The record collection was the best part, truth be told. That’s how he’d picked the name Elvis, after listening to several records from the King. He thought there was a certain resemblance between the young Elvis and himself, so he bought a black leather jacket like the one the singer wore in one of his flicks. His real name was lousy, anyway, and he began playing a guitar Sally had hanging in the living room and never touched.
He liked Sally, which is why it came as a bit of a shock when he discovered she’d picked up some other guy—a little older than Elvis, but not much—who must have had a bigger cock or licked pussy better, then kicked Elvis out. Just like that, from one day to the next. Elvis had no problem calling it quits with the dame, but only after he sneaked back into the house, stole the money he knew she kept in a box, and also absconded with six vinyl records.
He did what any dumb kid with sudden riches would do: spend it at the pool halls around Guadalajara, which was his new home. Outside an ice cream parlor, while eating a nieve de mamey, he met Cristina, a girl about his age who ended up getting him involved with a weird little religious cult near Tlaquepaque.
Elvis was a fool for pretty women, and Cristina pulled him in like a damn vortex with her soft, soft voice and her even softer glances. By the point when she asked him if he didn’t want to go hang out with her friends in Tlaquepaque, Elvis couldn’t have cared if she went around Guadalajara suckering in and recruiting guys on the regular, which he later figured out she actually did.
Cristina led him to a shabby house with funny folks who dressed in white and talked about magic mushrooms, auras, and healing crystals. Many of them had come from Mexico City, where they met doing yoga around Parque Hundido, and they’d spent time at Real de Catorce and Huautla, like any middle-class wannabe hippie did, before they stumbled onto Jalisco. Their leader did nothing but fuck the pretty young women in the congregation, while the uglies and the men were sent to work around the farm the cult used as a base of operations.
It turned out their leader didn’t like modern music very much, insisting on playing records featuring wind chimes and gongs, which was the last straw. Elvis liked Cristina, maybe he even loved her, but not enough to stay around watching another dude plow her from behind while Elvis had to feed the chickens or shovel manure, all without the comfort of even a rock ’n’ roll song or two.
He was seventeen by the time he stumbled back into Tepito, back into his mother’s apartment with no money and no prospects. His mother looked none too pleased to see him. He didn’t really feel like joining a gang again, though he half-heartedly hung out with his old friends and spent his days bored out of his skull for about two months until the afternoon when he stole the Illustrated Larousse from a Porrúa bookstore. He’d known a classmate who’d owned one of those, and he’d found it fascinating. It was a big, bulky book to steal, but he managed it and thought that maybe his future lay in books.
Books! He, who couldn’t spell when he was stressed, the letters still jumbled in his head. But he did like to read, and having stolen one gigantic book he figured he could steal more, then resell them through the vendors along Donceles. He quickly got to stealing, reading, and reselling. Then, realizing that the used bookstores and those pricks from Donceles paid him a pittance and made a huge profit, he installed himself in an alleyway near Palacio de Minería. A few vendors brought folding tables; others simply set their books on flat pieces of cardboard. Elvis brought a tablecloth and stacked his wares.
After a little while he figured out the most profitable line of commerce: textbooks. University students would come around, ask if he had something, and he’d promise to obtain it for them. This meant he’d steal it from whatever bookstore was easiest and then sell it to the student.
Thieving turned out to be Elvis’s talent. After a couple of weeks he decided to augment his book sales with vinyl records, which was a sensible choice. He had aspirations to open up his own little shop, down in Donceles, and sit behind a cash register, book in hand and his Presley records playing.
That didn’t happen, because one day a bunch of fuckers appeared in his alleyway and started beating the vendors. Elvis had heard of things like this happening around the city, with cops, or other motherfuckers who must work for cops, chasing away the street sellers and beggars. They wanted to clean up the city for the Olympics.
But despite simmering violence, Elvis had been lucky. Well, not anymore. Everyone began to grab their wares and run away. Elvis began picking up his wares too, intent on simply making a quick exit with no fuss, but then an asshole decided to smash the copy of “Jailhouse Rock” Elvis had been proudly displaying, and he lost it.
Though he wasn’t terribly strong, though he wasn’t really a fighter, Elvis grabbed a thick tome of Rousseau and started beating the son of a bitch in the face with it. Within a few minutes some of the guy’s buddies realized what was going on and intervened, treating Elvis like a human piñata, until after several punches and spitting, he heard an older man speak.
“Let him be,” he said.
The thugs holding Elvis stopped punching him. He sat down, out of breath. The older man stood in front of Elvis. He was dressed impeccably, with a suit jacket, a burgundy tie, and shiny shoes. He looked at Elvis curiously.
“You put up quite a fight,” the man said, reaching into his pocket and holding out a handkerchief.
Elvis stared at the man’s hand. The man waved the handkerchief again, and Elvis slowly grabbed it and pressed it against his mouth, wiping the blood away.
“If it’d been fair I would’ve messed up that guy real good,” Elvis said.
“I know. You are fast. Good reflexes.”
“I guess,” Elvis said, not wanting to specify that stealing requires good reflexes and the ability to pick up speed in case an employee catches you in the act and you have to sprint your way to safety.
“Is this your merchandise?” the man asked, leaning down and grabbing a book: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.
“Aha,” Elvis said.
The man ran his hands down the spine. He glanced at Elvis again. “How old are you, boy? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Almost eighteen, yup,” he said. “But what’s it to you?”
“A job, maybe,” the man said. “They call me El Mago. You know why? Because I can get people out of tight situations, like Houdini. And I can also make things appear and disappear.”
“And these guys,” Elvis said, pointing at the thugs who were shooing away the last remaining street sellers, “are these the people who help you pull rabbits out of hats?”
“Every magician needs an assistant, does he not? Maybe you have the chops for it.”
“I wouldn’t look too good in leotards or being sawed in half, mister.”