Mesopotamia by Arthur Nersesian

Author:Arthur Nersesian [Nersesian, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, Suspense
ISBN: 9781936070084
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Though I made record time, it was dark when I finally parked and walked up the unweeded path toward Vinet-ta’s trailer singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

As I opened the door, Floyd Jr. started applauding me. Vinetta and the other kids joined in.

“My God, your singing’s really gotten good,” Vinetta said. She was trimming the hair of one of the restless girls. “You really do sound lonesome tonight.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’ll win any contests, but I’m going to give it the old college try.”

“On top of the costume and performance, you got to get his look down.”

“I plan to.”

“Then you better step on it,” said Floyd Jr., “cause you only got a week.”

“I know.”

“Floyd Jr. had me buy you some glue-on sideburns,” Vin said, and surprised me by holding them up for me—two thick strips of fur.

“Thank you. Oh, I got some sweet bananas.” None of them were interested.

“Why don’t you put your fanny in this chair and let me Elvisize you,” Vin said to gloss over the fruit rejection.

“You think you can do it?”

“I always got compliments with Floyd’s pompadour.”

When the little blond girl hopped off the stool, I removed several thick elevating books from it and sat down. Vinetta wrapped a checkered tablecloth around my neck, and to a cassette of Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel,” she wet my hair back and began snipping away.

There was no mirror, so it was a leap of faith as clumps of my hair feathered down onto the floor.

“Did you know I am a quarter Apache?” Vinetta said. “My grandfather on my mother’s side.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and I’ve just been dying to scalp your wonderful head of black hair.”

For half an hour, as her kids yelped for dinner and got into scuffles, Vinetta kept cutting, sometimes pausing and comparing my head with photos of Elvis. When she was done, she yanked the red checkered cloth away and said, “There you are—Elvis on a great hair day.”

“Really?” I nervously glimpsed at myself in the reflection of a shiny pot.

“Well, you still need about a gallon of bear grease to lube it back, but you are Elvis from the forehead up.”

In the bathroom mirror, I saw that she had actually done it. I donned Elvis’s combed-back dorsal fin.

Unsurprisingly, the more I looked the part, the more energized I felt. I launched myself further into Elvis mania. Online, I saw that there was an industry of books about him. There were books on his flamboyant clothes, on his retro cars, on his fat-filled recipes. There were tomes on how to impersonate him, how to walk, talk, and sing like him. There were stories about the day he died, and volumes on his relationship with everyone who ever brushed up against him. Eventually I even found a book about the books of Elvis.

At Floyd Jr.’s suggestion, I watched one of the King’s movies, Kid Creole, on their home VCR. Carefully I tried mimicking his gestures and voice.

“Elvis had about half a dozen signature expressions,” Vin said, having sized him up and whittled him down with Floyd.

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