Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

I step into the yellow light road made by the hard hat and follow in Miss Louise's invisible footsteps.

The light fades and the darkness gets thicker as I move along.

I hiss for Louise, but get no answer.

Elvis is still bent over, flailling his legs and arms like a madman, playing the meanest air guitar I have ever not heard.

If only I had this on videotape. I could make a boxcar full, just like the Colonel.

Still no sign of Louise. Looks like I will have to ask Elvis to answer for it.

The closer I get, the more the jumpsuit glows, white-hot, with red, green, and blue sparkles. Elvis has his head dropped down so he can see his ghostly fingers hitting his ghostly chords on that air guitar.

Well, no. Elvis does not have his head dropped down. Elvis has no head! This is not your usual National lnkquirer sighting. This Elvis is not rated PG, but R. Too much for my tender offspring.

“Get out of here, you creep," I shout, worried for the first time. Ghosts with major missing parts are usually more sinister than the all-there sort.

Of course he does not listen to me. I am now only a few feet away. "What have you done with my daughter?" I demand. "Unhand her, you phantom.”

No answer, not even a pause to recognize my presence and demand. Okay, the Michael Jackson gloves are off.

I spring from my position, shivs extended, planning to hit him in the jerking knees.

My first contact with the incorporeal is the sense of a barrier being breeched, a soft, giving barrier that I push through like the fighting feline I am. In a second, I am right through Elvis and on the other side.

Oops. I hope it is not the real Other Side, like I cannot get back into the living world.

Even as I worry, I land like a bag of nuts and bolts on the cold, hard cavem floor.

Elvis has crumpled into a pale puddle, just like the Wicked Witch of the West went south in a dark pool of ickiness in The Wizard of Oz.

But where is Louise? I stand and call her name, turning in a circle. No answer.

And as I turn back the way I came, I see that Elvis is struggling to rise again. I leap upon his heap of congealing, ethereal atoms.

But Elvis is striking back. I feel the sting of wounds from beyond the grave and soon his jumpsuit is becoming a winding cloth. I spin round and round until I am swaddled and trussed like a turkey.

“Cut it out!" a voice orders.

A familiar voice.

Midnight Louise struggles out from the wadded fabric, which is only too, too solid. It is, in fact, not only material, but a cotton material common to work clothes.

“Here is your Elvis. One of the painter's jumpsuits. He must have been putting on the phosphorescent paint along the tunnel corridor and got it all over his white coveralls. So he left it hanging to dry down here. Everybody was too scared to come down and investigate."

“Great. I always thought this was a purely natural phenomenon. What would Elvis be doing down a dark hole, anyway? All we have to do is drag this suit down by the elevator, and even the dimmest bulb should be able to figure out what happened, just as we have."

“We. Right. Start dragging, Dad, and save some strength for the upward climb. I did hear you refer to me as your 'daughter,' did I not? When you thought I was missing?"

“I was, ah, calling for wa-ter. Not daughter. I thought you might have fainted."

“Yeah, sure. Well, at least your roommate will have seen the last of Elvis on all fronts. I would definitely say that Elvis has left the building.”

cannot disagree.

We set off down the long, dark tunnel to the elevator shaft. It reminds me of a birth canal, though I do not often think of things like that.

We are halfway there when my left ear flicks back to catch a distant murmur of "Thank you, thank you verra much.”

I glance at Louise, whose sour puss is pointed dead ahead, ears unperked.

Naw

Tailpiece

How a Cat May Look at the King

If you ask me, Elvis, the world's most famous draftee, may have been A-1 to the army, but he was 4F in life: literally crushed to death by fame, fans, floozies, and flunkies.

I have detected several similarities between the King of Rock 'n' Roll and my kind of cat, least of all our propensities to hang out in a streetlight in front of all and sundry and cut loose with sound, motion, and our natural erotic appeal to females of all ages, stages, and wages of sin.

First, we share very humble origins, but extraordinary pizzazz at making ourselves beloved by others. Elvis was never a street person like myself, but we were always loners with a vision of how we could rise far above our kind to become an idol and inspiration to millions. Okay, -thousands and thousands in my case, but I am not done yet.