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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781573448949 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Start Publishing Llc |
| Publication date: | 02/25/2005 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 248 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
Elvis, Axl, and Me
Janice Eidus
I MET ELVIS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE DELI across the street from the elevated line on White Plains Road and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. Elvis was the only customer besides me. He was sitting at the next table. I could tell it was him right away, even though he was dressed up as a Hasidic Jew. He was wearing a yarmulke on top of his head, and a lopsided, shiny black wig with long peyes on the sides that drooped past his chin, a fake-looking beard to his collarbone, and a shapeless black coat, which didn't hide his paunch, even sitting down. His skin was as white as flour, and his eyes looked glazed, as though he spent far too much time indoors.
"I'll have that soup there, with the round balls floatin' in it," he said to the elderly waiter. He pointed at a large vat of matzo ball soup. Elvis's Yiddish accent was so bad he might as well have held up a sign saying, "Hey, it's me, Elvis Presley, the Hillbilly Hassid, and I ain't dead at all!" But the waiter, who was wearing a huge hearing aid, just nodded, not appearing to notice anything unusual about his customer.
Sipping my coffee, I stared surreptitiously at Elvis, amazed that he was alive and pretending to be a Hasidic Jew on Pelham Parkway. Unlike all those Elvis-obsessed women who made annual pilgrimages to Graceland and who'd voted on the Elvis Postage Stamp, I'd never particularly had a thing for Elvis. Elvis just wasn't my type. He was too goody-goody for me. Even back when I was a little girl and I'd watched him swiveling his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show, I could tell that, underneath, he was just an All-American Kid.
My type is Axl Rose, the tattooed bad boy lead singer of the heavy metal band Guns n' Roses, whom I'd recently had a very minor nervous breakdown over. Although I've never met Axl Rose in the flesh, and although he's very immature and very politically incorrect, I know that, somehow, somewhere, I will meet him one day, because I know that he's destined to be the great love of my life.
Still, even though Elvis is a lot older, tamer, and fatter than Axl, he is the King of Rock and Roll, and that's nothing to scoff at. Even Axl himself would have to be impressed by Elvis.
I waited until Elvis's soup had arrived before going over to him. Boldly, I sat right down at his table. "Hey, Elvis," I said, "it's nice to see you."
He looked at me with surprise, nervously twirling one of his fake peyes. And then he blushed, a long, slow blush, and I could tell two things: one, he liked my looks, and two, he wasn't at all sorry that I'd recognized him.
"Why, hon," he said, in his charming, sleepy-sounding voice, "you're the prettiest darn thing I've seen here on Pelham Parkway in a hound dog's age. You're also the first person who's ever really spotted me. All those other Elvis sightings, at Disneyland and shopping malls in New Jersey, you know, they're all bogus as three-dollar bills. I've been right here on Pelham Parkway the whole darned time."
"Tell me all about it, Elvis." I leaned forward on my elbows, feeling very flirtatious, the way I used to when I was still living downtown in the East Village. That was before I'd moved back here to Pelham Parkway, where I grew up. The reason I moved back was because, the year before, I inherited my parents' two-bedroom apartment on Holland Avenue, after their tragic death when the chartered bus taking them to Atlantic City had crashed into a Mack truck. During my East Village days, though, I'd had lots of flirtations, as well as lots and lots of dramatic and tortured affairs with angry-looking, spike-haired poets and painters.
But all that was before I discovered Axl Rose, of course, and before I had my very minor nervous breakdown over him. I mean, my breakdown was so minor I didn't do anything crazy at all. I didn't stand in the middle of the street directing traffic, or jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, or anything like that. Mostly I just had a wonderful time fantasizing about what it would be like to make love to him, what it would be like to bite his sexy pierced nipple, to run my fingers through his long, sleek red hair and all over his many tattoos, and to stick my hand inside his skintight, nearly see-through, white Lycra biking shorts. In the meantime, though, since I had happily bid good riddance to the spike-haired poets and painters, and since Axl Rose wasn't anywhere around, I figured I might as well do some heavy flirting with Elvis.
"OK," Elvis smiled, almost shyly, "I'll tell you the truth." His teeth were glistening white and perfectly capped, definitely not the teeth of a Hasidic Jew. "And the truth, little girl, is that I'd gotten mighty burned out."
I liked hearing him call me that — little girl. Mindy, the social worker assigned to my case at the hospital after my breakdown, used to say, "Nancy, you're not a little girl any longer, and rock stars like their women really young. Do you truly believe — I'll be brutal and honest here, it's for your own good — that if, somehow, you actually were to run into Axl Rose on the street, he would even look your way?" Mindy was a big believer in a branch of therapy called "Reality Therapy," which I'd overheard some of the other social workers calling "Pseudo-Reality Therapy" behind her back. Mindy was only twenty-three, and she'd actually had the nerve to laugh in my face when I tried to explain to her that ultimately it would be my womanly, sophisticated, and knowing mind that would make Axl go wild with uncontrollable lust, the kind of lust no vacuous twenty-three-year-old bimbo could ever evoke in a man. Axl and I were destined for each other precisely because we were so different, and together we would create a kind of magic sensuality unequaled in the history of the world, and, in addition, I would educate him, change him, and help him to grow into a sensitive, mature, and socially concerned male. But Mindy had stopped listening to me. So after that, I changed my strategy. I kept agreeing with her, instead. "You're right, Mindy," I would declare emphatically, "Axl Rose is a spoiled rock-and-roll superstar and a sexist pig who probably likes jailbait, and there's no way our paths are ever going to cross. I'm not obsessed with him any more. You can sign my release papers now."
"Little girl," Elvis repeated that first day in the deli, maybe sensing how much I liked hearing him say those words, "I ain't gonna go into all the grizzly details about myself. You've read the newspapers and seen those soppy TV movies, right?"
I nodded.
"I figured you had," he sighed, stirring his soup. "Everyone has. There ain't been no stone left unturned-even the way I had to wear diapers after a while," he blushed again, "and the way I used my gun to shoot out the TV set, and all that other stuff I did, and how the pressures of being The King, the greatest rock-and-roll singer in the world, led me to booze, drugs, compulsive overeatin', and impotence...."
I nodded again, charmed by the way he pronounced it impotence with the accent in the middle. My heart went out to him, because he looked so sad and yet so proud of himself at the same time. And I really, really liked that he'd called me little girl twice.
"Want some of this here soup?" he offered. "I ain't never had none better."
I shook my head. "Go on, Elvis," I said. "Tell me more." I was really enjoying myself. True, he wasn't Axl, but he was The King.
"Well," he said, taking a big bite out of the larger of the two matzo balls left in his bowl, "what I decided to do, see, was to fake my own death and then spend the rest of my life hiding out, somewhere where nobody would ever think to look, somewhere where I could lead a clean, sober, and pious life." He flirtatiously wiggled his fake peyes at me. "And little girl, that's when I remembered an article I'd read, about how the Bronx is called 'The Forgotten Borough,' because nobody, but nobody, with any power or money, ever comes up here."
"I can vouch for that," I agreed, sadly. "I grew up here."
"And, hon, I did it. I cleaned myself up. I ain't a drug and booze addict no more. As for the overeatin', well, even the Good Lord must have one or two vices, is the way I see it." He smiled.
I smiled back, reminding myself that, after all, not everyone can be as wiry and trim as a tattooed rockand-roll singer at the height of his career.
"And I ain't impotent no more," Elvis added, leering suggestively at me.
Of course, he had completely won me over. I invited him home with me after he'd finished his soup and the two slices of honey cake he'd ordered for dessert. When we got back to my parents' apartment, he grew hungry again. I went into the kitchen and cooked some kreplach for him. My obese Bubba Sadie had taught me how to make kreplach when I was ten years old, although, before meeting Elvis, I hadn't ever made it on my own.
"Little girl, I just love Jewish food," Elvis told me sincerely, spearing a kreplach with his fork. "I'm so honored that you whipped this up on my humble account."
Elvis ate three servings of my kreplach. He smacked his lips. "Better than my own momma's fried chicken," he said, which I knew was a heapful of praise coming from him, since, according to the newspapers and TV movies, Elvis had an unresolved thing for his mother. It was my turn to blush. And then he stood up and, looking deeply and romantically into my eyes, sang "Love Me Tender." And although his voice showed the signs of age, and the wear and tear of booze and drugs, it was still a beautiful voice, and tears came to my eyes.
After that, we cleared the table, and we went to bed. He wasn't a bad lover, despite his girth. "One thing I do know," he said, again sounding simultaneously humble and proud, "is how to pleasure a woman."
I didn't tell him that night about my obsessive love for Axl Rose, and I'm very glad that I didn't. Because since then I've learned that Elvis has no respect at all for contemporary rock-and-roll singers. "Pretty boy wussies with hair," he describes them. He always grabs the TV remote away from me and changes the channel when I'm going around the stations and happen to land on MTV. Once, before he was able to change the channel, we caught a quick glimpse together of Axl, strutting in front of the mike in his sexy black leather kilt and singing his pretty heart out about some cruel woman who'd hurt him and who he intended to hurt back. I held my breath, hoping that Elvis, sitting next to me on my mother's pink brocade sofa, wouldn't hear how rapidly my heart was beating, wouldn't see that my skin was turning almost as pink as the sofa.
"What a momma's boy and wussy that skinny li'l wannabe rock-and-roller is," Elvis merely sneered, exaggerating his own drawl and grabbing the remote out of my hand. He switched to HBO, which was showing an old Burt Reynolds movie. "Hot dawg," Elvis said, settling back on the sofa, "a Burt flick!" Still, sometimes when we're in bed, I make a mistake and call him Axl. And he blinks and looks at me and says, "Huh? What'd you say, little girl?" "Oh, Elvis, darling," I always answer without missing a beat, "I just said Ask. Ask me to do anything for you, anything at all, and I'll do it. Just ask." And really, I've grown so fond of him, and we have such fun together, that I mean it. I would do anything for Elvis. It isn't his fault that Axl Rose, who captured my heart first, is my destiny.
Elvis and I lead a simple, sweet life together. He comes over three or four times every week in his disguise — the yarmulke, the fake beard and peyes, the shapeless black coat — and we take little strolls together through Bronx Park. Then, when he grows tired, we head back to my parents' apartment, and I cook dinner for him. In addition to my kreplach, he's crazy about my blintzes and noodle kugel.
After dinner, we go to bed, where he pleasures me, and I fantasize about Axl. Later, we put our clothes back on, and we sit side by side on my mother's sofa and watch Burt Reynolds movies. Sometimes we watch Elvis's old movies, too. His favorites are Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas. But they always make him weepy and sad, which breaks my heart, so I prefer to watch Burt Reynolds.
And Elvis is content just to keep on dating. He never pressures me to move in with him, or to get married, which — as much as I care for him — is fine with me. "Little girl," Elvis always says, "I love you with all my country boy's heart and soul, more than I ever loved Priscilla, I swear I do, and there ain't a selfish bone in my body, but my rent-controlled apartment on a tree-lined block, well, it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal, so I just can't give it up and move into your parents' apartment with you."
"Hey, Elvis, no sweat," I reply, sweetly. And I tell him that, much as I love him, I can't move in with him, either, because his apartment — a studio with kitchenette — is just too small for both of us. "I understand, little girl," he says, hugging me. "I really do. You've got some of that feisty women's libber inside of you, and you need your own space."
But the truth is, it's not my space I care about so much. The truth is that I've got long-range plans, which don't include Elvis. Here's how I figure it: down the road, when Axl, like Elvis before him, burns out — and it's inevitable that he will, given the way that boy is going — when he's finally driven, like Elvis, to fake his own death in order to escape the pressures of rock-and-roll superstardom, and when he goes into hiding under an assumed identity, well, then, I think the odds are pretty good he'll end up living right here on Pelham Parkway. After all, Axl and I are bound to meet up some day — destiny is destiny, and there's no way around it.
I'm not saying it will happen just that way, mind you. All I'm saying is that, if Elvis Presley is alive and well and masquerading as a Hasidic Jew in the Bronx, well, then, anything is possible, and I do mean anything. And anything includes me and Axl, right here on Pelham Parkway, pleasuring each other night and day. It's not that I want to hurt Elvis, believe me. But I figure he probably won't last long enough to see it happen, anyway, considering how out of shape he is, and all.
The way I picture it is this: Axl holding me in his tattooed, wiry arms and telling me that all his life he's been waiting to find me, even though he hardly dared dream that I existed in the flesh, the perfect woman, an experienced woman who can make kreplach and blintzes and noodle kugel, a woman who was the last — and best — lover of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll himself. It could happen. That's all I'm saying.
CHAPTER 2The Ballad of Scott and Zelda
Maxim Jakubowski
THIS IS HOW IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED (anachronisms and all).
Scott — December 1940 Yes, the past is a different country, he thought. Damn right. And these last few months, every single night, he had tossed and turned in the narrow bed, even when Sheilah had visited, as it all came back. Visiting his own lost life again, armed with no more than his mental passport.
To avoid the pain, he had moved into Sheilah's apartment. Hers was on the first floor. His had been on the third. He could feel it all ebb away. One slow day at a time. There was no longer much work at the studio, and he knew the book was at a dead end. Something told him he would never finish it. Or at any rate, not to his satisfaction.
She was so kind. But it just felt like charity for the poor, the under-emotional, the under-hemorrhoided, the under-cocked. He grinned broadly and filled the glass again. She had set him up with a writing board, and he kept up the pretense that the novel was making good progress. There was pain climbing the stairs, there was pain all the time, but the worst was not the physical deterioration, it was the past flowing back, reluctantly, as he couldn't just close his mind to its cruel assault.
He sipped the whiskey. The glass was soon empty. He filled it again. Not much left in the bottle. No worry, he could always phone out for another delivery.
All this booze made him want to pee. He snickered. It just came in and seemed to flow through his body like water and come out the other end so quickly. He avoided his drawn, gaunt face in the bathroom mirror. He now spent most days in his faded blue dressing gown, with a pocket full of pencils and one always balanced over his ear. The great writer at work. And play.
Another glass, then. Yes. At least the whiskey kept him warm inside.
Sheilah had arranged a doctor's appointment for December 20, but he had managed to get it canceled on the pretext of some problem with his writing. He had no need to be told what was wrong with him. He knew all too well. The slow usage of time. He also knew that it wasn't illness or his body giving up on him that would kill him in the end. Because he just wouldn't allow that. The drink would do it so much faster and more efficiently. And painlessly. Just as it kept him alive right now. And erased all he memories of the past. The so-called golden days. St. Paul. New York. The Côte d'Azur. Paris. Hollywood.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Wicked"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Mitzi Szereto.
Excerpted by permission of Start Publishing LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Elvis, Axl, and Me • Janice Eidus,
The Ballad of Scott and Zelda • Maxim Jakubowski,
Seduction • Anonymous,
A Date with the Chairman • Mark Kaplan,
Love, Zora • Fiona Zedde,
Marilyn • A. F. Waddell,
An Assassin's Tale • Gary Earl Ross,
God's-Eye View • TulsaBrown,
Eva Braun's Last Tragic Abortion • Lynda Schor,
The Great Masturbator • K. L. Gillespie,
Letter to Valentino • Mitzi Szereto,
By the People, For the People • Elisabeth Hunter,
Time, Movement, and Desire • Tom Bacchus,
The Duckling and the Mermaid • Ann Dulaney,
Dietrich Wears Army Boots • Sacchi Green,
Justine • Lisette Ashton,
Olympia Bears Fruit • Jane Graham,
The Rival • Neal Storrs,
The Good Doctor's Night Off • August MacGregor,
On the Eighth Day • Vanesa Baggott,
About the Authors,
About the Editor,