There have been damned few moments in my life when I've gotten the best of Lulu Cantrell. Lord knows, I love that woman, but she can get so far above herself that she's in danger of an out-of-body experience. Does her good to be thwarted from time to time, though I don't know if you need to repeat that to her. Now hush up, reach me a cold beer, and I'll tell you about the time when I won a contest and met the King of Rock n' Roll.

It all happened when me'n Lulu was having supper at the All Shook Up Diner and Washerette on Highway 109 between Picayune and Meridian. I'm sure you know the place. Diner on one side, coin laundry on t'other. A right popular place on Friday night, since it was close to the T-Bird Drive-In and the Seeking Singles Social Club. Take your date to supper and get a week's washin' done at the same time. Can't beat a bargain like that with a stick.

Anyhow, I had just finished washing down a piece of chicken fried steak the size of a small steer with some cherry limeade when Lulu clutched my arm so hard, I swallowed a chunk of ice and damn near choked to death. "An evening with the King!" she says, using her other hand to point in the general direction of yonder.

After I pounded some feelin' back into my arm - and my chest, which felt frozen solid - I took a look. In the corner near the jukebox was a cardboard sign that said, "Special Seance to Summon the King of Rock n' Roll, Elvis Presley, In the Spirit! Enter our contest and win a chance to participate with Narcissa Honeycutt, Spiritualist Medium and Channeler of the Stars. Only $5 per entry!"

I turned back to Lulu and says, "Honey-pie, that ain't nothin' but a way for the diner to make money off folks without havin' to deep fry anything. Besides, you know I ain't never won nothing in my life except you."

Yes, I was tryin' to take her mind off the stupid contest 'cause I needed that spare five dollars in my wallet for a poker stake the next weekend with Boss Tott and the boys over in Hogbend.

Didn't work though. Lulu wasn't fooled for a hot second. She give me one of them looks. "Butterbean," she says, "if you do not march over there right now and pay these nice people five dollars so's I can enter their contest, I'll smack you so hard that when you wake up, your clothes'll be out of style."

I know when I'm beat, but Butterbean ain't no sissy. I forked over that five dollars all right, but instead of filling out the form in Lulu's name, I used my own. I figured she'd never find out. Man alive, was I wrong. Trouble sticks to me like a booger you can't thump off, and I should've known that something would go wrong.

About a week later, Lulu came bouncin' into the trailer with the mail. I had plumb forgot that contest until she flapped an envelope under my nose. "I do believe that I've won," she says, grinnin' like a coon eating barbed wire. "It's from the All Shook Up Diner."

My poor ol' stomach did a flip-flop that could've earned it a score of "10" from an Olympic committee. "Uh, honey-pie," I says, girding up my loins, so to speak, "about that there contest..."

"Hush up," Lulu says, opening the envelope and breaking one of her Lee Press-On nails in the process. She didn't even stop to cuss, which should give you a fair indication of how excited she was. "Oh, I'm goin' to meet the King!"

Then she read what was in the envelope.

I braced myself.

Sure enough, Lulu gave me a look that was uglier'n a lard bucket full of armpits. I mean to tell you, brother, if looks could kill, I'd have been six feet under with the service already said and the gravediggers shoulderin' their shovels. Lulu blessed me out but good, too. I ain't heard language like that since Mac Dougherty mashed his thumb with a hammer, fell off the roof, landed on top of the outhouse and went clean down to the bottom of shit-pit. After he got up, he realized that he'd lost his false teeth and then he really got mad. I reckon his wife's blackberry cobbler tasted a mite strange that afternoon.

Anyhow, even Lulu Cantrell can't cuss the whole day without repeating herself three or four times, so I finally got a word in edgewise. "Honey-pie," I says, "I wouldn't dream of deprivin' you of your chance to see the King."

That got her attention. It also earned me some sugar points, 'cause Lulu quit grizzling and gave me a kiss that like to have curled my hair. See, she's the biggest Elvis fan in Flathead County. The bedroom in our trailer is wallpapered with black velvet paintings of the King in all his glory. There's collectible Elvis liquor bottles above the fridge, plastic Elvis plates in the cupboard, Elvis rocking pelvis clocks, Elvis snow domes, Elvis ashtrays, and a glow-in-the-dark lifesized Elvis in the bathroom that scares the bejesus out of guests. We even have a gold-plated Elvis bust that says, "Thang you verra much," when you passed it on your way to the front door.

She has seen every Elvis movie ever made, owns every album, has made annual pilgrimage to Graceland every year since she was thirteen, and is the life-time President of the Elvis Presley Fan Club of Flathead County and Unincorporated Catfish Junction. Lulu has smooched the lips away from many a picture of the King in her lifetime. She would've put Elvis sheets on the damned bed, but it's bad enough tryin' to perform when you've got about a thousand black velvet eyeballs staring down at you. I'd never get to the Promised Land with Mr. Presley's face pressed against my backside, if you know what I mean.

Lulu's most cherished possession is a dirty, crumpled up old towel that her Aunt Sister swore she'd gotten off a girlfriend's girlfriend who had been at the King's Aloha concert in Hawaii. Genuine Elvis sweat, supposedly. Lulu keeps it in a glass dome in the closet and only trots it out for special occasions. I ain't jealous for three reasons. One, he's the King. Two, the man's dead. Three, I know when to keep my mouth shut so's not to upset Lulu. 'Nuff said.

Needless to say, Lulu was thrilled all the way down to her little pink toes. She got on the phone and called her relatives, her friends, her enemies and probably total strangers, too. I drew the line when she tried to call the President of the United States, though. I was pretty certain that the man had enough problems - domestic and foreign - without having to deal with Lulu, who can cause more consternation in a flat minute than any other disaster on earth, natural or otherwise.

Now I wasn't too keen on Lulu goin' to the All Shook Up Diner alone, mainly because of the Curse of the Cantrells. That whole brood can't be beat for raising cain, mischief and mayhem at every opportunity. Lulu is pert near the penultimate Cantrell. She just can't help attracting insanity and pure ass-bitin' weirdness, bless her heart. I felt sorry for them people who were going to Narcissa Honeycutt's seance with Lulu. They had no idea what they were in for.

Unfortunately, the contest winners were allowed to bring one guest. It said so in the small print at the bottom of the page. Guess who Lulu picked? That's right. Poor ol' Butterbean.

I was born under a misfortunate star, brother, and that ain't no mistake.

Well, the big night came and Lulu was almost beside herself. Most of the Cantrell women had come over to the trailer to give her a grand send-off. From all the fuss, you'd've thought she was flying to the moon under her own power. There was more fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches than you could shake a stick at, and more excitement than you'd find on male stripper night at the Chugalug-a-Go-Go Bar n' Grill. I had to go outside before all that squealing busted my eardrums.

We finally left and Lulu nearly made me wreck the truck three times on account of tryin' to make me drive faster. Lord knows, I love that woman, but there is a time and a place for 'resting her head in my lap' and Highway 109 pretty much ain't it. I have never been so relieved in my life as when we rolled into the parking lot of the All Shook Up Diner and Washerette. Of course, soon as we parked, Lulu weren't interested in nothin' but the seance. Shit. I just can't win for losing sometimes.

Anyhow, there was thirteen folks all told, us includin', which should've been my first clue. That psychic female, Narcissa Honeycutt, was an itty-bitty thing, but she was so buck-toothed she could've eaten corn on the cob through a keyhole. She had about two pounds of jewelry on each arm, and a turban perched on her head that was big enough to be used as a spare tire. I thought I knew her from somewhere but damned if I could put my finger on it. Meanwhile, Narcissa passed out copies of her astrology column that runs in the Gulledge Tattler, just to prove that she weren't no fake.

I knew she didn't have no special powers, 'cause not once in ten years has she predicted anything except happiness and sunshine for my sign. Hah! You can see ol' Narcissa Honeycutt was phonier than a two dollar Rolex. I kept my mouth shut, though. Lulu was happier'n a cuddlebug at a hug party, and I sure weren't goin' to pop her balloon. There ain't no use borrowin' trouble when I got a durned truck-load of the stuff back home.

So there we was at the All Shook Up Diner and Washerette, sittin' 'round a table and trying to conjure up the King. I'll give it to ol' Narcissa, that gal knew her stuff. The lights was turned down low and she commenced to shakin' and moanin' and jitterbuggin' around in her seat like a whole herd of fire ants had taken up residence in her drawers. I ain't seen an embarrassing public display like that since Euphonia Shank got the Holy Spirit smack dab in the middle of Sears & Roebuck, and as she was wearin' a mini-skirt at the time, I learned first-hand how come Momma McCall always told me to wear clean underwear in case I had an accident. In Euphonia's case, though, every boy in the store got a lesson in anatomy that he'd never forget.

Lulu was clutchin' my hand so hard, I feared she'd do me a permanent damage. I couldn't rightly pry her off, though, 'cause something was happening in the room that made me feel like I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Ain't nothing good ever comes of meddlin' in things that man ain't s'sposed to know. Just ask me, bubba. I earned every damned one of my gray hairs trying to keep Lulu from not only knockin' on Heaven's door, but ringing the doorbell and hollering to be let in.

What, you ask, had me shakin' like a poodle crappin' peach pits? Well, a thing was appearin' over the table. It was black and kind of swirly and, come to think of it, looked a lot like an ice cream cone with a curl on top. Except it was real menacin' in a way that ice cream usually ain't, unless you get it from the Carterdale Dairy Princess, where it's as likely to be swamp ape flavored than not. The Curse of the Cantrells, you know.

This thing kept on comin' like it a preacher runnin' late for an all-you-can-eat fried chicken buffet. Lulu was so excited, I reckon her jeans was a mite dampish. In fact, I figure everybody's denims was fixin' to appear in a new picture show, The Yellow River by I.P. Freely. If things took a turn for the worse, we'd all get starring roles in The Brown-Spotted Wall by Hoo Flung Dung. Yeah, boy, it's one of them foreign karate flicks. Lord have mercy! If brains was gas, you couldn't drive a pissant's go-cart around a Cheerio. Remind me to loan you that new book, Forty Yards to the Outhouse by Willie Makeit and Betty Wont. Now hush up and reach me another beer.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. All of a sudden, the thing popped into focus and I pert near threw my bones out of joint in surprise. That black swirly menacin' ice cream cone was, indeed, Elvis Presley. The King himself was floating over the table! His jumpsuit had more spangles on it than a show-girl's titty holster. Yes sir, he looked fat and sassy, so I reckon they put on a good spread in the Here-After.

Lulu let out a scream that you could've heard clear over in Dryland. I do know that my hearin' ain't been the same since. All around the table, folks sucked in air and didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Me, I just closed one eye and farted, so to speak, 'cause to be honest, I don't trust these things. Somethin' always goes wrong. And I was wound up so tight, you couldn't have driven an eight-penny nail into my ass with a ten-pound sledgehammer.

Elvis looked at us with his bedroom eyes and says, "Thang you verra much."

The crowd went wild. Narcissa Honeycutt was doin' her mumbo-jumbo business, and Elvis was bobbing around in thin air, and Lulu was so ecstatic, she was fixin' to start speaking in tongues. It was at this point, son, that the other shoe dropped. Or rather, Narcissa's turban fell off and rolled behind the counter.

Turns out she had some kind of glass ball under that big ol' hat. It dropped off her head, hit the floor and busted into about a gadzillion pieces. Soon as that ball was broke, Elvis showed his true colors. He weren't the King of Rock n' Roll at all. Nope, it was some other kind of spirit that Narcissa had conjured up. She must've controlled it with that glass ball of hers, and without it, her so-called psychic powers was 'bout as useful as tits on a boar hog. Once I got a good gander at her, I knew who she was. The turban had thrown me off, and them buck-toothed dentures she was wearin'.

Narcissa Honeycutt was really Madam Gootch, the swamp witch of Backwater Slough!

I thought I'd recognized that ten pounds of poison in a five pound sack. Lulu did, too. She ripped out a string of cuss words that turned Madam Gootch as red as a fox's ass in a pokeberry patch. I don't know if Lulu was mad 'cause the last time we tangled with the swamp witch at the Hoodoo Voodoo Contest, her dainty pink feet got covered in fur. Or maybe she was jacked off 'cause Elvis had left the building. Either way, Lulu was ready and willin' to open up a can o' whup ass on Gootch, and I had to haul her back before she got hurt. More gumption than sense, that's my honey-pie.

Elvis had shucked off his skin, revealin' the ugliest damned critter I've ever clapped eyes on. If you can imagine a toady-frog blowed up the size of a mule, with a million big ol' pointy teeth and claws like Hell's can openers, you've got about ten-percent of what we saw that night in the All Shook Up Diner and Washerette. That thing had a face like it had caught on fire and its momma had put it out with an icepick. Could've scared a dog off a meat wagon. The critter rolled them fiery red eyes at us and roared loud enough to shake plaster loose from the ceiling.

Madam Gootch jumped up and beat feet for the door. I was there just ahead of her. "You think you're hot shit on a silver platter," I says, "but you ain't nothin' 'cept cold boogers on a paper plate."

"It'll kill us all!" the swamp witch hollers, anxious as a one-eyed cat watchin' two rat holes. "Run for your life, fool!"

"Butterbean Shirley McCall's momma didn't raise no fool," I says. "Now get rid of that devil-critter, you dishonest hussy, or by thunder, I'll feed you to it in bite-sized chunks."

Lulu and the rest were holed up behind the counter. "Go to it, Butterbean," she says to me, "and don't get yourself killed, or I'll slap you so hard, you'll starve to death rolling!"

I give Gootch the stink-eye. "What's your choice?" I says.

Well, she thought about defying me, but that didn't last too long. In the end, she agreed to do what needed to be done. 'Course, it might have been 'cause I had the hold-out pistol from my boot pressed against the back of her head. Whilst we was negotiatin', Lulu and the other folks were distracting the critter by tossing raw hamburgers at it. The devil-critter gulped 'em down a mile-a-minute. That thing was all appetite from head to heels. I knew there weren't no time to lose.

"Get a move on," I says to Gootch, "or I'll kick your ass so hard, your breath'll smell like shoe polish."

Madam Gootch commenced to conjurin', mumbling all sorts of foo-fa-rah and wavin' her hands in the air. Lulu had switched to chuckin' chickens at the critter, which it gobbled faster than the hamburgers. Steaks and hams and barbeque meat and hot dogs and pork chops flew through the air. It gave my heart a pang to watch all that good stuff bein' wasted on a toady-frog monster.

Finally, though, Lulu ran out of ammunition. The devil-critter let out a belch and turned its googly eyes on me. It was now or never, as the King would say.

I thumbed back the hammer of my hide-out pistol. "You got one second before I send you on to your eternal reward," I says to Gootch.

She clapped her hands together and gargled some foreign soundin' words. There was a rattlin' boom of thunder and a bright light and a sizzling noise that sounded like bacon in a hot fryin' pan. Then I swear that I witnessed a miracle.

Standing there before us was Elvis Presley. The real deal this time. His jumpsuit was even more dazzlin' than before, and he lit up that diner like a diamond in a goat's ass at high noon. The King struck a pose and everybody in the place - excludin' the devil-critter - squealed and jumped around and generally made a fuss. Lulu broke cover and ran at him, her lips already puckered. Bless her heart, I reckon Lulu was so het up that she'd have let devils gnaw on her liver for the chance to get some sugar from the King of Rock n' Roll.

Elvis slicked back his hair and curled his lip and says, "Not now, pretty momma. I'm takin' care-a bidness."

Lulu had stars in her eyes, alright. If I'd have said that to her, she'd've knocked me for a loop. Instead, Lulu went back behind the counter as Elvis made some karate moves, preparin' himself to kick that devil-critter's behind. They faced off, the King of Rock n' Roll vs. the King of Hell. We all held our breath. There commenced a battle the likes of which I've never seen before, 'cept that one time when the satellite dish picked up a wrestlin' program from Tijuana. Or maybe it weren't wrestlin' at all, 'cause when's the last time you ever saw a donkey in the ring? But I digress.

I tell you, boy, Elvis bitch-slapped that devil-critter up one side of the diner and down the other. He whupped a mudhole in its ass and stomped it flatter'n Lulu's biscuits. By the time the King was done, that critter was nothin' but a ball of agony and doom. He grabbed it up by the scruff of its neck, drew back his leg, and drop-kicked that thing clean out of the place. If it landed anywhere this side of Broomstick Ridge, I'll eat my favorite feed store cap.

When he was through, Elvis gave us a wave and a smile that made my knees rubbery as Jell-O salad. The King started to vanish, then re-appeared and came at me. He leaned over Madam Gootch and I swear, there was a twinkle in them bedroom eyes. He kissed me dead on the lips and whispered, "Are you lonesome tonight, pretty momma?"

I could feel Lulu starin' at the back of my head. It was one of them looks. The hide was bein' peeled off me in thin layers. "No sir," I says in a real hurry, "but maybe you can talk to Lulu Cantrell about that. She's your biggest fan."

The King winked at me and he was gone, leavin' nothin' but a bit of shine in the air behind him.

Well, that was it for the All Shook Up Diner and Washerette. Madam Gootch went home to Backwater Slough. Turns out she'd been pullin' that same trick all over Flathead County, and she had to repay every red cent on account of false advertisin'. Except, of course, I never saw my five dollars again 'cause the real King of Rock n' Roll showed up at our seance. Can't win for losing, and that's a fact.

As for Lulu, I figured she'd be madder'n a wet hen. Elvis kissed me, after all. But Lulu never said a word about it. Life goes on, and she even ordered a set of Elvis shot glasses from TV the other day.

At odd times, though, I catch her lookin' at my mouth and fondlin' a sharp knife.

I figure that someday, a little part of me may join the Elvis Aloha towel in its glass case in the bottom of the closet. Hopefully, I ain't goin' to be needing 'em no more when it happens, 'cause I sure get a powerful lot of pleasure out of whistlin' Dixie.

Thang you verra much.

Butterbean has left the building.

THE END

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