That Elvis
Kind of Lovin'
by Hezekiah Allen
Taylor
For Melissa
he sat in front of the mirror for two full hours trying to figure
out how to sneer
this was before he picked her up at eight, right on time, in his roommate's
old nash
before she smiled politely at the flat-matte primer gray that dusted
her fingers
as she braced herself to slide sweet little ass onto cracked vinyl
***
her mother had taught her to love vegas and elvis and robert urich,
in just that order
she had grown up suburbian, but distasteful of the Allentown housing
tracts that spotted
her world like connect-the-dots, but the dots never connected for her
what does she know, she's only twenty
at twenty, the entire universe is pressed, blunt force, into the apple
of elvis' eye
***
"in speedway," he said to her at 9:15, stuttering over his own arousal
"well in speedway it was all just so."
"for your information," she poured more franzia from the box on the
counter,
tilting it towards her at such a dramatic angle, only the pressure of
her thumb avoids accident
"in speedway he all of sang one love song to a four-year-old and sucked
face with nancy sinatra
not even first base in anyone's little black book."
from there, the party took a very nasty little turn
***
the nash didn't leave much room to create drama
and elvis lovers can get little relief in a standard car
but he put his fingers in all the right places and when he did, she
could almost imagine he was the king
who would never own a nash and would set the scene just so:
suspicious minds playing on repeat, he would say to her -- in the midst
of the torrid action --
"takin' care of business baby" as he traced a lightning bolt with his
index finger, tight force,
down her spine
***
and more than anything, afterward, he wanted to say
"thank ya
thank ya very much"
and practice (now a tradition) twitching the lip upward just right,
just so
Francine's Version -- Hezekiah's Version -- Inspiration
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