Losing Graceland (18 page)

Ginger sat in the back of the Caddy with the old man and confessed she’d never wanted to sell her body but it was all she had and it was all the world seemed to want. She felt dirty. She felt
corrupted
, like a piece of rotten meat that spoiled whatever it touched. All those blow jobs and backseat quickies, the numbing taste of latex and spermicide, the snap of rubbers, the musk of strangers whispering atrocities in her ear. She couldn’t forget it and the memories never strayed far; no matter how hard she tried to be normal, she wanted nothing more than to run away. She couldn’t guarantee the old man she would stay past tomorrow. The next rest stop, the next motel, the next adventure—she might
simply walk on and keep walking. Maybe she’d thumb a ride to Miami and sell necklaces on the boardwalk or make her way to Los Angeles and get a modeling gig. Maybe even sell her life story. Get cast on a reality show.

Ben listened but said nothing. He never wanted to return to Buffalo. Fucking Buffalo. The mistake on the lake, the battered old city, ruined and rusted with sterile outposts of suburban banality and pockets of urban fortresses propped up by a few streets and self-important art mags. He never wanted to return and he wanted things to stay just as they were: a Caddy, the road, the old man, and Ginger. They’d make money selling Elvis scarves and winning karaoke contests. Maybe if the old man kept his sanity long enough, they’d return to Memphis and Ben would help the old man up Graceland’s hallowed steps. He’d boot all the impersonators like Odysseus slaying his wife’s suitors and reclaim his place as King. Sell their story for ten million dollars like Alex had said. Exclusive interview on
Oprah
. Maybe he could write a book and call it
Tuesdays with Elvis
, turning his sadness and the old man’s dementia into pre-digested mouthfuls of Sage Advice. Closure Is Bullshit. Life Goes On and That’s Good Enough. Sobbing Won’t Make a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl Take You Back.

Ginger finished, then broke down into tears, resting her head on the old man’s shoulder. His rattlesnake shirt was ripped down the front. His sleeve dangled. The lenses of his new aviator sunglasses were already smeared. He patted her back and shushed her.

“S’all right,” he said. “Everything’s all right.”

An hour earlier Ben had seen him chewing pills the color of robin’s eggs. Ginger wiped her eyes and Ben watched her snake her hand into the old man’s pocket and she pulled out his pill
bottle. She uncapped it and spilled a handful of blue into her tiny palm. She looked up at him and sniffled.

The old man patted her back. “S’all right.”

At a gas station with a heavy man in oil-stained overalls working the pumps, Ben bought a pack of Nutter Butters and two Gatorades, orange for the old man and red for Ginger. She drank her Gatorade as she slowly kicked across the dust and gravel, clouds swirling around her feet. She pushed through the restroom door. Forests stood on either side of the road, thick with buzzing underbrush. A rusted car husk sat slumped by the gas station garage.

The old man sat in the backseat. He rested his arm outside the window. “You got that two hundred?” he asked Ben.

Ben leaned against the door and pulled out the fold of twenties. The old man took it, stuffed it into an envelope he’d taken from his bag, then licked the envelope shut and handed it back.

“Give this to our attendant. Tell him to give it to Ginger.”

“What for?”

“Whatever she needs. Girl that pretty can make her way on those eyes alone.”

Ben laughed.

“No time for joking,” the old man said. “Give it to him and let’s ramble.”

“We’re not leaving her,” Ben said.

The old man sighed. “I’m not bringing her anywhere near Hank. No telling what he’ll do. And besides … she’s a junkie.”

Ben laughed again. “And you’re not?”

“Only drugs I take are for the pain. Three compressed discs in my back.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been stoned this entire trip.”

The old man reached outside the window and slapped the Caddy’s door. “Man, I’m only going to ask you once. Leave that money for her and get in the goddamn—”

“You gave her that talk about molecules,” Ben said. “And all she had to do was take your hand.”

“Different times.”

“Not that different.”

The old man fixed Ben with a stare. “Give her the goddamn money.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll do it myself.”

“You’re not doing anything.” Ben walked away. The old man called out for him. The restroom door opened and Ginger stretched her skinny arms overhead, ambling into the sun. The old man called out again.

“Hey,” Ginger said. She held out her arms for Ben, smiling.

His cell chirped and he glanced down.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Jessica.”

She smiled slowly. “Are you going to answer?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel like talking to Jessica right now. I feel like talking to you.”

“You can’t just let it ring. It’s rude.”

“Do you want me to talk to Jessica?”

She paused. “Not really. But you can’t just let it ring—”

Ben opened the phone and turned away. “Hey, Jess.”

“Ben? Did you get my message?”

“Which one?”

“The one I left last night.”

“What day was that?”

“Friday, Ben. Today is Saturday.”

Ben saw Ginger walking toward the car. The old man had gotten out and leaned against the door.

“I’m coming home next week,” Jessica continued. “I was thinking maybe we could have dinner or something. Remember that place we used to always go … what was it called? The Italian restaurant with those good-looking—”

“Rigoletto’s.”

“That’s right. So—”

“Hold on. I’m getting another call.” Ben clicked over. “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Patrick. Was she serious?”

“Who?”

“Ginger. About the whole pimp thing.”

“What? No. Listen, this isn’t—”

“She sounded serious.”

Ben watched as the old man smoothed Ginger’s hair off her forehead. “She’s not serious,” Ben said. “I really can’t talk right now. I’ll call you—”

“I’m throwing a party in a few days. Think you’ll be home?”

Another click. Ben put his hand to his forehead. “I guess. I don’t know. I have to go.” He clicked over. “Jess?”

She sighed. “It’s been so awkward between us.”

“I agree. Can we—”

“We used to just talk. Remember?”

“Yes. It was nice. Listen—”

“Nice?”

“Well, fuck, Jess. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. You always want to have these serious talks, so I just thought—”

“This isn’t a good time.”

“But—”

Ben hung up and ran over to the car. The old man took off his aviators and rubbed his small, tired eyes.

Ginger held out her hand. “Give me the envelope.”

“I want you to stay with us,” Ben said.

She shook her head.

“I’m serious,” Ben said. “I heard what you told the old man about feeling like you spoil everything, and I don’t care. I was thinking we could find a small town somewhere and I could get a job and save up enough money for us to go to Amsterdam—”

Ginger laughed. The old man cracked open his orange Gatorade and limped around to the passenger seat, singing softly.

“
This may be the last time we stay together
 …”

“Just give me the envelope,” Ginger said.

“Come with us,” Ben said.

“
May be the last time, I don’t know.
”

She looked away. “The old man is right. What the hell am I doing? You’re still into Jessica—he knows it. I do, too.”

“Jessica has nothing to do with this. She’s not here. You are, and I’m asking you to stay.”

“
I’m going home to meet my mother
 …”

“Why do you want me to stay?” Ginger asked.

“Because I like you.”

“Do you love me?”

Ben said nothing. She pushed past him. The heavy man working the pumps stared and took out a red handkerchief, wiping the sweat from his creased forehead.

“
May be the last time, I don’t know.
”

“I’m going to wait here, in front of the mini-mart,” she said. “The universe will send someone my way. Someone
nice
. We’ll drive to the desert and eat peyote, like that Carlos Castanet guy Elvis told me about. Do you know what else he told me?” She whirled, facing Ben. “He said there’s people put on this earth to rescue others from their pain, but those people can never truly love the ones they rescue.”

Ben touched her arm. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes, it does. Elvis said loving someone means you rescue each other. That’s why you don’t love me. You rescued me from Clarence. I didn’t rescue you from anyone.”

“I don’t love you because we’ve only known each other for two days. But give it time.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Well, I love you.”

Ben knew last year he would’ve told Ginger he loved her, too, and convinced himself it was true until he saw spinach between her teeth or she stunk up the bathroom. But at least he would’ve had
something
. He used to prefer half-truths to whole truths. What happened? he wondered. When did I become such a pragmatist?

He heard the old man still singing, sitting in the passenger seat, sipping orange Gatorade, belting out some dirge about going home to see his momma. It should’ve been sad, Ben thought, but it wasn’t. Not with the hot dust and sun, and his stoned hooker, half-Thai sort-of-girlfriend throwing a fit at a gas station on the Mississippi border.

“You still love Jessica,” Ginger said. “Elvis told me you do.”

Ben covered his eyes for a moment, then let his fingers drag down his cheeks. “He’s wrong. He’s been wrong about everything. Half the time he’s either stoned or living in a fantasy world. You
hear him singing now? Providing our sound track? Who the hell does that?”

“He does. He’s Elvis.”

Ben’s cell chirped. “He’s
not
Elvis. He’s an old man with dementia. You heard the doctor.”

His cell chirped again. Ginger glanced down at it.

“I can’t stand it when a phone rings and no one answers,” she said. “It makes me nervous.”

Ben whipped his cell as far as he could, a dark square flying across the gas station parking lot. “There. Still nervous?”

She shook her head.

“Good. Now come back to the car, and let’s see if you still love me once you sober up.”

A pause, a pout, then she cocked her fist back and punched Ben in the eye.

Ben held a can of soda to his swollen eye and drove with one hand. He’d spent the last half hour looking for his phone, finally finding it behind a vine-strewn tire in the fields bordering the gas station. Ginger was gone; she’d just left, hitching a ride with whomever to wherever. Fuck the nostalgia, Ben thought. My eye is throbbing.

The old man leaned his head against the window. He knew they were close to Shake. He could see it: wild trees like a witch’s hair in a windstorm, shotgun shacks choked with kudzu, abandoned towns and crumbled foundations hidden in forest shadow; land fit for a monster, he thought. What we’re seeing is the real Hank Rickey. What the world would’ve been if we’d switched places. I’m not saying I was perfect, but I brought hope as best I
could. Never once claimed to be something I wasn’t. Old photos summon their regrets, but who doesn’t have regrets. My time stretches so far back I’m afraid I’ll lose my way if I remember, so every morning I’m a baby with eyes old as the ocean.

But I remember Nadine, the old man thought. And I remember my promise. And I just might have to kill Hank before the day is through.

Ben had expected something more but Hank’s house was modest—a white Greek Revival set atop a gentle hill with a single willow. Graceful green curves lay in the distance. Grass and wild-flowers framed a long driveway with tire-polished gravel. Late-day gnats looped in patches of sun. Ben parked near the mailbox and popped the trunk.

The blue sky turned salmon as the old man stood behind the Caddy, hands on his hips. He and Ben stared into the trunk.

“I’m thinking twelve-gauge,” the old man said.

“You stand at the front door with a shotgun and they’ll call the cops.”

“How about a pistol, then? Something I can hide away. Keep it close until I need it.”

“How about that one?”

“The nine-millimeter?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good choice. Reliable. Enough man-stopping power should it come to that.”

“You’ll need to change your shirt. The ripped sleeve makes you look crazy.”

The old man frowned. “Man, I like the rattlesnake. It’s like that old American flag. Don’t tread on me.”

They stood on the front porch. A warm breeze ruffled the old man’s hair. He smoothed it back and hiked up his pants, a flash of the 9mm stuck into the elastic waistband, pressed into the soft white flab of his stomach.

“You ready?” Ben said.

The old man held up his finger. He opened his manila folder once more and straightened the papers. Their map. The
Daily Dish
article. Old photos and letters. A small, thin leather Bible with worn, curled corners. He smoothed back his hair again. “All right.”

Ben used the brass knocker, a ring through a lion’s mouth.

“Now, you remember the plan,” the old man said.

“Plan?”

“The
plan.
”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

The old man cupped his forehead in his hand. “Goddammit.”

Ben heard footsteps behind the door.

“Anything goes sour, grab Nadine and make for the car,” the old man whispered. “Get to that Days Inn on Route 74, and register under John Barrow. Give me twelve hours. I don’t show, take her back—”

The dead bolt clicked and the door creaked open.

A Russian woman stood in the doorway. Late thirties, Ben guessed, with a lit cigarette dangling between her fingers. Her blond hair was pulled back tight and tied with a black bow. Smoker’s wrinkles spread from her lips. She had wide-set blue eyes, and she was barefoot, wearing a red housedress. She took a puff and raised her eyebrows.

“Ma’am,” the old man said. “I’m here to see Mr. Hank Rickey.”