And Elvis Will Marry Us

‘It’s him again. What’s he looking at? Who’s he think he is? A one-armed Humphrey Bogart? Bloody gangster. I’m gonna ram his good arm up his arse if he carries on. And I bet that’s a fake tan he’s got. I bet he got that out of a bottle. Just ignore him Jules.’

Dressed in black, with the kind of ageing annoyingly handsome Latino looks you can’t squeeze out of a bottle, a right-hand man on either side, jackpot jacket draped over the broad expense of satin shirt shoulders, Bogart really did only have one good arm and was on his way to a Las Vegan poolside lounger, where he’d slip off slippers, slide off satin and prepare to brown the already bronzed.

The object of his amorous attentions was Jules, the girlfriend of a Mister Al Superdome, a British, sorry, English national currently dressed in figure-hugging tripleXL white T-shirt, seam-stretching tripleXL testcard shorts and square eyes hidden behind market stall un-sunglasses that did more harm than good.

Al Superdome. Twenty eight pub crawl veteran. Flabneck slackjaw sweatback skinhead. So-called Superdome because of the size and stature of a tripleXL midriff that prevented Jules taking anything from sex other than the sensation of being on a fleshy waterbed.

Jules. Shaped carved and curved to attract any man with eyes. Slim small curvy pervy. Big in the right places, small in the right places. Hairless blameless faultless careless. Couldn’t carealess about Al anymore.

It was Al’s idea to holiday in the States. The old colony. Home of film TV Disney violence. He wanted to go to Vegas to play poker roulette craps with the other big boyz. To eat burgers for less, fries for small fry, buckets of Coke with free refills. Let’s get tickets for the tour. See where Demi Moore lives and River Phoenix died. Stock up on Big Macs and Buds to keep his belly up to a size that would demand and command respect from the drinkers back home - George in The William and William in The George.

‘I’m going to wear the St George with pride,’ he told the lads before he left. ‘Stride the streets like look at me, I’m English. I’m responsible for half the world. I saved you from yourselves. I can out-drink, out-eat, out-fight the lot of you.’

‘I wanna go where they make the films,’ he told Jules. ‘So many films made in Vegas, the list is endless: Indecent Proposal, Casino, Leaving Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.’ There his list ended. ‘I love movies films flicks. Not the old ones.’ Al didn’t like the old ones with Fred Astaire a-staring and Ginger Rogers not a-rogering. He wanted the sexy violent violently sexy.

To Al life was never black and white or even silver like they used to call the screen. It was chip piss lager sun and sesame seed bun yellow.

Jules loved the movies too. That’s what brought them together. Sunday night cinema night. They didn’t like the same films, mind. Al’s Top Ten would include predictables like Total Recall, Predator, Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. Jules’ wouldn’t. She’d choose When Harry Met Sally, Dead Poet’s Society, Schindler’s List. She judged a film by how moist it made her handkerchief. Al didn’t. He wanted blood guts intestines, gunfire explosions tits and more ketchup blood and peach ass to wash down two tubs of salted popcorn and a bucket of Coke.

Sob, sob, stop. No film ever made Al cry. Al hadn’t cried since Lee Martin scored the goal that beat the Palace in the 1990 replay.

Wam bam mam. No scenes of violence had ever tempted Al to duplicate them outside his living room. That came naturally.

‘It’s not real is it,’ he’d tell Jules as she blindly dampened another tissue during some neutral gunless bloodless useless woman’s film she’d drrrrrragged him along to. If the movie hadn’t had a bloke with long hair, a toothpaste smile and a flat stomach, Al might have given it a chance. Given it the benefit of a serious doubt. But: ‘The bloke’s a poofter. [Sob.] A wet bastard. [Sob sob.] Bet he drinks shagalandy [Sob sob.] Stop crying like a woman, woman.’

Jules might have been Al’s girl but she cried like a woman. She cried openly and regularly in front of bigscreen smallscreen widescreen. In the cinema or at home with friends or while alone. And Superdome deep down, Al loved her for her tears, but loved her more for her bod. ‘You should get into modelling,’ he told her.

Al never cried at the TV. He threw beer cans (empty) and shouted at it (loud). No one was exempt from the lash of the leather tongue. Unfunny American TV sitcom stars were there to be shot down and spat at by a foul mouth full of yellow fillet o’ fish but starved of wit. Celebrities were there to be zapped by the gun of the remote control. No one escaped except Jim Davidson. Top bloke.

Unlike that Bogart who was now watching Jules as she reclined by the hotel pool next to the embarrassing white rotundness that was Al Superdome. She couldn't help being attracted to the tanned man. Any man with a stomach as flat as a football pitch, not shaped like the dome above it, was of interest. Give me any man with any vestige of colour in his limbs other than the washing powder white of Al and I’ll be interested, she thought.

As Al flumped on his stomach, crushing flabcheek and drooling fatjuice from inhaling mouth, a can of warm Bud in dozing hand, Jules sat up on her creaking metal lounger and arranged herself so that it didn’t look like she was staring at Bogart behind her prescription sunglasses. She wanted Bogart to sample shapes that could barely be contained by red catalogue bikini cups.

She liked men other than Al to want her. Four years with a Superdome had dulled the feelings. Only the first six months had been memorable. Then she’d let him get lazy with words of love and sucks of sex. She complemented his strength, the way he’d take her from behind by surprise sometimes, the respect other blokes had for him, especially when she was in tow. He got cocky and began to hurt her, began to love his Bud more than her bod. Within a year the superdome was taking shape. Lately he’d been paying more attention to and money on the 2 D 36 double D girls on RTL or the Playboy channel. Girls who got ‘em out whether he shouted at them to or not. Girls you could stare at and they’d never say ‘what you looking at’ or ‘you’re hurting me’ or ‘you fat basstud’.

She could see Bogart was altogether a classier guy. At home in the sun, not with it open at page three. Happy with a stomach that looked like a six pack from the outside rather than like it had several inside. Suavely his index finger pulled his Ray Bans down his nose and his naked brown green eyes caught the sun and his teeth smiled like cheesy advertising. Jules felt the rush and was forced to lie face down on the recliner, the embarrassment of attraction proving too much for her breasts to bare. Bogart didn’t mind her turning over. It gave him a chance to sample her rear, which he did at length, his right-hand men feeling nature obliging them to do likewise. Bogart was pleased to see the rear maintained the firmness and roundness he remembered, while lacking the expanse he’d rather forget.

The three of them knew Al was English without him drooling from his drunken mouth. The arrogance, the sweat, the redness, the incessant beer and St George’s towel gave it away. Superdome had drifted off into dreams of fame listening to his Joshua Tree/Unforgettable Fire compilation tape, hairs still rising during Bad after all this time. He woke to fast forward MLK and to check his arms which through his sunglasses looked like they were tanning nicely. He sat up in a sweat, saw Jules dozing on her front and looked across the pool, where girls dived and screamed, to find Bogart slowly pushing his ray-bans up his nose and reclining with the self-satisfied smile of a colonial who’d been eyeing up his master’s mistress.

Al knew the score. He’d been here before with this guy. Last night in the casino. Al had thought then about making a scene. But they’d only checked in earlier that afternoon. Now a day later by the pool, he thought about making the same scene in a different location, but knew it would upset Jules. Besides, the hotel was luvly and he needed a rest after the flight and another night when Jules had refused sex. You’ll keep for now Bogart, he said to himself.

Jules spent the next hour tanning to impress the boyz in the office back home. Al sweated and burned. Back, shoulders, neck, nose, face arms torso. Twice Al insisted on rubbing factor four onto her bod, pretending it was because he didn’t want her to burn. He made a point of looking at Bogart while his fingers enjoyed her but she was imagining the fingers were Bogart’s. Al made another point of looking at Bogart while Jules’ slender digits reluctantly rubbed factor 25 on Al’s red back, shoulders, neck, nose, face arms torso.
‘Am I brown yet?’
‘Not yet.’
As her fingers found hairy moles hanging moles and acne holes she tried not to look across the pool, tried not to wonder about the blokes she’d loved and lost. Georgie Rampling, Willy Banks. Slim in their day, like Al, but now they’d seen more life and more life meant more Friday nights meant more pints meant more kebabs meant more flab.

Al soon drifted off into another short sleep during which Jules picked up a book by a woman and intended to read it. But the words didn’t sink in. The sun was powerful on the page, even through her sunglasses, and she knew she was the object of attention the other side of the pool. She lay back and sighed and thought about a swim but feared Al would want to join her.

So she stayed and thought about the promising start to the holiday. Her looks were going down well this side of the Atlantic. The waiters at dinner last night had smiles, buttocks and extra helpings. There’d been a trio of suave Robert De Niros, a pair of cool Sean Connerys and a brace of Brad Pitts at the tables in the casinos Al had taken her to. All had afforded her smiles because they could. Al could only afford three hotdogs, two portions of chips and the poker machines. ‘If I get lucky here, we’ll move onto the roulette table,’ he told her. But in having Jules by his side, Al had got as lucky as he’d ever get.

The roulette table was where Bogart was seated when he first spied Jules. ‘Come on you basstud.’ Al thumped the machine, temporarily drawing Jules’ eyes away from Bogart who was piling the chips up in front of him, while Alan piled the greasy variety down him. ‘Have you seen the price of this food?’ Al had smiled. ‘You get twice as much for half as much.’ He offered a greasy chip to Jules who refused. She couldn’t help but feel the allure of Bogart, his left sleeve hanging limp by his side as his right gambled hundred dollar bills, not the small fry Al was dealing with.

Al could sense Jules’ unhappiness as he played the poker machine so he moved on to an adjacent fruity, where he soon felt her lack of attention affecting his game, giving him bad vibes, making him pull the one-arm all wrong. ‘Cheer up! We’re on holiday ain’t we? It’s our first night. The birds in here come round with free drinks as long as you keep playing the machines. Here are Jules.’ He handed her a tub of dimes and nickels. ‘You have a go. Just put the coins in there and pull that.’ As she pulled the one arm, Al stood behind her, belly against her back, mouth fumbling her neck. ‘This is paradise bird, para-dice.’ He sized her up, his bit of meat. ‘Food’s cheap an’all.’ He pinched her arse, she smiled. Bogart won a hundred and seventy five bucks on red.

It was later when the cherries had again failed to align, and the machine had again been slapped because his pot was empty, that Al looked up and caught Jules exchanging more than a polite glance with Bogart. The roulette wheels stopped spinning. Cherries ceased to mis-align. The birds stopped the distribution of free drinks. Al felt sick. He’d wanted Jules to himself this holiday. She’d been working late regularly recently. A lot on she said. Kit off, Al suspected. Although he’d wouldn’t admit it, Al knew he was in the last chance saloon with Jules. So he’d deliberately booked this holiday far from home as a surprise because he wanted her to need his strength again in this big former colony full of guns and violence. He was the only man she knew in this land. It gave him a hold over her, he thought. A hold that was now being threatened by this sharp-suited stranger.

Al gulped a Bud to get in the mood. He was being poisoned by the mirage of invincibility that comes with being on the first day of a holiday with a beautiful woman and having an excess of alcohol swilling inside you. Jules saw Al staring at Bogart. ‘Come on Al. Let’s go. I don’t want a scene’, she lied, drrrrragging Al back to room 55 where they slept without sex.

Al awoke by the pool the following afternoon and tutted at the woman’s book lying across Jules’ gently sleeping midriff. He sat up and once he’d overcome the bluey blindness that affects you when you wake in the sun he again saw Bogart pushing designer sunglasses up his greasy nose.

Three strikes and out.

Mopping his flaming flabface on St George’s red cross towel, covering his back in a figure-hugging white t-shirt, Al gulped warm beer and strode over to the edge of the pool.
‘You lose that arm in a gunfight at the OK Corral or somink?’ he asked Bogart. ‘Or did Jaws bite it off, or did you lose it in an argument with a Velociraptor from Jurassic Park?’

The splashing in the pool ceased. Parents called wet children back to their Cokes and umbrellas. Jules stirred.

Calmly, Bogart rose from his lounger, wrapping his brownness in the blackness of a complementary hotel robe, the like of which Al had already planned to nick from room 55. After directing his right hand men to remain horizontal, Bogart approached his side of the pool and over the unnaturally blue splashless water calmly replied ‘Actually it was lost in an accident. A car crash that claimed my wife and nearly took myself and my sons.’ He nodded in the direction of the two right-hand men behind him.

The last of the bikinied girls left the pool, dripping hands clasped either side of chlorine nose in sniffing prayer. Ding Ding. Poolside was now ringside. Holidaymakers watched in sunstroked silence from the safety of their front row tables while waiters waited.

Al, considering an apology both unnecessary and un-English, said ‘that’s no reason to keep staring at my bird.’ Jules now sat up on her recliner, a shade darker from the sun, a shade redder through a mixture of embarrassment and expectation.

‘Your bird...’ Bogart paused, the word foreign to his tongue in this context, ‘is a very beautiful woman, mister...?’ With this he smiled at her again. Al launched a missile can of Bud across the pond. The American caught it calmly, skilfully in his right hand. A ripple of applause from the poolside crowd was stifled when Al said:

‘You flash fucking one-armed fuckhead. You think you can fucking do what you like, don’t you? You Yanks have got no fucking respect for another man's property.’

Bogart, the epitome of calm said: ‘You’ve turned the air the colour of the pool with your harsh words. It’s you who has no respect for others. It’s you who think you’re master of all you see. I was merely admiring your ‘property’ as you put it, because she reminds me of my own wife as she was twenty years ago, when we married, here in Vegas. August 77. I meant no harm or disrespect. When I was smiling I was smiling at the woman in my mind. Not your woman.

‘You saying my bird ain’t good enough now are ya?’

‘Come on. This is just a silly misunderstanding that’s getting way out of hand.’

‘Hand? You’ve only got one so how the fuck would you know?’ At this the two right hand men sprang to their father’s side.
‘Listen marshmallow man,’ one of them yelled.

Fuelled by the heat of Las Vegan sun and the alcohol of Las Vegan lager, his girl beside him, his country behind him, Al’s adrenaline was flowing. A hard marshmallow man, Al Superdome didn’t need his sidekicks George and William now. He could handle this one alone.
‘If I were you,’ Bogart advised, playing the impeccable gentleman, ‘I’d go inside now. If your skin gets any redder, your lady might have to wear sunglasses all the time to look at you.’

Some children chuckled and received stares or gagging hands to mouths from parents who knew better and saw how unamused Al was.
‘You think you’re so cool you Yanks, don’t cha?’ said Al, addressing the entire hotel, maybe even the whole country. ‘Don’t forget, I’m English. As English as Bond, James Bond. Proud servant of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.’ Drunken eyes looked at Bogart and salivating mouth said: ‘Scaramanga had three nipples. Bond put paid to him. You’ve only got one arm. What chance does that give you?’
‘Jeez, man. I don’t know about you,’ a smiling frowning Bogart said, addressing the crowd, ‘but that crazy speech reminds me of what they say about Englishmen, the midday sun and mad dogs.’

Laughter infected a few more children, some of whom were lightly smacked and told why later. Al wasn't laughing. Bloodshot eyes stared. Alcohol mouth straight as a bar, skin red as the cherries that stood frozen and mis-aligned in last night’s casino. He wasn’t amused. This was his high noon. There was no way he was going to take abuse from some cocky colonial. Al was too far gone, the liquid in his head alcoholic and frying. Jules still sat in silence, seeing Al’s burning skin redden with rage, and hearing him say: ‘It’s time we yanked you Yanks back into line. Eng-ger-land Eng-ger- land Eng-ger-land.’

Al shouts for his country and turns to face Jules, still shouting, reddening all the time with Bulldog pride and Vegan sun. Eng-ger-land. High on the sun the beer the passion the song the sentiment the history, he stomps along the edge of the pool that’s now the coast of Eng-ger-land.
Looking East from the West stands Bogart and his boys who don’t need to shout Ameri-ca.
‘Eng-ger-land.’

Then red feet slip on the smooth white cliffs of Dover, sending Al plunging headfirst with a crack and a smack on the very rock of Eng-ger-land. Splash splash bubble bubble blood.

In the English Ocean Al sees and hears Jaws coming to take him to The Abyss. Come and get me Yankie shark.

Back in Dover, Jules screams as an all-American hero and his brother dive for sinking treasure in the warm American sea. Bogart stares at Jules from the West but the girl only has crying eyes for the drowning man. It takes four arms to get the beast to the surface of screaming. Superhuman comic book All-American strength. Some of the crowd and the waiting waiters help drrrrrrag the soaking Superdome out of the drink. Jules screams for her man as mouth goes to mouth and it’s touch and go. Jules is crying, no one’s laughing, Al’s not breathing. He’s with the stars in the sky, stars in his eyes. Blood running down his temple as he stares at Dead Astaire. It’s mouth to mouth again. Blow hard, crush the superdome harder. Jules cries to save him and they’re punching the dome hard hard harder until it pukes out American water and, reborn, breathes on American air. And the voice asks the all-American hero who just kissed his life back if Elvis will marry us.