I told her about the money Commander Andy had left behind.

  Now, at night, driving inside the base, Graceland felt far away. The museum of Elvis. I was at home inside the base. I was at home inside Commander Andy’s white Chevrolet, his parting gift to me. His house was mine for one more week. Past the small boat harbor, I lived dangerously, speeding through the darkness, turning off the headlights for just a moment, wondering what it would be like to drive all night like that, fast and straight and alone. I slowed down when the road divided. Right went to Cubi Point airstrip and the beaches. Straight led to the naval magazine where they stored bombs and poison in the rain forest. I turned left, into some low hills. My headlights flashed against trees that rose in straight lines, one hundred feet tall. Groves of bamboo waved me home to Commander Andy’s house but not to Commander Andy. Monkeys sat on the retainer fence, seeing no evil.

  Just after making the turn, I saw some headlights a hundred yards behind and knew that someone was following me. The base police, I guessed, but it was too late to regret my sprint through the dark, with headlights off. Thank God it was harmless. But officer, I’m a silly girl and no one was hurt. I am sober, as you see, and I am almost home and do you notice my English, how carefully I speak? I drove slowly, entering the housing area, and suddenly I was in America, among dozens of houses at the top of a green hill, a street like the America we see on television, every house the same, lawns with bougainvillea, hibiscus, croton, yards with slides and swings and toys, with well-fed, much-loved dogs, golden retrievers. I put on the right-hand turn signal—see how thoughtful I am, most of the time?—and turned into Commander Andy’s carport. I turned off the headlights and pretended to fuss with my purse and waited for the people following me to pass. But the car stopped, right outside. Headlights went dark, but I could hear music from inside, Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias, “For All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” and now I was frightened. An American car with no markings and two men inside. I saw them in the streetlights, in this well-lit, well-kept neighborhood where no harm could come to me. At last I took the house keys out of the purse and got out. I closed the car door at the same time two other car doors were closing. It was all one sound. They walked toward me and I was frightened in this American neighborhood. In the house behind me, lights shone in the laundry room downstairs, in the living room and kitchen above, but they were lights that I’d left on. Commander Andy Yauger was gone forever. No one was home. To the left and right, no sound of voices, no glow of television. Help, if I needed it, slept behind the hum of air conditioners. I stood next to the car, watching them walk toward me, come into the light. In the front was a Filipino I recognized, Doy Valencia, the son of a former senator. We were classmates once but that would not help me now. Doy was a rich man’s spoiled son, running a resort outside of Subic City. In school, we called him “senorito.” Now people went to him for passports, loans, favors, drugs.

  The other man was an American in a Hawaiian shirt, with white pants and sunglasses and the walk of someone wounded. Him, I knew and feared. He played small parts in movies produced by Baby Ronquillo. He was her escort and bodyguard. Worse yet, he claimed to be in love with me. I had met him in the time before Elvis, when the bar that became Graceland was called Genghis Khan’s Tent. “The house of pagan pleasures.” There were carpets and pillows in the VIP lounges
—that was the Genghis Khan touch. “Love on horseback.” The main floor was the same, tables, stage, bars. My place was by the jukebox in the corner. It was a good place to hide. Perhaps the bar was rougher then or I was younger but many nights I curled up and made myself as small as possible. That was when I started dressing blandly—loose T-shirts, baggy slacks that would not show my shape, a turned-around baseball hat to cover my hair. Elvira said I looked like a lady’s room attendant, in my disguise. Still, it failed. Jimmy Fiddler saw through it.

  The fleet was in. Normally, Genghis Khan was slow: no Graceland. The tents were empty, the pagan hordes went elsewhere. The place was sad. A ninety-percent-empty Olongapo bar was the saddest place on earth. It was two bad things combined, a party that no one was coming to and a business that was facing failure. The girls would sit by the jukebox and if a customer or two appeared they were rushed, swarmed, ambushed. The girls were like salesmen, pressing too hard to change their fortune, to make that first sale, to get the party started. When the customers retreated, the mood was worse than before. It is bad, I think, to sell yourself to men. It is worse if you make that decision and cannot find a buyer. But when the Seventh Fleet came in, Genghis Khan filled early and stayed busy until late at night. As the evening passed, the place grew wilder. I wore earplugs to muffle the noise of the band. I wore sneakers to step through spilled beer and old clothes so no one would notice me. But someone did.

  Toward closing time, I felt that someone was staring at me. I glanced up and saw a table of Americans. They were not military, they were businessmen or tourists. They had some girls with them already, girls straining to sell themselves before closing time, so the bargaining had gotten harder, the whispers more suggestive, hands were placed on knees, straying north to make a certain point, lips were pursed in a way that left nothing to doubt. There was a girl for every man at the table, rough girls, none of them among my particular friends, part-timers who came in from the provinces when they heard that the fleet was in. A girl for every man but one. He was staring at me and—worse—I sensed he was talking about me, entertaining the table with his appraisal. I like them shy, I like them lean, I like the ones who put up a little fight. The girls nodded and smiled, encouraging him, wanting him to approach me, waiting to see what happened when the comic American made a move on cold, stuck-up Malou. I made myself small, I returned to my column of figures. I could not leave until closing time. I sensed the American working himself up, the others urging him on. That nothing T-shirt, I’d pay ten bucks just for a peek underneath. More laughter. I heard one of the girls say my name. Now he knew Malou. She added something else, that I am not available, maybe. Abailable, we say. He pounced on the maybe, he lurched to his feet, he parodied our accent. “Maybe,” he said, “we can turn not abailable into available.” He stood facing me and suddenly he half-sang, half-shouted, “Malou, Malou, the most beautiful sound I ever heard.” No ignoring him now. I met his eyes. I shook my head. No, no, no. I raised my books, I showed him my pen. See, I’m a bookkeeper. But he moved toward me, limping.

  “Malou?” His voice was polite up close, but his face was narrow and mean. In movies they called him “Daga.” The Rat. I looked in his eyes. I saw pain, anger, humor. A terrible energy. The life of a party I didn’t want to attend.

  “What’s the bar fines for those four girls over at the table?”

  “Three hundred pesos each, sir.” He handed me two 1,000-peso notes. I wrote the girls’ names, Eva, Flor, Donata, Maricel. Second time tonight for Donata and Eva. That’s the trick. Go out once, return to the club, go out again. Doubleheaders. I then said what I always said. “The bar fine, sir, repays Genghis Khan’s Tent for the loss of an employee’s services. It does not compensate the employee for any additional service you may wish her to provide once you have left these premises. Those charges are negotiable and additional. Do you understand?”

  “Sounds like the Miranda warning.”

  “Sir …”

  “I love the way you say your speech.”

  “Thank you, sir. We must be careful.” I turned back to my accounts.

  He put a 1,000-peso note right on top of the open page.

  “That’s your bar fine, Malou. I like the look of you. That maybe-I-will, maybe-I-won’t, I-could-live-with-it, I-could-live-without-it expression. That’s hard to find, especially around here.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.” I handed him back the money. He turned to his table, where his friends—and the girls—were watching us. Now he decided to make a skit of it. He took his wallet and turned it upside down. Peso notes rained down, thousands, hundreds, lesser denominations. Behind him, his table applauded and others too.

  “I said no,” I repeated.

  He reached into his pocket for change, a half dozen 1- and 2-peso coins that clinked down on top of the pile of paper money. He turned his pockets inside out. This, in its way, was funny stuff. What does it take to win your love, Malou? Now he dropped to his knees before me. The Rat was begging. He sang an old movie song, “True Love.” He had a fair voice too, so when he finished, all of Genghis Khan’s bar cheered him. But I got up to leave.

  “Don’t …” He grasped an ankle, held it very tight. He wasn’t drunk at all. He spoke like a lawyer, his voice measured, his eyes calm. “Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends, Malou. Don’t. Those are some important people. And even the ones who are unimportant … I don’t want them laughing at me either.”

  I shook my head. “I’m leaving now.”

  “All right, I made a mistake,” he said. He sounded like Commander Andy now. Desperate. The room turned silent. If I picked up his money and went with him—if only I were a good sport—what a rousing cheer there’d have been. Hey, that Malou, that woman is … I mean we’re talking … tough. He might have settled for that, my agreeing to save his face. But I had a face of my own to save.

  “Good evening, Malou,” said Doy Valencia and, at the same time, and less politely, the American said, “Good morning.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “You going to invite us upstairs, Malou?” asked the American, and the way he said upstairs was nasty. Upstairs for a quick one, stopping off on the way home from work.

  “I do not know your name, sir,” I said, though in fact I did. I was acting stronger than I felt. The American scared me and I realized that was why he came.

  “Name’s Jimmy,” he said. “Jimmy Fiddler.” He kept scratching and tugging at himself, at his crotch. “Okay? Now can we go upstairs? I’m a big fan of yours, Malou. You remember? I went down on my knees to you, darling. Around here, it’s always the other way around.”

  “We will do our business here,” I said. “And quickly please. It’s late.”

  “Christ,” said Jimmy.

  “And … Doy.” My voice had the artificial tone that Filipinas take on when we speak English for the benefit of Americans. A classroom recitation. “Would you please tell your friend Jimmy to keep his hands off his thing? He won’t be using it here.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jimmy exclaimed. “I guess I won’t. Not unless I want to. If I want to, I will. I ride bareback, darling. And I ride for free.”

  “Malou,” Doy pleaded. “A question only and then we go.”

  “Ask your question, then,” I said. “And go.”

  “You work at Graceland. You manage the place, no?”

  “You keep track of the bar fines,” Jimmy interrupted. “That’s for the girls who screw outside the bar. And you keep track of the action up in the VIP lounges, right? You use cameras? Or get down on your knees, Malou, and peep through the keyhole? And, let’s see, you keep count of that hair tonic the girls are hustling, the so-called margaritas, and the champagne-for-chumps. And every week you take a convoy of jeepneys that you fill up with whores and you truck them down to public health so that they can get their licenses renewed. Once a week—more often if the fleet is in—you take the money and you deposit it in the account of a Fi
lipino Chinese accountant who cooks the books for Baby Ronquillo. I know all about you, darling. I could write the story of your life. So let’s cut to the chase.”

  “Some people are asking about this Elvis group,” Doy said. “About the boss.”

  “Biggest Elvis?” Now it seemed a long time since I’d seen him. Diaspora. I didn’t know you knew that word. “He looks after the Lane brothers. He handles the money for them. For the musicians.” I was not telling them what they wanted to hear. I was filling the air with words. “The songs, he selects, every night. Never the same program—”

  “This is getting very boring, Doy,” the American complained.

  “Malou,” Doy said, working to keep things calm. The American scared me but I could not help feeling sorry for Doy. Fat, pampered senorito, class clown. The anxious host, the sweaty eager-to-please local. If a drink spilled at a sloppy table, if glasses broke, he was the first to wave for another round, no harm done, even though the American made the mess. “Malou,” Doy said, “what do you know about Colonel Parker?”

  “Is he from the base?”

  “Colonel Parker!” the American shouted, the way they do, as if saying something louder will make us understand.