Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (41 page)

I
am welcomed with a raucous chatter and a crushing embrace

Chapter 39

Guitar
Man

(Featured in the '68 Comeback Special, this
Jerry Reed song was given a new Reed
instrumental background by Felton Jarvis
in
1980,
and become Elvis's last number one song
on any
Billboard
chart)

It
was
as
if Elvis had risen from the dead.

All the other Elvi's nearest and dearest stood in trib
ute, applauding wildly. They left their seats and stormed
the orchestra pit, reaching up to this sudden embodiment
of
what the Kingdome was created to memorialize.

He stayed down on one knee near the stage rim, shining
with the holy sheen of effort, head bowed, both the
humble
knight-to-be awaiting the icy touch of the naked sword, and the prideful
acolyte accepting richly deserved acclaim.

Only the fact that Temple sat on the aisle kept Electra
from charging out of her seat and doing likewise.
"That was incredible," Temple said. "This
guy is
good!”

Electra flashed Temple a glance. "He's only about a
tenth
as good as the real Elvis." She sat back, and her
voice shook a little.
"But he's the best make-do I've ever seen."

“
He must be KOK, and that means that the dead guy
isn't."

“
KOK?"

“
The King of Kings. The other impersonators were
talking about him like he carried the Holy Grail. I
can
almost see this guy justifying
rumors that Elvis is alive
and
masquerading as one of his own imitators. How old
do you think he
is?"

“
Does it matter? Temple, we just glimpsed something
that no one has seen for over twenty
years. It's like
breathing the air of
a pyramid that hasn't been opened
since the time of the pharaohs."

“
Electra, I know you're a fan, but breathe deeply.
Think. Elvis isn't a pharaoh. He isn't eternal.
Maybe he
had extraordinary performing
charisma, but . . . we all
die, and he lasted longer than Jimi Hendrix
and Jim Mor
rison and Janis Joplin, the other
rock-star drug casualties
of the seventies."

“
Elvis wasn't like them. He didn't get into the drug
culture from that disaffected
counterculture. He was like
us. He got
into it because no one told him it was dan
gerous; it was prescribed.”

The degrees of difference in drug addiction didn't cut
any cocaine with Temple. She was impressed by good
theater, by how totally a performer could absorb the per
sona of another. She was thinking how perfectly playing a
dead man might challenge the gods, how it might seem
to demand death as its perfect, true-to-life ending. One
thing had really struck her about the performance, be
sides the impersonater's passionate perfection, his own
true
compelling charisma.

It was the design embroidered on the back of his mar
tial arts
gi:
from where she sat, it looked remarkably like
a rearing stallion. (She had read enough about Elvis by
now to sit back and free associate. Rising Sun was the
name
of Elvis's horse, and also a bow to Eastern mys
ticism and Japan, the land of the Rising Sun. It even
could refer to Sun Records, his first recording
house. He
had called the ranch where
the horses were kept the
House of the
Rising Sun.) Around the equine rampant
radiated stylized sunbursts of
gilt and red embroidery: fireworks, if you will, also an Eastern invention,
whence
came the rising sun every morning.
And of course dawn
was the symbol of rebirth.

Just
how old was this guy under the iconistic disguise?
Could he possibly be a fit sixty-four . . . oh, Temple, get
a
grip! Still . . . his performance had given her chills.

And she
didn't even like Elvis, or his music, or his
looks, or his lifestyle, or his legend.

Chapter 40

Bossa Nova Baby

(From
Fun in
Acapulco,
another
of Elvis's "travelogue" movies)

My first notion is to panic. Here I am, entrapped in the
dark
by person or persons unknown.

Except that I have a pretty good clue to the identity of
my captor, especially when I inhale deeply to keep from
having
the breath squeezed out of me, and smell banana breath.

“Well,"
I growl, "you have already answered one of my
questions. I now know that you like to wander at will if
your
master forgets to latch your cage.”

I
am dropped like a hot potato, or more accurately, a mashed one.

“You
not human," the creature manages to spit out be
tween indecipherable syllables of high-pitched chatter.
"Human come. Feed. Human come. Talk. You not
hu
man."

“
That is good to hear." I shake myself to repair the
flattened hairs. My coat of choice may not be
Memphis
Mafia mohair, or Elvis
jumpsuit wool gabardine, but it is a decent set of threads, even if they are
home-grown. "I
had thought you
had to exist here alone in the dark all
the time.”

I get a long drum-roll of chatter in its native language.
Then
it settles down to tell Louie all.

“
Only for surprise," Chatter says.
"Chatter big surprise.
Must wait
in dark. Be patient. Be patient." I can tell the
poor monk is repeating the mantra some human has
put
in his head. "Chatter perform soon.”

I suddenly have an inspiration. "Hey, Chatter. Jump
up
at the wall there
next to the door. Yeah, right there. See
where the crack of light from the outside ends. Right.
There
is a small switch on the wall. Pull it down as you
descend." No use exerting myself when there is someone
else
around to do the dirty work, that is, any work at all.

Amid screams of excitement, Chatter manages to fol
low instructions, and after several upward bounds hailed
by arpeggios of awful squawking, fluorescent light sud
denly
floods down on us like a jungle rainstorm.

Chatter's hairy little form is now in full display. I ex
amine his long arms and the naked fingers at the end of
his large hairy hands. His naked face is repellent to one
of
my breed. Chatter is like a halfway house between the animal and the human, and
I find this cross-species ap
pearance and
behavior unsettling. One should either be
four- or two-footed, I feel,
but Chatter proceeds to canter
around the
storage space, his legs doing the leaping and
his dragging forearms dipping now and then along the
ground like
oars.

“What
is it that you do when you perform?"

“
I play the ... the—" The chimpy chump makes
sounds
like a machine gun gagging.

After about five minutes of close interrogation, I deter
mine that Chatter plays a musical instrument. Yuk-yuk-
yuk-yuk.

I finally realize that Chatter is not doing a bad Curly of
Three Stooges fame imitation, but is trying to articulate the name of
his instrument of choice. A ukulele. What a
word! He
plays this tongue-twister instrument wearing, of
course, the miniature Elvis jumpsuit I spied hanging from
his cage
on my first visit.

Now that we have light, I head for the cage, jumping
atop
some piled boxes and then climbing the chicken wire
side to inspect the costume hanging high above the con
crete floor.

I am not thrilled about performing this high-wire act,
but
I need to investigate
the ape suit. I had noticed that this
jeweled
jumpsuit included a built-in diaper, which would
not have been a bad
idea for the original wearer, given the sad state drugs had put him into during
his last months. To my expert eye, and I have in the past discovered smuggled
diamonds, the stones begemming the suit are purely glass and plastic. I bat at
the low-slung seat to see if the built-in diaper is suspiciously heavy. (It
would be an excellent hiding-place for smuggled goods, since who is going to
inspect a chimp diaper but the keeper?)
Nothing but the usual absorbent padding.

And, by the way, if chimpanzees are supposed to be
the next thing to human, give or take an australopithe
cene this or that discovered hither and thither, how come
they have not the basic elimination skills you can find in
an alley cat? A much
overrated species, in my opinion,
and Chatter
is doing nothing to change that conclusion.

“
Louie climb good," he comments, leaping up
and
down on his knuckles from below.

“When
I have to." I let my built-in pitons relax and drop back onto the box top.

Then I turn my attention to Chatter's cage latch. No
doubt about it, the critter has excellent motor control in
his fingers. And that damnable opposable
thumb .. .

“
I see you've figured out a way to let yourself in
and
out of confinement," I note.

Chatter jumps up and down, screaming, which I as
sume
is his way of taking the Fifth.

I
jump down to the concrete to join him.

“I
like visitors," he screeches. "I like Cilia.”

This is not surprising. I knew the beauty was sneaking
in
to visit the beast, but I never knew why.

“Is
she your friend?"

“Friend.
Cilia pat Chatter. Cilia talk Chatter. Cilia bring presents."

“
Okay. "Fess up. Who is your master? Who
brought
you here?"

“Master?"

“
Do not play dumb. I am not your usual gullible
human.
You are an impersonator as much
as all those Elvis
clones running
around out there. You represent Elvis's
pet chimp Scatter. You were brought here for a purpose.
Was it just to play second banana to some Elvis
imper
sonator? Or something else?”

Chatter hides his ugly mug behind his funky fingers,
just
his bright beady eyes peeping out, looking oh-so-coy. "Chatter play
tricks."

“I
know. The ukulele."

“More!
Chatter run around."

“So
does a gerbil."

“
Chatter run around and look up the lady skirts. Big
laugh."

“
Nasty trick. I bet the original Scatter was a
peeping
Tom too. Is that all you can do, act like a deviate?”

He
may not know the word, but he is smart enough to
recognize an insult when he hears one. Chatter screams
at me,
monkey invective. "Chatter clever. Chatter smart. Chatter open cage and no
one knows."

“Hah.
Louie knows."

“Not
just here."

“Not
just here? Then where?”

Chatter's marble-round eyes squint shut, just like a hu
man suspect when he is feeling shifty.
"Upstairs."
"You
got loose upstairs?"