The Haunted Hillbilly is an historical first-person narrative, told by Nudie "The Rodeo Tailor" (perhaps most famous for dressing Elvis Presley) a gay couturier who, in Derek McCormack's spellbinding world, also happens to be a vampire. As the story evolves with its magical poetic cadence, Nudie, in grand Svengali-style, makes, then breaks, the career of Hank, a country-and-western singer at the Grand Ole Opry. A blend of fact and fancy, The Haunted Hillbilly conjures the seamy gay underside hidden beneath country music's sparkly, sequinned surface.

Derek McCormack is the author of the short story collections Dark Rides and Wish Book (Gutter Press 2000 and 2002; forthcoming in a single volume from Akashic Books, June 2004). He has been nominated for the City of Toronto Book Award and for a National Magazine Award. His non-fiction has appeared in various magazines and newspapers, including Nest, Saturday Night, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post. He was born in Peterborough, Ontario; he lives in Toronto.

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Hank tears off his blindfold.
"Surprise!" Audrey's holding a suit.
"Aud, it's beautiful." It's brown. Scraps scattered around her sewing room. He slips the blazer on.
She shows him the pattern. Western Suit, it says. Her Singer's still hot. "I've been working on it for weeks."
He throws his arms out. "Look at me!"
She looks at him. Kisses him. He kisses back. They drop to their knees, roll on the floor. Pattern pieces. Straight sleeve. Straight legs.
The blindfold--a sock.
*
A dime store. Shirts a dollar.
Hank's in Men's. "I'm looking for something to go with my suit," he says.
The clerk pulls out possibilities. White, off-white, cream, tan, chocolate. A tan check. The whole store smells like Pets.
Hank doesn't know. "Maybe I should wait for Audrey."
*
The sun's practically set. Windows are mirrors. Hank squints into shops, sees himself.
He clops up Printer's Alley. It's deserted. Dumpsters and dog shit. A bright black blur swooping down from the sky.
A bat.
Smack. Hits Hank square on the head. He falls ass-backward, sprawls on cement. That's when he sees it. In the second-story window of a false-fronted store. It sparkles. A shirt.
*
Fabrics abound. Cottons the colours of comics. It's like nowhere Hank's been.
I appear.
"I'm Nudie," I say. I look not unlike Mandrake. Mandrake moustache. Mandrake suit. I bow. "Welcome to my atelier."
Hank holds his head. "A tell you what?" he says. He's bleeding. He leans against a radiator. It's bolts of silver lam.
"I'll pour you a toddy."
"Don't touch the stuff. Not anymore." He limps to a couch. Drops. A gorilla beside him. He looks at it. At me. Woozy.
"It's a costume," I say. "Created for a sideshow." The fur's fake. Yugoslavian. The best fake gorilla fur always is. "' a carnival couturier."
Hank's blank.
"Let me illustrate."

Chapter 2
Hank climbs from my Cadillac.
"This," I say, "is my trunk show."
"What?" He cups his ear to hear. There are klaxons.
And whistles. And bells. It's a carnival. The ground's dressed in sawdust. Sawdust dyed pink. Fog is fake.
"It's a horseshoe," I say. Games in the front-end. Rides midway down the midway. The Haunted House screams. Nobody in it. Nobody around. Just Hank and I.
"Can I?" He runs into the funhouse. The hall of mirrors. Glass smeared with snot and blood. He steps into the exit. A rolling barrel. He falls, tries to get up. The Human Laundry, it's called.
"Bad idea," he says, limping back.
I guide him deep into the back-end. Sideshow banners break. "Do you like naked ladies?"
*
Hank ducks into a tent. I follow. Canvas cooks. The P.A. crackles. Oompah tunes. Lights dim.
Girls grind onstage. They're nude. Or they might be. A curtain of black gauze conceals them. "This is how I began," I say. "Making their costumes."
Hank leans in. "What costumes?"
"Nude-toned suits," I say.
"It's so frustrating!" he laughs. "I feel like a widow!"
*
"To sew what?" Hank says.
"Tussaud," I say. "The greatest wax museum in the world. Besides this one." Wax statues pose artistically. Hank walks up to a fellow in animal skins.
"Genghis Khan," I say. The exhibit: World��s Worst Criminals. Jack the Ripper in a swallow-tail coat. Benedict Arnold in a powdered wig. I thought of everything.
Hank stares down Billy the Kid. Billy's face has been hairsprayed. To repel dust. Suit fireproofed with wax.
Hank touches Billy's hand. Leaves fingerprints.
*
The seal boy waves. A fin.
"Good day," I say. It's the freak show.
A fat lady waddles onstage. Half a ton. Flesh cuffs over shoes. Her pinafore's sizes too small. "It fits great, Mr. Nudie."
"Glad to hear it."
Behind a canvas curtain, the blow-off. There's a mermaid: a fish tail I stitched to the body of a gopher. There's a Tasmanian devil: a monkey head I stitched to a stuffed cat.
A row of jars. In each jar a baby. A baby with two heads. A baby with a tail. A baby with frog flippers.
"God made those," I say.
*
Salad fork, supper fork, soup spoon. Audrey straightens settings. Her special silver. She adds grains of rice to the salt. Rice stops salt from clumping.
The night's close. She steps onto the stoop. The sky's very Ray Bradbury. A weird wind. Clouds mean business.
"Where in hell is he?"
*
The popcorn's really chicken corn. Butter's oleo. A pound of sugar spins fifty cotton candy cones. Candy apples bruised.
"Anything you want, Hank," I say. "It's on me."
"That's awful nice of you, Mr. Nudie." Hank gets a banana dipped in chocolate. It drips. "Darn," he says, rubs it into his wool.
I cock an eyebrow.
"I'm supposed to wear this on the Opry."
I cock the other eyebrow. "That? On the Opry? I think not.
"Firstly, it's too heavy. The spotlights will cook you. You'll be swimming in sweat.
"Secondly, you'll disappear into the background. That fabric is beyond bland. It belongs on an amplifier. You'll look like an amp.
"Thirdly, it's amateurish. Does Eddy Arnold wear homemade clothes? Does Roy Acuff's wife sew suits?"
I pluck a cigarette. My lighter's a pistol. I pull the trigger. "If I've offended you, I apologize." My face in smoke. "It's simply my professional opinion. Dress as you see fit."
Hank says nothing.
"Can I bum one?" Hank says.
*
Sailors, flappers, clowns. The shack's stacked with kewpie dolls. Hula girls with feather skirts.
"You want something special," I say. "Something that stands out. That no one's ever seen before. That says: I'm a star. I belong."
I hand him a kewpie. A cowboy. Purple shirt. Orange bandanna. Cherry chaps. Eyes airbrushed. But not well. One eye on his cheek.
"Chalkware," I say. "From the German. It's plaster of Paris. Costs pennies to make. Put it behind a carnival game, it's flash. Marks play till they win. Spend hundreds.
"That's what I'll make you. A kewpie doll. Flash."
*
"Look!" Hank says.
"It's purple," Audrey says. The shirt's satin, not sateen. "It won't go with your suit."
"That's the thing, Aud. He said he'd make all my clothes for free. But I can only wear his clothes. It's a whatchamacallit. A deal."
She turns it inside-out. Seams are seamless. Slip stitches like she's never seen. She measures the arms. They're different lengths. She measures the cuffs. They're different, too.
"It's beautiful," she says. "I can't compete."
"It's not a competition." He puts it on. It hugs him back. "See? I'm a kewpie doll. You know, like at carnivals?" He claps. "You've got to see this."

*
"You're lost," Audrey says.
Hank shakes his head. "I could've sworn."
They're standing at the side of a road. Jalopy sputters. Exhaust clings to their clothes.
"It was right off Demonbreun." He steps into a field. Manure browns his shoes. "There were rides. Games. Everything."
She smells dung. Sees a field ribbed like boot-treads. A farmer far out. A bony mule pulling a buzzard plow.