Last of the Cherry Busters

'I'm feeling lucky today. Canary yellow shirt, belt and socks. Black
slacks and Italian-made loafers. Gold bracelet, chain and lucky TCB
ring. Elvis money-clip and shades. Hair quiffed, duck-tailed and
sprayed. I'm not a regular guy. I'm Eddie Franklin Hammer, 201 Parkside
Avenue, Irvinton, New Jersey. Owner of the largest private collection
of Elvis Presley memorabilia in the world. Only I can pull off a look
like this.'

A doorbell echoed through the vastness of Eddie's house to the back
porch where he was stubbing out his breakfast on the step. 'Rosalita'.
The college girl from NYU he'd employed to come round and clean the
place twice a week. He went through and let her into the baronial front
foyer. It was like a museum: marble floor, brass and crystal
chandeliers, silk wallpaper, mirrored panels and a sweeping staircase.
The living room, off to the right, was sunken and so large and dimly
lit that she had to squint to see the farthest walls. Here, the
furniture was shrouded in white and the parquet floor was bare. Above
the gigantic stone fireplace hung crossed swords and a huge portrait of
Elvis; beautiful and sad in the gloom of the living room.

It promised to be a hot day- in the 90s- but Rosa shivered as she set
to work in the dining room; polishing the huge table large enough to
seat two dozen guests, but which only ever seated Eddie Hammer himself.
The blinds were drawn and the floor length curtains pulled closed,
allowing only a single shard of brilliant sunlight to penetrate and cut
through the dust and the smoke of Eddie's cigarette, for he watched her
working from the alcove.

"It's amazing how much dust one person can generate, living alone in a
house this size."

Eddie didn't respond. He liked to keep an eye on her. 'I love these
young college girls, dressing trampy.' The week previous, her skirt had
ridden up her thigh as she was doing the staircase and he'd got a
glimpse of her panties. 'She's got big tits though. And she talks and
smiles too much like she's nervous. I'm not a fan of big tits, tell you
the truth. I like rake girls.'

"You know, dust is mostly made up of dead skin that just floats around
in the air. Creepy, huh?" She began cleaning the Elvis Presley figures
on the ornament rail. Some of them posed alert and frightened looking
with little shiny eyes, in doll-sized jumpsuits embroidered with tiny
rhinestones. Some of them, in shabby old Jailhouse Rock outfits,
slouched limply and defeated with their legs hanging over the edge of
the shelf and their heads bowed. She started as one of them sprang to
life with mechanical movements and a whimsical music-box rendition of
Love Me Tender.

"Be careful with those. They probably cost more than your fucking
college fees." He followed her as she struggled with the vacuum cleaner
through to the den.

"You've got some great antiques. I bet some of this stuff is, like,
over a hundred years old. Must be worth a lot."

"House and contents, three million. When you've finished cleaning I'll
take you upstairs. I want you to see my collection" He turned on his
stacked heel and went into the kitchen to make fresh coffee. He smoked
a cigarette and thought about Pete's cancer.

Pete didn't seem the sort of guy to get cancer. 'The sort of guy who's
not afraid of being hit in the face. The sort of guy you wouldn't start
a fight with. Not a pretty boy like me.' They'd been best friends all
through high school and college, where they'd formed The Cherry
Busters: a secret fraternity dedicated to fucking as many females as
they could get their hands on. They hadn't seen each other since Pete
moved to Florida a few years ago. Eddie'd decided not to visit him on
his sickbed for the same reasons as he'd once decided not to visit his
own father in hospital after the operation: because he found hospitals
depressing. They chilled him. He hated being around illness. 'Anyway, a
guy doesn't want people fussing around him going 'how are your
feelings?' Just carry on as normal. As if it's not happening. You don't
want people drawing attention to that shit.'

"It 's impossible to exaggerate the size my Elvis collection." Rosa
followed him upstairs to the forbidden wing of the house and into the
mausoleum rooms where he stored the debris of Elvis' life and career
under lock and key, in the dark, in the dust.

It was near impossible to navigate through the room of memorabilia
stacked to the ceiling and hanging from the beams. Rosa tried not to
breathe in the vault-like air. She picked up an Elvis lipstick from
1956 in 'hound dog red' and blew the dust off a letter written to
Priscilla Presley and signed 'E'. "This stuff could do with a clean.
The moths are starting to get at some of it."

"It's the owning that counts. Not the preserving."

Rosa made her way across the room to an old jukebox decorated in chrome
and pictures of a young Elvis, which she found not only darkened and
unplugged but empty of records. She brushed away a cobweb from the
legend 'The King of Rock n' Roll' and sighed, "Nothing's so sad as a
juke box not plugged in."

"C'mon." Eddie led her through into another room much the same as the
first, but dominated by a huge guilt-framed portrait of Elvis sat
regally on a throne-like chair, bejeweled hand resting on a cane, and
his wife Priscilla sat demurely like a beautiful cat at his feet.
Between them stood their infant daughter, Lisa-Marie, scowling like a
spoilt princess.

"She's a pretty little girl, a miniature of her father. I read in the
Enquirer she's been in rehab and stuff."

ddie didn't comment. 'Elvis was prettier than any girl. I'd like to
fuck Lisa -Marie though, tell you the truth.' As a woman she'd
developed hard eyes and a cruel mouth. 'Because she's a daddy's girl
who lost her daddy.'

"His wife's beautiful. Didn't they meet when she was really young?
Like, about fourteen? She's so beautiful, I can't imagine why he ever
cheated on a woman like that."

"Honey, you show me a beautiful woman and I'll show you a man who's
tired of looking at her."

Eddie kept his eye on Rosa, on her ass in tight cut-off jeans as she
leant forward to look at various items. There was something curious and
vital about her that reminded him of Wanda, the crazy girl he'd once
known from Texas. My crazy little airport girl. Every Sunday she'd fix
up her hair and make-up and take a cab to Newark Airport with an empty
case. Then she'd call and say, "Eddie, come pick me up." When he
arrived, she'd drop her case, run across the Arrival's Lounge and kiss
him like she'd been away for months. 'Like Valantino. Every fucking
Sunday.' A few times everyone started clapping.

Wanda Lou Banks, who always used matches to light her cigarettes
because it was more theatrical; who colour co-ordinated her bubble-gum
with her outfit. She left him because he ate out a hooker on 42nd.
'Cherry Buster Rules.' Pete used to say you could get everything you'd
ever need on 42nd Street. Eddie'd shouted after her, "Hey! Lover Doll!
Wait! You'll never meet another Eddie! You'll never be able to listen
to Elvis without thinking of me!" But she didn't look back. And he
didn't chase after her. 'They all look as good walking away as they do
walking towards you.'

"What's your lucky number?"

Rosa appeared slightly confused. She wasn't sure he was even addressing
her- though they were alone- because the light reflecting on his
sunglasses made it hard to see where he was looking.

"I said what's your lucky number?"

"Um, I'm not sure, I guess it'd have to be&;#8230;."

"C'mon. Everybody has a lucky number. You don't have to think about
it. Elvis was an eight, numerogically. It's a lonely but powerful
number." Eddie respected power: the Office of Presidency, cops, guns.
He sometimes carried a derringer around in his sock. 'I'm no
sharpshooter but it's my right to protect myself against any guy who'd
try and steal my prperty.'

"Are you feeling lucky today?"

"I guess so&;#8230;."

He moved across the room so he was stood close. "I think you're lucky
today&;#8230; I want you to be my wife. No more games." Rosa didn't
speak, but looked at him startled, as if she'd been slapped. "We'll be
wed in a beautiful chapel in the woods of Grace land. For the honeymoon
I'll buy you a red dress and take you to Niagara." Still Rosa did not
speak. "My mother's prefer I married a Jewish girl but, once you were
pregnant it wouldn't matter. They'd love a grandchild: a beautiful
little girl just like you."

"But Mr. Hammer, w-what about college?"

"Fuck college! Maybe you could take a few courses at the little college
in Rutherford. I could pick you up after class and bring you home, here
to 601. Better still, I could buy you a car once you passed your test.
A red corvette just like mine."

"I'm too young to get married," she
gasped. "You hardly know me!"

"You'd be my child bride." Now he was close enough for her to see the
eyes behind his shaded bi-focal glasses were bloodshot and slightly
yellow as with jaundice. "There is one problem. In the state of
Tennessee you need a letter of parental consent to be married if you're
under twenty-one. But, don't worry. I wrote the letter." He placed his
ageing, bird like hand with manicured nails on her bare arm.

She suddenly awoke from her dumb confusion and shock and pulled away
from his hand. "You forged a letter of consent?" His thin bloodless
lips curled in amusement. "Are you crazy?"

"Course I'm crazy. I'm not a regular guy. You'll never meet another
Eddie."

"But you're older than my father! You're probably old enough to be my
grandfather!"

"I look good. So do you&;#8230;&;#8230;.. Take off your
shorts."

"Urgh! You filthy old man!" She pushed past him and fled; back out onto
the landing and down the stairs three at a time.

As the front door slammed, Eddie Hammer found himself standing alone
amid the 50s Americana and dusty debris of his youth. 'Fucking dumb
broad. She'll be back next week, she needs the money.' He pulled a
packet of Kools out of his pocket and lit one with a match. 'Sometimes
it's lonely being an eight.' He'd take a ride into the city, to 42nd
Street, and find company there. 'I'm a Cherry Buster and that's all she
wrote.'