Elvissey Read online

  "That history'll content them, you think?" he asked, pointing to the orange book I'd bought.

  "Copyright's 1948," I said, opening the pages. "The text begs excavation. Give ear: `The United States leads the struggle for democracy. It has faced problems, and met challenges. It leads those people of the world who believe in freedom-' "

  "It whitens and brightens," said John, recalling an ad's demand.

  "It's bonedry and simplistic. Authors seem as brainchal- lenged as their readers. `Agents of the worldwide Communist conspiracy have been active and are active still in the United States. Some have been trusted officials, and there is no telling who may be one-' "

  "Paranoiacs," said John. Without vocalizing, I continued to read: " `Under Trotsky, the Soviet Union's weakened state has not put a halt ...' "

  "What's the newsheet hold?" he asked.

  "Indecipherables," I said, glancing over and rereading the Mirror's lead for Saturday, May 8, 1954: "GO AX YER MA"-HE DID. "Conrad and Weber can patholinguistic as desired. It's a New York pub, it turns out, not global. I've gleaned a page or two. It's all illiteracies."

  John's copy of Knifelife protruded from his jacket pocket; he'd packed his own read. As the road ahead unshuttered anew, penetrating Baltimore, he switched on the dash recharger, replenishing half the batteries as we cruised; we'd kept such pace as to drain power at twice the rate expected. Slouching against the seat's thick padding, I vizzed those passing us; all others, drivers and passengers alike, appeared cheerful, well-fed, and uniformly caucasoid. Their look bored; I eyeshut, and dozed for what seemed a second or so; when John awoke me I saw by the clock I'd been out fifty minutes.

  "Washington," he said. "A Siamese, as evidenced."

  No ads blocked the capital's vista; the obelisk and dome appeared as our own. The highway riversided the Potomac as its sixteen lanes obliterated Georgetown. "Nearly," I said. "No Lincoln Memorial." No Lincoln, here; Mora had informed us that his assassination in 1861, in this world, was seemingly the initial pebble in the pond, rippling our histories thereafter. Here, Luther discovered, there'd been no Civil War, no emancipation of enslaved people until 1905. But if they'd let my people go, where had they gone? I'd seen none of color in New York; saw none but snowbirds during the several hundred kilometers thus far traveled. By all accounts segregation in this America was more elaborate and overt than it had been in ours; how far had they refined their methods? Recalling my perception of the store proprietor's unreasoned dislike, I worried if perchance my false skin didn't incog so well as I thought it should; wondered if through some technique unknown to our world, my ethnicity nonetheless showed its signs. It displeased me to think how easily I'd become a racialist toward myself.

  As the road crossed the river south of Arlington's leafless trees ads reappeared, blocking our view of what semblanced as the Pentagon, though theirs appeared twice the size of ours. Another of those tall directionals stood to the right of the bridge's exit; attached to its steel was the greeting, Welcome to the Old Dominion. Interstate Bus Check Next Exit.

  "Hunger building, Iz?" John asked. As we passed the exit I looked to see what might be getting checked; a long line of buses parked before a low building were surrounded by uniformed men. "We should stop soon and feed you." As the haze at last thinned I saw, distanced, shimmering pools appear and disappear on the roadway.

  "At a suitable place," I said.

  "Particular suitables."

  "Where we can minimize interaction," I said. "We'll stop long enough to eat and then depart before we're uncovered."

  "You're enhancing, Iz," he said. "We're round pegs in round holes here. Fretting overmuch'll show you all the sooner, it's a given. I know the game. When undercovered, go as if the world is yours. It is ours, for now."

  "My dress is wrong," I said. "My skin too, mayhap."

  "Your skin?" John asked. "You're specterish. An X-ray of yourself."

  "It's the absence bothering me most," I said. "I miss me."

  "You're unchanged but for your skin," he said. "And hair and eyes."

  "That's me. My skin's me. I mean I'm more than that, but it's me all the same, it is-"

  "Iz," John said, keeping the road eyed while showing his concern as he could. "It's known you're still you. I know."

  "I'm addling," I said, calming anew; was paranoia pathogenic, over here? "Never mind."

  "Reassure yourself that we own this world, presently," he said. "Facted true."

  I smiled; wished I could have settled myself with such ease as he'd settled me. A sign much larger than the others hove to view at roadside. A comic-balloon spouted from the mouth of a gaptoothed boy; his mien suggested lead poisoning at an early age. Within the balloon were the words: THEY'RE HERE, PA! NEXT EXIT DIXIELAND.

  "We can lunch there," said John. "Scan the natives close."

  "With minimal contact," I reminded.

  "Reaction time'll improve if their actions are observed beforehand."

  "All right," I said, wondering why I'd agreed so readily, why action observations essentialled if John was unable to action in return. As we eased into the exit lane we saw Dixieland appear; the ramp sped us directly into the parking lot, a sunglared ocean over two kilometers wide. Dixieland appeared as an agglomeration of two-story log shacks spread across the middle of the concrete flats. To the left of the shacks were pens aflocked with animals; to the right, roller coasters, ferris wheels and smaller amusement rides. Entering the lot, we drove beneath an aluminum archway neonblaring the motto, Where Folks Are Friendly; at its crest spun a house-size jug insigniaed with three Xs. We slotted our car on the lots' outskirts; as we stepped out, the humid air sponged us.

  "This heat's assaulting," John said. "Let's threshold."

  I saw my first elephant in the Dixieland Children's Zoo. The ones in the Bronx Zoo were killed when I was young, before my mother could take me there. Elephants' visuals preserved in my head faded against pachydermic reality. The beast was but a baby, and badly treated; as it limped toward its onlookers it showed a great sore on its back. Two young men flicked cigarettes at it sides. I stilled all the same, confronting extinction.

  "These animals," John said. We stared at cows and pigs and sheep, freeranging as if they'd never be called on to reproduce. There were also birds and animals never seen before on screen or in life, and whether they'd once existed on our side was unknowable. "They're gone, Iz."

  "Known," I said, and we continued walking toward the main buildings, passing the last cage; there were three oversized wingless birds within, so large as turkeys though considerably uglier. At close range the buildings' logs showed as metal siding. The entrance's doors were simulated wood as well, set in concrete painted to resemble stone; they parted as we trod upon a red rubber carpet leading up to them. The AC flashfroze us as we stepped inside.

  "It's a bazaar," I said.

  "A madhouse, more like." On all sides were cubicles of varying size, topfull with bounty being pawed over by milling hundreds. The peddlers offered quilts of Met quality and stuffed animals for children or adults; dishes and glassware, plaster statuary cast in the form of gnomes; smoked meat, small jugs similar to the one spinning above the entrance; oversized hats and eyed hoods, American flags, guns of every caliber, cheap cotton dresses and Coca-Cola. Three-quarters of the crowd smoked cigars and cigarettes, and the air was so poisonous as the open road's.

  "They're dressed as if for bed," I said, eyeing the crowd between my coughs.

  "They're butterballs," said John. "A plane couldn't carry more than two per load--

  "Quiet-"

  "Five-figure daily calories, certain-"

  "Bestill!" I said, hoping that none heard. The fattest wore the tightest clothes, as if through such display they could reveal the wealth of their folds. Farther down the aisle I sighted a cubicle whose goods appeared, at distance, rather more attractive. "That's not so innocent. Let's viz."

  Fabulous Fifties sextoys were so unenlightened as I expected, though in not the
relentlessly misogynist style, say, of Nasty Nineties pop. The rapebait photoed on the material wore diapers, or corsets or pants tourniquet-tight; printed messages were subtexted solely through double-entendres. There were as well simulated anatomies in every type of plastic, hard and soft. I lifted a thin rod to which plastic breasts and buttocks were loosely attached, and wiggled them before John's nose.

  "Nipply goodness and bottomy treats," I said, laughing. John kissed my cheek; I marveled at the warmth of his lips.

  "They've postcards of Dixieland in this next booth."

  "I'll gather added visuals," I said. "Leverett'll appreciate. "

  After selecting various ones depicting the buildings, the rides, and the zoo I paid the cashier, a thick-necked man wearing a white tee. Sweatbeads dropped from his prickly roof of hair. "What are these?" John asked, noting represen- tationals arrayed along the side counter.

  "Those're banks, folks," the cashier said. "We sell a lotta that one. Try one and see for yourself."

  The plastic tableau depicted a black man standing on a box beneath a single-limbed tree. A thin bar ran between his neck and the branch. John slotted a coin. The box dropped into the bank's base; the figure's wide eyes shut, and a red metal strip emerged from the white lips. soRRY, SAM was stamped along the bank's rim. The hair on my neck lifted, as if in an electrical storm I felt lightning ready to strike me.

  "Iz?" John asked, noting my distress, taking my arm. "What is it?"

  "Let's eat," I said. "Now. Come on, John."

  "That bank?" he asked, once we'd stepped out of the cashier's earshot.

  "Horrible," I said, trying to slough away what I'd seen, as I'd assured Luther I could do with such confidence; each time I eyeshut I saw the figure's face again. "There's a place to eat across the way. Leaving essentials, after. Come."

  We entered Dixieland's Oldtime Country Kitchen through a doorway bracketed by statues of bonneted women wielding rolling pins; the room could have sat five hundred. Short-skirted waitresses scurried around the space, balancing plastic trays overbrimmed with glassware. We sat ourselves in a booth near the entrance, one along the hallwall, which was glassed through so that we could watch the place's goings-on while eating. A waitress greeted us; her hemlength was so high and her heels so lifted her feet that her goosebumped legs looked genetically stretched. She handed us meter-length menus.

  "Hi, folks," she said, smiling so rigidly as to suggest she'd had facial nerves cut. "Figure out what you all want and I'll be right back."

  We unfolded the plasticked pages and examined the offerings. Before either of us had read even half of the list our waitress returned, her heels clicking against the worn wooden floor.

  "Made up your minds yet?" she asked. "Everything's good."

  "I'm hep," I said. "Recommendations?"

  "Lookin' to have breakfast or dinner?"

  "Neither," I said. "There's chicken in a Big Cluck Deelite?"

  "And a whole lot more. You want one a those?" I assented. "Anything to drink?"

  "Mug us with joe," John said, startling me as he appeared to startle the waitress; I hadn't thought he'd soaked a single phrase during our training.

  "Coupla cups a coffee, you mean?" our waitress asked.

  "That's right," I said. "Unmilked. I mean black. I'm lactose-intolerant."

  "Egg me," my husband added. "Deyolked and mashed."

  "You mean scrambled?" the waitress annotated her pad, forbidding confusion from affecting her smile.

  "It matters that yours are the whitest eggs on the Eastern Seaboard?" John asked.

  " 'Scuse me?"

  "That's what's claimed," he said. "I wondered why?"

  "Oh, that's just somethin' they put on there to make it sound good," said the waitress. "You all from up north?"

  "Vacationing," I said. "Taking the low road."

  Taking up the menus, her smile so fixed as it had been, she walked back to the food prep area; her skirt bounced up and away from her hips with her every step. The phrase Sweetiepie was woven onto the seat of her pink unders.

  "Let me communicate, John," I said, leaning across our formicaed table. "Multivoicing'll disrupt them."

  "Two can game at this," he said, smiling. "AO, Iz."

  Through our booth's window I looked out into the building's central artery, at the setup of the initial attraction of the amusement room across the way. Players stood before a low counter, throwing balls at a wooden wall three meters distant. At intervals a boy would thrust his head through a hole in the fence, pulling it back as quickly. Glimpsing him, I thought at last I'd seen one of my people here; but as he reappeared I sighted his shock of blond hair, and noted that for unknown reason this white boy had painted his face black. The areas in the wood around the holes were gouged and chipped, as if heavier projectiles had been hurled in the past.

  The waitress returned with our order. "May we pay now?" I asked.

  "If you'd like," she said. "That'll be two dollars. Ma'am, can I ask a question if you don't mind?"

  "I'm mindless," I said, moneying her. "Ask."

  Her attendant's smile was supplanted by a genuine grin. "Don't y'all ever get out in the sun up north?"

  "What's meant?" I asked; as I looked around the room it occurred to me that I was so pale in comparison to all others as to appear dead. "Oh. A family affair. Nothing contagious."

  "I didn't mean to pry, ma'am," she said. "Some a my friends were just wonderin' if you was an albino, they wanted to meet you if you were."

  "No, that's all right." She departed. We ate what she'd brought us; I was as grateful that what I ate had no discernible taste. Halfway through my sandwich I noticed John's stare drift past me. "What's seen?" I asked.

  "Sporting," he said. "That way. Boys being boys."

  Another waitress was attending to two oversized men in their thirties. While she tried to take their order they reached beneath her skirt, clutching at her legs; it astonished me that she neither ran away, nor hit them. The heavier man laughed as she shoved his hand from her knee. As she leaned forward to do so the other man grabbed her bottom, squeezing it until she cried; then he splashed coffee onto her legs.

  "Unsensed harassment," said John, placing his spoon on the table. "Where's the militia?"

  It tore me to see such abuse; yet I lifted my hand, to forestall my husband's actions. "Ignore, John. We can't interact."

  However, interaction had already occurred. "What're you staring at?" one of the men shouted across to my husband.

  "You," John said in a voice as loud, setting aside his cutlery and standing up.

  "That's it," I said, rising. "Come on, John-"

  "Why don't you come over here, tell me what's eatin' you, boy?" the man said, hauling himself from his booth; I interposed myself between them so that neither could see the other's expression. "You got a problem?"

  "No problem at all," I said, returning my attentions toward John. "We're leaving. Now. Come on-"

  "I didn't ask you, missy," he said. "Boy, you got some problem you need to talk to us about?"

  "Talking's nonessentialled to gynoterrorists," John said, his stance unwavering as I tried pushing him along; he flatfooted, and held his place.

  "What the hell'd you say-?"

  "Goodbye," I said to the man, and anyone else who cared to give ear. "We're leaving." Most of those in the restaurant were staring, and some laughed. "Police'll interact, John," I said, whispering to him. "Move."

  My husband stared at the man a moment longer; then turned toward the exit. The man spoke again, coming toward us.

  "Got anything to show for yourself, boy?"

  John's rage so overwhelmed that, as I took his arm, I felt his quivers rippling through his suit; it incomprehensibled to me why he evidenced no oncoming sickness, why his medication seemed not to hinder his thoughts of violence. "Ignore him, John." The man followed us into the hall, closing in. His fat didn't move when he walked.

  "Your wife's the one protects you after you start trouble?"
the man said. "You queer or somethin'? Answer me, y'igno- rant?"

  "Don't answer," I said. "Ignore, John, please-"

  "Whatcha do if somebody did somethin' to her? Huh? Whatcha do then-?"

  John circled to confront, and only my stare appeared to hold him back; gentling my motions, I guided my husband toward the exit, hoping that the man would not be foolish enough to lunge. As we exited, he remained inside, shouting after us until everyone stared.

  "Faggot," the man shouted. "Chickenshit."

  My husband silenced while we crossed the steaming asphalt, averting his glance to prevent my reading his eyes. His face purpled; he shook bodywide, and his touch was so hot as the lot beneath our feet. Upon reaching our car he unlocked my door; walked around to the driverside. I waited for him to board before seating myself. Wordlessly, he slammed his fist onto our car's roof, cratering the metal, flaking the paint. His face's color disappeared at once, reappearing in his hand; I statued, having seen him so edge but once or twice before. He climbed into the car and pressed the igni tion. After I got in we drove away from Dixieland, continuing south.

  Between bouts of slumber I read; by late afternoon we'd traveled so far as western Virginia, and I'd reached the late nineteenth century.

  Nor were the slaves unhappy in their cabins; there were shade trees nearby, and vegetable gardens, and chickens in the coop. The slaves sang when they worked because they were happy with their simple life.

  1-9 branched away from 1-3 outside of Richmond, tearing across Virginia through Tennessee toward Memphis in an unvarying straightaway, indifferent to natural barrier. As the Appalachians horizoned I saw that the road shot through their worn folds as if they'd not been there. As we passed through the cuts it evidenced that hills and knobs had been scooped from the earth in preparation for the interstate; our car's geiger counter noted lowlevel radiation as we drove through the widest gouges. The mountain ranges remaining were stripped of soil and flora, and resembled the photos of Mars.