Yankee Doodle Dixie (35 page)

“Then we’ll have four Cokes,” Alice says and shoos him off to the bar. While he’s gone, the show host, a woman dressed not as a certain character, but donned from head to toe in all things Elvis, stops by our table and hands each of us a list of songs. She wants to find out if anyone at our table will be singing, aside from Elvwayne who’s already signed up. Virginia, who has now declared herself Elvween, lets her know that we all will be singing. The woman takes our stage names and says we can let her know our song choices right before we go on.

Elvwayne returns with four Cokes and proceeds to stiffen our drinks.

After studying the menu intently, Virginia slides it over to Elvwayne. “Poke Salad Annie,” no question about it. What are you singing, Elvwayne?” She loves to use his name any chance she can.

“‘All Shook Up.’ It’s my standard.”

“I’m all shook up over that jumpsuit you’re wearing. How much did you spend on that thing, shoog?” Alice asks him.

He stands up and slowly turns around in a circle. “If you consider that this jumpsuit is an exact duplicate from the
Aloha from Hawaii
concert from 1973, all hand-done with each stone costing two dollars apiece, and three hundred man-hours used to hand-place each one of them, it should not come as a shock that it set me back four thousand dollars.”

“That would depend on your definition of shock,” Mary Jule says, and kicks me under the table. “You must be a wealthy man, is all I can say. I wonder why Elvis wore those in the first place.”

“Because of his love for Captiain Marvel, my dear,” Elvwayne tells her. “Elvis wanted a costume that reminded him of his childhood idol.”

“Oh good lord,” Mary Jule says and exhales loudly.

After many more performances and another round of drinks, compliments of Elvwayne, not to mention a little person Elvis lookalike singing “Don’t Be Cruel,” the host steps onto the stage and takes the microphone. “Next up,” she says, “is an Elvira from right here in Memphis. She’s here with three of the four Jordanaires. Let’s give a hearty welcome to Elvween!”

The applause begins as we scurry up to the stage. Virgy, who’s plenty tipsy at this point, goes up to the karaoke machine and selects her song. The karaoke player flashes the lyrics across the screen just before the first chords of “Poke Salad Annie” are blasted through the tent. Naturally, at the last second Alice wants to be the leader. But in a bold move, even for her, Virginia says, “For once, you do not get to be the star. I’m the one wearing the Elvis suit, so you just get on back there with Mary Jule and Fiery and be a Jordanaire.”

“Fine,” Alice says, with a semipout, and backs into her spot.

Virginia whips her head back around and leans into the mic. “Down in Lou-zee-anna,” she looks off to one side and throws her arm out to the other side, “where the alligators grow so mean, there lived a girl that I swear to the world made the alligators look tame. Poke Salad Annie.” Within a few seconds she’s so comfortable on stage that she’s now holding her mic, gyrating and dancing, and making up her own karate moves. “The gator’s got your granny,” she belts out to the crowd.

With bourbon-fueled perfection, learned from years and years of having to be the backup singers, Mary Jule and I, along with Alice, dance right behind her, echoing “Chomp, chomp, chomp.”

An even better sight is Elvwayne, who has moved up to the front of the stage and is gyrating right along with Virginia.

When the song comes to an end, Virginia makes large loops with her right arm and adds one final ad-lib, “Sock a little poke salad to me.” She leans her head back as the music fades.

The crowd loves her. Right away Elvwayne walks onto the stage and takes the mic. “Ann-Margrock, Ann-Margrock, Ann-Margrock,” he says as if it’s a chant and sweeps his arms in an effort to get the rest of the crowd to chant along with him. Pretty soon the entire entertainment tent is calling for me to sing “Viva Las Vegas.”

Thank goodness for bourbon. I take the mic from Virginia. The words crawl across the screen and the two of us duet to “Viva Las Vegas.” At one point Alice can’t take it anymore and dances up to the front to sing along with the two of us, which leaves Mary Jule as the only Jordanaire. I look back at her during the song and she just shakes her head. At this age, she’s past the point of making an issue of Alice’s bossiness. Once our number is over, and after another round of hearty applause, we say good-bye to Elvwayne and thank him for his hospitality.

By now it’s almost pitch dark outside, and a huge crowd of thousands is lined up in front of the gates of Graceland waiting on the vigil’s opening ceremony. “Dangit,” Virginia says when she takes in the crowd, “We’ll be here all night. We’ll have to think of a way to break in that line.”

There must be ten thousand people waiting at the gates. Tonight there is no admission charge. Once the opening ceremony is over, fans are invited to walk up the driveway to Elvis’s gravesite, or the Meditation Garden as they call it, carrying their candles in quiet remembrance. The gates won’t close until the last person has paid her respects, no matter if it’s five o’clock tomorrow morning.

I can’t help but wonder how many of these people have cashed in their life savings to attend Elvis Week, after all it’s certainly not cheap. One of the fans we talked with back at the Days Inn told us that she had sent a funeral spray to the Meditation Garden with over one hundred red roses. She told us that hers would be one of thousands.

We have to walk around a sea of Elvis shrines scattered all over the boulevard. One fan has drawn a chalk rendering of Elvis on the asphalt underneath hundreds of votives in the shape of Elvis’s personal signature. Others have pictures, candles, and other paraphernalia, but all have set up lawn chairs next to their respective shrines. We stumble upon a candle table and we all pick up a free taper, each with a drip guard.

When the ceremony begins, someone from Elvis Presley Enterprises stands at a podium in the distance, welcoming us and explaining the rules. He says it should be a solemn, quiet ceremony, and that we should keep our voices low. He further explains that the torches from the Meditation Garden will be brought to the front gates so each fan can light his candle. He reminds us that water stations have been set up throughout the property. It has to be ninety-two degrees outside and the sun went down over an hour ago. There’s a misting tent dubbed Kentucky Rain, after one of the King’s biggest hits, but we never saw it. There are more speeches by members of Elvis’s many international fan clubs, and finally the musical tribute starts with “Love Me Tender.”

Over ten thousand Elvis fans start the long haul up the driveway to the Meditation Garden, where they will have time to pause for a moment and pay their respects before they are led back down the drive and out the gate. Virginia leads us as close to the front of the line as she can, but it still looks like five thousand other mourners are ahead of us. People are quiet and they are dead serious. Their heads are hung in grief. Many are crying.

After an hour of standing in the same spot and never moving, we decide to move on ahead and squeeze in just behind the Elvis fan club from Denmark. The only way we know they are from Denmark is because their T-shirts say so in English. There are eight of them. All women. It goes without saying that they are decked out in Elvis garb, but none have gone to the lengths that we have. Not one of them is wearing a costume. Nonetheless, it’s obvious that their blood runs true-blue to the King.

Virgy accidentally loses her footing and falls into one of them, which doesn’t set well from the start. Even though Virginia says she’s sorry, the woman does not seem to accept the apology. Instead she waves her hand in Virginia’s face and utters something in Danish. From then on, any time one of us makes a sound, even a sneeze or a clearing of the throat, the ladies from Denmark turn around and glare at us. One woman in the group actually has the nerve to turn around and give us a loud “shush.”

It’s honestly not as easy as it seems to be totally quiet. Alcohol certainly has not helped the situation either. Not only has it turned the four of us into blabbermouths, but it’s kindled our saucy streaks. As hard as we try, we can’t keep ourselves from whispering. Silence has never been any of our strong suits.

“Please be quiet,” one of the women says and jerks her head right back around. At least one of them speaks English.

“I had no idea it was this serious,” Virgy whispers, and I can tell she’s on the verge of a laughing attack, which naturally sparks the same in the rest of us. Another minute goes by and Mary Jule has already forgotten she’s supposed to be close-mouthed. “How long do you think it’s gonna take for this line to even move,” she says, much louder than she should. “I sure don’t want to be here all night.”

You’d have thought she’d damned the King himself by the way each woman in the Denmark fan club whips her head around. If looks could kill, all four of us would be lying out back in the Meditation Garden between Elvis Aaron and Jesse Garon (Elvis’s twin).

Of course, this gets us all going, and it’s a much worse situation than laughing in church. Much, much worse. At this point all of us completely lose it. Our shoulders start shaking and there’s not a thing we can do about it. I’m afraid to catch Virginia’s eye for fear I’ll wet my pants. Pretty soon we are holding our stomachs and nothing can make us stop. Virgy hands her candle over to Alice and collapses on the ground.

When we see two of the fan club members storm off toward an Elvis Week official, we decide to break and run. Even if we found another place in line, the hours it will take, and the amount of perspiration it will require to actually make it to the Meditation Garden is simply not worth it.

Once we’re back at Alice’s car and we’re pulling out of the McDonalds, Virgy leans over and lays on Alice’s horn. She rolls down her window and screams, “Goodnight Elvis! See you next year.”

*   *   *

While driving home from Virginia’s the next day, I veer off through the historic part of town to stop at the Germantown Commissary for barbecue. I had called Kissie before leaving and told her not to cook and that I was treating her to her favorite food. She had spent the night at my house, yet again. When I told her our plans for the evening, she told me to just spend the night at Virginia’s house. “I know you girls,” she said. “No point in driving home that late by yourself.”

As I’m leaving the restaurant with the yummy aroma of pit barbecue wafting through my car, I can’t resist looping around over to West Street. I love all the town’s history, especially the old buildings and homes. As I’m making a right onto Old Poplar Pike and crossing the railroad tracks, I notice a for-sale sign in a yard up ahead, so I slow my car down to a roll and stop in front of the cutest house I’ve ever seen.

I can’t resist pulling in the driveway on the off chance this might be our ticket into a nicer home. After staring through my windshield at the blue Victorian with gingerbread on the screen door, gables, and the porch railing, I step out of my car and walk toward the house through a path of mature boxwoods. A wide set of steps leads up to a large front porch, which wraps around to the side.

The house appears to be empty so I run up on the porch and peek in the front window. Although there are no lights on, I can see through to the inside and make out a gorgeous, intricately carved old staircase in the entry hall and large rooms with fireplaces off to each side. The front door seems to be original and still has its charming, old turn-style bell. Just for fun, I turn the lever but no one answers the door.

Running around back, I almost trip over a hose that’s been left out in the yard. There’s another small porch and a parking lot just off the rear of the home. When peeking in the back door I instinctively place my hand on the doorknob and to my surprise the door swings open. After glancing around to see if anyone is watching, I steal inside to a small utility room. “Hello,” I call out. “Anybody here?” I say, while walking into an outdated kitchen. It’s large, but it’s old and would need a total overhaul. From the kitchen there’s another door that leads into a large dining room with a fireplace and as I walk on through my eyes are fixated on the high ceilings. I figure they must be twelve feet tall. The wide-board oak floors are original, too, it’s obvious by the way they softly creak under my tiptoeing feet; and I can tell by a few old cracks that the walls must be plaster. The more I look around, the more I’m falling in love—it’s absolutely charming.

I can’t resist running upstairs for a brief run-through. It’s equally as beautiful with three bedrooms and a bathroom out in the hall. The sound of my stomach growling reminds me of our lunch in the car and I run back down the stairs and out the back door, but not before imagining Sarah and Issie’s little clothes hung in the closets and the sounds of cooking coming from the kitchen.

As I’m walking down the front porch steps, I turn around and look back at the house. Instead of blue, I see weathered peach with a shiny ivory trim. The more I stare at it, the more focused it becomes. I can’t quite put my finger on what I’m feeling—it’s like that moment when you take an old tired dress from its hanger and slip it on, and suddenly it fits in all the right places—transforming both the dress and you. But this isn’t just the novelty of having found something new and pretty. I have an odd sensation that I’m coming home. Ever since leaving the house I shared with Baker—moving to Vermont, and now renting a temporary home—I haven’t felt a sense of belonging.

I can feel the back of my head heat as the sun barrels through the trees, letting loose the deep summer rays. I’m sure to start perspiring through my T-shirt soon, and my hair is no doubt triple its normal size thanks to Memphis humidity. But I just can’t seem to tear my eyes away. It’s part cottage, part dollhouse—it practically oozes family and porch swings and peach daiquiris and a dog house in the backyard. Turning to the car, I take a final look and there it is—the Peach Blossom Inn sign.

Of course it’s not really there, I tell myself. But I can just see it now, hanging there with the two peaches for the
O
s in the middle of “Blossom.” I try wiping away the mental picture but each time I do it floods right back. I think back to my beautiful sign lying on top of the garbage heap behind my Vermont inn, exactly where Helga had thrown it, ready to be burned in the next trash fire. Now it’s sitting in the garage with a few straggling boxes that were never unpacked after our return from the North.