The Enigmatologist (4 page)

“Anyway,” she continued, “I bought more records and would
dance to them when Herman was at work, hiding them in the closet before he came
home. I even secretly joined an Elvis Fan Club. Well, a few months later,
Herman went out of town for work, to Los Angeles. We lived in Albuquerque back
then. I discovered, through the Elvis Fan Club, that Elvis was performing in
Dallas that weekend. Herman never liked me driving, but I said to heck with him
and took the car anyway. I left at five in the morning and drove all day to get
to the show in time. That’s the program and ticket stub framed on the mantle.”
She pointed toward it.

John turned and was poked in the eye by the painting.

“That must have been some show,” he said. The stub
occupying a place of honor, sitting at the right hand of Elvis’s schlong.

“Oh, it was. The show was sold out. There were over
twenty-five thousand Elvis fans at the Cotton Bowl, screaming at the top of
their lungs. My seat was in the back and I could barely see the stage. When
Elvis came out, he looked like a tiny speck, and with all the screaming, I couldn’t
hear any of the songs, but you know what, it didn’t matter. I was finally near
him.”

“Did Mr. Morris ever find out?”

“You know, I wasn’t going to tell him, but then something
happened on the way home. I was feeling energized and a little rebellious.
Elvis’s music has that affect on people. I was hungry and went into a bar in
Dallas. I met a man there and spent the night with him.” She folded her hands
in her lap and looked down. “I hope you don’t think I’m a bad person for being
unfaithful to my husband.”

“No, I don’t.” She seemed sweet, naïve. John had a hard
time faulting her for something she did sixty years ago. Instead, he felt a
little sorry for her.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “That’s very sweet of you
to say, but Herman didn’t agree. You see, Herman and I were high school
sweethearts and waited until our honeymoon to be together. Our first time was
embarrassing and painful. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were never
really intimate after our honeymoon. We’d try every so often, usually when
Herman was drunk. Fortunately, and I hate to say it like that, but it’s true,
well, fortunately, he couldn’t maintain his…well, let’s just say he couldn’t
maintain. I doubt you have that problem, Mr. Abernathy.”

“Wait. What?” John jerked his head back, unsure why she’d
said that.

“The man in Dallas,” she continued, crossing her legs,
smiling like a super villain whose plan was unfolding, “when I slept with him
it was like something awoke inside me. I’d never really experienced sex before.
Real sex. And I wanted more.”

“So, uh, did you ever tell your husband?” John asked He
propped his elbow on the armrest, lowered it, then propped it again.

“I had to. I told him everything. I felt so relieved. It
was liberating, saying everything I’d been feeling for the past couple of
years. Feeling deep
inside me. I was sure he’d throw a fit, but Herman
didn’t say anything. He locked himself in his study, listening to Bing Crosby.
That night I packed some things and went to stay with my sister. She thought I
was crazy. Most of my friends did back then. Although now, looking back, they
tell me they thought I was brave, free to experiment.”

“So, you went into science?” he asked, like a naïve kid
interviewing her for his high school paper.

“I’m an expert at chemistry.”

The innuendo threw John. He thought the interview was
heading toward discovering the man in the photo’s address. Based on the way
Mrs. Morris was looking at him, John was starting to think she wanted it to
head someplace horizontal. He heard Rooftop’s voice telling him to remain
professional, get Mrs. Morris back on topic.

“So you left your husband, then what?” he asked.

“Well, I took a job at the University of New Mexico as a
house mother in the girls’ dormitory. It was so much fun. The girls were crazy
about Elvis. We’d have pillow fights, wear out records dancing in our
underwear.” Mrs. Morris leaned in, whispering, “The girls called them panties.”

John tensed, sat upright.

“And of course, the whole time I was collecting. By the
1960s you could find Elvis’s face on everything. Clocks, towels, figurines.
Everything.”

“Even paintings.”

“And more,” Mrs. Morris said, punctuating her syllables
with raised eyebrows.

“And now you have your own picture of him,” he said,
hoping that talking about the photo would get the interview back on track. He
needed to find the man in the picture, solve the reporter’s murder, even if
that meant he had to suffer Mrs. Morris hitting on him.

“Oh yes, I’m so proud of that photo.”

“About that, how did you find him?”

“Well, I was driving down South Grand, coming back from my
sister’s house. I visit every Saturday to play Canasta with a group of women
from church. Don’t worry. I only pretend to be reformed.”

“Who’s worried?” John said, shifting on the couch.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Morris continued, “on my way home, I
stopped at the Stuff ‘n Pump filling station on Alamo Street and saw this man
get out of a truck and start walking into a mobile home. I’m always noticing
men. Well, I watched him.” She leaned forward, her hands folded, she whispered,
“I like to watch.” She continued in her normal voice like the previous
creepiness never happened. “He was acting strange…”

“He’s not the only one.”

“Looking around before he went in. I didn’t recognize him
at first, but when he turned in my direction, I knew instantly it was him. It
was Elvis Presley! Well, I didn’t have my camera with me, so I went back the
next day to see if he was there, but he didn’t show. So, I went back every day
for a week, parked across the street from the lot, and waited. Well, on Sunday
he came back. And you know what, I took out my camera and took that picture.
Then I sent it to you. And here. You. Are.”

“Did you approach him, try talking to him?”

“Heavens, no.” Mrs. Morris picked up an old lunch box
decorated with images from the Elvis movie
Follow That Dream
, and held
it over her heart.

“Why not? You’d think with everything you’ve collected
you’d want to at least talk to him.” John leaned back and relaxed, thinking
that having her focus her attention on the picture, on Elvis, was like a cup of
chamomile tea and horse tranquilizers, settling her down. And later that night
he could text his friends and tell them about a crazy old woman and her Elvis
collection, and not a story about how he grossly underestimated the sex drive of
senior citizens.

“I know some people think I’m a little odd for all my
collecting, but I know enough to know that this is the Elvis I love.” She
gestured to the icons and idols hanging on the walls, cluttering flat surfaces.
She looked at the painting, said, “What if the real person doesn’t…”

“Measure up?” John said, not able to help himself.

Mrs. Morris smiled. “John, do you mind if I join you on
the couch?”

“Uh, I’m sure that would be fine,” he said. “It is your
couch after all.”

“Yes, it is.” Mrs. Morris sat the far end of the couch,
and removed a few bobby pins from behind her head. She mussed her silver,
shoulder-length hair with one hand, her reading glasses swinging from the
beaded chain around her neck.

“You are a skinny little thing, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be fooled. I’m bigger than I look,” he said,
immediately regretting it.

“That’s what I’m counting on.” Mrs. Morris smiled like
John was a piece of hard candy she wanted to unwrap.

John cringed. When he lived in the college dorms, a kid
down the hall Scotch taped magazine clippings of naked women to his own bedroom
wall. The kid dubbed his room the ‘The Dirty Girl’s Bible Study’. Mrs. Morris’s
painting hinted at interests besides Elvis, and John reprimanded himself for
not recognizing it. He was ready to end the interview, drive away and never
return, but something bothered him about the photo, something that seemed off,
unnatural. John hoped Mrs. Morris could clarify it for him.

“So, is there any chance he saw you?” John asked.

“I was across the street,” she said.

“In this picture,” John said, pointing to the man, “it
looks like he’s waving at you.”

“He wasn’t waving at me. He was looking up.” She put her
finger next to the man’s head. It was tilted, the sideburns at a sharp angle.

“Like at a plane or something?” John said.

“I don’t know. Why do people wave at anything?”

“To get someone’s attention. To be recognized. They want
to know that someone else in this world sees them, acknowledges that they
exist. Mostly, they wave hoping someone will wave back.”

“John,” she said, “I feel comfortable with you, like I can
be myself. Do you feel that way?”

“Uh, sure, I suppose,” he said. When John was in college,
and a girl said she ‘felt comfortable’, like she could ‘be herself’, it usually
ended with her sharing her poetry about hand-knitted, penguin sweaters and
alienation, and John was concerned that Mrs. Morris was going to recite poetry
about Elvis and her vagina.

“Can I tell you something?” Mrs. Morris asked, unbuttoning
her top blouse button, running her fingers along her neckline, playing with a
sealed button. “I think we should be friends. Do you want to be friends?”

“Uh, sure. Friends is good,” John lied. He thought about
what he’d seen working for Rooftop and worried that Mrs. Morris wanted to be
‘friends with butt stuff’.

“Good.” She slid closer on the couch. “I think you and I
will make perfect friends. You know what friends do, John? They share.”

“Like the address where you took this picture?” he said,
sliding further from her, bumping against the armrest.

“Sure. But, first,” Mrs. Morris said, sliding a finger
down his arm, “I have something else I’d like to share with you.”

“I’m sure you do,” John said.

Mrs. Morris went into the back room. John decided he’d
jump through the window if she came out wearing a
crotchless
Elvis costume. He leaned over on the couch, peeked into the room. Mrs. Morris
dug through collectibles, exhuming a small, white box.

“This is my most recent acquisition,” she said, returning
to the room and sitting next to him, their legs brushing.

“Here, open it.” She handed him the box.

John held it, arms outstretched, head turned away. He
lifted one corner of the box’s lid like it was a bomb, cautious whatever crazy
sex toy inside might explode in his face.

Nothing.

He removed the rest of the lid, peered in, sighed, sank
back into the couch. And pulled out a silk tie.

“I picked it up in Albuquerque last November,” she said.
“It’s the bowtie Elvis wore during the Hawaii benefit concert in ’61. It’s the
prize of my collection.” She took it from him and bit one end. “You know, you
could use it to tie me up. Or choke me.”

“That’s it, I
gotta
go.” John
leapt from the couch and ran to the door.

“But you just got here,” she said, pouting slightly.

“I need to check out the man’s trailer. Would you mind
writing down his address for me?” he asked, bouncing from one foot to the
other.

“I thought we were friends, John?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking,” he said,
his voice shaking a little.

“If you want the address…” she said, sashaying toward him.
She squished him against the door, one finger slithering down his shirt.
“You’ll have to give me something for it.”

“Uh…” John groped around for the door knob, jiggling it,
but it was locked.

“Oh, don’t get so worked up. All I want is a kiss. Right here
on the cheek.” She pointed to her right cheek.

One little kiss on the cheek wouldn’t hurt. And it would
save him from searching every trailer on Alamo Street. He clenched his eyes
shut and puckered, expecting something sour, inched closer to her.

She offered her cheek and leaned in, anticipating. When
his nose grazed the thin hairs on her cheek, she turned and seized his head
with both hands. And pressed her mouth to his.

John tried to yank and jerk free, waving his hands
frantically like a cartoon cat with its tail caught in an electrical socket,
but she held him, rubbing her sagging breasts against him. She opened her mouth
and forced her tongue deep into his. It circled around the inside of his mouth,
violently pushing against his tongue, teeth, and roof of his mouth. He gagged
at the taste of it. She tasted like a combination of a baseball glove and
menthol cigarettes. She finally let go, and John gasped for breath.

“There,” she said, smiling. “That wasn’t too bad.”

“Fuck this,” John said, unlocking and running out the
door. He wiped her slobber off his face and spat on the dry earth, feeling like
kneaded dough, molested by wrinkled hands, then dry humped for about an hour
while listening to ‘Love Me Tender’.

“Don’t you want the address?” she asked as he sprinted
down her drive.