The Enigmatologist by Ben Adams Read Free Book Online

scratching
himself.
    A small, flat screen television, its wires running out the
window. John moved the blinds and followed the wires to a neighboring trailer,
up the side to a satellite dish. Pirated cable.
    Black and white pictures were tacked to the wall opposite
the couch. There were several of Elvis, but they were not the normal fan
photos. In one, Elvis is standing by the front door to Graceland, surrounded by
Elvis impersonators. It was easy to tell which one was Elvis. He was the focal
point of the picture, standing between large columns, framed by impersonators.
And he was the only one not wearing a sequined jumpsuit.
    In other photos, Elvis is surrounded by armed, uniformed
men, leaving hangars, boarding helicopters or planes. A white haired man
wearing an Air Force uniform is standing near Elvis. They are laughing or
talking, the man looking at Elvis fondly, with pride, while other officers are
a few steps behind. In one photograph, Elvis is in a hangar. He is wearing
earphones and holding a long range microphone in one hand and a hotdog in the
other. He isn’t looking at the surveillance equipment. Instead, he is looking
down at a dollop of mustard on his shoe. In another, Elvis is standing next to
a circus ring watching men jousting on alpacas. One man has been thrown from
his mount and is lying in the center of the ring. Elvis is grumbling and
handing money to the man with white hair. The man is laughing, adding Elvis’s
cash to a stack of bills. John wasn’t sure if the picture was of military
training or a wealthy man’s entertainment.
    Next to the Elvis pictures were aerial photos of what
looked like military installations. Buildings were circled in red ink. The
names ‘Area 51’, ‘Los Alamos’, ‘ Dulce ’, or ‘S-4’ were
written on them. Before he left Denver, John researched Elvis conspiracies and
found photos like these. They were typical of someone obsessed with the
perception of a hidden truth, the belief that something in Elvis’s history was
being kept from them.
    Sitting in the car, he had wondered what he’d find in the
trailer. He thought, if anything, there’d be a few pictures of Elvis,
flattering images printed from websites, taped to the wall. But he didn’t
expect this. He looked closer at the photos, the paper stock, the edge and
grain of the print. They weren’t copies. They were originals. This guy had hid
in the bushes and taken these photos.
    Like John.
    But they were nothing alike. This guy acted out of some
delusory belief that Elvis had a secret past. John took pictures of naked men
in the back of a Payless Shoe store rubbing latex balloons on each other,
waiting until he could earn a living writing puzzles.
    John kicked some beer cans out of the way and headed to
the kitchen. Dirt had saturated the small kitchen’s linoleum cracks, staining
the floor brown and gray. When John walked, his shoes sounded like band-aids being removed. Pliers replaced the missing knobs
on an electric range. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes, plates covered in
food remains, chicken bones, BBQ. He shined the flashlight on them. The crusted
food looked preserved, like a furniture store display of wax fruit. John
sniffed the sink. No rancid food smell. He opened the cupboards. Peanut butter.
Jar after jar of peanut butter.
    The refrigerator door’s fake wood paneling had cracked, a
disguise peeling. Magnets decorated with pictures of half-naked women and beer
logos had fallen on the floor. John opened the fridge door. The refrigerator
was filled, crisper to fridge light, with bananas.
    The pantry continued the single-item theme. It was stocked
with bags of bread.
    Peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
    The guy’s obsession with Elvis extended to his diet.
    One more room, the bedroom. An accordion door separated it
from the rest of the trailer. Age and lack of maintenance dulled the magnet
lock. Screws stripped the holes holding door to frame. John jerked on the
handle and the door came