Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (13 page)

The
Colonel was finally dead now after living to the ripe
old age of eighty-seven. And Elvis is still going strong, in one
way
or the other.

He
bestirred himself to open one of the long row of mirrored closet doors.

Time to go out. To see and be seen. Let's see. What
would
he wear?
His pale, beringed hand reached out for something white.

Chapter 13
 

All Shook Up
(Elvis's 1957 all-time hit, thirty weeks on the
charts; Elvis's "Yeah, Yeah" here inspired the
trio of yeahs in Lennon and McCartney's "She
Loves Me." Elvis had recorded a song named
"Yeah,
yeah, yeah" in 1954.)

Matt
Devine was thirty-five minutes into his midnight radio show, but it felt like
he had only spent about ten
minutes
at the microphone.

Maybe
he was getting good at this.

Or
maybe this had been an easy night.

He'd
had the usual lovelorn listeners he inherited from Ambrosia's earlier
"music for misery" three-hour show.
"Music
for misery" was Matt's name for it. Also "soft
rock for hard times." To be fair, not everyone
who called
in was feeling blue; some wanted a sentimental song to
celebrate a new love, or a dedicated parent or
sibling.
Still, it added up to a three-hour stint of with-it schmaltz.

Matt and his "serious" talk show was supposed to
be
the heavy hitter; the real counselor.
But it was hard for
Matt to take the
emotional scratches and contusions
of call-ins to WCOO-AM
seriously after months of
handling hot-line counseling for
ConTact. There the
daily owies ranged from domestic violence to drug over
dose to
suicide, life-threatening problems that were
sometimes still in progress.

Still, he had debuted on
this station to handle an
almost-infanticide,
and he'd rather help apply Band-Aids
than perform CPR any day.

“
So what d'you think, Mr. Midnight?" the tentative
female voice was asking for all the world to hear.
"Should I ditch Spencer and stick with Kirby?”

Given
names nowadays! Hard to imagine what a St.
Spencer or a St.
Kirby would be like. As for a St. Tif
fany. . .

“
Tiffany, it's your life. You're only sixteen. You don't have to choose
anyone yet. You have a right to tell both
guys you want to play the field. You have a right to pick
one, or
neither. What you don't have a right to do is be dishonest with them, or
yourself."

“
Right." She didn't sound like the road had become
clear and
straight ahead of her, or ever would. "I know!
Maybe I should find a third guy. That way neither one
can blame
the other, or me."

“
You could try life without a boyfriend for a while."
"Really? I never thought of that."

“
Maybe
you don't need to know more guys. Maybe
you need to know
yourself a little better so you can
figure out what guys are right for you."

“
Oh, that is such a radical idea, Mr. Midnight. Guess
what I'm gonna do? Nothing. I'm gonna stay home
nights and listen to your show, and figure out what
everybody else is doing. It'll be
like going to school,
right?"

“
Maybe." At moments like this, Matt longed to simply
end the conversation with some schmaltzy song, as
Am
brosia did. With a voice as warm
and mellow as her
cafe-au-lait skin,
"Ambrosia" was producer Leticia
Brown's seven-to-midnight
alter ego. Mr. Midnight, unfortunately, sang a cappella. "Whatever you do,
do it for yourself first. If you don't know who you are, you won't
be able to tell who anyone else is."

“Oooh.
That is so right on. Thank you, Mr. Midnight.

I'll
be here, listening to you.”

That's
what Matt was afraid of. In the commercial
radio counseling game, it seemed that
the messenger, not
the message, was the big
attraction.

Radio
was an anonymous medium, but it wasn't a
private one, like the hotline. Matt
still felt uneasy about
the difference.

In
the control booth, Ambrosia/Leticia was giving him
the thumb's-up sign. Her
beautiful, upbeat face was his
lifeline. She didn't have to stay after her gig, but
she
had hired him. She planned on babying him along, es-
pecially after his spectacular debut.

“Great,
Matt," her deep voice, so like a cat's that had
swallowed a brandy Alexander, purred over the head
phones.
"You're developing quite a teeny-bopper fol-
lowing."

“That's
good?"

“That's
very good. That's the groove the advertisers crave.”

And
that's what was happening while they talked: commercials were playing, paying
his salary.

Leticia
lifted a forefinger like a chorus director. When
it descended, another voice
was humming in his ears,
male this time.

“This,
ah, that midnight talk show?"

“Certainly
is. The Midnight Hour on WCOO-AM: talk radio with heart." Matt delivered
this corny line with as much heart as he could muster.

“I'm
just sittin' here, and I heard your last caller.

There sure are a lot of
lonely little girls out there." "Tiffany wasn't exactly lonely; that
was the point."

“
Yeah, well, I got a lot of sympathy for kids these
days, with all the drugs and bad folks that are out
there.
We really oughta do somethin' about that."

“
We keep trying. So,
what can I help you with to
night?"

“
Me? I just wanta help other people. I'm in a
position
of some influence, you know."

“No,
I don't."

“Bein'
an entertainer and all. Folks look up to you.
Sometimes,
though, it can be a pain in the butt. They
just gotta come around and
get all that attention. I try to
give 'em as
much back as I can, but it's endless. Just
endless."

“Is
that your problem?"

“Hell,
it's not a problem, son! It's success."

“
Seems to me success has been a problem to a lot of
people, especially some of those whose acts have
played
this town.”

The
man laughed, deep and easy. Matt was having flashbacks to another Vegas
celebrity he had unwittingly
counseled at
ConTact. A light sweat prickled his skin as
he remembered that man's
manipulative dark side. Their
conversations
had become antagonistic and deeply per
sonal.
Matt wanted to avoid that sort of game on live
radio at all costs. It catered to the caller's egocentric needs and did
him no good. And it did Matt's psyche
not
a bit of good either. It was like dueling Lucifer, a
being of pride and
power and incidental evil. Matt's past
as a
priest made him all too open to other people's spir
itual ills.

“
Well, now, see, I'm not just
your ordinary performer.

I put my whole soul into my shows. And my fans, man,
they
put their souls right out there, in the palm of my hands. I'm just a
wringin'-wet rag when I come off that
stage.
Hell, I gotta have guys onstage to wipe my brow
and bring me water.”

Matt was scouring his brain.
Who could this be? Who
that big was playing Vegas right now? Who that big
would call a
dinky show like the Midnight Hour?

“
These big Vegas shows sure are marathons of en
durance,"
Matt said sympathetically, playing for time.

“
En-dur-ance. That is the word, son. I can't hardly
sleep until dawn after one of these
babies. I can't hardly
sleep ever."

“
The adrenaline of performance can be pretty hard
to burn off afterwards," Matt said, remembering that Tem
ple had
often stayed up with Max Kinsella, the magician,
until he "came down" after his two evening shows. Even
Matt was experiencing trouble sleeping now that he
had
a midnight performance date every
Wednesday to Sun
day. "Maybe you
need someone around to help you
come down.”

This
time the laugh went on as long as an aria. "I got
somebody. I got truckloads of somebodies; always had,
always will. I am not alone unless I wanta be. And
when
I don't wanta be alone, I just
snap my fingers and I got
people to do
whatever I wanta do when I wanta do it:
play pool, play football, play
footsie and a lot more."

“Sounds
like you could do more to do what the people around need and want, instead of
just indulge yourself."

“
I work my ass off, and they get a lot of
privileges
workin' for me. It's a
rough schedule, two shows a night,
night
after night. And these shows are all me. I'm not
as young as I usta be, gotta have a doctor travel with
me, to tend my needs, you know? I give those guys
and girls plenty. Least they could do is what I want, when I
need
it."

“
I understand. I'm just saying it might not be good
for you to have everyone in your life
arranging theirs
totally around you,
no matter what you pay them. You
can't buy love."

“
Hey, what're you sellin'? A song title? Been done,
son. And you're wrong. You can buy love. I've done
it." A pause, for the first time.
"Loyalty, though. You can't buy that. I been burned there. All those guys
and
girls, all blowin' off their
mouths after they left me, tellin' the inside story on this and the inside
story on that.
Makin' me look like a
pitiful fool. Makin' money off
me even when they're long off the
payroll."

“People
can betray you," Matt agreed. He glanced at
Leticia, wondering if he should lose the guy. She'd like
the idea of a celebrity performer calling in, but
this guy
could be doing stand-up
comedy in some fringe club, for
all
Matt knew. And his voice was slurred with sleep, or
with something
stronger.

But Leticia's expression was rapt beyond the glass
window, and her hand was making the circling motion
that
meant: keep it going.

“
What can I do to help
you?" Matt asked.

“
Well, son, I came up the hard way, never got much
education ... not that I wasn't plenty sharp. I
made me,
and don't let anyone tell you
different. But it all just hit
so
fast when I was so young, and before you know it
I'm hidin' out from fans. Though I never did manage to
hide out
from the pretty ones, you know what I mean?”

Matt
disliked the complacent womanizing tone. "So
you only care about attractive
fans."

“
No, man! You don't know
me. I love 'em all, and
they love me
back. But there are . . . side benefits, all right? But that was before I got
in touch with my spir
itual side.”

Matt
rolled his eyes at Leticia. This guy sounded
about as spiritual as a tire iron.

“
I had my fun,"
the caller admitted. "More than any
one man has ever had, I'll bet. But I lost my mama when
I was young, and we were real close. Couldn't buy
her
all the things she'd never had,
she was gone that fast.
Couldn't buy
her anything then, but at least she had that
pink Cadillac. She didn't drive, but what's money for
but spendin'? Wish I'd-a watched who was spendin'
what, though. I had to work too hard on my movies
and
stage shows to wanta do much but
have fun when I
wasn't workin'. Guess I shoulda been watchin' the purse
strings, like they say. I made a lotta money, but a
lotta
people made too much money off
me. It makes me mad,
to tell you the truth, when I lie here after a show
and everybody's gone and my mind goes round and round,
and nothin' can touch that feelin' and I can't sleep no
matter what I take. I shoulda watched out for
myself
more. But I thought I was
payin' them to watch out for
me. And
they did, as much as I'd let 'em. Maybe I didn't
let 'em much."