I used to jokingly refer to those monsters as Boo Buddies (something that caught on with Elvis) though I got to tell you, the term wasn’t any kind of joke. It’s the way we all dealt with it, making wisecracks. Cops do it. Firemen do it, and so do Monster Exterminators. No one ever actually called us that, Monster Exterminators, but I wish they had. It has a ring to it.
This part I’m telling you about happened before Elvis disappeared and that other guy came in and pretended to be him. No one was supposed to know, but I knew. You can’t work with a man long and close as I did and not know when he’s been replaced by an imposter. Where The King went when the imposter came in, I can’t say. He didn’t tell me that, and I won’t shit you, that hurt me a little, after all we had been to one another. But the fake Elvis, the one that died on the shitter, well, I left before that happened, packed up my troubles in the old tote bag, so to speak. I knew he was the wrong guy and the right guy was gone. I didn’t have any desire to stick.
But that’s not the story I’m telling you. This one is different.
It was a Sunday. We were in Vegas. Elvis had the day off. In fact, he had just finished a run at the big casino where he liked to perform, and now we were just hanging.
At the very moment I’m talking about, I was actually hanging it all out. I had my pants around my ankles and was putting the old well rope in a place where the sun don’t shine, between dimpled cheeks, and I don’t mean the cheeks that wear powder.
The other guys, they were in the big room outside the door, drunk or doped, or just plain out of it from being up so late the night before. Elvis was in the room with me, but no, I wasn’t fucking him. I had a hot blonde bent over a big stuffed chair.
She didn’t know Elvis was less than four feet away from her in the big tank that was in the middle of the room. It was what you call an isolation chamber, and he was into that kind of stuff right then. He was always into some kind of shit or another.
At this point in time, I was E’s main man. I was there to make sure he wasn’t attacked by anyone, meaning women who mostly wanted to rip off his clothes, and now and again by an angry husband or boyfriend who caught his girlfriend wiggling the man in the boat with her finger while looking at a photo of Elvis, his hair hanging down, greasy on his forehead, a sneer on his lips.
I was a member of the inner circle, along with the Colonel, of course. Those other guys, the ones sometimes called bodyguards, well, they were mostly out of the loop. It was best that way.
But, as I was saying, I was throwing the meat to the blonde babe, and she was letting loose like someone was paying her to make noise. She had been at the show the night before and E’s performance had made her juicy, which is what he does, and I had ended up with the leftovers. Meaning her.
I know how this sounds many years after the fact, but truth is, we were the biggest male chauvinist pigs that ever lived. No. That’s an insult to pigs. We lacked a pig’s sophistication and nobility.
Elvis thought he was sophisticated. His idea of that was a zebra skin rug and a black light in the bedroom. He was a goddamn hillbilly like me, only he had more money than God. Fact is, I wouldn’t be surprised if God had at least once asked Elvis for a loan.
Down there in the cool blackness of the isolation tank, Elvis, in need of a fresh hair dye, having popped enough pills to give the U.S. Army, the Coast Guard, and a dog mascot a sky-high jump, was trying to groove (as we hillbilly hipsters say) to the light fantastic inside his head, gliding along like a drunk trying to drive a motorcycle and light a cigarette in the darkness of a train tunnel.
I know this because he was always telling me about his experiences. How he had tapped into the universal pipeline, one side of which led to heaven, the other to hell. But, brothers and sisters, thing was, he was so high on amphetamines there was a secure chance that later in the day he’d have to come down on a fistfull of downers, so deep down it would be like a leap from the peak of Everest into a half-glass of water.
So, there I was with this killer blonde bent over, her short dress hiked on her back. I was striving to bring my plane into the hanger, trying to make a landing that would cause her motor to hum. I had the wheels down and was coming in, and that’s when I heard Elvis.
His voice came from within the thick walls of the chamber, like the squeak of a mouse washing down a storm drain. Now it occurred to me that if I waited too long to respond, I might be out of a job. Back to washing cars, which was what I was doing before I went to work for Elvis, but I just couldn’t stop. I knew even if Elvis drowned in the tank and I was blamed for it, I was going to finish my mission, unemployment and death be damned.
The sweet blonde tossed her long hair, groaned, and the muscles in her back and legs and ass stiffened like a kangaroo poised to jump, and then there was an atomic explosion and a wet mushroom cloud, and it was over for the both of us.
“Did I hear someone calling?” the blonde said as she wiggled into her panties and adjusted her dress.
“That would be Elvis,” I said.
He called again. This time I understood him because the roaring had gone out of my ears. “Get me the fuck out of this damn box or I’m going to rip out your asshole with a claw hammer.”
The blonde said, “I fucked you, and he was in the room?”
I took her by the elbow and directed her toward the door, being gentle about it. When I got her there and opened it, she said, “Goddamn it. I got you running down my leg, and he was here all the time.”
“You settled, baby. Joy of knowing Elvis. His crumbs are better than some people’s cakes, and for the record, you were red velvet with meringue.”
I nudged her into the wider room where the other bodyguards were either passed out or watching TV with the sound turned down. She said, “What the hell is he doing in a tank in the middle of the room?”
“Looking for nirvana,” I said.
I closed the door in her face.
I popped the lid on the chamber. Elvis, dripping water, a male Venus rising, said, “What the fuck, Johnny?”
“Sorry, man.” I had already grabbed a towel. I handed it to him, closed the lid on the chamber.
I called him a male Venus, but this was actually the beginning of that time of his life where he was starting to drift toward the outer reaches of the universe. Meaning he’d gained some weight. He was wearing blue swim trunks with stupid seahorses on them. I think he might have worn them in a movie. By the way, the other guy, one took his place, that was the guy you saw as the really fat Elvis. I can’t believe he fooled so many people. Look close at pictures of him after 1974, and see if you can’t tell quite clearly that that guy isn’t the real guy. Chin and cheekbones ain’t right.
Elvis took the towel, and as he dried, said, “I’m calling, ‘Oh Johnny, let me out. Let me out, you motherfucker, I’m drowning, turning to a fucking prune,’ and all the while I’m calling, I can hear you fucking.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“What’s our motto?”
“TCB,” I said.
“And what does that mean?”
“Taking Care of Business,” I said.
“There you have it. Not what you were doing, Johnny?”
I didn’t say anything, though I thought in fact, I had been taking care of business. I managed to hang my head as if I was really disappointed in myself.
Elvis stepped out of the casket, as I sometimes called it, and finished with his drying. I got him a robe. Robes in that hotel are like cloth-sin, man. Thick and warm and soft on the hide, like being inside a bunny rabbit’s fur.
As he pulled the robe on, he sniffed, said, “Goddamn, man. Smells like a tuna boat turned over in here. You are supposed to be at my beck and call, and you’re out here doing the stinky-ass boogie. Did I mention I hate you?”
“You were busy. You know, looking for God or some such.” Elvis sighed. His moods could change like Tennessee weather. “Yeah, well. It’s okay. I mean, hell, what red-blooded male doesn’t like pussy?”
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“The ones that don’t like pussy,” I said.
“Yeah, well, okay, there’s that. But of us red-blooded, heterosexuals, who doesn’t?”
“Technically, eunuchs.”
“Are you trying to piss me off, Johnny?”
“Nope, just can’t help myself sometimes.”
“Well, help yourself, okay?”
That’s when the phone rang. I answered, listened, hung up. “Colonel’s here to see you,” I said.
“Shit.”
“He’s on his way up.”
“Meet him at the door, tell the fat bastard to stick his cane up his ass and take the elevator back down. Jump out the fucking window would be best.”
“Sure, boss,” I said, but I didn’t move. It was just Elvis talking. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.
“Let Lard Ass in,” Elvis said, “if the door’s wide enough.”
I let Lard Ass in.
Colonel has a cane, and you see him on the street, even in a room, he leans on it. When he walks he has a slight limp, but with just us in the room he swung the cane under the arm of his sweat-stained white suit, and strutted towards the bar.
He was dressed like a plantation owner, had on a blue and white shirt, broad stripes. The blue color in the shirt had faded so much you could barely tell it was blue. When he walked he was quite graceful for a fat man; an elephant who could do the conga.
There was a rumor that before Colonel became Elvis’s manager, he had murdered someone in Holland, and that’s why he left. I don’t know about that, but I can tell you this, if they knew the real story, the stuff we were doing, there would be some serious pants-pooping going on out there.
Giving him his due, the Colonel, time after time, and sometimes with Elvis’s help, had more than once saved the world. Or at least a portion of it. Saving the world, however, isn’t always full of positive choices, except for the saving the world part. That kind of balances out things.
Colonel plunked his ass on a stool at the bar, which was part of the kitchen. The bedroom was separate, but the kitchen, all the rest, it was one big room. You could have landed a cargo plane in there and had a tour bus pick you up.
Colonel Parker sat, wiggled for position, placed his cane on the counter, said, “Smells good in here. Air freshener?”
I almost burst out laughing, not only at what he said, but how he said it. When he talked, he sounded a lot like Elmer Fudd. Actually, kind of looked like him too. I almost expected him to say he had been hunting wabbits.
“Snatch air, we call it,” I said.
“That a cologne?” he asked.
“More of a perfume.”
Elvis laughed.
That “Snatch Air” comment I made went over Colonel’s head like a 747. He shrugged, wheeled on the stool and opened the refrigerator behind him. Reaching in, he took out a carton of milk, opened it and drank from it. The milk went down his throat in big knots, like a burrowing prairie dog. He put the carton back in the refrigerator and closed the door.
Elvis watched all of this the way a child might watch a fly crawl over a dog turd. Elvis shook his head, sat on a stool across from Colonel. I rested my ass on the sensory deprivation chamber.
Elvis eyed the Colonel, said, “You know, I hate it when you do that, drink straight from the carton. That’s some nasty shit, Colonel. It’s annoying to me.”
“Why I do it.”
“You miserable fuck.”
“Quit talking tough,” Colonel said. “You’re just a little boy from Memphis. You still cry at night over your mother, weep with your teddy bear to your chest.”
“Keep my mother out of this.”
“Gonna hit me with your teddy bear?”
“That bear was given to me. Promotional for a song. To hell with that. Come to the point. Why are you here?”
“Call your boys to bring in what I’m having sent up,” Colonel said. “Should be here by now.”
Elvis picked up the phone. Ordered what Colonel wanted sent into the room. It came in on a roller rack pushed by a guy we called Slick and another called Poot, though I doubt that’s what their mothers named them. Neither of them looked completely awake. They were still sailing on a river of drugs.
Colonel had them position it (a projector) where he wanted, had them bring in a large, pull-down movie screen on a frame and tripod. Elvis thanked the boys and sent them out.
Colonel said, “You like movies, don’t you, boy? Don’t care for them myself, unless it’s cartoons. I like singing mice and dancing hippos.”
“Get on with it,” Elvis said.
“Johnny,” the Colonel said, “come here.”
I got up without enthusiasm and went over. Colonel reached inside his coat, took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on; cheap fuckers with green rims. He reached in again and brought out two more pairs, gave them to me. “One for you, one for Elvis. Put them on before you watch the movie.”
Elvis said, “Sunglasses. What the hell?”
“Just do it.”
I carried the sunglasses to Elvis, put on my pair, started the projector, turned out the lights, sat down on the lid of the sensory deprivation chamber.
So there we sat. The curtains pulled shut. The lights out. The projector stuttered and clacked like a train rattling over worn tracks. The screen lit up. There was color and movement and the soundtrack kicked in like its heart had just been started with shock paddles.
There were some roughed-in titles, and a bevy of drop-dead-gorgeous women with tits the size of Macy Thanksgiving balloons, wearing tight black leotards, danced on what was supposed to be a street in front of a bar on Bourbon Street. It was obviously a sound stage. It moved when they moved. They had cat tails fastened to the backs of their leotards, and I tell you, buddy, those tails had a life of their own, damn near tangling together like a den of mating snakes.
All of the women had long hair and had on little cat-ear hair bands. The women, though hot as grilled hams, danced like crippled elephants in galoshes to music that a kid with a sense of rhythm could have outdone with a kazoo. The woman in front, who would have been female lead had the picture been finished, danced even more poorly than the others. My old grandmother on her walker with one foot in a bucket of dried cement could have outstepped any of them.
“Filmed in New Orleans, but we were mostly going to use a sound stage. Ain’t that some shit? I remember this waxed turd better than I hoped. This would have made fucking Clam Bake seem like Lawrence of Arabia. Thank you, Colonel, for always watching out for yourself and your bank account and having me do these kind of dog-cum pictures. Cut this off. I got enough bad memories…and what’s with the fucking sunglasses?”
“Keep them on, and keep watching,” the Colonel said.
Elvis put his attention back on the movie, and that’s when Elvis’s character entered the picture grinning like a Cheshire Cat, all decked out in black. I could tell from his eyes that he was high as the moons of Mars.
He pounced into frame, dancing to that tinny music like it actually had a beat, swinging his hips, wiggling his legs, classic Elvis moves. He looked like a fucking southern-fried, redneck, cracker-god of grits and backseat humping at the drive-in.
He started singing “I Want To Be Your Hot Cat Baby,” which was god-awful, except for the fact Elvis could make “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” sound like opera, at least in moments.
Watching that footage was like watching a wounded animal die. Day I was on set, his leading lady, Jenny Jo Champ, an ace druggie, had actually pissed her pants during a love scene with Elvis. I think that’s what closed the deal for Elvis. He didn’t want to be around no random pissers.
“You looked good back then,” Colonel said. “Good shape. Black hair. Look at you now, hair graying, crows feet around your eyes. Shit, Elvis, dye your hair.”
“It was never black in the first place,” Elvis said. “You here to insult me for growing older?”
“Hey, here it is,” Colonel said and po
inted at the screen.
Through the glasses I saw little twists of motion, like blue dust motes at first. They were slipping out of the flooring and rising up, and then they grew fuller. At first I thought the film was spoiled, disintegrating right in front of us, catching fire. But what we were looking at wasn’t smoke.
The foggy tendrils took shape. The shapes looked somewhat human, as if sculptured from corpulent blue shadows. They bounced off one another, twirled and collapsed and rose again.
I took off my sunglasses. All that was visible on the screen without them was Elvis and the beauty parade. I put the glasses back on. The shapes were back. I glanced over at Elvis. He bent forward, as if leaning closer would somehow allow him to understand better what it was he was looking at.
The shapes had wide mouths full of teeth, and the teeth were long and looked sharp as Damascus daggers. They flowed across the gyrating Elvis and the dancing ladies, and then one of the shapes, corpulent and angry, charged the camera, mouth opening up to the size of a manhole, and then bigger and wider, as if it were going to duplicate the entrance to Carlsbad caverns.
It seemed to bounce against the camera, but the camera didn’t move. Ghostly hands attempting to get a grip on Elvis, but all they did was pass through. The dancers, a title I use loosely, remained unharmed, kept moving and singing that shitty Hot Cat Baby song.
There was a cut in the scene, and then the screen went dark.
“Why are we looking at this now?” Elvis said. “That was years ago.”
“Things have started happening,” Colonel said. “We think then and now and the film are connected.”
When the Colonel left we watched the film again, then cut it off and sat in the dark, still wearing the sunglasses. Elvis said, “Can you believe the shit I was singing? Tell you something, Johnny, and this isn’t for the numb nuts in the other room. This is between you and me, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m quiet as a mute mouse on stuff like that.”
“Colonel, that fat fuck, has my mother in limbo.”
“You told me that,” I said.
“Yeah, but what I didn’t tell you is she comes to see me.”