Elvissey Page 13

"Where's the key?" he screamed, pressing his bleeding hand against his shirt. "Gimme the key-" I pressed the dash's button, engaging the batteries, upping the soundtrack. He'd watched my actions while I drove, evidently, and quickly found the shifter, guiding it into reverse. After backing out we sped out of the lot, skyshooting gravel in our wake as we tore downroad. I cleaned my face, staring through the windshield; noted that the interstate's wall ended in a cleared swath ahead and to our left. That stretch of the road was still under construction, I saw, at last sighting as well some of my people. Ten to twenty black men carried bags of cement across the clearing, overseen by uniformed guards wearing hard-hats; the men wore striped clothing, and appeared roped together in some way. As we flew by I realized that a long chain beaded them; they were attached by rings fastened around their necks. A work program, I told myself; prisoners at hard labor, whiling away their appointed time. That hardly explained the absolute absence I'd noticed, all the same, and as E took us farther into Mississippi, I began to wonder if they'd stored us all away somewhere.

  "What'd you do to soup up this car?" E asked; lefting the wheel, he turned us down a narrow road several kilometers south of the construction site. "Ever' Hudson I ever drove was a piece a shit but this thing runs like a dream."

  "Why?" I asked, ignoring his question, sickened by him and by everything I'd seen. "Why'd you kill those people?"

  "Look what he did to my hand." He raised it, showing me; the puncture was small but deep, and a thin red stream trickled from the hole.

  "They were defending," I said. "You senseless fool-"

  "Shut up, I told you," he shouted. "I'll wreck us, I swear I will-"

  "Fuckall," I screamed. "Do it! Do it! Do-"

  Tree branches scraped the sides of our car as if attempting to restrain our flight. I examined my dress, seeing my stains, angering so as to hold in all tears. Throughout our marriage John had never involved me in his work; I'd not witnessed violence at close range since childhood, and it traumaed now as it traumaed then, its remembered familiarity notwithstanding. I hated E for dragging me into his madness so much as I regretted John burying me beneath his. Staring at the Alekhine's red button, I considered pressing it, hurtling us back into our world; calming, told myself repeatedly that I had no wish to die, however much I'd earlier pleaded for a wreck. The will to preservation but barely soothed; turning around, I looked over to where John lay on the seat. He'd worked the sheet off his head, but his gag remained where E had stuffed it. I started reaching over, wanting to untie him; E swatted back my hand away.

  "Don't do it," E said, onehanding the wheel, nursing his injury. I glimpsed his gun protruding from his pants, not reachable unless I chose to send us into spinout. Again, I caught myself thinking unthinkables. "You're in this deep as I am now."

  Keeping my hands lapped I turned to look at my husband, thinking again that we might, after all, be optionless in the face of E; that in some manner I would have to risk us, and should therefore consider our survival an uncertain possibility. John twisted his head, jerking it up and down, working the sheet farther away from his face. He winked at me, as if to assure; I smiled, understanding at last why he so wished that we'd go together when we died.

  When I faced front again I sought the dash's compass, wanting to ascertain our placement, only to find its needle downdangling; though I couldn't certify what had dysfunctioned it, I suspected our borderbreaking had produced this untimely effect, and I wondered if anything else had been damaged. I flinched as the car sideswiped pine branches, racing along the road; troubled deep over John's inexplicably cheerful mood. He'd conceived a plan, I tried to convince myself, ignoring as I could my fears that his drugs had erased my husband's mind, leaving him so braindead as Mister O'Malley's sister. My heart doubletimed; bile bittered my mouth. "Stop us," I shouted to E, unable to bear another minute sealed with him in the car. "I'm maddening-"

  E swerved, bouncing us off the trail, steering our car through a junk-strewn meadow before stopping at the edge of a bordering woodland. "All right," E said. "How's this thing turn off?" Laying my hand on the steering column, finding the button, I shut down the engine. E tore away a strip of his shirttail and wrapped his injured hand; I exited sans permission, rushing rearward to fetch my husband. Opening the door, lifting him from the seat, I pulled the gag from his face and kissed him, uncaring of complaints E might register.

  "You're AO?" he asked me. "Iz-"

  "What about you?" I heard the door slam shut as E got out. "You must be dying. Oh, John-"

  "What ensued when we stopped?"

  "Murder," I said. "A breakaway essentials, whether with him or not. Let me untie you-"

  My head was suddenly whiplashed; E fisted a length of my blondness, sprawling me backwards. As I lay on the ground I vizzed him in reverse, as if he hung upside-down from the sky above my head, appearing from this angle something less than simian. "You better not untie 'm, Isabel," he said, taking out his gun.

  "My hair's not yours to touch," I told him as I hauled myself up. "Nothing of mine is."

  "Keep 'm like he is," E said. "I'm not gonna be watchin' both of you-"

  "I'm going to talk to my husband and take him out of the car. I'll leave him tied. Agreed?"

  "Don't gab too long." E lowered his weapon and strolled far enough away from us that he couldn't hear our whispers, though he eyed us all the while.

  "He shot two at the restaurant," I said to John. "Completely unreasoned. It'll alert authorities area-round, certain."

  "Three bullets left, likely," my husband said. "One for each."

  "He's murderous, John. He triggers at slights. He'll ex us both if we're with him much longer-"

  "You'll have to disarm, then."

  "Impossibled," I said.

  "He'll act if I attempt, and I'll not see you bloodied-"

  "And what if he bloodies me as I'm disarming-"

  "He won't," John said. "He's fingerwrapped by you."

  "I'm not trained as you are-"

  "You're mine. I'm yours. Like attracted like." His features beatificked; I'd not seen such a look on his face since our wedding, though I'd always known it was there if he chose to show it. "You've proved timeover with me, Iz. You can act where I can't."

  "You finished jawin' yet?" E shouted over to us.

  "No!" I replied, at equal volume; returned my attentions to my husband. "Can't you break loose? Por fav-"

  "The Achilles slipped my heel," John said. "Long as I'm bound I can't unshoe to readjust, and he wishes me tied. Do as you're doing, he'll distract soon enough. When he stresses over you can disarm with ease."

  "John-"

  "It's doable by you," he said. "Once he's weaponless I'll loose myself and we'll fly-"

  "Time's up," E said, sauntering back to the car. "You want 'm to eat, you can feed 'm now-"

  "Feed him what?" I asked. "The food's back at the restaurant, along with your leftovers-"

  E reddened, and booted the side of our car, scuffing its paint; by his grimace it evidenced that he'd pained himself with his kick. "I gave 'em to you to hold and you dropped em-

  "Idiot," I said, uncaring to expend energy enough on him to shout; then blabbed other terms as I'd been taught them, wishing to degrade and insult as I could. "Peckerwood whitetrash redneck-"

  He fired, shooting the ground at my feet. I muted in the shot's echo and remembered John's estimation; if there were two bullets remaining, at least one of us would remain if worse was to worsen. "Don't you call me that," he said, tantruming. "My people worked hard, they're not trash-"

  "So claimed," I said, turning from him, gambling that he wouldn't shoot again. The sun was setting; enough light lingered that when I eyed our surroundings I realized that we rested in the midst of something utterly alien to my experience; possessing an unexplainable familiarity, all the same. "Where are we?" I asked, looking around. "What is this?"

  "Nigger graveyard," E said, slinging that word at me again. "Thought they'd all been plowed up by
now. They musta missed this'n."

  Hollowed gourds were attached to treelimbs overhanging the field, twirling idly, spun by the breeze. As our car came to rest it slashed through these grounds so recklessly as the interstates carved the cities, shredding forty-odd patches of the cemetery's quilt. Favored leavings and fetishes of those who lay at rest delineated each mound's edges. Some plots were marked with colored glass bottles and pottery shards; tarnished spoons, white pebbles or shattered light-bulbs; dulled knives, broken bowls, conch shells, armless dolls and sets of choppers. Coins frosted several beds, comforting the sleeper with a cold blanket. A mirror topped one mound, framed with red mud, appearing as memory-pool and reminder, reflecting the stare of those who came to mourn. Headstoning another grave was a faced clock, its hands frozen at twelve, as if to mark judgment's hour. Some few concrete lumps sufficed as markers; only one bore a message, and that with letters finger-inscribed in the cement as it dried. These were the words thereon:

  Cecie Eighteen years a slave One year a wife One year a mother Then I lost my life.

  "Burma Shave," I whispered to myself, in lieu of eulogy. "What'd you mean you were surprised they hadn't plowed it up? Why would anyone deliberately desecrate?"

  "To get rid of 'em," E said. "Like they did with Beale Street. Like they did everwhere." He ceased his annotations, as if there was no reason why I shouldn't comprehend. "Haven't seen one a these since I was a kid-"

  "You're befuddling me," I said. "Who got rid of them?"

  "They didn't Randolph 'em all up in New York?"

  "No," I said. "What's meant?"

  "After the strike," he said. "Riots and war crimes. I was little but I remember 'em all talkin' about it."

  I keened to know more; between his lines I inferred the situation of my countryfolk, staying mindful at all times of what we had been told, predeparture, concerning this society's opinion of them, fifteen years before. Deliberately, I stilled my questions, unwilling for illusion's sake to illustrate my ignorance and cause him to doubt all the more that we were truly of his world. I enfolded my arms around myself, feeling chilled in the air's oven, grateful, now, to have had my color removed for our trip.

  "I don't think much of it," said E, toying with his gun; I hoped he had it safetied. "What the hell. Can't stop progress, can you?"

  Standing ringed by the final homes of those departed, I wished only to home it so soon as we could, and be rid of this place unto endtime. "Put that gun away," I said.

  E nodded; eyed my husband lying in the car, not ten meters distant. "Something I need to do first."

  Before I estimated his intent E walked to our car; I watched wordless as he bent down to slug my husband on the head with his gun. "No!" I shouted, running to the car, shoving E out of my way; sliding into the car, I rested John's bleeding head in my lap, fingercombing his hair until I found the flow's source. Pressing my hand against his scalp, I staunched his leak in minutes. "Why?" I screamed at E; petted my husband's face, attempting to wake him. His breathing steadied; he groaned as if surfacing before sinking down again. I flipped on the ceiling's overhead, suffusing our car with light.

  "I didn't trust him not to try somethin'," E said. "He'll come around, don't worry. I didn't hit 'im that hard."

  "You'll regret if he doesn't," I said, shoving down my rage until it pierced through my stomach. "You'll regret overmuch."

  "I usually do," he said, backing away. E walked over to the field's edge, looking away from the graves into the woods. As the moon rose it showed as an overripened orange against the violet sky, looking as it so usually looked over New York; had we not spent so much time breathing in the interstate's poison I would have thought its color here merely an atmospheric quirk. Transferring to the front seat, I withdrew the lightrod from its housing. As I alongsided my husband again I twisted the rod's end; its tip glowed as it heated, warming enough to burn. I pushed up his eyelids, and brought the rod close to his eyes; his pupils pinpointed against the light, and I was relieved that there appeared to be no lasting damage. Switching off the rod, I slid it through my hair once it had cooled. Removing John's shoes, I massaged his heel until I felt the tendon-cord snap back into place. He remained unconscious, in seeming sleep; seeing no other escape, desirous of living up to his faith in me, I redarkened the interior, and went to settle E.

  "You're always this way?" I asked, once I'd reached him. "So violent, and stupid?"

  "Don't call me stupid. I'm not stupid," he said, proffering nothing more than verbal threats; his gun was in his waistband, out of my grasp. "My mamma called me stupid."

  "Another reason you shot her?" I asked.

  "I asked her not to."

  "She'd called you that before?"

  "Lot more lately," he said. "I don't know, it's all messed up„

  "Always?"

  "No," he said. "We useta get along real good. When we moved to Memphis looked like we were gonna be all right for a change. Then daddy went and got sent away. Screwed everthing up." He paused; looked away from me as he continued to speak, so that I couldn't read his face. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, he angled himself in such a way as to keep me far from his gun. "Excuse my french, ma'am."

  "Isabel," I said.

  "Yeah," he said. "Maybe it didn't change a lotta things, just sped 'em up. When she'd get sad Mamma useta always tell me we'd never get ahead, we had a black cloud over us. She kept tellin' me that till finally I believed she was right." He looked at me, but his eyes were unseeable in the dark. As he started walking forward, toward the woods, I paced him, keeping a few steps behind. "It's something, isn't it? However hard you try, there's no way out."

  "How's your hand?" I asked as I followed him from grass onto breaking twigs. "You should be hospitalled, likely."

  "You a nurse?" he asked. "Thought you told me you were in the music business."

  "There's a way out for you, Elvis," I said.

  "I don't know if I'm cut out for singin' in public," he said.

  "What are you cut out for?" He shrugged; said nothing. "Our company wishes us to bring you back to them. Back to New York."

  "Little late for that now, I'd think. I'd say there's not much chance a either one of us goin' to New York-"

  "I say there is."

  As we moved deeper into the woods the branches overhead shadowed the moonlight, darkening our steps. I slipped the lightrod out of my hair, readying it for use.

  "Careful where you walk, I bet there's snakes in here," he said. "Don't see how you can say we can still go to New York. Even if they don't get you for bein' an accessory after the fact at the restaurant, they'll still put me away-"

  "You want them to?"

  "I did shoot 'em," he said. "Somebody's gotta be in trouble for it."

  "We can get you out of this, if you do as we ask."

  He nodded. "I thought so. You all are hooked up with gangsters then, aren't you?"

  "Indirectly," I said. "We've other ways to remove ourselves from this. I'll demonstrate. Untie John, give me your gun, trust us and follow our lead."

  He laughed. His mention of snakes upset me; twisting the rod's end as I held it up, I adjusted its shine to that of candlelight, enabling sight while retaining useful shadows with which I might cloak my actions.

  "What the hell's that thing?" E asked, his eyes widening as he stared into its glow.

  "I like to see where I'm going," I said. "What's your response?"

  "Have to think about it," he said. "What'll I do if we get to New York, then?"

  "Our company will prepare you. Periodically you'll sing and make public appearances. You'll be housed and paid."

  "How much?"

  "Whatever you needed," I said, "you'd have." My light illuminated a small circle around us; I listened to insects' white noise, and a recurrent croaking that I guessed was frog-spawned, though I'd heard their voices only as recorded, and never live. E said nothing; I became aware of a light above our heads, brighter than stars or moon. Peering through a strangle
of branches I saw three plasmas skittering through the air, their edges blurry against the dark; they descended, revealing their circular forms at closer focus. "Godness," I said. "Those are flying saucers-?"

  "I told you they were testing 'em round here," E said. "There they are." As we watched they banked leftward, turning sharp and silently, disappearing from view. "Couldn't see anything on 'em. Could you?"

  "No-"

  "German," he said. "I'm positive. It'll all come out, one

  day." E stopped, and sat down on a windfallen tree after scraping a seat clean of bark and moss with his shoe. "So you're sayin' that even under the circumstances you'd be willin' to take me to New York?"

  "More than willing," I said. "You'd try singing again, wouldn't you? Singing in public?"

  "I'd haveta?"

  "At times," I said. "You told me you sang blues?"

  "When I could get away with it," he said. "Mamma said I sounded just like a nigger when I sing. I haveta be careful about that-"

  "Another condition of employment," I said. "Don't use that word."

  "What d'you call 'em up north?"

  "People."

  "That's not what I've heard," he said. "Hell, it's just a word. They usedta call each other that all the time, I remember hearin' 'em."

  "It's a word like whitetrash, " I said, "or stupid. "

  I watched as his face hardened, hearing those terms, as mine must have done each time he spewed his epithet. "Don't call me stupid," he said, pulling out his gun. Conversing with E was not unlike attempting to sculpt fire without suffering burns.

  "I didn't call you stupid," I said. "If you shoot me I think anyone else would have every right to, though. Give me the gun.

  "No," he said, lowering it. "It's mine."

  "Don't shove it at me every time you're upset," I said. "Why'd you pasttense, moments ago?"

  "What're y'talkin' about now?" he said. "I'm sorry, Isabel, but don't call me stupid."

  My light tanned him, and smoothed his face's bumps, and for an instant E appeared nearly as his counterpart had shown. He replaced his gun beneath his billowing shirt.