It's around 2AM when we reach Elvis's grave. We'd left the courtyard with intent, made a beeline for the middle of the cemetery. My cat had followed. She'd tailed me before, but never this far from home. I watch her dart along the curb. She'll stay close, I figure, drunk on drink and starlight. I had been feeling lonely that day, and no company was unwelcome.
The place is not a burial site, but a memorial. Elvis's shrine would be more accurate – but less appropriate, somehow. Shrine evokes imagery of incense and prayer. Grave seems more fitting for a small cave lined with dried-up bibles and underwear.
Detritus aside, there is a kind of magick in the aura round the place. Set humbly beside the mauseoleum, amidst a sea of gold filigree and Santa Marias, sits this strange, rocky structure with its crown of succulents, erected by fuck-knows-who to honour the dead King.
My two comrades splash about in a nearby fountain as I duck inside and heave myself up through a big hole to perch atop the rock. I'm delighted to hear my cat follow, her low purr a comfort in the strangeness of the night. The others join us, wet-ankled. We play music from our phones, pass round a warm beer, smoke and cackle like warlocks. Flanked by cacti under the inky sky, floating above the rot.
After X amount of time headlights appear. An engine growls. The night lightens, then bleaches to blue. We duck our heads. Curfew is over, at least, but we are trespassing, and with light comes the law. We drop down from our tiny kingdom, one by one, exhaustion seeping in as the glitter begins to fade. Several plants are trampled in our wake. In a final and fleeting moment of inspiration my friend shoves one into her tote. The cat begins to meow. We scuttle out from the shade and stand in the path, gaunt, as dawn emerges from behind a thousand headstones.
The other two are attempting to convene with a fourth, phone lights deepening the lines round their eyes. The glitter is all but gone for me, and the trills of my cat seem to be growing more frequent and higher in pitch. She is panicking. I scoop her up, announce vaguely to the others that I'm taking her home, and set off confidently in any direction. I have nothing on my person but my tobacco and the animal. A jogger ambles past with a staffy in tow and the cat springs out of my arms. I stumble after her, grab her again. She clings begrudgingly to my shoulder, ears pricked up, meowing meowing.
I swerve up the path, battling the familiar dysphoria of entering the day without the precious interval of sleep. When I hit the fence I know I've gone the wrong way—the opposite way, even. I glimpse the northern park through the wrought iron. Desperate, I decide to go out and around. We make it out the gate. The cat, overwhelmed by the hustle of runners and hounds, wriggles from my grasp and shoots back through the fence. I have to jog back to the gate to get in again, and once I get there she’s gone. I trudge about, straining to hear her small voice amidst the big noise of a town morning. I go round in loops, pacing up and down the concrete, vaguely aware of names and dates. I call out a couple times. After an interval of marching I spot a clue. A tiny, fresh turd atop a gravemarker, dead centre. Hm. Must have been a bad dude, I think.
It's 7am when I am dragging my feet to the cafe on the corner. My friends — two equally wired, plus the new arrival, rested, fresh—watch me approach like pigeons round a bin.
She's gone.
I announce, dejected, schlepping towards home. One friend follows me, indignant.
What do you mean?
I explain the situation. She's only seven months old, a rescue, skittish. I'd lost her months ago, led her half-cut down a dark road in the middle of the night. We'd found her the next day, pacing the courtyard of my old house, small and scared. Now I'd left her for dead again, dead amongst the dead. The guilt sits in my sleepless body like a chunk of headstone, haunted.
The trio follow me down the sidewalk. One hands me a latte, which I accept gratefully. There's no question—we'll go home, drink our coffee, have a smoke and return. The one who's slept begins elaborating a logistical strategy. Another insists on bringing the catfood as bait. The third suggests going in disguise, an idea which is eventually vetoed (we don’t have enough hats).
After a brief interlude on the couch (the gang nearly fall asleep, I click my fingers at them) the four of us march off into society, uncharacteristically early, filled with oatmilk and gusto. We hit the cemetery hard, branching off into teams, whistling, calling, bag-shaking.
I point out the turd.
Must have been a bad dude.
I nod sagely.
Two of us are on the mausoleum balcony, two in the garden below.
Any luck?
Nothin'.
We agree to fold. I concede that she'll find her own way.
The day continues uninterrupted. I attend class online at 9, vibrating after four shots of espresso. I give a joint presentation, then stay in the virtual classroom on mute whilst I take photos of myself holding various props and send them to my friends. I can hear their giggles through the brick.
In the afternoon we sit around drinking lukewarm ribena mixed with vodka, doing quizzes out the paper and talking each other out of taking naps. We share a single slice of pizza between three. I am dodging thoughts of my lost, scared pet. The topic is broached sometime in the afternoon.
Hey... you know how I took that plant from Elvis's grave.
I recall that hallowed moment. Yeah.
Well. Maybe...
I gasp.
We took something from it...
Yeah. So it took something from us.
Damn the King, I think. Damn it. I reflect on my decision not to pocket any debris, a habit I'm usually partial to. I floated it, but it didn't feel right.
...
The bender officially breaks up in the evening when one leaves to watch the game. I shower, get changed. Feed my begrudging companion a hunk of toast. We traipse off to their joint via a bottle shop in which both of us, we're sure, are micro-aggressed by the owner. We sit and listen to industrial techno as loud as it goes. I get up to leave just before curfew kicks in. They look me in the eyes.
Don't get too hectic in the cemetery.
I nod, dutiful.
And off I trot, back up the block to my empty home. I change into all black, throw a tin of cat-chow and the battered succulent – totem – into a bag and dive into the night, swim t'ward the altar.
As soon as I step through the gap in the fence I catch a harrowing glimpse of sobriety. The city lights ease the horror that is walking through a cemetery at night, but spirits still loom, heavy. I whip out my phone, beelining for the green blob marked Elvis, vaguely aware in my hazy brain that this is madness. I'm mad.
Eventually I make it. Sticking to the script, I reach into my bag for the small, broken plant. I step meekly inside the cave and place it somewhere, anywhere. Sorry, I whisper—to Elvis, to myself, to no-one at all.
I am briefly distracted by the makeshift altar's latest offerings before I become lucid. I need to leave. I need to leave, and never speak of this again. I pivot, take a breath of spooky air, survey the mausoleum lights — and a familiar trill permeates the drift. The ghosts catch in my throat. My cat is stood on the path, gazing up at me. I balk. A dry sob escapes my body as I fumble for the catfood, peeling back the lid and daubing the tarmac with some of it, keenly aware of how this scene must look to our subterranean audience. I can feel their knowing smiles permeate the soil. The cat eats, hungry.
Flustered, I try to put her in my bag. She rejects the motion. Calming myself, I begin to move towards the exit, stride clipped by exhaustion. I am swathed in relief as she follows me obediently, a tiny tortoiseshell labrador, stopping occasionally to hurl herself on the ground in a sprawl. She's tired. I wonder if she slept.
When we get home she darts inside, resumes her status as housepet. I have something to eat and fall into a deep sleep, dreaming of realms where cats with jewels for eyes lead their masters to treasure.