Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life (37 page)

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Authors: Frank Bank,Gibu Twyman

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BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life
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Page 184
I think he might have had a rhinestone refrigerator and kept crushed velvet in there.
Man, this guy was an Elvis freak.
And Elliot ran a video store in Moreno Valley out by Riverside.
This was in April of '95.
So now we get the call that Elliot has cashed it in. Becka gets on an airplane for the West Coast.
We had been asked to this guy's house for barbecue . . . well, actually, it was the dork who's writing this book with me, Gib Twyman.
And his wife at the time, Sherry, and their two kids, Matt and Emily, are there.
So is another complete idiot, Steve Cameron, who did this sports show on the local CNN radio affiliate, called "From the Cheap Seats" with Gib.
And so is the owner of the radio station, Bill Johnson, and his wife, Susan.
So I had stayed behind in K.C., representing our family at this barbecue.
And that is where I get a call from Becka and Joanne and Michelle, who also has flown to California from Wisconsin. The three of them are out there in Joanne's apartment.
And they were wondering what to do with Elliot.
They tell me on the phone that they've already decided they are gonna cremate him.
And I say, if that's the case, then there's only one place for Elliot.
"Graceland," I said.
Big mistake.
The minute I said it, I knew I'd stuck my foot in my mouth.
I knew it.
Because the minute I said it, all three of 'em lit up and said,
"That's it!"
And I said, "No. I didn't really say that."
I said, "No. This is Joanne's father. What kind of dumb thing is that? Graceland? Dumb idea."
But they said, "That's exactly where Elliot would want to be."
I get off the phone and tell everyone at the barbecue about this Elliot thing. I say I can't believe what I'm getting myself into.
Bill Johnson says he'll hire a helicopter to zoom over Graceland and bombs-away Elliot on Elvis.
Cameron (you gotta wonder about this guy) says he knows some shady character who's supposed to have some mob ties. This guy can maybe smuggle Elliot into Graceland in the dead of night.
Wild ideas are floating all over the place, thanks to a little help from my weird friends.
 
Page 185
Well, sure enough, they give Elliot the burn job.
And Elliot turns into this little box.
First of all, they have like a funeral ceremony in his video store. They held it in the Elvis aisle, naturally.
And then Joanne comes back to Kansas City with Becka. They've got Elliot with them in the box.
He's gonna stay with me and Becka until we can figure a way to slip him into Graceland and douse him on Elvis' grave.
So we put him in a room on the third floor of our house.
In a little cabinet up there in one of our closets, but that didn't hide him as far as I was concerned.
Gave me the friggin' creeps, man.
Guy's up there every night when I go to sleep.
Lookin' down on us.
Up on the Elliot Wing of the Bank's house.
Got his own suite.
His own space.
Hangin' out in my house.
Everywhere I go in the house, I know Elliot's watchin'.
Hey, I don't mean to be cruel, to quote Elvis.
But the sucker was givin' me the willies sleepin' upstairs in our house.
I had to get him outta there.
Ease Elliot on down the road.
First, I decided on a little daytrip.
Get Elliot used to the idea of leaving for good.
Elliot was in this bronze box. It's, oh, about six inches tall and four inches square, something like that.
But it was just the perfect size to put a headset on.
I decided to visit my two jerkface friends who were doing their dumb sports show on the local CNN radio affiliate.
They used to invite me on the air from time to time because we're buds and they know what a sports freak and fantastic guest I am.
So one day I waltz into their studio at the Downtown Mariott Hotel.
And I'm packin'.
I decide to bring Elliot with me onto the show.
And the one guy who always has a smelly stogie and was always polluting the hotel with his smoke, Cameron, he goes, "Well, you won't believe it, we've had a lotta guests on this show, but this is the first time we ever had a dead guy."
"With the exception of my partner," the other guy, Twyman, this all-knowing, omnicient mayonnaise jar, pipes up. "Actually, dead air is probably preferable to listening to us anyway."
 
Page 186
But anyhow, we all look down and there is Elliot with the headphones on his box.
And every now and then we'd all ask Elliot a question or bring him into the conversation about Brett Favre or Mike Tyson or something.
And if Elliot didn't answerand I don't think he ever did, if memory serves correctly, we'd just go, "Thanks for sharing those thoughts, Elliot. They were better than anything we've come up with."
Or we'd just go, "Elliot can't speak right now. The topic obviously has left him speechless with emotion."
Well, that primed the pump for Elliot taking a hike for good.
A few days later came the big moment.
Elliot was goin' to Graceland.
I thought it was time for him to move on.
Now, this was in August. Joanne comes back from California. And we all hop into our car and we drive from K.C. down to Graceland.
Here it is, me and Becka and Joanne and Elliot.
Elliot is riding shotgun as he heads for his last roundup, sorta underneath Joanne's shoulder.
See, we'd de-boxed him and we baggied Elliot.
We ziplocked that sucker.
You know, the one where you turn the bag over and the fish won't fall out?
We didn't want this lunkhead, Elliot, to fall out.
If he was gonna sleep with the fishes, as they say in the Mafia, we didn't want him to leak out of the bag. We wanted him to be all buried in the same spot.
So we've got him in a good ziplock.
Now, we get to Graceland and it's kinda like an armed fort.
It happened to have been the weekend of the anniversary of Elvis' death.
And there's freakin' teddy bears all over the place. All over the sidewalks. The walls.
You can't walk two feet without stumbling over a teddy bear. Or some other endearing, totally cheesy Elvis artifact.
Which is good.
We sorta tried to do this deal while everything was hectic.
If it was quiet, I never woulda been able to do this.
So now we join the official walking tour of Graceland.
Like I said, it's August. In case you didn't know, Memphis, Tennessee, the Elvisburg where Graceland is, is approximately 1,003 degrees in August.
Hotter'n two bells.
I'm carryin' this baggie.
 
Page 187
I'm tellin' ya. Even in death, Elliot wasn't any fly weight.
He musta weighed 10 pounds.
That's a helluva lot of ashes.
I mean, we tried to make it not noticeable that we're carrying this dead guy around with us.
Becka originally is carrying Elliot around in her purse at the start of the tour.
And before we get to Elvis' grave, we decided maybe to start spreading Elliot around on some of the plants and flowers, you know.
I told you the guy was full of it.
He made good fertilizer.
Graceland shoulda been grateful.
But we still weren't exactly sure they would have expressed their open appreciation for some schmuck from California having his mortal remains dusted across the King's grounds.
We're like Hansel and Gretel leaving crumbs of Elliot all over the place.
So now we get to the gravesite and there's these two guards.
There's also a little grandstand packed with people, sitting there staring at the great man's grave like, well . . . they're all shook up.
Maybe it's the audience, maybe it's my family's spurring me onmaybe it's my strong desire to get this the hell over with.
But I am suddenly inspired to give a pretty decent burial-scene performance, if I do say so myself.
I climb over the wrought-iron fence.
And now, I look very, very pious.
I am very sad.
Now I am down on my knees, crawling to the grave, goin', "Elvis . . . Elvis . . . Elvis."
I am in serious deep mourning.
I was nuthin' but a houn' dawg.
Cryin' all the time as I crawled, bereft, toward the graveglancin' over my shoulder a time or two to see if the guards are buyin' it.
Shoot. They musta had nuts all the time bellyfloppin' on Elvis grave.
Whatever. Because the guards didn't have a clue what I was doing.
I just kept inching forward on my hands and knees.
"Elvis . . . Elvis . . . Elvis."
And finally, very solemnly, I put my left hand on Elvis stomach. I think he would have liked it that way. I think the left hand is the hand Elvis used to punch with when he did those karate chops during one of his songs.
And right in the middle of the grave, right where the King's stomach is, with my right hand, I got the baggie on the ground.
I got my finger in there, I open the baggie, and I'm takin' the ashes out.
 
Page 188
And I'm spreading the ashes all over the green, green grass of Elvis' home.
"E," I said, "meet E.
"King. This is a loyal subject, Elliot.
"Came all the way across the country to be with you.
"He's all shook up now. All over you, Elvis.
"Enjoy, you two hunka-hunka-burnin'-loves.
"Amen."
Or something along those lines.
And now Joanne and Becka are goin' ape.
They're snappin' pictures.
It wasn't a real pleasant thing to do, I gotta tell you.
I've really done nicer things.
I'd rather make fudge, actually
Better that than have my wife's ex-husband smeared all over my pinkies.
I mean, I got the baggie open enough to shake the dude out. But I still had to take the ashes and rub them into the ground.
It was kind of a mess, you know.
Funny, I couldn't wash my hands enough afterwards.
Made it hard to eat ribs or sushi for awhile.
You didn't want no finger-lickin' food.
But, anyhow, I figured, OK. I really did my duty.
Elliot is now with his idol.
Joanne and Becka were happy.
And I didn't have to do the jailhouse rock.
I was really getting ready for arrest No. 2 in my career as a criminal.
I thought they would try and nail me on this.
I figured the worst that could happen, is Elliot is with Elvis, but I pay maybe a $300$400 fine.
But it never happened.
That was the Elliot and Elvis union.
But, to tell you the truth, it's one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do.
That is because it was the least I could do for my daughter.
Because I love her so much.
I love her so very much, just like all my daughters.
And I would do anything for them.
As I think I've pretty well proven by now, making a complete fool of myself, crawling around on my snout like some blue-tick hound in Tennessee.
Anyway, I think we found a serious piece of Mayfield that day in Memphis, Tennessee.

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