Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

The degrees of difference in drug addiction didn't cut any cocaine with Temple. She was impressed by good theater, by how totally a performer could absorb the persona of another. She was thinking how perfectly playing a dead man might challenge the gods, how it might seem to demand death as its perfect, true-to-life ending. One thing had really struck her about the performance, besides the impersonater's passionate perfection, his own true compelling charisma.

It was the design embroidered on the back of his martial arts gi: from where she sat, it looked remarkably like a rearing stallion. (She had read enough about Elvis by now to sit back and free associate. Rising Sun was the name of Elvis's horse, and also a bow to Eastern mysticism and Japan, the land of the Rising Sun. It even could refer to Sun Records, his first recording house. He had called the ranch where the horses were kept the House of the Rising Sun.) Around the equine rampant radiated stylized sunbursts of gilt and red embroidery: fireworks, if you will, also an Eastern invention, whence came the rising sun every morning. And of course dawn was the symbol of rebirth.

Just how old was this guy under the iconistic disguise? Could he possibly be a fit sixty-four . . . oh, Temple, get a grip! Still . . . his performance had given her chills.

And she didn't even like Elvis, or his music, or his looks, or his lifestyle, or his legend.

Chapter 40

Bossa Nova Baby

(From Fun in Acapulco, another of Elvis's "travelogue" movies)

My first notion is to panic. Here I am, entrapped in the dark by person or persons unknown.

Except that I have a pretty good clue to the identity of my captor, especially when I inhale deeply to keep from having the breath squeezed out of me, and smell banana breath.

“Well," I growl, "you have already answered one of my questions. I now know that you like to wander at will if your master forgets to latch your cage.”

I am dropped like a hot potato, or more accurately, a mashed one.

“You not human," the creature manages to spit out between indecipherable syllables of high-pitched chatter. "Human come. Feed. Human come. Talk. You not human."

“That is good to hear." I shake myself to repair theflattened hairs. My coat of choice may not be Memphis Mafia mohair, or Elvis jumpsuit wool gabardine, but it is a decent set of threads, even if they are home-grown. "I had thought you had to exist here alone in the dark all the time.”

I get a long drum-roll of chatter in its native language. Then it settles down to tell Louie all.

“Only for surprise," Chatter says. "Chatter big surprise. Must wait in dark. Be patient. Be patient." I can tell the poor monk is repeating the mantra some human has put in his head. "Chatter perform soon.”

I suddenly have an inspiration. "Hey, Chatter. Jump up at the wall there next to the door. Yeah, right there. See where the crack of light from the outside ends. Right. There is a small switch on the wall. Pull it down as you descend." No use exerting myself when there is someone else around to do the dirty work, that is, any work at all.

Amid screams of excitement, Chatter manages to follow instructions, and after several upward bounds hailed by arpeggios of awful squawking, fluorescent light suddenly floods down on us like a jungle rainstorm.

Chatter's hairy little form is now in full display. I examine his long arms and the naked fingers at the end of his large hairy hands. His naked face is repellent to one of my breed. Chatter is like a halfway house between the animal and the human, and I find this cross-species appearance and behavior unsettling. One should either be four- or two-footed, I feel, but Chatter proceeds to canter around the storage space, his legs doing the leaping and his dragging forearms dipping now and then along the ground like oars.

“What is it that you do when you perform?"

“I play the ... the—" The chimpy chump makes sounds like a machine gun gagging.

After about five minutes of close interrogation, I determine that Chatter plays a musical instrument. Yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk.

I finally realize that Chatter is not doing a bad Curly of Three Stooges fame imitation, but is trying to articulate the name of his instrument of choice. A ukulele. What a word! He plays this tongue-twister instrument wearing, of course, the miniature Elvis jumpsuit I spied hanging from his cage on my first visit.

Now that we have light, I head for the cage, jumping atop some piled boxes and then climbing the chicken wire side to inspect the costume hanging high above the concrete floor.