Dashboard Elvis is Dead, page 9
Reef nudges Bingo. She turns, quizzical.
‘D’ye think that is?’ he asks. He motions towards the van’s dusty dashboard. The white flared trouser legs of a plastic figure, glued to the pitted leather. Rosary beads dangle from its ankles. Above a thick black belt, its body is missing.
‘It’s maybe a sign,’ says Bingo.
‘Ae whit?’ says Reef.
‘That we’re gonnae die in this fucken van,’ says Jamie. ‘Dismembered by a mad-eyed cunt called Jesus.’
Reef nudges him and eventually they both laugh.
‘By the time, ah get tae Phoenix, ah’ll be stinkin’, Reef sings,
‘Ye’ll find ma heid in a noose, hangin’ fae a door,’ Jamie adds.
They cackle like children, and it feels, briefly, like it did back in the early days. When they were a band of brothers, up against the record machine and everyone in it. When a look or a nod of the head was all the communication they needed. When they had the gang mentality that propels all great young bands. AFB snaps them and giggles, and Jamie, despite himself, is beginning to relax.
A State of Independence (5)
El Paso is a scheduled stop. It arrives at an opportune time. The halt coincides with another flurry of activity surrounding the angry Black man with the stained gray pants that are too tight for his thighs. The fracas spills out onto the steaming tarmac, and I disembark unnoticed with my belongings. I watch a three-way fistfight develop between a white man dressed for business, a Black man dressed for the Vegas nightspots and a Hispanic public servant. Two nearby cops spring into action. They initially assume the Hispanic driver to be the aggressor. I sit on a bench watching the subsequent reactions. The re-setting of the expected stereotypes. The angry Black man with the stained gray pants is loaded into the back of the patrol car. The middle-aged white man receives a handshake. The driver calms himself sufficiently to get back behind the wheel. And when the dust settles, I’m in a foreign place, on the very edge of Texas. I’m sat on a bench, weighing up a new range of potential options, having departed the Greyhound bus earlier than anticipated. I wait for a long time. Conscious of the sudden freedom to make decisions without consultation. And then I get up. I walk. Westwards, in the direction I am drawn to.
I follow the highway for miles. Not directionless, I’d hasten. I picked up a guidebook at the bus halt. My ticket to San Francisco is still valid. I can always catch another Greyhound later. The $177 I stole from the wallet of the Black man with the stained gray pants has bought me time. I don’t want to relinquish it just yet. I walk along the edge of the TX-375 loop road. It’s 10.00am and the prediction from the elderly couple across the aisle from me on the bus is landing. It is indeed going to be a hot one. The elevated stretches of the road offer a panorama of ramshackle, colorful, often derelict single-story boxes that recall our small part of Humble. Nothing separates Ciudad Juarez on the southern side of the narrow Rio Grande River from El Paso on the American side. The tense confluence of cultures, of identities, of ambitions, that you might imagine existing on a major international border is conspicuously absent. People traverse the bridge over the glistening water in both directions. They carry little more than bulging plastic bags. They are simply crossing from one country to the next for supplies, it seems. Others stand on the dusty banks. Fishing with thin wires and rods fashioned from sticks.
I walk further still, until the midday heat becomes too much to bear. I reach the point on the guide’s map that I had circled while sat contemplating on the bench. I stand on what I consider to be the intersection of three states and two countries. A broken fence, a dam across the narrowest part of the Rio Grande, a small white obelisk, and an unruly grove of trees. A landmark location where cultures and ambitions collide. I imagine spinning a top and heading in the direction that it faces when it comes to a stop. Is that independence?
Emboldened, I find a cheap motel, as tatty as the degenerating slums of Felipe Ángeles it overlooks. The wages – or winnings – of the man with the gray stained pants could’ve bought me two weeks here. But I pay for three days. And for three days, cocooned in florid drapes, a worn patterned carpet and an unmatching quilt, I do little other than eat trashy food, watch television, listen to the small transistor radio I’ve brought with me, and masturbate regularly to the idea of AJ Carter. To the wondrous thought of him fucking me in this convenient roadside motel. As if we were on spring break. Us as anonymous equals. Jimmy Montgomery looking down on us from his place, pinned on the wall over the bedhead. His presence a comfort as well as a psychosexual barb. He skirts around the edges of my impressionable subconscious. My shame. My guilt.
Thinking back now to those three days, I remember reasoning that true independence is simply the freedom to fuck up on my own terms.
I write copiously. Desperate to capture my experiences as I am experiencing them, for fear that they might somehow evaporate in the heat and be lost to me. Pen in hand, I reflect on the incident with the man on the bus:
What have I taken from this? The Black man saw me as fair game because, to him, I looked Black. And the white man only defended me because, to him, I looked white. Black people live in a world where white people make all the rules. But not everything is about race all the time. Perhaps AJ and I were put off the bus to Houston because we were just being loud and annoying to the other passengers.
It’s unnervingly quiet. It takes two full days for me to acknowledge this stopover as a line being drawn in the Texan sand. It delineates the before from the after. On the third morning, early, I venture out. I leave the key. I am not coming back. I head west. I walk the bleached concrete sidewalk. I follow the line of the curious, yellowed brick walls until they stop and become chain-link fencing along a line of railroad tracks. I walk, letting the arrow-straight road lead me somewhere. The far distance is hazy. I’m not sure how far I’ve walked but the disorderly clutter of structures has thinned out. Suburban to industrial to agricultural. Vehicles pass more sporadically, but at faster speeds. I’m close to the city limits, and a decision impends. After a time, I reach a gas station sitting in an open plain. Beside it is a Laundromat. Who would wash their clothes in this remote location? I don’t know. The windows of the laundry are boarded up in any case. I go around back and use the rest room. Just across from it, a small concrete shelter waits patiently for its function to be fulfilled. Buses stop here.
A hot-water faucet has been left turned on. The water runs cold though. Perspiration slicks my face, neck, and shoulders. I soak a paper towel, take off my cap and douse my head.
I study my reflection in a cracked mirror:
Hi, I’m Jude, and I’m headed to San Francisco to make my fortune, I repeat.
I laugh between variations of tone: downbeat trepidation. Infectious enthusiasm. Wide-eyed naivete. Steely confidence. My fortune dependent on untested judgement and resourcefulness. There is no bin to dispose of the spent towel. I open the closet door. Two bloodied, inflated tampons float in the bowl. I disturb a little, brown, scaly lizard. It scuttles out from behind the pan, stops and jerks its head in my direction before springing away across the tiles. I follow it out of the restrooms and am suddenly surprised at the ferocity of the heat, despite having just walked for miles in it. The orchestra of crickets is the loudest it’s been since I left home.
Cars and trucks motor pass, paying no notice. I walk towards the store and open the door. No-one is minding the counter. Not visibly at least. I look around the inside of the store. Every surface is lined floor to roof with roadside market tat that only desultory tourists would be tempted by. Sweat-shop rodeo shirts with the president’s grinning face screen-printed on them. Bandanas advertised by a Hispanic model wearing one as a mask, and little else. Gigantic El Paso-branded Stetsons. And, improbably, a full rack of pastel-colored baggage.
I pick up a pair of gold-framed mirror shades. I lift a cuddly toy lizard. And then I spot a plastic dashboard Elvis Presley. I shudder and my throat tightens. It’s Vegas-era Elvis, smiling, pointing, white-suited, flared legs apart, just like AJ’s. I pick him up.
Help ya there, miss? A suspicious edge to the question. Not kindly.
I turn sharply. I drop the Elvis Presley. An old storekeeper has appeared behind the counter. It isn’t clear where he has come from. There doesn’t seem to be a back room. He must’ve been ducked down behind the counter for some reason.
No. I’m just looking at these, I reply.
Your folks out front? he asks. He looks towards an empty forecourt.
I’m nineteen, I say, stumbling over the response. It doesn’t answer the question, and I’ve said it in a manner that only someone who wasn’t nineteen would.
Don’t have folks. I’m on my own, I say, recomposing.
There are security cameras here, jus’ so ya know, he says.
I look around. I can’t see any.
Well, I’ll feel real safe then, won’t I? I say.
The old man tuts. He ducks out of sight, like he has fallen through a trapdoor.
Mister, when’s the next bus to Phoenix? I shout after him.
Uh, about an hour … maybe two, he grunts, still concealed.
A tiny shelf holding three cameras catches my eye. I craved a camera to record my adventures but couldn’t spare the cash – not until my encounter with the man in the grey stained pants. I pick up the Polaroid and a pack of film and examine them, searching for a price. I glance back over at a display of potato chips. The old man resurfaces. He peers at me. I hold the camera up and smile broadly.
A convertible screeches into the gas station. Music is playing loudly from the radio. A young man and woman jump out over the doors. They begin dancing energetically. Separately. I look over at the old man. He watches, bemused, like me, as the couple gyrate to their own uncoordinated rhythm. I can only laugh at their joyous abandonment. The radio’s song ends, and both skip over to the shop, bursting through the door.
Well, howdy y’all … ah’m Clyde, an’ this here fine, fine young woman is Bonnie, says the young man, sing-song-style.
Under the influence of something, it seems certain. The old storekeeper stands at his till. He looks edgy. I smile nervously. The sassy young woman winks at me. She smiles, all gleaming white teeth and dimples deep enough to lose a fingertip in. She is wearing a tight red blouse and a short, black leather skirt. Kitten heels. Fifties movie-star hair, jet black. Her young man complements her. All in black: T-shirt, jeans, and boots. An exaggerated pompadour extends his height to easily over six foot.
…An’ we’re here to repatriate, brother … Hoo Wee, the young man in black yells.
He suddenly pulls a gun from behind him.
I gasp. And the three hear me. My smile vanishes. The young woman approaches me. She puts an arm around me.
…To repatriate the ill-gotten gains of Exxon an’ deliver them back to the poor, the needy … those famous huddled masses, my comrade brother, says the young man.
He points the handgun at the old storekeeper.
Will you help me – help me an’ the beautiful Ms Bonnie here in our selfless act of wealth redistribution? What say you, old-timer? asks the young man.
His lips pucker, blowing a kiss to the young woman, who pulls me tighter to her.
Rise up with fists, sir! I beseech you, the young man adds.
Don’t want no trouble, son. This is my store. Not Exxon’s, says the old storekeeper. I can see him shaking.
Wealth redistribution, you say? Nice touch, Clyde, says the young woman, still looking at me.
Why, thank ya kindly, Ms Bonnie. The Lord God Almighty, Johnny Cash, well, he thanks you too, he says, bowing theatrically.
I have a … um, a security camera, stutters the old man.
That’s good, ole’ man. Send the tape to the oil polluters, the capitalists, Ronnie Ray-gun, Kiss-ass Kissinger, the NRA, and the Ku Klux Klan. Demand compensation from all of ’em, says the young man.
And then:
He doesn’t, I say. Have security cameras, I mean, I add, and I don’t know why I do. Please don’t shoot him, I say to them.
The young man smiles at the young woman. I feel her shrug. He winks at me. He lifts the handgun. And my respiratory rate escalates. He keeps the gun pointed at the old storekeeper. Walks calmly to the till. Reaches over. Opens it. And empties it. If the old storekeeper has a shotgun under the counter, he has decided not to reach for it.
Take it, says the young woman. She is talking to me, looking at the camera and film in my hand.
I don’t have to. I have money to pay for it, I say, between breathless spasms.
But where’s the excitement in that, cutes? All property is theft anyway, she says softly.
Her voice calms me. Charms me. And I did steal the money, after all.
I suppose it is, I say.
We smile. There is a connection. I feel it. I bend down. The smiling dashboard Elvis is coming too.
So how about you come ride along with us, sweetie? We’re having a blast – and you can join if you want. Where you headed, anyway? she asks.
After a tiny pause, I say, Same place as you, I guess.
Everything is goin’ to be fantastic, she says. And I believe her.
The young woman laughs and cuddles me. AJ Carter had cuddled me. I can’t remember Delphine ever cuddling me. I hold the camera and pick up more film cassettes and take them.
Thank you, sir. The oppressed victims of Ronnie’s Reaganomics are forever in your debt. Take the rest of this fine day off, says the young man.
He nods to his partner. Let’s blow, Batgirl, he says.
Right behind ya, Kemo-Sabay. I’m takin’ this one, she says, pulling me behind her. A little hostage to our fortune! she yells.
The young man looks back and laughs.
Sure thing, sweetness. You’re the boss, he says. He grabs a cheap Mickey Mouse watch from a stand near the door.
We rush out. I’m carried along with their exuberance, criminal though it is. I look back through the open door. The old storekeeper watches us leave as he reaches for a telephone.
I jump in the back, and my abductors and I speed away. Onto Interstate 10, through the hazy desert landscape on another flat, straight road until, looking backwards through the dust, I no longer see the gas station. I’m already very different from how I was before.
The Ballad of the Band (5)
AFB shuffles around in the van’s back seat. Normally shy and reserved in the band’s presence, she now tuts loudly and regularly and melodramatically. She is writing in a notebook. She has been asking searching questions of Kenny McFadden, about the band’s expenditure mainly. Kenny increasingly feels like he’s under investigation – several of her questions appear to be asking the same thing but with different words. Trying to catch him out, he suspects. It won’t be difficult.
Jamie Hewitt is two rows in front. He’s absent-mindedly strumming a battered acoustic guitar picked up at a Tulsa flea market. Reef sits opposite him, writing. Chic is in the middle row, fidgeting, along with Bingo who, unsurprisingly is asleep. Kenny is up front, smoking weed with Jesus Castro. The vehicle’s radio remains off. Other than AFB interrogating Kenny McFadden for a spell, no-one has spoken since leaving Jefferson City six hours ago.
Jamie’s temporary optimism evaporated as soon as they reached the Missouri state capital. The in-store signing session was a disaster. Copies of the single hadn’t been delivered to the record store. The manager, on medical leave of absence, had forgotten to tell his staff about the band’s arrival. And no-one contacted the local radio stations to plug the event. So no-one turned up. On leaving the store, Jamie spotted a poster – IN STORE APPEARANCE TODAY BY ENGLISH BAND, THE HYPETEENS – hastily written in felt pen by an embarrassed young store assistant an hour before the shop closed. To temper his aggravation that night Bingo gave her single room to Jamie and joined the men in their cramped quarters. Jesus Castro, as ever, slept in the van. It now smelt like he’d died in it too.
‘Whit a great country, man, eh?’ Chic breaks the long silence. He is reading a MAD magazine. The cover celebrates Charles Darwin’s birthday with a cartoon illustrating Ronald Reagan as the third stage in the evolution of man – toothy, gormless, holding a club fashioned from an animal bone. ‘President’s a fucken movie star, for Christ’s sake. Imagine Joan Collins bein’ our prime minister, an’ no’ that torn-faced, blue-rinsed cow Thatcher?’ Chic’s wide-eyed wonder isn’t being shared.
‘Reagan’s a cunt, Chic,’ says Reef. ‘He should’ve stayed a fucken movie star. He’s got that daft, big, goofy face, like he’s everybody’s favourite Granda.’
‘The irony about that cover is Republicans dinnae believe in evolution. Everythin’s part ae a divine plan,’ Jamie adds. ‘What a load ae shite … an’ these stupid redneck fucks lap it up. Aye, whit a country, right enough.’
‘Boy, you’ve changed yer tune. Ah’ve mind when ye’se couldnae wait tae get out here,’ says Kenny.
‘Aye, well that wis before. We’re here now, an’ it’s full ae gun-totin’ Jesus freaks,’ says Jamie.
‘Ah just meant that havin’ a film star or a pop star as a prime minister would be cool, naw?’ says Chico.
‘Naw,’ says Reef.
‘If ye’ve got total fucken belief that God’ll protect you an’ yer rich, white family fae immigrants wi’ nae faith or belief, then why the fuck dae ye need a shed full ae automatic rifles?’ says Jamie. ‘An’ how can ye believe in God an’ Christian values ae forgiveness and repentance, an’ still send coloured folk tae the death penalty in their fucken thousands?’
