Chapter 3 cont.

It didn't take much conversation before I decided to make a right turn into the parking lot of Starbucks to check if his story had any element of truth to it. Quinn had as detached a history with the truth as he did with his left arm. We exited the vehicle and walked to the green house. The wind picked up a stray newspaper smacking my brother in the face. To the untrained eye, this looked like nothing more than a small tornado flinging trash around. To me, it was vengeance for now being out of a hair appointment on Friday. 

I thought about Carlton for a moment. He wouldn't see a sunset again. He wouldn't be able to sing the auto-tuned dubstep pop-crap playing on his radio or tell people that they didn't take enough care of their scalp or that cutting their hair that length would make them look like they were trying to avoid any type of decent human connection for the next two months. I knew that I'd never live a fruitful life like his. A life which meant something to many individuals at least once a month. However, I was sure back then that I wouldn't become like Tiffani Bevel. She was vile beyond any reasonable known human comparison, alive or dead.

We opened the back door of her establishment walking into her living room. Thankfully, a lamp cast enough light to see where we were stepping. The smell of embalming fluid and dried fruit drifted to us. Black flies buzzed around a small crab shell, rotten meat still inside of it, hanging from a pull string connected to her ceiling fan. There was a round table made from a tree stump sanded about the roots with a sheet of stained glass on top. It was from a church in Mexico, though I never figured out which one. The intricate pattern depicted St. Sebastienne, a white robed skeleton holding a crystal ball in its right hand and a crooked scythe in the other. The chairs were also odd being covered with a strange leather the color of human skin. Pig skin, I had always hoped. One of the seats I found already occupied by a pouch and the tiniest bobble head of Elvis I've ever seen. It turned to look at me as I moved closer.

“Don't touch that chair Stew. That's the gris-gris.”

I didn't need to be told that. If I could've floated through the room without touching anything at all, I would have. I heard humming down the hallway.

“I'll go and see what she's up to. I'll be back. Don't mess with anything.”

He propped his arm against the hallway wall and, with a crunch, fit it back into place. Quinn cleared his throat, slicked his hair with the remains of his own blood, and straightened his posture.

He spoke softly, “Tiff? Tiff, I'm here. Is now a good time?”

The humming stopped. A floorboard creaked. Then there was the forlorn cry of some animal, possibly a mouse. Quinn looked me in the eyes over his shoulder. His voice sounded slow and low, “You may want to wait outside Ste-”

The lamp clicked and the warm lighting changed to harsh blue. The wallpaper disintegrated and pealed back to reveal rotten wood being feasted on by an unknowable writhing blackness. The bobble head fizzed, dark red bubbles forming around its neck. The hissing grew louder. Quinn retreated back to me and attempted to grab my shoulder, his arm leaving its socket again. His teeth landed on the welcome mat behind us. If he cursed, I didn't understand him. I took a backward step towards the exit.

It was much too late to leave. Besides, no one left before he did anyway. In the chair, pulling the gris-gris out from underneath the flared pants of a white sequined jumpsuit, sat The King of Rock & Roll, peering at us with nearly closed eyes the same color as the room but for some reason brighter than anything I'd remembered seeing. His clothes were in perfect condition, as was he. He looked thirty years younger than when he had died in his house. Elvis Presley lifted his arm, and even though he was fifteen feet away from me, he seemed to be pointing through me at Quinn, whom immediately let go of me and fumbled at the doorknob.

The doorknob didn't move but Quinn's mouth did. The piercing howl of backmasking escaped from his throat. The King let loose a snarling smile. The howling ceased.

“You weren't supposed to come around here anymore, Quinn.” he said with a southern drawl that sounded like it was developed from a combination of pulled pork barbecue and the sweat from a church goers button-up collared shirt. “She is very, disappointed. How about you let go of that door and come on over here and sit down. You too.”

I complied. However, Quinn was still stuck to the doorknob with his jaw dislocated and a dark fluid oozing from his shoulder. The King didn't focus on him though. Instead his eyes were more open then and he glanced me over for a minute. After he finished, he straightened up his chair throwing one leg over the other.

Full of nonchalance like we were talking over coffee next door, he spoke to me, “Tiff told me that the spec would be back. You weren't accounted for.”

Without thinking I spit out darkly, “Well I'm not anyone special, I assure you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “The image is one thing and the human being another.”

Unimpressed, I coughed. Incense was starting to fill up the room.

He finished, “It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”

The blue light dimmed and the sound of footsteps could be heard in another room. The humming renewed. This lasted for quite a bit of time, long enough for Quinn to finally calm down enough to reassemble his body and let go of the handle. The King squinted his eyes and nodded his chin at the chair adjacent to me. The hours wasted by and eventually the seating arrangement started to feel comfortable.

A cranky voice, like broken wind-chimes carrying on a conversation with an parrot, boiled up from a room down the hall, “Uninvited guests, if you're not going to ask me any questions, then you need to get up and leave. I have too much work to be done to spend my precious time entertaining a spectre, who can't keep himself from poking around in bodies he doesn't belong in, and someone who doesn't want to believe a thing that he sees.”