Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (27 page)

“
Have there been any more manifestations in the
Crystal Phoenix underground zone?" Electra
asked ea-
gerly.

“'Manifestations' implies an
incorporeal presence,”

Temple said uneasily. "All I had for witnesses were
some workmen more likely to see Elvis in a shapeless
blob of light than Princess Diana." She squinted her
eyes
at Electra.
"It's hard to picture you in a poodle skirt with
a ponytail and anklets, screaming over Elvis. Now that's
a
manifestation.”

Electra surprised Temple by blushing, very faintly.
"You never saw the man perform live. He put his whole
heart and soul into it. You could see
it. It was like he
was singing just
for me, and even if he wasn't, you felt
united with everybody else there. I guess the word for
Elvis
live was electric.”

Temple was unconvinced. "And if the fifties were
such a sexually repressed time, how could all those girls
line up outside his motel rooms? According to your own
books, Elvis was hooked on adolescence, and
adolescent
girls, and he followed
through. How'd he get away with
it,
and why were so many of those sweet little fifties
girls so
available?"

“
Simple. The parents were uptight and repressed. The
kids had the same hormones that
propel rock groupies
today, and they
were really desperate to break out. Why do you think Brando and
The Wild
One
and rebel-actors
like
James Dean were so popular?"

“
Didn't
Elvis idolize those actors ... or, actually,
idolize those rebel roles they
played?"

“
Yeah. And Elvis
brought that rebel persona off the
screen
and into the performance halls. Live. You could
touch him if you got up close enough and rushed the
stage. You could be invited into his motel room if
you
hung out by his door and got lucky."

“
Wasn't
anybody worried about venereal disease and
unwed pregnancies then?”

Electra thought about it. "Oh, we worried, but we
didn't know much what to do about it, so we took our
chances." She smiled at Temple's shudder of
disbelief.
"It was a
superstitious era. You know, if the time of the
month
was right and you used a Coca-Cola douche right
afterward, nothing would happen. Besides, Elvis was
into necking and snuggling more than the actual
act." "Must have burned off all his night moves on stage."
"In some ways he was an innocent teenager just
like
us. That's what we saw in him. He was from the same
uncertain, kept-dumb mold as we were,
overprotected
for our own good. So for
us to get out there and rock,
and
drive all the adults crazy with the suggestion of
sex ... it was
heaven."

“
It ended
up being sheer hell for Elvis. Not even his
most loyal fans could deny that."

“
No." Electra
settled into the sofa pillows, contem
plative,
her usually cheerful and plump sixty-something
face sagging into seriousness. "In a way, Elvis paid the
price for our innocence, and we were innocent, even
when we thought we were being daring.
People just didn't know back in the fifties and sixties what sex,
drugs,
and rock 'n' roll could do to you, performer and
audience. But, good golly, Miss Molly, it was great to
be there.
And great to get out alive."

“Elvis
didn't.”

Electra inhaled deeply, then held her breath. She
spoke in a long, strong rush. "Temple, that's why I
want
to go over to the
Kingdome with you. I think I could
really help. I've been
listening to Matt's program."

“Every
night?"

“Sure.
Haven't you?"

“I'm
a working girl."

“
Or has Max been commandeering all of your
time?"
"If only. Max has been out of town."

“O000h."

“
What
does `Oooooh' mean? Never mind. I still
haven't the time to stay up nights and
listen to the radio."

“
Well, I don't sleep as
well as when I was a wildly
innocent
young thing, so I've been faithfully listening to
the Midnight Hour.
Matt's doing very well, isn't he?"

“You
can't argue with success."

“Have
you heard his anonymous caller?"

“
You mean
the undeclared Elvis? Yes. Matt brought
me a tape."

“
You two
whippersnappers are too young to realize
this, but that's a very
credible Elvis on that phone line."

“
The town is packed with very credible Elvises who
are gambling a lot of time and money on winning
the
title of best dead Elvis around."

“
Still . .."—Electra picked a few stray Louie
hairs off
the sofa seat—"I was
there from the beginning. I've seen the documentaries, the movies, the
retrospectives." Elec
tra nodded.
"That's a very credible Elvis. Too credible
to just write off and
forget."

“
Electra! The story that Elvis is alive is the
cheapest,
most obvious tabloid news
rag staple of the past two decades. Even Awful Crawford is using it in the
Las
Vegas Scoop.
Even Awful Crawford is debunking the
idea. He's challenged listeners to call in and play
Stump
the Superstar with Matt's midnight Elvis."

“What
a great idea!"

“Yeah,
that's what I told Matt."

“I
could come up with some great questions."

“Call
'em in, or slip them under Matt's door."

“But
I still want to see the scene of the crime."

“Electra,
there's no crime here but malicious mischief: violent trashing of an empty
Elvis jumpsuit and the more
serious act of
etching an `E' into Quincey's neck. From
what I read about Elvis and his
redneck bully boys and
flunkies, they
perpetrated a lot of malicious mischief
themselves on movie sets, in major hotels, and at
Graceland."

“
Exactly." Electra's eyes narrowed, and that's
when
Temple noticed that she was
wearing violet-colored con
tact
lenses. What a chameleon! "You've heard of mis
chievous spirits,
haven't you?"

“
So now
you're resurrecting not only Elvis, but his
whole band of merry men?"

“
You said that the girl playing Priscilla was attacked,
didn't
you?""Yes."

“
I rest my case. Priscilla and the Memphis Mafia had
a major power
struggle."

“
And she won, because Elvis is dead and she's run
ning
Graceland."

“
Especially interesting when you realize that Elvis left
her out of the will and left everything to Lisa
Marie."
"Then how did she—?"

“
Lisa Marie was a minor when Elvis died, that's how. She gets nothing out
of it, just builds an inheritance for
Lisa Marie."

“
Who married Michael Jackson." Temple shook her
head.
"Another victim of rock 'n' roll."

“Lisa Marie or
Michael?"

“One, or both. I don't
care!"

“
It really makes sense that she married him, you
know. He led the lifestyle her father did: the
forced iso
lation from fans, turning
his home into an eternal play
ground,
renting amusement parks to entertain his family
and friends."

“
Why did they both do that? Too much time and
money?"

“
Too much fame, and too many fans everywhere they
went. They needed the entourage to beat off the
fans.
They couldn't go to public
places to enjoy themselves.
They had to become isolated and make their
own worlds. And everybody around them got hooked on the idea."

“Sometimes being ordinary is
a boon, isn't it?"

“
Being ordinary is always a good place to hide," Elec
tra said, nodding. "Now. Can I go along to see
all the
Elvi? Please, Mommy, puh-lease?”

Who could turn down a
whining sixty-seven-year-old teenager? Not Temple.

“
Sure," she said. "Friends and relatives of the per
formers are always hanging around the dressing
rooms and house during rehearsal. Welcome aboard, and con
sider yourself
a preview audience.”

Chapter 27

Where Do I Go from Here

(Recorded in a 1972 session where producer
Felton Jarvis fought Elvis's depression and
torpor)

The
King was feeling restless.

He
knew he should be out there, performing.

The
times they were a-changing.

Other performers were catching up to him. In the early
days,
he had the whole stage to himself. No
rivals.

But then he had to leave home, leave his family, go off
to
a far place, and prove himself all over again in a new
role.

There, he was supposed to blend in. You're in the army
now.
Be a regular guy.
It would be dangerous to stand out. Just be
the same, simple, polite country boy everyone from Ed
Sullivan
to the general press had taken a shine
to when they weren't blasting him for being a scandalous influence on the youth
of America. An aw-shucks, apple-polishing country bumpkin.

He wasn't as simple as they thought, never had been.
First
in his family to finish high school.
That meant a lot to his
mama. She hadn't
liked him striking out on his own after high
school much, or some of the people he'd gotten mixed up
with.
Traveling people. Drinking people. Girl-chasing people.
But that came with the lifestyle, and, heck, he'd enjoyed those first
deep breaths of freedom. He wasn't the high-school loner
anymore. He was the man with the power. Every guy
wanted
to be his friend. Every girl wanted to be his girl. Man, those
were the days. Nobody worried about AIDS or anything serious. Everybody just
had fun, staying up all night.

After
all, his new career called for late hours, so why not party the whole night
through? And, heck, he'd always had
nightmares
and would try to walk away from them ... right
down the road from the little house in Tupelo. Mama had kept
him
sleepin' by her until he was twelve, though he'd figured out not to mention
that much, or how she walked him to high school every day. No wonder the hoods
tried to beat him up,
especially when he
started wearing his hair long before anyone
had even dreamed of the
Beatles.

But
once he broke free, he knew just where to go for in
spiration. Music first, then Lansky's second, where the colored
rhythm-and-blues singers bought their fancy duds.
Before he
knew it, he was on the road, and that's when he discovered
girls as a lot more than a prom date. He never stopped discovering girls.
That's what he liked, the discovering.

His mama, she about had a fit. She'd always doted on him
when she wasn't raking him over the
coals for some misdeed or
other.
Now here he was off with strange men, meeting strange women who really, really
wanted to meet him, and more. Then
when
that army thing came up, he was gone far, far away, like
he'd
been kidnapped or something, from her point of view. Taken away. Over Jordan,
only this river was an ocean.