"I was dreamin'." "Dreamin' my dick was out and I was checking to see if that infected bump on the head of it had filled with pus again." "If it had, I was gonna name that bump after my ex-wife Priscilla and bust it by jacking' off." "Oh, man." "Or I'd like to think that's what I'd do." "Dreams let you think like that." "Truth was, I hadn't had a hard-on in years." "Oh, man." "My God, man." "How long have I been here?" "Am I really awake now, or am I just dreamin' I'm awake?" "How could my plans have gone so wrong?" "When the hell are they gonna serve lunch?" "Considerin' what they serve, why the hell do I care?" "If Priscilla discovered I was alive, would she come and see me?" "Would we still wanna fuck?" "Or would we merely have to talk about it?" "Is there, finally and really, anything to life other than food, shit, and sex?" "Well, goddamnit." "How could I have gone from the "King of rock and roll"to this?" "Old guy in a rest home in East Texas with a growth on his pecker." "And what is that growth, man?" "Cancer?" "Nobody's talkin'." "No one seems to know..." "or wants to." "Makes you wonder, doesn't it, what kind of life this old guy had?" "Whathat kind of life he had, you know." "His kids, his grandkids, his legacy." "Look at him now." "Oh, who gives a shit?" "Well..." "Make you comfortable." "No." "I'm gonna squish you, cockroach!" "Help me." "You know, I was thinkin'..." "What?" "You gonna get all weepy on me again?" "No." "I was merely gonna suggest that you use some of this here deodorizer and spray it on that corpse because she's smellin' pretty ripe." "Good idea." "Excuse me, miss?" "You gonna throw all that stuff out?" "Yeah." "Could I have one of them pictures of Bull?" "Maybe his... his Purple Heart?" "I mean, he was pretty proud of that." "And maybe that... that tin of chocolates there?" "I suppose." "The revealing' of her panties wasn't intentional or unintentional." "She just didn't give a damn." "She saw me as so physically and sexually non-threatenin', she didn't mind if I got a bird's-eye view of her love nest." "It was the same to her as a house cat sneakin' a peek." "I felt my pecker flutter once like a pigeon having' a heart attack... then it laid back down and remained limp and still." "'Course, these days, even a flutter was kind of reassuring'." " Here." " Thank you." "Say..." "Bull your kin?" "My daddy." "Never seen you here before." "I've only been here once before." "Whenhen I checked him in." "That's three years ago, wasn't it?" "You and him friends?" "No, we just roommates." "I mean, he never felt good enough to say much." "I just hated to see what was left of him go away so easy." "Seemed like an all right guy." "Mentioned you a lot." "You're... you're Callie, right?" "Yeah." "Well... he was all right." "But not enough so you'd come and see him, though." "Don't lay some guilt trip on me, mister." "I did what I could." "I mean, if it hadn't been for Medicaid or Medicare... whatever that stuff was... he'd have been in some ditch somewhere." "And I sure didn't have the money to take care of him." "My own daughter..." "lost long ago to me... if she knew I lived, would she come and see me?" "Would she even care?" "You could've come and seen him." "They don't charge you for that." "Mind your own business." "I was busy." "Well, well, well." "If it isn't my favorite patient." "How are you this morning, Mr. Haff?" "I'm all right." "But I prefer Mr. Presley or Elvis." "I keep tellin' you that." "I don't go by Sebastian Haff anymore, okay?" "I'm not tryin' to hide anymore." "Well, of course I knew that." "I forgot." "Good morning, Elvis." "Did you knowwe have a celebrity here, Miss Thomas?" "Elvis Presley." "You know, the rock and roll singer." "I thought he was dead." "Well, actually, Elvis is dead." "Mr. Haff knows that." "Don't you, Mr. Haff?" "Hell, no." "I'm right here." "I ain't dead." "Yet." "Now, Mr. Haff!" "I don't mind calling you "Elvis."" "But you're a little confused and you like to play sometimes." "You were an Elvis impersonator, remember?" "You fell off the stage and broke your hip... when was it?" "Twenty years ago." "It got infected and you were in a coma for quite a while." "You came out with a few..." "problems." "Look, I was just impersonating' myself." "I couldn't do nothin' else." "I don't have any problems." "You're tryin' to say my brain's messed up, aren't you?" "Whyhy would you wanna be somebody else?" "I got tired of it." "I was hooked on pills, you know." "I wanted out." "And this boy Sebastian Haff..." "he was an Elvis imitator." "He was the best of 'em." "He took my place." "Problem is, he had a bad heart." "He liked drugs, too." "Liked them more than I did." "So it was him that died, not me." "I just took his place." "But why would you want to leave all that fame, Mr. Presley?" "All that money?" "I don't know." "'Cause they got old." "The woman I loved..." "Priscilla..." "she was gone." "The rest of the women..." "werejust women." "I mean, the music wasn't mine anymore." "I wasn't even me anymore." "Just this thing they made up." "And my friends..." "Well, they were sucking' me dry." "So I took a little road trip down to Nacogdoches... to check out this Sebastian Haff." "It's all right, boys." "Just wait here." "Oh, my God." "I didn't think you'd really..." "It's all right, boys." "Just another freak." "Let's split." " Sorry, man." " King, I got it." "I got it." "It's all yours, baby." "So I signed everything over to Sebastian." "Except for enough money to sustain me if things got bad." "I was determined to make myself a new life." "A better one." "But me and Sebastian, we had us a deal." "If I wanted to trade back, he'd let me." "It was all written up in the contract." "The thing was..." "I lost my copy in a barbeque accident." "But that wasn't so bad, either." "I was makin' new friends and enjoying' myself." "Cheers!" "Oh, my God." "Did you see that thing?" "It just went up like that." " Now, Elvis." " Yes?" "Don't carry it too far." "You may just get way out there and not come back." "Oh, fuck you." "Shit." "Get old, you can't even cuss someone and have it bother 'em." "Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing." "Well..." "I've got what I want." "The clothes can go to Goodwill or Salvation Army." "V ery well." "And I'm sorry about your father." "He was a nice man." "Yeah." "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Presley." " Get the hell out." " Now, now." "I'll be back later to do that little... thing that has to be done." "You know." "Elvis!" "Poor Bull." "In the end..." "does anything really matter?" "No one here ever listened to me." "Except this one guy..." "only, he was certifiable." "That's where they took a piece of my brain." "They got it back in D.C. in that goddamn jar." "I got a little bag of sand up there now." "Jack... no offense, but..." "President Kennedy was a white man." "That's how clever they are!" "They dyed me this color." "All over!" "Can you think of a better way to hide the truth than that?" "I was livin' simple." "The way Haff had been." "Going from town to town doin' the Elvis act." "Only, I felt like I was really me again." "Can you dig that?" "We're diggin' it, Mr. Haff..." "Mr. Presley." "Women were throwin' themselves at me 'cause they could imagine I was Elvis." "Only, I was Elvis playing Sebastian Haff playing Elvis." "It was all pretty good." "I didn't mind the contract being burned up." "Didn't even try to go back and convince anybody." "Then I had the accident." "I was gyrating', see, takin' care business, and then my hip went out." "I'd been havin' trouble with it." "Damn." "It's cold in here tonight." "No way." "That's it." "This time, I make it." "No more piss or crap in the bed." "Shake it out..." "There we go." "Man... that is one big bitch cockroach." "All right, man." "Let's go." "Damn." "Hot damn!" "Got you, you six-legged bastard." "Even a big bitch cockroach like you should know..." "Never... but never fuck with the King." "Hey!" "Is anybody out here?" "I think we got some major bug problems in this place, man!" "Oh, man..." "Hey, Jack?" "Hey, man, you okay?" "What the Sam Hill is that?" "Mr. Kennedy?" "Hey, man..." "you're on the floor." "No shit." "Who are you?" "Look, I'm..." "Sebastian." "Sebastian Haff." "Did you see him go by in the hall?" "He scuttled like." " Who, man?" " The one they sent." " Who's "they"?" " Oh, you knowwho." "No, Jack, I don't." "Come on, man." "Lyndon Johnson." "Castro, maybe." "They sent somebody to finish me off." "I think maybe it was Johnson himself." "Real ugly." "Real goddamn ugly!" "Look, man, President Johnson's dead." "Shit." "That ain't gonna stop him." "Get his feet." "So, you say you heard a... a noise?" "Well, a sound's a sound, you know?" "I mean, I heard something." "It was like a..." "I don't know." "Like a..." "like a scuttling." " A scuttling sound?" " Yes, sir." "Were you awake or were you in bed when you heard this noise?" "I was in bed first, then I was awake 'cause the damn bugs woke me up." "You got bugs all over this place." "Bugs... well, Mr. Haff, what kind of bugs have you been seeing?" "Look, do I look like an ichthyologist to you?" "Big damn bugs, all right?" "The size of my fist." "The size of a peanut butter and banana sandwich." "What do I care?" "I got a growtth on my pecker." "Okay, Mr. Haff." "Don't worry about a thing." "We'll call the exterminator tomorrow and we'll take care of the problem." "Good." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "It's time for that little thing again." "A doll like this handling' me without warmth or emotion..." "Twenty years ago." "Just twenty, man." "I could've made with the curly-lip smile and had her eating' out of my asshole." "Doctor says this cream ought to do the trick." "Corticosteroids." "Should heal the inflammation, stop the pus." "Where'd my youth go?" "Why didn't fame hold off old age and death?" "Why the hell did I leave the fame in the first place?" "Do I want it back?" "Could I have it back?" "And if I could..." "would it make any damn difference?" "Mr. Haff!" "Lord almighty." "You old rascal." "I think you better take a cold shower, Mr. Haff." "There'd been two presidential elections since I had a boner like that one." "What gave here?" "Then I realized what gave." "I was thinkin' about something that interested me." "Not my next meal or goin' to the crapper." "I'd been given a dose of life again." "You get in there with me, I'll take that shower." "You silly thing." "Come on, now." "Why don't you pull on it a little?" "You ought to be ashamed." "Where at?" "Where at?" "I haven't seen my kids." "It's an ambush!" "Under the bridge." "I saw him under the bridge." "It's an ambush!" "Tonto, my boots, Tonto!" "That's my friend Kemosabe." "We used to play cards together." " My boots!" " Now he doesn't even know who I am." "Daddy." "Baby?" "Sebastian." "Sebastian!" "It's loose!" "What's loose?" "It." "Listen." "Jesus Christ." "What's that?" "I thought it was Lyndon Johnson, but I was wrong." "I've come across new evidence to suggest another assassin." "Assassin?" "He's after another target tonight." "Come on, I wanna show you something." "I don't think it's safe if you go back to sleeping." "For chrissake, man." "Just tell the administrators." "Suits and white starches?" "No, thank you!" "I trusted them when I was back in Dallas, and look where they got my brain and me." "I'm thinkin' with sand here." "I mean, I pick up some waves, maybe, from my brain, but someday, who knows." "Somebody might just disconnect the battery at the White House." "Oh, yeah." "That's something to worry about, all right." "Listen here." "Listen." "I know you're Elvis." "There was a rumor, you know, that you hated me." "But I thought about that." "If you hated me, you could've finished me off the other night." "What I want from you is that you look me straight in the eye and assure me you had nothing at all to do with that day in Dallas, and that you did not know Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby." "Look, man..." "I had nothing to do with Dallas." "And I knew neither Lee Harvey Oswald nor Jack Ruby." "Good." "May I call you Elvis instead of Sebastian?" "You may." "Excellent." "You wear glasses to read?" "Well, I wear glasses when I really want to see." "Get them." "Come on." "Come on." "Right down the hall." "The walker was swingin' along easier now." "Not even like I needed it." "Damn, this here Jack was a nut." "Maybe I was nuts, too... but there was an adventure goin' on." "It's in here." "In here." "That's it?" "We're investigating a scuttling in the hall, trying to figure out who attacked you, and you bring me here to look at stick pictures on the shit house wall?" "Look close." "It's Egyptian." "Right-a-reen-o." "Hey, you're not as stupid as some folks made you out." " Thank you." " Now, I copied this down yesterday." "I came in here to take a shit because they hadn't cleaned up my bathroom." "Saw that on the wall, took it back to my room, looked it up in my books, and I wrote it all down." "Now, this top line translates roughly into," ""Pharaoh gobbles donkey goobers."" "And the bottom line, "Cleopatra does the nasty."" "Say what?" "Well, pretty much." "That's the best I can translate it." "All right, so, one of the nuts in here..." "present company excluded... thinks he's Tutankhamen, comes in here, writes hieroglyphics." "Big deal!" "What's the connection?" "Why are we standing' here in the toilet?" "Well, I don't knowwhat the connection is, exactly... not yet." "But that thing caught me asleep last night." "And I came awake just in time." "He had me on the floor." "I had his mouth over my asshole." "A shit-eater?" "I don't think so." "He was after my soul." "Now, you can get that out of any major orifice of a person's body." "I read about it." "Yeah?" "Where, man?" "Hustler?" "The Everyday Man Or Woman's Book of the Soul by David Webb." "And they got pretty good movie reviews in there about stolen soul movies in the back." "Come on." "I'll show you." "I think that there might be some sort of electrical problem in the gardener's shed." "That light..." "looks like it's shorting' out." "This whole damn place is fallin' apart." "But you don't have to think about that." "Mrs. Biddlestein is waitin' on her enema." "All right." "All right." "I'm comin'." "Just let me finish my cigarette, first." "God." "Here's an ugly son of a bitch." "Damn!" "Hey, Jack." "What it says here is that you can bury some dude, and if he gets the right tanna leaves and spells said over him and such bullshit, that he can come back to life thousands of years later, man." "But hold on, now." "To stay alive, he has to suck on the souls of the livin', and that if the souls are small, his life force doesn't last long." "Small." "What's that mean?" "Read on." "No, never mind." "I'll tell you myself." "But first, would you like a Ding Dong?" "I don't mean mine." "I mean a chocolate Ding Dong." "Of course, mine would be chocolate now that I have been dyed." "You got Ding Dongs, man?" "I got Paydays and I got a box of Baby Ruths." "Oh, mama!" "Which will it be?" "Let's get decadent." "I'll take a Baby Ruth." "All right." "Now... small souls... are those that don't have much fire for life." "You know a place like that?" "Man, if souls were fires, they couldn't burn much lower than in here." "Exactamundo." "What we have here at Shady Rest is an Egyptian soul sucker of some sort." "You know, a mummy hiding out." "Coming in here, feeding on the sleeping." "It's perfect, you see?" "We're small souls, so we can't provide him much." "But if that thing comes back two or three times in a row and wraps his lips around some elder's asshole, that elder is going to die pretty soon." "And who would be the wiser?" "Asshole." "A mummy can't be getting too much energy from all this... not like with big souls..." "but the prey is easy." "With new people comin' all the time, he can keep this up forever... this soul robbin'." "That's what they brought us here for... to get us out of the way until we die." "And those who don't die first from disease or just plain being old, he gets." "Look, that's all well and good, Jack, but there's one thing that still throws me." "How does an ancient Egyptian wind up in an East Texas rest home, and why is he writin' on the shit house walls, man?" "Well, he went in to take a crap, got bored, started writing on the walls." "He probably wrote on pyramid walls centuries ago." "Come on." "What would he crap?" "It's not like he'd eat." "Well, he eats souls." "So, I assume that he would crap soul residue." "By that, I would mean that if you die from his mouth, you don't go to the other side where the souls go." "He digests souls until they don't exist anymore." "And you're just so much toilet water decoration." "And speaking of toilets..." "This is how I figured that whole thing out." "He's just like anybody else when it comes to taking a dump." "He wants a nice, clean place with a flush." "They didn't have that in his time." "No, no." "Don't go out in the hall." " That's all right." "I'm not asleep." " That don't mean he won't hurt you." ""He" my ass." "There isn't any mummy from Egypt." "Nice knowin' you, Elvis." "Asshole." "Kemosabe was dead of a ruptured heart before he hit the floor." "Gone down and out with both guns blazing." "Soul intact." "Once again, we got scolded." "This time, we got quizzed about what had happened to Kemosabe, but neither of us told the truth." "I mean, who was gonna believe a couple of nuts?" "Elvis and Jack Kennedy explaining that Kemosabe was gunning for a mummy in cowboy duds?" "Some kind of Bubba Ho-Tep?" "So, what we did was... we lied." "Life sure is fleeting', you know?" " What?" " Life." "I'm saying it's fleeting'." "One minute you're here, and the next minute you're gone..." "Shit!" "Shit!" "Come on!" "Come on." "Move it!" "Come on." "Get it!" "Nonchalant." "Nonchalant." "Nonchalant." "Get it in there." "You are one fuckin' idiot." "Mr. Haff?" "Mr. Presley?" "Now, now, Mr. Presley." "You are looking much stronger, but you shouldn't be out here too long." "It's time for your nap." "And it's also time for us to do that little... you know." "You fuck off, you patronizing bitch!" "I'm sick of your shit!" "I'll lube my own crankshaft from now on." "You treat me like a baby again," "I'll wrap this goddamn walker right around your head!" "How in the hell did that mummy do that?" "Well... what the hell." "Where did old Bubba Ho-Tep go?" "Where did he come from?" "How the hell did he get here?" "Wait a minute." "Under the bridge." "I saw him under the bridge." "Come on, mama." "It's a cancer." "They're keepin' it from me 'cause I'm old, and to them, it don't matter." "They think age will kill me first, and they're probably right." "Well, suck them!" "I know what it is, and if it isn't... it might as well be." "Station KROP is proud to present the Elvis Presley movie marathon." "It's 24 hours of Elvis in the roles he made famous." "Watch that two-fisted Hound Dog out-strum, outrace, out-fight, and outwit the bad guys." "And at the same time, watch the King slay the girls." "Shitty pictures, man." "Every single one." "Here I was complainin' about loss of pride and how life had treated me, and now I realized..." "I never had any pride." "And much of how life had treated me had been good." "The bulk of the bad was my own damn fault." "Should've fired Colonel Parker by the time I got in the pictures." "Old fart had been a shark and a fool, and I was an even bigger fool for following him." "If only I'd treated Priscilla right." "If I could've told my daughter I loved her." "Always the questions." "Never the answers." "Always the hopes..." "never the fulfillments." "I had the woman who calls herself my niece come get me." "She took me downtown this morning to the newspaper morgue." "She's been helping me to do some research." " Research on what, man?" " On our mummy." "You know somethin' about him?" "I know plenty." "Now, one of the lesser mummies, on loan from the Egyptian government, was being circulated all over the United States." "You know, museums, stuff like that." "What do you mean?" "Like King Tut or whatever?" "No, more like King Tut's brother." "His mummy was flown or carried by the train from state to state." "When it got to Texas, it was stolen." "Stolen?" "Evidence points to it being stolen at night by a couple of guys in a silver bus." "Bus?" "Hey, I've seen that!" "Anyway, the thieves broke into the museum, stole it in hopes of a ransom, when in comes the worst storm in East Texas history." "Let me guess." "The bus was washed away, see?" "'Cause I think I saw it today." "It was way back in the creek." "The mummy was imprisoned by the debris." "Look here..." "how'd it come back to life?" "And how did I end up inside its memories?" "Speculation broadens here, but from what I've read, some mummies get buried without their names... a curse put on their sarcophagus." "Hey, now, maybe our boy's one of them." "I mean, when he's in the coffin, he's just a dried-up old corpse, but when the bus got washed away, maybe it overturned or broke open, and now he's free of coffin and curse." "He's free from imprisonment, but he still needs souls." "Now he's free to have them." "He can just keep on feedin' unless he's finally destroyed." "So, what do we do, Jack?" "Changing rest homes might be a good idea." "I can't think of much else." "But I will say this..." "Our mummy is a nighttime kind of guy." "So, I'm gonna go and sleep now." "I'll set my alarm for just before dark, then I can get myself a couple of cups of coffee." "Damn straight." "If he comes in here tonight, I don't want him slapping' his lips on my asshole." "Yes." "Consider it." "He's got the proverbial bird's nest on the ground here." "What do I really have left in life but this place?" "It ain't much of a home... but it's all I got." "Well, goddamnit." "I'll be damned if I let some foreign, graffiti-writin', soul-suckin', son of a bitch in an oversized cowboy hat and boots take my friends' souls and shit 'em down the visitors toilet!" "In the movies, I always played heroic types." "But when the stage lights went out, it was time for drugs and stupidity and the coveting of women." "Now it's time." "Time to be a little of what I had always fantasized being'... a hero." "Hello?" "Mr. Kennedy?" "Ask not what your rest home can do for you." "Ask what you can do for your rest home." "Hey, you're copying my best lines." "Then let me paraphrase one of my own." "Let's take care of business." "Just what are you getting at, Elvis?" "I think you know what I'm gettin' at, Mr. President." "We're gonna kill us a mummy." "Two bottles of rubbing alcohol." "Check." "Don't even have to toss 'em." "Look here." "Found this in the storage room." "I thought they kept it locked." "They do." "I stole a hairpin and picked the lock, baby." "Great." "Matches." "Check." "Even scrounged up a cigarette lighter." "Good." "Uniform." "Big check on that, baby." "Well, I got a nice pair of shoes to go with this." "Check." "Scissors." "Check." "All right." "Now, I got my chair oiled and ready to roll." "That's good, man." "We could use some wheels." "And I picked some words of power from my book of magic." "I don't know if they'll stop a mummy, but they're supposed to ward off evil." "I wrote them down." "One for each of us." "Well, we'll use what we got, baby." "All right, 2:45 a.m., we hook up right back here." "No, at the rate we travel, maybe we ought to start at 2:30." "Say, Jack?" "Do we know what the hell we're doin', man?" "No." "But they say that fire cleanses evil." "Let's just hope that they..." "whoever they are... is right." "Check on that, too." "All right, synchronize watches." "And... mark." "Now, the twwo key words for tonight are "caution" and "flammable."" "And also..." ""watch your ass."" "What's that you got hanging around your neck?" "That's my medicine bag." "Indians used to wear 'em into battle." "Full of all kinds of lucky stuff." "See here?" "Mucho mojo." "That's my daughter." "I know." "We weren't there for our kids when they needed us, were we?" "Man, if I could just talk to her again... tell her I love her... try and make things right somehow." "No time for regrets, Elvis." "We were the best fathers we could be under the circumstances." "Yeah, I guess, no time for regrets." "We got business to take care of." "Look here." "Top it off with this." "I stole it from the gardener when he wasn't lookin'." "It's gonna be one hell of a barbeque." "Let's do it, amigo." "Hey, Jack?" "I just got one last question." "Marilyn." "Come on, man." "Marilyn Monroe?" "What was she like in the sack?" "That is classified information." "Top secret!" "But betwween you and me..." "Wow!" "You old dog." "Watch your back, Jack." "Gotta hump it." "Shit... when Bubba Ho-Tep comes out of that creek bed, he's gonna come out hungry and pissed." "When I try and stop him, he's gonna jam this paint can up my ass and jam me and that wheelchair up Jack's ass." "Shit." "Hey, Jack." "Don't make me use my stuff on you, baby." "Damn!" "Where did he go to?" "Hey!" "You stay put!" "I'll flush him out!" "You be careful, man." "No, Jack!" "Oh, man." "Come and get it, you undead sack of shit." "Sorry, man." "Mr. Kennedy?" "The President is soon dead." "So, now..." "it's up to you, Elvis." "You got to get him." "You... got to... take care of business." "That's right, man." "T.C. B..." "It's just you and me." "Mr. President." ""You nasty thing from beyond the dead..." ""No matter what you think or do, good things will never come to you." ""And if evil is your black design," ""you can bet the goodness of the Light Ones... will kick your bad behind"?" "For chrissake..." "That's it?" "That's the chant against evil from the Book Of Souls?" "Yeah, right, boss." "And what kind of decoder ring comes with that, man?" "Shit, it doesn't even rhyme well!" "This is dog shit." "It's time for A-C-T-l-O-N." "Come on, baby." "Here we go." "I was goin' out." "And if I did, not only would I be one dead son of a bitch, but so would my soul." "I'd be just so much crap." "No afterlife, no reincarnation, no angels with harps." "Whatever lay beyond would not be known to me." "It would all end right here for Elvis Aaron Presley." "Nothin' left but a quick flush." "T.C.B., baby." "Your soul-suckin' days are over, amigo." "I felt somethin' inside gratin' against something' soft." "I felt like a water balloon with a hole poked in it." "I was goin' down for the last count." "And I knew it." "But I still have my soul." "It's still mine." "All mine." "And the folks up there at Shady Rest... they have theirs, too." "And they're gonna keep 'em." "Every single one." "Thank you." "Thank you very much."