Black Elvis (21 page)

Desire had spent most of Saturday in the hotel, sulking, while the Professor had gone out walking the steep medieval streets in a light rain. Sunday, they'd had the trip to the bridge. Desire had expressed an interest in shopping, but of course everything was closed. This morning, leaving for the train, she'd gone into a hardware store and spent ten minutes picking up items—a piece of cutlery, a packet of screws—considering them as if appreciating the local art. It had nearly driven the Professor to distraction.

He knew how they'd get through the next twenty-four hours. They would find a wine store, get some carryout goodies—cheeses and sausages and whatnot—and hide themselves away in their hotel room. They could just watch
TV
. Desire liked television. Perhaps they'd fool around. And then at some point—on the plane, probably—he'd break it to her that things could no longer go on this way. Music was one thing, but the rest of it, the relationship part, that was over.

"I don't know why they'd call something
Black Days
and then go and hire the Blues Brothers anyway," she said.

"I guess it's more the concept of
black
," said the Professor. "Although I think there may be one or two black members of the band. Their music is certainly African American."

"I want to see the skeletons," she said.

"You don't." Ever since she'd noticed the photo in their guidebook of the Capuchin crypt in Rome, with all the bones on display, she'd been claiming interest, but it would be like with the raw oysters. She'd never had one, and kept saying over and over how she wanted to try. So, a few weeks ago, he'd taken her out to a bar that served them. The sight of the plate had clearly disgusted her, but she'd gone ahead anyway and, on his instruction, let one slide down her throat. Instantly, she'd turned ashen and had to run to the bathroom.

"Don't tell me what I do or don't."

"Sorry." He looked around to see if other passengers were paying attention to this. A man with silvery hair and a nice suit made notes in a small, fancy-looking book. A woman was chatting on her cell phone. A boy in a soccer jersey stared sullenly into a magazine.

"And, you need to understand something.
Black
isn't a concept."

"Of course not. I didn't mean it that way. You know that."

"You saw the way people looked at me in Castelpoggio."

He understood she'd felt conspicuous, and perhaps there had been a few stares, but for the most part, it had been his impression that people had treated her like anyone else. It was a small town—of course they were going to stare at strangers. "Well," he said, "they canceled Black Days."

"I am aware of that fact."

"So, people were wondering about you."

"They should wonder," she said.

Two months earlier, in late April, the Professor's Chair had called him into his office to let him know that his one-year contract would not be renewed.

"There were complaints," he said. "I guess you missed a few classes."

"For legitimate reasons. A person can get a cold, you know."

The Chair was a large man, a devotee of barbecue, an expert on Civil War–era munitions, and a devourer of licorice as a substitute for cigarettes. The Professor had always assumed him to be on his side. Collinswood was a small, Christian college; the Professor—whose degree was actually in American Studies—taught three sections of American history to dutiful students who clearly suspected him of something.

"It's pretty well known around the department that you're playing in a band."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. I'm a music lover myself." He sucked thoughtfully on his Twizzler. He opened department meetings, as required, with a prayer, but the Professor thought he detected at least a degree of irony in his delivery. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've got my marching orders from the dean. But I'm interested. What kind of band is this?"

"Blues," he said. "I'm a guitarist."

He nodded. "You ever heard of Little Luther? My wife and I used to go see him play sometimes. Tiny guy, wears red suits and bolo ties and cowboy boots—very stylish. Skin dark as coffee beans. I mean, like, French roast."

"Nope," said the Professor. "I don't know him."

"We used to see him sometimes at this joint on Piedmont. I thought he was pretty good. Real authentic."

"I'm with Desire Jones," he said.

"I think I've seen that name. Thought it was pronounced the other way. You know, with an accent."

"Nope. No accent."

"Ah," said the Chair.

"So, that's it?"

"I'm afraid so. Yes."

They were both silent. Finally, the Professor put his index finger and thumb to his forehead and brought them forward in a hat-tipping gesture—something he'd never done before in his life—and left the office.

That night, at their gig at Nunbetta Barbecue, he had begun an Etta James song, "Jump into My Fire," which was how they always opened, and Desire had lowered her head and looked at him coldly through her fake eyelashes. She sat back down at a table, leaving him and Scott and T-Man, the bassist and drummer, to play the song as an instrumental. Neither of them seemed surprised—they'd grown used to Desire's moodiness. The Professor went to the microphone and announced, in his best
MC
voice,
Ladies and gentlemen, let's give it up for Miss Desire Jones!
There were only ten people in the place, but their applause was enough to move her. "I thank you," she said, floating to the front. "My chirruns thanks you. My grandchirruns thanks you. And now, I'd like to sing an old favorite of mine, 'House of the Rising Sun.'"

The Professor felt he was being jabbed slowly with a long knife. He hated the song, and she knew he hated it. He hit the chords with angry, abrupt downstrokes, as if it were a punk anthem, literally punching the tune into submission. He'd had a job, one with a possible future, and he'd blown it for this. He was an idiot. But then, within a few measures, a transformation occurred. His anger and hers seemed to meet and come to some agreement. It was not unlike what happened when they made love, a strange chemistry that never failed to take him by surprise.

"You didn't call me today," she said, at the break. They sat in a red upholstered booth with beers and a basket of peanuts.

"I don't have to call you."

"No," she said. "I guess you don't. But you
could
. Am I right?"

"Desire—"

"Uh-uh-uh-uh. Answer the question. Could you call me?"

"I got fired," he said.

"I don't want to hear about that," she said. "Don't tell me that. What about tenure?"

"Tenure?" he said. "I don't have tenure."

"Well, maybe you should look into it."

He cracked a peanut open one-handed. "You're right," he said. "I'll look into it."

Their hotel in Rome was the same one they'd stayed at after arriving, Albergo Rosso, near the Campo dei Fiori, and it hadn't gotten any nicer while they were away. The Professor had found it for them on the Internet, where it looked just fine, centrally located, all that. But the place was run down, the reception staff rude. This was his failure, and Desire had made sure to let him know about it, pretending not to hear when he said things, staring off into space. There was a lounge on the second floor with an upright piano and some dingy furniture, its walls decorated with black-and-white photographs of the Forum, the Coliseum, Trajan's column.

"I have the strangest feeling I've been here before," she said when they were checked into their new room.

"Uncanny," he said, opening the shutters and looking down. In the piazza below, there were two bars. One had tables set out, but at the moment only one person sat at one, a woman in a sun hat drinking a glass of something.

"I'm hungry," she said. "I hate this Italian food." She looked at herself in the gold-flecked mirror, picking at something in her eye. "Worst pizza I've had in my life."

"You have to stop comparing it to the U.S. It's a different concept."

"I don't care for the concept." She put on her down-home voice. "I want me a plate of ribs. Fried chicken and potato salad."

"We can find that. An 'American'-themed place with a plaster statue of George Bush outside wearing a lone star apron and holding a barbecue fork."

"That sounds better to me than another plate of spaceship, or whatever you call that stuff we had last night."

"Rocket. Arugula. It's not really that exotic. Even my boys eat it."

"How do you know what they eat?"

"Don't try to get to me about them, all right? I'm good with them."

"They think you're like Batman, huh? Teacher in the day, and then you put on your personamus at night and become Captain Guitar."

"My what?"

"Personamus. Just like I'm
Desire
. That's my personamus. You've got one. Everyone's got one."

"Where do you think the guitar would be safer?" he asked. "In the closet or under the bed?"

"Closet. You don't think that's a word?"

"I didn't say that."

"You don't say a lot of things." She went and closed the shutters again. "Come on. I want to eat, and then I want to see some dead people."

They took a cab to the Capuchin crypt. "You're going to hate this," the Professor told her as he paid the driver from his dwindling funds.

"Please stop telling me what you think I think."

The admission fee was five euros each. They followed the crowd in to the series of rooms, each decorated in a different way with bones. Entire bodies were on display, still in their robes, faces remarkably human still, although desiccated and ghoulish, the eyes still seeming to stare despite the absence of eyeballs. They admired a chandelier made out of bones. There were altars made of piles of skulls. The Professor wanted to make a joke, but couldn't think of anything. The group of tourists they were moving through the place with was mostly silent, except for the occasional gasp of disbelief.

He stood behind her as she examined the reclining body of a monk in his cell. Without saying anything, he backed up, letting a young couple—Germans, from the look of them—take his place. It would be so easy just to leave her here. He imagined the afternoon he might have on his own, unencumbered by her. Perhaps he'd visit a museum, or some churches. Or maybe just find a place to sit and drink espresso and look out at the people passing by. Rome was full of fashionable, beautiful women. Why did he have to be stuck taking care of someone who worked at a bank, ate too many doughnuts, and was on a first-name basis with the stars of any number of reality television shows?

Desire turned around looking for him, then came over. "You scared?" she whispered.

"Are you?"

She shook her head, but her face had lost some color, and he knew she wasn't handling it well. "It's awful," she said. "Why would anyone do this?"

"They saw death differently. We're too influenced by horror movies." Still, he felt it too. It was one thing to look at a single skeleton, quite another to see an entire chandelier made of scapulae.

"I need to get out of here," said Desire.

"There's more," he said. "Come on."

"I'm serious. We have to go."

"What did I tell you?" asked the Professor, and followed her retreating form out past the guard, to whom he gave a pleasant
grazie
. He stopped to buy a couple of postcards for the boys, then proceeded out onto the Via Veneto.

When he got outside, he found her leaning against the wall of the building, her eyes obscured by her big sunglasses. "Desire?" he said.

"Oh, my god," she said.

"Just outside the original city boundaries are the catacombs. Probably two million bodies buried there."

"I don't want to hear it, all right? Please, just take me home."

Back at the hotel, they took naps on separate beds. He awoke to the sounds of her in the shower, so he sat in the chair by the window and went through the various restaurant recommendations in his guidebook, many of which he'd read aloud to Desire at least twice already.

She emerged fully dressed from the tiny bathroom. When they had sex it was always with the lights off. She might not have been beautiful, but he loved the feel of her, the surprising muscularity of her thighs and calves, the delicate lavender smell of her skin.

"Something's not right with that shower," she said, adjusting her metallic gold blouse. "Or the toilet, neither."

"We can go across the river," he suggested. "The book says there are lots of restaurants in Trastevere."

She turned away. He approached, reaching around, pressing himself up against her. She made a tiny sound, an intake of breath combined with what he took to be a moan, and understanding this as surrender, he moved closer. She put her hands down on the writing desk by the wall, her head dipped toward the informational brochures spread across it. Then she spun around and slapped him hard on the mouth.

"What the hell?" he said. "What's the matter?"

"You know what's the matter."

"I do?" He wondered if it were possible she could have somehow seen into him. He was pretty sure his lip was bleeding.

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"You think I'm stupid. What else would I be? But I'm not." She took another swing at him, but this time he saw it coming and ducked out of the way.

"Whoa there," he said, probing his lip with his tongue.

She came at him, and it was so unexpected that she took him backward into a chair, which fell over, tangling his legs and causing him to fall as well. He rolled toward the center of the room to get clear, then jumped to his feet. "Hey!" he shouted. "You could have really hurt me!"

"Come on," she said. "Fight back like a man." She flailed with her hands in the direction of his face, and he put up his own hands to defend himself, and then, unsure what else to do, threw a punch in her direction that bounced harmlessly off her forearm. She was still moving forward, still trying to hit him. He grabbed her by her wrists, which worked for a few seconds, but then she bit his arm, so he had to let go. She then landed a roundhouse right to the side of his head. When he recovered his balance he charged her and grabbed her around the throat in a choke hold.