Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (46 page)

“
Being Elvis could be dangerous right now,"
Matt
warned, back-peddling. "You
heard about the man who
died at the Kingdome?"

“
Yeah. Terrible thing. But that don't scare me. I
used
to get death threats all the time.”

Maybe, Matt thought, he could use the facts of Elvis's
life to force this deluded man to confront his own fic
tions.
"Isn't that why you were forced into that isolated lifestyle, why you kept
an entourage between you and everything else?"

“
What do you mean 'lifestyle'? It was my life, man.
I
guess I gave it some style. That's all."

“
Everybody thought you lived a lavish and isolated
life because that was what stars did, but most of
it was
due to the fans. They just
couldn't leave you alone. One
of your
guys says when you made those cross-country
train trips to and from Memphis, you had crowds waiting
at every stop, like nothing anybody had seen since
Lin
coln's funeral train."

“
Yeah, the fans were always there for me. And I
didn't
even have to die to do it. At first. At the end—" Laughter again, forced
laughter.

“Elvis
... you don't mind if I call you that?"

“
No, sir. They used to think it was a funny name, in
the beginning, made fun of it. Now
it's all they know
me by."

“And
they know you all over the world."

“
That's right. We're a
trinity: Jesus, Elvis, and Coca-
cola. I only
drank Pepsi, though. They always get some
thing wrong. I got a few things
wrong myself." A pause.
"Wish I
coulda toured the world. Kept getting invited,
but Colonel, he always managed to hex any trips like
that. Guess
he had reasons."

“
He wasn't a U.S.
citizen. He was afraid if he put a
foreign tour in motion, that would
come out."

“
Yeah, but it would have given me new worlds to
conquer, right? I needed that. The old one was
getting
stale. It's always more
interesting getting somewhere
than being there, you know?"

“
I know. And you got there so fast. You stayed
there
for a long time."

“
A long time. Almost lived to be my mama's age.
Now that was a miracle. I never missed no one or
noth
ing so much as I did her. Still do."

“Don't
you ... see her now?"

“
Naw, what do you think, man? Think I'm Superman
or something? Think I'm a swami? I'm just trying to
figure out the world and God and
stuff, and why I was
chosen to be
Elvis Presley. There must have been a rea
son."

“
There's always a reason." Matt looked down at
the
lists on the tabletop, feeling
like Judas Iscariot, or like a chief prosecutor, he didn't know which.
"There was a
reason you got a guitar for your eleventh birthday.
Your
mother took you and you got a used one
... how much
did it cost?"

“
Eleven ninety-five. Shoot! I wanted a gun! But my
mama
said no, so I got the guitar."

“And
that was the beginning."

“
Who knows what a beginning is, man. Or an end. If
I could tell you that I would really be somebody.
It all runs together, and then we put order on it and say this
happens
because that happened. Like they say my mama
dying
was the end of me, or Cilia leaving, or, hell, why
not my dog Getlo dying after eighteen years? That
dog
was there when mama still was, when my star was shiny
and
new. How does anybody know what brought me
down? I don't even know it."

“Everybody's an expert on
you, Elvis."

“You got that right, Mr.
Midnight. Ever'body but me, huh?"

“Haven't you had time to
become an expert by now?"

“
I've had time to think, that's for sure. If I just hadn't
been raised to respect my elders like I was. Maybe
I
woulda given Colonel his walking
papers. I used to
threaten to do it, but ever' time I got mad enough to
do
something about him, he'd sit me down and
scare me,
like that time in
seventy-six when he showed me this
bill
of millions I'd owe him if I fired him. That man was
a wizard with
figures. Had mah daddy beat seven times
around
the block. Somethin' in me just couldn't say no
to anybody's face. It
was like I was paralyzed."

“
You couldn't say no to your mama. Maybe that put
the fear of
saying no in you."

“
That's what they say about drugs now:
just
say no.
Heck, they got no idea how hard sayin' no is."
"But you don't take
drugs now."

“
Ah . . naw. Mostly not. Hell, I haven't got the
money for that
stuff now."

“
But your estate's been built up again. It's worth mil
lions. Why
don't you go back and claim it?"

“
See, that's what got me in trouble, all the money,
and then the Colonel letting me pay ninety percent
taxes on it, then me being a Big Spender. I was needing dough
in those last years. Had to work to keep ever'body
paid
and the planes and cars coming so
I had a chance of going somewhere fast some way. So I don't want all
that. Finally got away, son; think I'm gonna run
right
back?"

“
What happened to the boy who wanted to be James
Dean, who showed up on his first movie set with
the
whole script memorized: his and
everybody else's
lines?"

“I was a go-getter then,
wasn't I? I still had hope I
could make
somethin' of myself, instead of ever'body
makin' something on or off of
me."

“
What happened to those
girls you fell in love with
back then?
Dixie, and June, and Debra Paget, your first
costar. You were always falling in love, Elvis. What
would have happened if you'd have married one of
those
girls and stopped letting those fans in the motel and hotel
rooms for you and the boys to pick from like a
basket
of free fruit the management sent? They were just
adventure-crazy young girls. What did you or they
get
from all that?"

“
I don't know, Mr. Midnight. It seemed like a new
adventure ever' night, that it did. And the guys, they really looked up to me.
I was the King. I could have
every woman in the world. They could take
what I left."

“
That's ... not the way you were raised, Elvis. Not
what
your mother wanted.”

The pause elongated into that one thing dreaded in
live
radio: dead air time.

“
I know it." The voice was soft, shamed.
"I know it.
She wanted me to be
clean-living. No cussin', no
drinkin',
no wild, wild women. And I didn't let anybody
have alcohol around for a long time, or do no cussin'.
But then I got used to the hard life of the road,
and
ever'thing slipped. It seemed like
fun. It seemed like I
was somebody."

“
You were the King. You were everything you
weren't
in high school, right?"

“
Right! It was fun. I couldn't keep 'em away. They
loved it. Got to be wearin' on a guy. Too much to
live
up to. A lot of the time we
didn't do anything. Heck, a
lot of the girls I was with for a long time
before we did anything serious."

“
Kind of like in high school, huh? Necking and
games,
but nothin' you could get in real trouble for."

“
Yeah. But you're right. My mama like to kill me if
she knew all the messes I got into on the road."

“
Maybe she did. Maybe that's
what killed her."

“
Don't say that! I thought you were listenin' to me. I
thought you were one of my guys! There's loyalty,
and
you don't be loyal to me and say
things to tear me down.
To bring me down. Damn it.”

Breathing,
labored, came over the line.

Matt
wasn't watching Leticia, or the clock. He wasn't
seeing anything but the dark tabletop in front of him.
His ears were tuned to his caller's every nuance,
every
breath. This was a man on a
tightrope over a mental
chasm, stretched as taut as an overtuned guitar
string.

His history was national knowledge. His life was a
national
resource. His death was history.

He may be delusional, but the delusion was reality-
based. If he thought he was Elvis, he was Elvis. He had
to
be treated as Elvis.

Treated as Elvis.
Not just handled, but counseled.
Helped. No one could save Elvis the first time around.
Did twenty years of psychobabble make it possible to
do
now what couldn't be done then?
Was
"Elvis" finally ready to be saved, or was this
Elvis clone
ready to die like Elvis? Inevitably? Publicly? Pathetically?

“I
think I'm ready to go back to Graceland for good.
Graceland," Elvis said, his voice even softer. "Name
never meant anything. People thought it did, but
Grace
was just the first name of the
daughter of the guy who
first owned
the place. He musta loved his little girl, like
I loved mine. Just happened to sound like something
special, even
spiritual, when you put 'land' after it. Like
Dixieland.
Only now it sounds commercial. Like Dis
neyland.

“
But not that commercial. It had a special sound,
Graceland. I bought it to be our home. My mama's
home. My daddy's home. My home. That's all it ever
was. Graceland. Peaceful sounding, isn't it?"

“
You deserve peace," Matt said. "Didn't
you tell
Dixie, your first long-time
girlfriend, when you broke up
in 1960, that already the weight of the
Elvis empire was
too heavy? That you'd like
to drop out but too many
people
depended on you for their livelihoods?"
"That's right. Too many people had a piece of me.
Not much
left for myself. Best thing I ever bought was
Graceland.
Up there on the hill. On the highway. Elvis
Presley Boulevard, they renamed that part of it. How
many people have a piece of highway named after
them?
I was proud of that. It meant
I'd been somewhere.
Maybe I didn't
stay somewhere. But I'd been there."
He laughed, softly.

“
Graceland. That there Simon guy named a whole al
bum after it when he got toney. I always liked the
sound
of it. Liked those high white
pillars. Loved to race
around those
rolling hills on whatever wheels I could
use. Only time I felt free, felt like the world had caught
up to me, was when I raced around. I think maybe I
was
born racing, my whole self, my
heart, and my head.
Movin', movin'.
Always movin'. Only thing'd stop me
was them pills. And start me again.
Stop. Start. Racin'.

“
It was my home. Graceland. Not any of those
Hollywood houses on Bellagio and Perugia and all those
foreign
candy-box-soundin' names.

“
Graceland was the kind of place you can go over
Jordan from. I still see my mama's chickens peckin'
around the yard, as happy there as on any ole spit
of
land we ever rented and she ever
spread chicken feed
on.

“
And Daddy corralling his donkeys in the dry swim
ming pool at Graceland. I tell yah, it makes me
laugh,
and laugh, until I cry. We sat
on those white steps,
Daddy and me,
and cried and cried. Cried for Mama's
chickens
she'd never feed again. Cried for her bein'
gone, and us bein' left and
all those damn chickens.