Elvis Has Left the Building (2 page)

* * *

I had been a petulant sixteen, following my father around that summer, on a circuit not unlike my current one. Sometimes we performed a father-son review, he in his Pinwheel jumpsuit, and I in a near-replica of the suit Elvis wore for his first appearance on the
Ed Sullivan Show
, a suit my mother created through multiple trips to Goodwill.

My father didn’t believe in baptism by fire. These reviews played to crowds where women—and sometimes men—clamored to be photographed between the young and old Elvis.

There were the other venues, bars, hotel lounges, the last-minute gigs where the patrons viewed my father as the butt of an excellent joke—men who drove pickup trucks and those who drove Cadillacs, frat boys who wore sweatshirts from Ivy League schools and locals who pumped gas. I hated them all.

Underage, I sat in a back corner with orders to be as unobtrusive as possible. It was from there I devised the comebacks I use today, the phrases my father refused to utter. It was from there I watched a grown man spray another with beer and think it funny. It was from there I bolted one night, unable to stand another catcall, shower of beer, or cry of “faggot.”

That was the only time my father walked out of a set. He found me hunkered down behind our car, staring hard at the lamppost, straining to keep tears from my eyes. He crouched next to me, and I smelled lingering exhaust and warm asphalt combined with acetone from the Grecian Formula he used to keep his hair black.

“They don’t know what they’re doing, son.”

“Bullshit.”

The cuff to my head sent me against the Chevy’s trunk. “Elvis never swore.”

Although only sixteen, I had enough sense to swallow the second “bullshit.” We never discussed the King’s foibles. Through the stars that flooded my vision, I saw my father blink. He reached forward and touched the tender spot where the C in Chevrolet had met my scalp.

“Do you know why they do it?” he asked.

Because they could. Because they owned three cars for our one. Because their wives didn’t work double shifts just to pay the bills.

“My job is making people happy. If their lives are so small that this—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Makes them happy, who am I to deny them that?”

He stood and offered his hand. “I need to get back in there.”

“You’re going back in?”

“Always do. You can stay here, if…I mean.” He surveyed the parking lot, his gaze finally settling on the Chevy rather than me. “Elliot, do I embarrass you?”

I never answered my father, then or later, but I followed him into the lounge. While we walked, his hand came to rest on my shoulder. “Did I ever tell you how I met your mother?”

Of course he had, at an Elvis concert.

“Who would’ve thought a guy like me could compete with the King?”

Part of me wished I had cried that night, and part of me wanted to cry now. Instead, Aimee cried for both of us, the knuckles of one hand tucked against my bare chest.

* * *

“Hey, it’s not that bad.” I slipped my fingers around hers and squeezed. “At least it’s not an eighties revival band.”

She hiccupped a laugh before dismay filled her face. “Oh, your beautiful suit.” From a tiny handbag, she pulled some tissues and dabbed at my jacket. “I’ve ruined it.”

After tonight’s flop sweat? Hardly. “Not at all. I had it waterproofed.”

She ignored me and continued to dab.

I captured her hands with mine. “So, will you?”

Aimee nodded and we renewed our trek toward the hotel’s front entrance.

“I could change,” I added.

“Why?”

Why indeed.

“Unless you’re uncomfortable,” she said, but gripped the jacket tighter.

“In this? Not at all. It’s like a second skin.”

I insisted on driving her home. With each mile that passed between the Holiday Inn and her apartment near the college campus, my uneasiness grew. When I glanced her way, she gave me a sleepy smile, and her hand traced mine as I switched gears. Finally, I had to know.

“Aimee, how many bus transfers does it take to get to the Holiday Inn?”

“Hm? Only two.”

Only two. Sweet Jesus.

We stood outside her apartment, for how long, I didn’t know. Minutes? An hour? I dug my fingers into the brickwork behind her head, and she, on tiptoe, clutched my lapels, so only our mouths met in a kiss sweeter and hotter than any I remember.

“Would you like to come inside?” Her lips curled against mine. “My feet are starting to hurt.”

I exhaled and gripped the bricks so hard my fingers went numb. “If I did that, I’d want to spend the night, and I know that’s not what you meant.”

“That’s exactly what I meant.” She looked at me, expression open, eyes clear, guileless, and held out a hand. “Will you, Elliot?”

I took that hand and followed her inside.

I had never made love as myself. Despite giggling denials, women wanted to sleep with the King. The leather suit came off—sometimes—but the rest stayed. Except with Aimee.

The next morning, I woke alone in Aimee’s bed. I considered the choice of pulling on the leather pants or using a bed sheet. I opted for the sheet.

She sat on the living room floor, hands tucked in the sleeves of a thin, cotton robe. No sound came from the television, but despite the nine-inch screen I had a clear view of what she was watching.

It could have been worse. It could have been
Girls! Girls! Girls!
or
Harem Scarem
. Instead, a uniform-clad Elvis crooned and gyrated in
G.I. Blues
.

“Aimee—”

“It’s funny,” she said, her eyes locked on the screen. “I was supposed to be some sort of prodigy. I skipped a couple of grades, then my parents decided to home school me. I was even on a TV quiz show for kids. Of course, we didn't have a television…” Her gaze darted from Elvis to me and back again. “Still, you’d have to be pretty stupid—” She pointed to the television then let her hand fall.

My thoughts went to how she kept track of bar tabs for Ron, and I scanned the room. It was done in cinderblock chic and the plywood shelves groaned with textbooks, advanced mathematics, physics, quantum mechanics.

“I wanted to celebrate moving out of the house,” she said. I’d never gone to a kegger or a frat party, but I thought it would be nice…”

Her voice faltered. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to rub the ache from my temples. Aimee moving out. Aimee having a drink, talking to a stranger, celebrating being all grown up.

“At first I thought you were part of a practical joke,” I said, and when she looked at me, I shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”

She nodded. “And then?”

“And then.” My throat tightened. “I liked that you came to see me.”

She contemplated the Elvis on the screen. “But it wasn’t you.”

“No. It wasn’t.” I returned to the bedroom, folded the sheet, and placed it gently on the bed. My skin rebelled at the thought of the suit. The leather was mottled from sweat, and I tugged on the pants, arching away from the stiff waistband, cringing at the feel of them.

Jacket in hand, I stood at the doorway. “My father loved Elvis, loved making people happy by being Elvis. I’m not sure there was anything he loved more.” I could only hope he would forgive me, but there were days when I hated the King. “I didn’t mean—”
To hurt you
, I thought, to make you believe in something that wasn’t there. “I’m sorry.”

I pulled the door closed behind me and walked to the car.

* * *

By late summer, I had reduced my circuit so I only played the Holiday Inn. The anniversary of the King’s death always brought income, and a touch more respect, but I floundered, trying to pinpoint what I had lost.

I studied the Pinwheel jumpsuit in my bedroom closet. I’m a good two inches taller than my father was, so I couldn’t wear it to perform. I also couldn’t bear to part with it. The day my father brought it home, we celebrated. I remember the look on my mother’s face when she opened the box for the suit’s matching cape and found instead a new dress meant for her.

My father didn’t have any of the King’s weaknesses. He didn’t drink, didn’t chase women, didn’t—to my knowledge—smoke a day in his life. It was a cruel irony that cancer eventually stole his voice. But by then it didn’t matter. He stopped singing the day my mother died.

I hung onto the Holiday Inn, but it was clear Aimee wasn’t coming back, and I told the manager not to book any more shows.

The night of my last performance, I stopped first at the bar for a ritual check-in with Ron.

“Has she been in?” I asked, knowing the answer.

He pushed a glass of water my way. “She only came to see you.” With a frown, he pulled several bills from his apron pocket and opened the register. “Shit. I’m already five bucks short tonight.”

When he left, I slipped a five-dollar bill beneath my glass and headed for the stage. The manager caught up with me before I went on.

“You know, if you change your mind, money gets tight, we can always arrange your own comeback special.”

I laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. I wouldn’t be back.

That night, I did something I never do. I broke character. For three minutes, Elliot, not Elvis, spoke to the crowd. The anonymous cry came from the back of the room—not unexpectedly.

“What are you going to do next?”

“Don’t know. You hiring?”

The audience laughed, but they hadn’t come to see me. So with that, I launched into
Hard Headed Woman
and dedicated it to “the pretty little thing sittin’ at the bar” even though she wasn’t.

I finished my last set at midnight on the sixteenth.

Of August.

The day Elvis died.