Elvissey (26 page)

"Leverett's request's unsupportable," John said. "Actionable."

"It's part of my job," I said. "I've never impacted upon
yours, whatever you did. Show equal respect."

"What's essentialled in this?"

"To comfort while they train him," I said. "By agreeing,
Leverett assures he'll hasten your-"

"Comfort how?"

"Stop!" I feared; when his moods were on him he acted
first, considered later. "You'll not suspicion me like this,
John. He did nothing to me. I'll do nothing to him. Settle
yourself before you go missing. It's unbearable."

As he sighed I heard his air rush from him as if he were
attempting to empty his lungs. "His behavior maddened."

"He hurt you, not me," I said. "If that angers, so be it.
Understand, John, this difficults overmuch. Leverett'll have
me scheduled daylong on this for who knows how long. But
I'm with you, John. Even when I'm not, I arm"

"Understood, Iz," he said, intending to silence. "Understood."

"I want to be with you, John," I said. "No one else. But
I'm told this essentials. Even Judy's helpless to act."

"Certainly she could," he said. "There's a reason she
won't. You'll not know what it is."

"I know her, John," I said. "She's helpless, trust me. She'd
act if she could."

"If said, so believed. This'll ongo how long?"

"Unknown," I said. "There's something I've not told you
yet, of overriding importance."

"Told me what?"

"We're gifted, John," I said. "You know there're improbabilities and impossibilities. How the unlikely can happen, so long as it's not impossible."

"What's meant?"

"Remember our making love predeparture?"

"Memoryburned," he said. "Forgive me hurting you. For„
give-

"Forgiven then, forgiven now," I said. "It accomplished,
all the same. It's Godness's gift. I'm pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Perfection's unassured but there's the chance, and I'll
chance it for us. Oh, John, if we parent we're forever bound.
It's near-miracle, it's our blessing, it's-"

I shushed, feeling his shake begin. `John?" He muted,
quivering as if readying to erupt; then slowly settled again,
at last so stilling that I imagined he'd been brainstruck.
"John, what is it?"

"It's his," he said, rolling away from me, saying no more.

Elvis sang; E listened. "What's thought?" I asked. During the
three weeks since I'd first exposed him to his counterpart E
had adjusted to the voice's sound, so long as it was musicked;
those passages where Elvis tonguespoke still unnerved him
enough that he refused to listen to whatever was being said
and not sung. I was as glad; Elvis's talk, as preserved, bespoke
a public mind so banal that I would go coma before hearing
two sentences in sequence.

"He sings good. It's what he's singin' that I can't handle."
That afternoon we were listening to the soundtrack of Clambake as we worked chronologically through the recorded
bible. "You say a lotta people like this stuff?"

"Your counterpart is very popular, E," I said.

He studied the diskbox's photo, a shot from the midsix-
ties; Elvis's features were so heavily airbrushed as any postcard icon's. "They got'm lookin' pretty good here," E said.
"Some of 'em he looks like a big of hog ready for market.
I'm not gonna have to look like that, am l?"

"It's the preferred look for many," I said. "Not for us."

His bandages were off, revealing his look as we'd made it.
Dryco's workmen had so retrofitted E that at certain angles
he appeared even less realistic than his dupe did in the
treated photos; in daylight his skin and hair looked to have
been supplanted by colored polymer and acrylic. "That's
crazy. How could anybody like somethin' looked like that?"

"It's love," I said. "Look any way as wished, say whatever's
desired. It won't matter. You know how it is when you're in
love." He muted; it occurred to me that mayhap he never
had been; possibly the occasional rape sufficed.

"I had a girl, once," he said. "She was all right."

"Tell."

"Her name was Dixie," E said. "We met at church. She
was a pretty little thing. We'd get together after school."

"What happened?"

"Her family didn't like me," he said. "Her mamma and
daddy thought I was white trash. Didn't want her goin' out
with me but she snuck out anyhow. We'd go downtown or
out on Mud Island. Got along real good." E lay down on his
bed again; now that most of the machines had been taken
away his hospital room looked to have been doubled in size.
"Her brotherJimmy was a sorry bastard even before I started
hangin' out with her. He was in my class, one a the guys'd
go out nights and kick possums to death for the hell of it.
Always called me queerbait. Trip me when I'd be goin' down
the hall. I had to ignore him, though. He and Dixie were
real close. Couldn't figure out why but they were."

"You finally interacted, I assume-?"

"One afternoon after class I went in the washroom. Jimmy
and some a his boys came in and caught me there." E's face
darkened; I couldn't tell if anger or embarrassment most
responsibled for his purpling. "Not gonna tell you what they
did. So next mornin', before school, I took a piece a hose
and filled it up with sand. Jimmy was sittin' in home room
when I got in. He was laughin' when I walked past 'm. Laughin' up a storm and then I sapped him with that hose.
Went down like a bull in the slaughterhouse."

He smiled, telling of his most memorable act of revenge;
his features and tone evidenced that this particular anecdot-
ing wasn't intended to impress.

"Was he killed?"

"Hell, no. But he was out three days and never was the
same after. He and his boys didn't bug me no more but I got
that gun after that just in case. I wasn't gonna let nobody do
nothin' to me again and I haven't."

"Certainly not," I said.

"That's when I got kicked out a school. Dixie, she
wouldn't have nothin' to do with me after that, she'd just be
hangin' on her brother makin' sure he always knew where he
was goin'. Last time I tried talkin' to her she just called me
a name and ran off."

"When was that?"

"Couple months ago," he said. "Well. Lot longer ago
than that now, I guess." Picking up a remote he switched on
the wall's TVC, across the room. "Let's see what's on the
fireplace." With quick motions he zapped through the hundred and forty channels, silencing as we soaked in image.
Each channel was commercialling as he called them up;
most ads were for Dryco products, though there were a few
PR spots, which inferred with metaphysical certitude that
the ideal behavior patterns Dryco recommended that all
follow would, perhaps, steer the viewers toward a life convincingly semblancing an idealization of contentment.

"You've always felt alone?" I asked.

"You get used to it." E blanked the screen and closed his
eyes as we conversed.

"You'll rarely be alone here," I said.

"Can't say much for that either," he said. "None a this
seems real, it's all crazy. All of it. You must feel crazy all the
time, you've been in it so long."

"It's best if you take none of it seriously. You'll be able to
do that in time, to some degree."

He smiled. "I can't ever take Leverett seriously," said E.
"He's always goin' on-"

"And always will," I said. "Take him seriously."

"He as crazy as he acts?" E asked. "Level with me."

I hedged, before replying, knowing it a surety that our
words would be replayed and noted, later on. "There's little
they want of you, after all."

"More'n I want t'give, I think," E said. "These appearances you keep talkin' about. I don't think I'll mind gettin'
up before people long as they're not gonna start laughin' at
me-"

"Stand there and let them love you," I said. "The sole
requirement."

"What if they blow me up too?" E said. "Like they did
Hitler?"

"Doubtful," I said. "You'll have an easier time of it here
than your twin had. You'll better understand what's expected."

"Maybe," he said. "What are they gonna think I am, Isabel?"

"God."

That was the first time I'd so overted what I'd tried, over
weeks, to infer. For some moments he was reactionless, as if
awaiting followup laughter. Even now I recall his expression
when he understood that I truthed, saying that. He paled,
and drew away from me as if I'd hurt him more than his
girlfriend's brother, or his father, or anyone, even his
mother, ever could have. "God of this world?" he asked,
whispering as if we'd been caught in illicity.

"What other-?"

"They think I'm like that?" he said. "That's how you want
me to be?"

"It's metaphor," I said. "Approximate, all the same. When I say your predecessor is worshiped, I mean what's
said."

"No." He began to cry; I'd no idea what so set him off.
"I'm bad, but I'm not that bad. I'm not, I'm not-"

"E," I said, rubbing my hand along his shoulder, unwilling to embrace him even as he wept. "What is it? What-?"

"You all think I'm worse'n a murderer," he said. "Worse'n
Hitler. My mamma didn't even say I was that bad."

Without warning he threw himself upon me again, as I
always feared he might do were I allow him to approach too
near; but there was nothing of lust in his clutch, this time.
E sobbed, impressing utter bereftness, seeming to have broken as I'd predicted he would. Still, however helpless he was,
however pitiable was his presence, I struggled to extricate
myself from his grasp, so disgusted by his touch as I had
been that night in the woods. I unsuccessed; he clung to me
as if to a crumbling mountainside, or a raft in the midst of
the sea. Sighing, accepting my lot for the moment, I responded, hoping to calm; hugged him, trying to keep
minded that I was dealing with one who, in too many ways,
was no more than a child. "You're not bad," I said, searing
my tongue with lies.

"Don't call me God, Isabel," he said; he anguished so that
I barely heard his words. "Please don't. Please."

Twice weekly Leverett called to his office all involved with
the E project save E himself, conferencing with us, assuring
that any problems arising might be swiftly solved before he
could pretend he'd never known of them. Some were
Dryconians, some came as consultants or subcontractors; all
appeared to take joy from their labor only in that it served
them as license to argue. I was the sole woman; in aggregate
the group exuded that oppressive pheromonic air common
to such manly lumps, however weedy and asexual they singly
appeared. Though I spent so much time with E as any of them, none but Leverett ever inquired me regarding my
opinions; they merely noted my observations as I recounted,
smiling as if hearing an unreliable, though amiable, passerby. The afternoon before I'd left E calming, if not wholly
recovered from his upset; during the following morning's
meeting I thought it essential to point my view between their
eyes to certify they saw as I saw.

"Any answer he gives is gansered," said one whose name
I constantly blanked, a sociopathologist affiliated with
Princeton. Several of the others nodded, as if they understood.

"Demetaform," I asked. "What's meant, gansered?"

"Referent to Ganser's Syndrome. Subject consistently replies to questions with approximate answers. A behaviorism
common to psychopaths. For example, when asked if he
missed his father he responded that they never had stamps
in the house."

"Understood," said Leverett. "I asked him if he wasn't
glad to be alive and he told me he couldn't say, he hadn't
been dead yet." They chuckled. "What's the point, then?"

"Nothing he tells should be entirely trusted," said the
Princeton SP. "This must at all times be considered."

"So we'll earplay his words," said Leverett. "Mother him
to quiet, father him otherwise. As you did yesterday, Isabel."

"Problem one demands immediate action," said Telford,
who taught Comparative Elvisisms at Harvard Divinity.
"What Ms. Bonney tells us facts our theories. The matter
must be confronted, otherwise project possibilities could be
nullified before he's even publicked."