Losing Graceland (9 page)

The old man tore open a bag of pretzels and stuffed a handful into his mouth. He chewed slowly, crumbs tumbling down the front of his ripped red sweatshirt.

“My teeth hurt,” he said through a mouthful. “One of those bikers clocked me good.” He looked at Ben over the top of his aviators. “You got the worst of it, though.”

“Thanks. I’m not much of a fighter.”

“It’s the spirit that counts, son.”

The road curved and dipped. A truck screamed past, throwing spray.

“What’s her name?” the old man asked.

Ben glanced over at him.

“I saw you tighten when I said everyone has a lost love. What’s her name?”

“Jessica.”

“This the one that dumped you?”

Ben nodded.

“Never met an ugly girl named Jessica,” the old man said.

“She was beautiful,” said Ben. “I’m still not sure what she saw in me. She could’ve been with someone taller.”

The old man sang quietly. “
Our love is oft-times low, our joy still ebbs and flows—
”

“It’s not that I can’t get women like Jessica,” Ben continued. “I just can’t keep them. Once they figure out my game, it’s over.”

“
But peace with Him remains the same, no change Jehovah knows
.

“How old was she?” the old man asked, and he went back to singing. “
I’ll never forget the night you told me—
”

“Seventeen.”

The old man whistled. “Man, those young ones are like kittens. Always looking for something new to play with. Trick is you have to be the one to walk away first. Kittens don’t chase string that lies on the floor. They chase the string that pulls away.”

“So I shouldn’t call her anymore?”

“Hell, no. Sobbing won’t make a seventeen-year-old girl take you back.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to
sob—
”

“Young girls live in mythology.” The old man brushed crumbs off his shirt. “Their music, their movies, their relationships. Heartbreak makes them feel grown-up. Nothing a young girl wants more than to feel grown-up, and she’ll lay waste to anyone for the taste of a broken heart.”

hree women sat in a corner booth in the Coyote Café roadside bar with a sign above the kitchen door that read
If You Send Anything Back We’ll Spit in It Again
. The room was small and noisy, rough pine walls covered in custom license plates with various rock star names (Hendrix, Jagger, Lennon), and framed photos of Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, and Joe Namath. Beer posters showed busty cartoon beer maids dripping froth from giant mugs. A chandelier hung in the middle of the dance floor, a ten-armed gold ball with colored bulbs at the end of each arm. The jukebox was lit with strobing LED.

The three women wore khaki shorts and pastel tanks, tanned legs shiny with lotion. They were all barefoot, toenails painted in shades of pink, sandals in a pile under the table. Fiona—freckles, long black hair, and a toothy grin—stared at her friend.

“So what would you do if a cute guy walked into this restaurant,” Fiona said, “and gave you that look?”

Alex pushed her blond hair behind her ears. A thin scar ran across her upper lip. “What look?”

“
That
look,” Fiona said. “You know the look I’m talking about.”

“I wouldn’t do anything.”

“You wouldn’t give him a look back.”

“Absolutely not.”

Fiona slid her feet off Alex’s booth cushion and let them slap onto the plank floor.

“Oh, that’s such bullshit.” Fiona frowned at Heather sitting next to her. “Alex used to be an honest girl. I don’t know what happened.”

Heather sipped her Coke. Fiona put her feet back up.

“Would you call Derek if he called you?” Fiona asked.

Alex paused. “Yes.”

“And what would you say to him.”

“Depends on what he’d say to me.”

“What if he apologized?”

“Then I’d take him back.”

“She’s still in love,” Heather said, and she wrinkled her nose at the Coke fizz. “Leave her alone.”

“I say she’s not in love,” Fiona said. “I say she doesn’t know what love is.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “And you do?”

“I never said that. But I know what love isn’t. Love isn’t a boyfriend who fucks someone else while his girlfriend is at the hospital taking care of her mother.”

“
Ouch,
” Heather said.

Alex looked away. “It was a difficult time for everyone.”

“Nuh-uh.” Fiona waved her index finger. “Derek doesn’t get that free pass. You have to earn that free pass, and Derek didn’t.”

“He came by, every day.”

“Until he met
her
. And then he gave you excuses.”

Alex set her drink down and stared hard at Fiona. “It was a difficult time for everyone.”

Fiona leaned back, arm draped over the back of their booth. “Not for Derek it wasn’t, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

They walked in, the old man in front and Ben behind. Ben immediately saw the girls laughing in their booth and wondered if he’d ever become the kind of man who approaches three laughing women. They took a table by the dessert cooler. Ben pushed the menu away because he was sick of eating. Every few hours they’d stopped somewhere for food. The old man always left hundred-dollar tips. Ben kept his cell on vibrate, checking it every hour.

He realized that calling Jessica had been a mistake. His obsessiveness was like a rash he’d finally covered with a bandage, but after two days with the old man, he’d ripped it off and tore into the still-red skin. Six months didn’t matter anymore; it was as if she’d just left him.

He wanted her back and he wanted vengeance and he wanted everything he didn’t have. A new girlfriend; a new car; a mom who didn’t speak to her dead husband every night. The five thousand sitting in the trunk of the old man’s Caddy was the biggest lump sum he’d ever received, and it was almost big enough for the scope of his ambition. The other five thousand he’d receive if he drove the old man all the way to Memphis would be enough to launch his dream.

That apartment in Amsterdam, Ben reminded himself. Something small and chic, with cool lighting and grown-up furniture. A place where he could smoke hash on the balcony, greeting the day with the insouciance of the very young and the very rich. He’d take up some sort of painting class and do what he imagined every
other twenty-something expat did: Invite some half-bored, half-intrigued Dutch thirty-something back to his apartment for nude portraits, fucking her doggy-style on the balcony by the fourth session while watching the sun set over the canals.

If I could do that, Ben thought, Jessica would be a dim memory.

But he knew what would happen. Even if he got that apartment and that cool lighting and that grown-up furniture, and even if he managed to take himself seriously enough to try the bullshit young-artist gig, and even if by some wild reality-storm he charmed a Dutch thirty-something enough to make her grab hold of a balcony railing while he pounded away, he would still find a way to fuck it up.

The old man caught Ben staring at the three girls on the other side of the room.

“Last pit stop I called an old friend down in Memphis,” the old man said. “Eddie Fulsom. Played bass with Junior Kimbrough. Eddie owns a car-parts store now but he used to consort with the local criminal element—put his fingers in the pot but never got his hands dirty, if you know what I mean.”

Ben nodded but he wasn’t listening. He was watching Alex, the girl with long blond hair and a thin scar running through her upper lip. She stood and walked across the room, barefoot. The chandelier colored her face red as she passed under it.

“We’d like some refills,” Ben heard Alex say to the young waitress who was behind the counter talking to another young waitress.

The waitress hooded her eyes. “I’ll bring some over in a minute.”

“How about now? We’ve been waiting for a while.”

“In a minute.” The waitress snapped her gum.

Alex walked back to the table and grabbed their three glasses. She pushed past the waitress to the soda machine.

“You’re not allowed back here.”

“Then call the manager.” Alex refilled each glass and held them up for her friends. Fiona and Heather clapped while soda spilled over the side. Alex stuck out her tongue and licked it off her wrist.

“Eddie’s heard some things about Nadine,” the old man continued. “Gave me a name: Hank Rickey. Hank goddamn Rickey. You ain’t never seen a more unholy man in all your life, like he was put on this earth to fight and fuck. Then Hank saw God in an oil slick on his driveway in 1952 and swore it all off. At least that’s how the story goes.”

The old man tugged on the cuff of his red sweatshirt.

“Not many people know my version of ‘That’s All Right’ was Hank’s. Crudup wrote it, but what made it special wasn’t Phillips, like everyone thinks. Wasn’t Scotty or Bill, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. Hank could’ve sang that song and it would’ve taken off like nothing you’ve ever seen. Same with ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ and ‘Baby Let’s Play House.’ Forget everything you know about me—Hank done it a hundred times better. But like I said: He saw God in an oil slick and gave it all away.”

Ben looked at the old man. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and the old man kept quiet because he’d seen the boy staring at that leggy blonde licking soda off her wrist.

Ben slowed as he walked by their table. Fiona crunched an ice cube.

“So where are you and Elvis headed?” she said.

Ben smiled. “Memphis.”

“Are you his manager?”

“I’m his driver.”

“Like his chauffeur?”

“Like his driver.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The uniform,” Ben said. “And Elvis sits in the front seat.”

“Did you get into an accident or something?” Heather asked.

“A biker punched me in the face. But I think it makes me look tough.”

“I think it makes you look like you got punched in the face,” Alex said.

“Same difference. I’m Ben, by the way.”

The three girls introduced themselves. Ben leaned against the seat-back and tried to look casual. Take a seat, he told himself. Act like you belong. Order some beers. Do
something
, for fuck’s sake.

“So, Ben,” Fiona said, “how long are you going to stand there?”

“Until it feels awkward.”

Fiona nodded. “Well, it’s getting to that point.”

Ben smiled, unsure of what to say, then he mumbled, “Excuse me,” and continued to the restroom.

Fiona raised her eyebrows at Alex. “Remember when I asked what you would do if a cute guy walked into this restaurant, right now, and gave you that look?”

Alex nodded.

“That’s
exactly
the look I was talking about,” Fiona said. “Even if he is a little weird.”

Ben stood in the last stall and checked his cell. Black marker on the inside of the door:
Jenna fucked Trey and didn’t even get me a shirt
. He called his home voice mail, praying Patrick wouldn’t pick up. There was a message from Steve’s girlfriend, Samantha,
asking if he’d gone back to Broome for the summer. He ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath and convinced himself not to call Jessica, that the old man was right and she was a kitten and he needed to be the string that pulls away, then he called her and hung up after three rings.

He thought about Alex. She had blue eyes and full lips. She was the kind of girl who didn’t mind walking across a bar in bare feet. She was cute. No, he told himself. More than cute; she was
confident
. They all were, even the quiet one who just sat there and sipped her Coke. Three cute, confident women, the type who waited for men to approach them, and were perfectly content if no man did.

Get it together, Ben told himself. Women can smell desperation. Don’t be Desperate Guy. Don’t even be Playing-It-Cool Guy. Just walk out there and smile a little and keep walking until you get back to your table and wait for them to get a little drunk. Which should happen by …

He looked at his cell. Five
P.M
. Happy hour.

He fixed his hair, frowning in the mirror at his cut lip and black eye. Then he took another deep breath, shoved his hands into his pockets, and banged the restroom door open with his shoulder, sauntering out, the most casual guy in the state of Kentucky.

The old man sat at the table with the three women. They all had beers.

“There he is.” The old man raised his mug to Ben. “Dropped three bikers with one punch. Sonofabitch saved my life.”

At some point Ben had walked with Alex to the bar to help her bring back another round, and at some point they’d stayed at the
bar with their margaritas getting warm and the rum and Coke losing its fizz. Alex was a little drunk, her expressions lingering, soft smiles and lazy laughter that confirmed for Ben everything he loved about women.

“Amsterdam is amazing,” Alex said. “I went with my cousin a few years ago. Did you know their Kit Kats taste better than ours?”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, they taste a lot better. Everything tastes better in Europe.” She tipped back her margarita. “So when do you think you’ll go?”

Ben shrugged. “Depends on the money. I’m suburban poor. Just enough money to buy good shoes, but not enough to travel, or make any significant life change. I live in a middle-class ghetto. The mall is my hood.”