Dark End Of The Street

Chapter 20

Jon Burrows loved the smell of Graceland. Burnt bacon, cheap women’s perfume, and Tampa Nugget cigars still lingered more than twenty years later. Maybe because everything in the holy estate was the way He’d left it for His return. Jon’s heart just started rockin’ in his chest every time he entered that front hall and saw that long white leather couch and them stained-glass windows of peacocks. Jon could see E’s piano where He sang gospel till dawn with the boys and them pretty blue curtains in the dining room where Dodger used to serve Him boiled ham and sweet potatoes. He wanted to jump past the velvet ropes and sprint up to E’s bedroom so he could lay on that shag carpet and soak up all them smells. This was holy air that seeped deep into your lungs and made you one with Him. Jon took in a big lungful, got loose from the tour of old people, nonbelievers, and fools, and walked outside following a back path to the Meditation Gardens.

The man he’d called from a pay phone in Holly Springs told him to pick a spot to make contact and he figured this was as good a place as any. He knew the layout, the curves, the cracks, just in case the law was playin’ some kind of game. Jon pulled the Resistol down in his eyes and stroked his thick black beard.

Today he wore nothin’ but black to match his feelin’. Black jeans, a black T-shirt – with one sleeve rolled up to show his tattoo with Elvis wearin’ a crown of thorns – and real shiny black boots. Jon kind of felt the way he imagined E did when he was making Charro!, back when everyone didn’t think He could act. Hell, He only sang the title song and didn’t even dance once. If that ain’t actin’, Jon didn’t know what actin’ was.

Elvis had to control his power when them men in the movie branded Him like He was a steer and then started firin’ their gold cannon at that Ole West city. If E had danced and sung, it woulda been a different story, brother.

It was late in the day and Jon could feel a rumble in his stomach. He sat on the steps of the garden feeling his knee jump up and down like a piston. Been so keyed up about another killin’ job that he didn’t even remember to eat.

Maybe he was all worked up ’cause he’d sniffed two rags of lighter fuel before he took the bus across the boulevard. Man, the fountain was lookin’ mighty strange through all them blurry flowers and wreaths and things.

But this was a special spot for E and he needed to concentrate. Made him feel important, like them Bible people who used to debate scripture, when he sat along the wall of arches in that little curve of brick wall. Jon heard that first time He’d seen it, that tears of joy washed down His face.

Jon remembered that story he’d heard from one of the ole timers durin’ Elvis Week a few years back when he just come up from Hollywood, Mississippi to make somethin’ of himself. Heard that E sent a man all the way to Italy to buy statues of Roman soldiers and to Spain to buy all them pretty stained-glass windows set into the curved wall.

He watched the big round fountain beyond the graves, some skinny wrinkled woman bawlin’ like a baby, and them gray skies overhead. E left a world that needed Him too much.

Jon folded his hands and bowed his head.

Dear Lord God E, please hear my worried prayer for that I may know the full potential of my worrisome mind. I have wandered from my skills. I have become soft in the eyes of You, much like the days of Hollywood when the government took away Your sideburns and powers over the world. I want to be reborn as You were in 1968 when the Holy Spirit entered You and sat You upon the throne of the world. Lord God E, make me into a man. Brand me with Your knowledge and power so that I am me once again in You. In Your name I…

Jon was about finished prayin’ when he saw about the most God-darned gorgeous woman he’d ever laid his eyes on walk in front of Jesse Garon Presley’s grave, pick a flower from the wreath, and tuck it behind her ear. She was blond and blue-eyed and had this body on her that was nothin’ but curves. Had on tight faded blue jeans frayed at the bottom and some kind of tight low-cut white sweater that showed a good bit of chest.

Jon thought he was just gonna burst when she sucked on that lower lip, real impatient like, and looked around the garden. He knew he should just leave her alone and keep on takin’ care of the business at hand. But man, those hips, eyes, lips. She was shaped like a God-dang Coca-Cola bottle. Probably could wrap just his hands ’round that little waist.

The woman tossed back her blond hair and sat on the fence as everyone else kept lookin’ at the grave. Just a bit of her stomach showed from beneath her tiny little sweater and she looked down at the skin. Jon’s blood hammered out a pulse in his ears when her lips slightly parted in a smile.

She then lowered her blue eyes to her chest, sweater stretched tight across her, and smiled some more. Woman was watchin’ herself. Watchin’ all them curves and bumps.

Dang!

As Jon walked toward her, the wind scattered a thick strand of blond hair across one eye. She blew it away with a quick breath from her movie-star lips.

“Ma’am?”

The smile disappeared. She hooked her feet in the low fence, placed her hands on the rail, and looked away.

“Ma’am, I jes had to come over when I seen you, to tell you you’re the prettiest girl I think I ever seen.”

The woman raked her long red fingernails over her puffy lips and smiled.

“Well, I’m sure you get tole that a lot. And I’m jes a stupid little country boy. But I was wonderin’, there’s this little malt shop across the road there called Rockabilly’s. Wonder if you’d allow me the pleasure of buyin’ you a blueberry milk shake. Taste like a cloud up in heaven, ma’am.”

“Are you stoned?” she asked. Real lazy like. She didn’t say it sexy, more like she didn’t have no time for his mess.

“No, ma’am,” he said, feeling himself breathe through his hooded eyes.

She folded her arms across her chest and kept looking through the loose crowd that was floating back to the front of the mansion. Jon always liked this part of the day best. He liked to be the final person to leave the garden and the last to say good-bye to E and the family before night coated their lonely bodies.

“You lookin’ for someone special?” Jon asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.”

He watched her eyes move across the crowd and focus on an old man in a blue leisure suit carrying a purse. His hair was dyed so black that it looked blue. He was white and pasty and looked like he’d lain with other men.

The woman shook her head.

Jon smiled, his face flushing with excitement.

“You lookin’ for a man called Deke Rivers?”

Her eyes slowly turned back to him, her mouth tight like she was real annoyed, and unfolded her arms. “And what would you know about Deke?”