Just Can't Help Believing, page 9
* * *
“If you can’t remember the names, why don’t you tell me your symptoms and I’ll recommend something suitable.”
“Probably best I don’t tell you all of them, or you’ll have me put down!” George replies. “Just gimme some yellows, blues, reds and whites. They all go down the same way, dunnums.”
The pharmacist at the 24-hour CVS Pharmacy on the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard is looking at me, lost.
George had called the airline to no avail, his case not yet traced.
“If you have pills coloured yellow, blue, red and white, we’ll take a packet of each, please,” I translate.
“Any pills?” the pharmacist asks.
“Anything,” I concur.
“I also need to get myself some new gear, as the outfit I’ve got on will start to stink. There’s bound to be some skid marks in my pants too.”
* * *
One hour, a change of underwear and clothes — into a rhinestone jumpsuit purchased from a costume store — and a little blue pill of some description later, George is leading us toward Sam’s Town Hotel & Gambling Hall, home to the Elvis Las Vegas Festival for the next four days. And home also, I sincerely hope, to some answers.
“You’re sure you’ll be able to identify the man who sold you that picture?” I ask him again for reassurance as we enter the hotel, and head to the vendor room, where tables are piled high with Elvis memorabilia and fanatical fans swap knowing nods in appreciation of their chosen attire.
“This is where he was last time, at a stall in this here room. He’s a skinny bloke, got a face like a weasel. Let’s hope he ain’t got fat.”
“If he’s filled out, I’d guess we’d be looking for someone with the face of a badger?” I speculate.
There’s no weasel or badger to be seen, nor Moley, Ratty or Toady. But it’s early and people are still setting up stalls.
“Let’s go grab a coffee,” I suggest. “We’ll come back here in a bit.”
* * *
“Well, this is great,” I say sarcastically, draining the last of my Americano. “The guy who holds the key to my future is potentially two hundred metres away, and the only person who can identify him can’t move because he has an erection.”
“I’m startin’ to feel a bit faint,” George says, gasping for air.
“I’m not surprised. God knows how much blood it takes to get that thing up. It would probably take less time to raise the Titanic.”
“How’d you know? Have you been having a perv at me in the shower?”
“No, I didn’t watch you in the shower. Christ. I had no choice but to see it last night when you woke me up at 4:30 to tell me I was late for my fictional wedding.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I still can’t believe you didn’t look at what tablets you were taking?”
“I didn’t have no glasses on.”
“You don’t have any glasses on now, yet you’re supposed to be identifying someone you haven’t seen for years.”
“I only need glasses for reading things.”
“Like the names of tablets?” I suggest.
“Didn’t even think to look. Manda usually sorts them out for me. You want me to go and have a quick fiddle with myself, try and get it down?”
“You’ve just planted an awful image in my mind. Can we talk about something else, quickly?”
“See that bloke there?” George asks, pointing out someone who although not dressed to look like Elvis, has obviously had a lot of surgery so that his face does. The result looks like he’s wearing a rubber mask purchased from a costume store. He’s wearing a T-shirt with the words ‘Elvis Lives’ printed in red letters.
“He runs a Facebook group for those who think Elvis is still with us. There’s thousands of them on there.”
“You’re not one of them, are you?”
“Some of the stuff they say is pretty convincing,” George says, noncommittally.
“Like what?”
“Like the name Elvis. Same letters spells ‘lives’, dunnit.”
“And that’s a code to tell us that he’s alive?” I ask.
“Could be.”
“So, let me get this straight. Elvis’s parents named him at birth, fully aware of his plan in later life to fake his own death and leave a clue by way of an anagram that could be cracked by a four-year old?”
“I dunno.”
“What about the eye-witnesses who saw his body. And the medical reports?”
“Piece of piss to fake medical reports, innit? I once nicked some paper from the doctor and wrote my own prescription.”
“For what?”
“I used to have this banana-flavoured penicillin when I was a nipper. Blummin lovely stuff it was. Got myself forty bottles of it.”
This may explain much about George’s state of mind. “Any idea if the Viagra’s wearing off yet?” I ask.
“I’m still as hard as nails.”
“Terrific. Well, we can’t sit here any longer. Could be hours before that thing goes down. You’ll just have to disguise it.”
“What as, a lance?”
“I don’t know. Think,” I snap impatiently.
George stares intently at his inner wrist.
“What are you looking at?” I ask.
“My tattoo,” he replies. “It guides me.”
“Your tattoo? What is it, a compass?”
George holds it aloft for me to see the letters WWED inked just below his hand.
“What does that mean?”
“What Would Elvis Do. I has it there to help me decide what to do when I ain’t got a clue.”
For my sake, I hope Elvis knew what to do with an untimely erection.
11
“That’s it, is it? That’s what Elvis would do? Stick an empty Starbucks cup over it?”
“You got a better idea?”
“I doubt I’d have a worse one! Just stay behind me so nobody sees you approaching and screams. But try not to get too close and touch me with it.”
The hotel’s vendor room is packed, mostly with Elvis lookalikes — more than a few of them mimicking what he may have looked like now, grossly overweight and driving a mobility scooter but still partial to a jumpsuit. The vendors themselves stand out through their more conservative dress, all except one.
“Move over there so I can have a good look at that bloke,” George says. His 31-ounce Starbucks cup is prodding my lower back as he stands in my shadow. “But don’t walk so fast — I’m still feeling a bit dicky.”
“You’re not the only one who’s feeling dicky, yours is sticking into me! Can you move back a bit?”
I walk slowly — as briefed — in the direction of where George pointed to the odd man out. His military fatigues hang from his bony frame in a way that makes it look as if he’s been somehow shorn of ninety percent of his bodyweight since he dressed this morning. As I edge closer, I see that his hair is lank, grey and greasy, and that his chin shows at least a week’s growth of stubble. But, as luck would have it, his face could be described as weasel-like.
He’s stood behind a table holding an assortment of Elvis memorabilia: trademark sunglasses, gold medallions embossed with Elvis’s face, and four branded switchblades, which he’s arranging into a neat line by the time I say, “Excuse me.”
For a moment he just stares at me, then asks: “Are you one of them conjoined twins?”
“I don’t follow,” I reply, half expecting a punchline to land. When it doesn’t, I turn to George for a clue and find one. With my body fully masking his, George has decided to rest his chin on my shoulder to look for all the world as though our two heads share my single body.
“All right me babber. Remember me, do you?” George asks.
“I sure as hell remember that accent,” Weasel Face replies.
“You’ve got some nice gear here? How much for one of them knives?”
“George, can we just get to the point?” I ask.
“That’s what I’m doing. How much?”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Done.”
“I meant can we get to the point of why we’re here, which is to find… Hang on, why on earth do you want a knife for?” I hear myself asking.
“What’s up with your face?” Weasel Face asks abruptly, looking quizzically at George. “You’re as white as a Klansman.”
“He’s okay,” I butt in, eager to find answers to my questions. “You once sold George a photograph of Elvis. I really need to know about it.”
“That’ll be twenty dollars. You need this in a bag?” he asks George.
When he fails to respond to my question, I take the photograph from my wallet, hold it up for him to see, and ask again, “Do you remember selling George this?”
“’Cause if you need a bag, I’ll have to charge you for it.”
“Why are you ignoring me?”
“You sure your friend is okay? He don’t look right.”
“That’s just how he looks. Please, I need to know about this photograph. I’ve flown five thousand miles to ask questions that right now only you can answer. Please,” I implore.
“Your friend’s eyes keep rolling back into his head.”
“I told you he’s fine!” I snap. “The man to the right of Elvis is my grandad. This picture is all I have to tell me they were friends, so I’m hoping the person who took it can tell me something more. Do you know who shot this photograph?”
Even if he did know and was about to tell me, I wouldn’t have heard over the sound of George crashing to the ground, his outsized Starbucks cup scuttling across the floor to inadvertently land Sam’s Town & Gambling Hall the biggest show in Vegas.
* * *
“’Jim, you awake? Jim? Jimmy?”
“Jesus Christ!”
“What’s the matter with you?’
“What’s the matter with me? I’ve just been startled awake to the sight of your face four inches from my own! Christ, my heart feels like it’s going to pop. Jesus, George. What’s the matter with you?”
“Can’t sleep a wink, can I? My own heart is going like the clappers and my legs won’t stop jiggling. Look.”
George has put the light on, which instantly stings my eyes. “Christ’s sake. What time is it?”
“Just gone midnight, I think.”
“Do you also think you could put some clothes on? I’m growing uncomfortably accustomed to seeing your thing.”
“If I do, you won’t be able to see my legs jiggling.”
I sigh, plump a pillow and put it behind my back to sit upright against the headboard. “Pants is my red line. Stick some on and I’ll take a look.”
George’s legs do indeed appear to be shaking involuntarily, which leads me to ask: “Have you taken any more pills?”
“Three of them yellow ones is all. And a white.”
I look at him forlornly.
“Didn’t wanna wake you up again, did I?”
“Well, that’s worked out well, hasn’t it? Didn’t this afternoon teach you anything about those pills we bought?”
“Taught me that people think I’m a bloody idiot, I know that much.”
George walks over to his own bed, lifts his penis with his right hand and lets it flop onto his thigh with a slap as he sits down on the end of his bed. “Those ambulance blokes who picked me up today. They were all laughing at me. They thought I was out of it, but I could hear everything they were saying. They think I’m a freak for looking the way I do.”
“You’re at an Elvis festival, more than half the people here are dressed like you,” I say, but George isn’t consoled.
“Same thing happens whenever I’m out and about back home. Kids mostly, shouting things. But I also see it in people’s faces, and it all goes in here, you know,” he says, tapping at his heart.
“Also used to happen every day on the shop floor at work. Always one bloke with something to say. I’d laugh along and pretend it was all a bit of fun, though to be honest with you I was glad when I was laid off and I didn’t have to put up with it anymore.”
“If it makes you unhappy, why do it then? Why dress as Elvis every day?”
“’Cause I don’t know what would happen if I became myself again. Thing is, I think Elvis was sent to rescue me. I know that’ll sound a bit daft to you, but I was always a bit of a loner as a kid. Didn’t have no friends ’cause everyone thought I was a weirdo. My mum was on her own after Dad died and we didn’t have a pot to piss in, so all my clothes used to be my brother’s first. He was four times bigger than me so you can imagine what a tit I looked in my school uniform.
“When they weren’t ignoring me, they were bullying me. That’s probably how you’d describe it these days, bullying. Physical stuff, mind. They used to do this thing called a peanut where they’d smash a knuckle on top of my head. Hurt like hell it did. Six stone nothing I was so I couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t even fight back the tears, which just made it worse.”
George’s legs are still a blur of activity.
“Then one day I saw Elvis on TV, singing, dancing and making the crowd go crazy. I was absolutely awestruck. Couldn’t take my eyes off him. He looked like he had all the confidence in the world, and there was me with none. So, course I wanted to be just like him.
“Old Tommy Saunders, he’s dead now, God rest his soul, used to own a record shop under the bus station and he would let me listen to any Elvis records I wanted to without having to buy them, ’cause he knew we was skint. That’s how I got hooked. I’d try to sing and dance like him in front of my mum’s mirror, putting Brylcreem on me hair, and going down the Oxfam shop to get any clothes I could find that looked like his.
“Then, come Christmas at school, we had this concert and the music teacher, Miss Cork, wanted people to perform. That was it, I thought. My chance to be noticed. I told her if she could play ‘Hound Dog’ on the piano I’d sing it, so that’s what I did. Course everyone pissed themselves laughing when I first stood up, but halfway through they was all clapping and cheering. My legs were like spaghetti and I was curling my lip. They loved it!
“I got a standing ovation, from the bullies too, and after that everyone called me Elvis. I suspect they never even knew my real name before then.
“Gave me so much confidence it changed my whole life, it did. There wouldn’t have been a cat in hell’s chance I’d have had the courage to even speak to Manda when I first saw her if it hadn’t been for Elvis. And Manda and the kids are my whole life, you know.”
George’s words remind me of Grandad, and what I might have been without him.
“Whether you dress as Elvis or not won’t change the person he’s helped you become. If you want to dress like Elvis every day of your life, you do so. And each time someone laughs or shouts something, let it be a reminder of how happy Elvis has made you. Now if you could simply dress at all I’d be grateful.”
“Thanks Jim,” he replies with an appreciative smile. “I’ll make that bloke tell you what he knows about that photo. I got him to take less than half what he wanted for it, so you just leave him to me.”
There’s a rustling sound.
“What is it?” George asks, as I bend down to collect a flyer that’s been slipped under our door.
“It’s a note,” I say, sighing heavily. “It says, I’ll tell you what I know for $20,000.”
“Looks like your luck’s in then, me babbers!” George says excitedly, bouncing off the bed.
“I don’t have $20,000, George. No matter how good your negotiation skills, I’m coming up short.”
“I’m talking about the other side of that note. Flip it over.”
Weasel Face has written his demand on the back of an advert for an Elvis Tribute Artist Contest set to take place tonight, for which the winner scoops $20,000.
I look at George, who runs his hands through his hair, sticks a hip out, and breaks into a rendition of ‘Hound Dog’, his legs continuing to shake, Elvis-style, as he sings. And I smile.
* * *
Five minutes after wrapping up his morning exercise and praising the Lord, Caleb is shaving in front of the mirror but can’t bear to look at his own reflection. Not because he has managed to lacerate his neck either side of his pronounced Adam’s apple while dragging his razor against the grain; it’s more that he can’t look himself in the eye for putting his pride before Cinderella’s safety.
He feels his stomach tie itself in knots each time he thinks of her, that gentle soul doing what she does for her money with God knows who. And as she’s all he can think about, he knows he needs to do something about it before he gives himself another stomach ulcer.
First things first, however, and Caleb flips open his laptop. He sees the reflection of his neck, dotted with blood-soaked pieces of tissue paper, before his screen boots up to a home page bearing a grainy black and white image of a much younger Caleb and his high-school sweetheart, Marie, the love of his life, whom he married and adored but, to his continued regret, couldn’t protect.
He types the words “Allena” and “The Family” into Google and zooms in to study Allena’s face in the images that pop up, noting that she wears the same blank expression in every shot. No shade of concealer will hide the hard truths she harbours, knows Caleb. A fact he’s now banking on.
He flips the laptop shut just as someone knocks on his door.
“What do you say to tea and Tonto, Chief?” Cindy asks, her smile widening as Caleb looks at her armful of provisions and a DVD of The Lone Ranger.
12
In between stuffing his face with handful after grubby handful of nachos, soggy from the weight of neon-orange liquid cheese dumped on them, Weasel Face is setting out the conditions I must meet if I want him to spill the beans, having already spilled cheese down his chin.
“If your boy here wins first prize, as soon as you hand over the money, you’ll get to know what I know,” he says.
“Which better be something worth twenty thousand dollars,” I reply.
“Don’t you be worrying ’bout that,” he assures me. “There’s nobody alive knows what I know about the men in your picture.”
