Losing Graceland Read Free Page B

look a lot like the grainy doctored photos.
    “There will be many things you question during our journey together.” The old man handed his bag to Ben. “You will question my purpose, my morals, and my lucidity. But always remember that though these old eyes look cloudy, they’ve seen to the end of the universe. They’ve peeked through the keyhole in God’s bathroom door, gone through the devil’s drawers and found his unpaid parking tickets. Now, you don’t have to believe me just yet—if I was standing where you’re standing, I’d wonder why isn’t this crazy fool in a straitjacket with a stick between his teeth. But until you believe me, pretend to believe me and we’ll get on just fine. You eat breakfast?”
    Ben nodded.
    “Any good?”
    “It was okay.”
    “What was it?”
    “A chicken burrito.”
    “Goddamn, that’s a strange breakfast. We’ll grab some proper food on the road.”
    Ben stared into the dark of the garage door and wondered if Patrick was right. Maybe he’d lost his fucking mind. Driving to Memphis with an insane old man in search of a missing stripper. Face-to-face with the star of tabloid mags and conspiracy theorists, the once-dead king of American kitsch found alive in Cheektowaga, New York. Complete with matching sweatsuit, poorly dyed hair, and a fat gold ring with a lightning bolt.
    He remembered his last summer job. One year ago, right afterhis dad died. Harold’s Department Store in the Palisade Mall. He’d taken it in the vain hope of saving enough money for his trip to Amsterdam. That dream sustained him for three months. Any longer and he was worried he’d start humping the mannequins, or eating the bizarre food they sold in the aisles—chocolates in giant gold tins, pickled peppers stuffed into gift-wrapped jars, Swedish fruit bread decorated with red ribbons. He folded ties and flirted with the girls at the makeup counter. Eighties Muzak constantly oozed from ceiling speakers, horn instrumentals of “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Maniac.”
    Sometimes he’d get pot from Patrick and sit in the bathroom at work, toking with a can of Glade in his suit jacket pocket. He felt older than anyone his age, an ancient twenty. He’d left little poems for a girl with long curly brown hair who worked the fragrance counter. Haikus on the back of discarded receipts.
Drinks later at bar/You order something funny/Slippery nipple?
    One day she was fired for stealing perfume gift sets, and Ben watched her being escorted through the aisles, flanked by two security guards, clutching her purse as mascara-stained tears streamed down her blushed cheeks.
    He quit and tried living at home, but it was a disaster. He heard his mom talking with his dad’s ghost while doing dishes, heard her greet him when she came home. He believed she was going crazy. Really crazy, not just throwing-yourself-at-the-coffin crazy (which she hadn’t done, instead doing something scarier like sitting stiff as a board in the front pew and staring ahead while everyone else dabbed their eyes).
    The passenger door creaked open. The old man dropped a sack onto Ben’s lap. A jumble of hundreds rolled tight, wrapped in rubber bands.
    “You didn’t look like the briefcase type,” the old man said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
    They drove until noon through the hills of southern New York State, a wisteria-on-white speck beneath a giant sky banded with feathered clouds, and they stopped for lunch in a small town just south of Erie, Pennsylvania, that laid claim to the first public library in the country. The restaurant called itself Italian and it served butter-soaked garlic bread in a plastic basket. The old man ordered an iced tea and chicken parm, and Ben decided he couldn’t wait any longer.
    “There’re some things I need to know,” Ben said.
    The old man wiped butter off his chin. He’d changed at the first rest stop into a white sweatsuit with a black belt, gold lion’s head buckle askew because the duct