Me and a Guy Named Elvis

by Jerry Schilling

  There are some bedrooms at Graceland that are off-limits to visitors nowadays—including Elvis’s and mine, though for very different reasons. Elvis’s upstairs bedroom is not part of any tour because it was a place he turned to for privacy, and it feels wrong even now to violate that. My room downstairs isn’t part of any tour because, frankly, it just ain’t much to look at, and it wasn’t much to look at back then, either. Down in the basement, off the TV room, and directly across from the bar, a door leads to what was really designed as a storage room, and what was sort of half-converted to a bedroom when I moved in. There was, and still is, a white linoleum floor, walls that are white brick on one side and wood paneled on the other, and a drop ceiling that can’t quite hide some of the pipes running through the room. The flashiest bit of decor down there remains the tattered silver insulation that hangs from some of the heating ducts.

  I did get my own bathroom and a walk-in closet, which my few bits of wardrobe shared with the Graceland Christmas decorations. I soon discovered that when it snowed or rained, water found its way into my quarters, and stepping into my room often meant stepping over a sizable puddle of seepage. My first act of personalizing the place was to leave a plank by the door, so that I could get over those puddles with reasonably dry feet.

  Just outside my door were gold records, stylishly mod sofas, and state-of-the-art TV and stereo equipment. Lying on my small twin bed, I stared up at water stains and a bare-bulb light fixture. But the state of my furnishings didn’t bother me a bit. I was living at Graceland, and, for the first time in my life, I really felt like I wasn’t just “staying” somewhere. I felt like I was home.

  Up until I moved in, Graceland had always been a place of excitement for me—a fun place where something was always happening. But living there, I realized that the peacefulness I’d felt out on the grounds was really a part of the home, too. I’ve never felt safer in my life than I did living at Graceland in that damp, bare-bulbed basement room. I felt like I was within a kind of loving fortress, and it was impossible to be worried too much about life in general now that I was inside the Graceland gates (still manned by Uncle Vester).

  Actually, you didn’t see much of life in general when living at Graceland. Things stayed as tightly organized around Elvis as they had out in Los Angeles—it wasn’t like everybody went back to some kind of “normal” Memphis life. Marty and his family and I were in Graceland itself, but nobody else was too far away. Some guys had nearby houses, some stayed in the Graceland Apartments just across the street, some in rooms at the Howard Johnson’s just down Highway 51. The big difference was that in Los Angeles, making movies, the guys in the group all had a sense of what the day’s working schedule would be. In Memphis, the workday centered entirely on Elvis, which meant that a couple of days might go by without anything happening at all and then, just when you might be considering sneaking off for a ride or a visit somewhere, Elvis would need things done and the whole house would snap into action. I don’t think I even saw my daddy, brother, or any family when I first got back to town—Graceland was where I was supposed to be, where I wanted to be, and it was far enough away from my old neighborhoods that I didn’t cross paths with many familiar faces. We also went back to keeping Elvis hours in Memphis, and that made it very unlikely that we’d cross paths with anyone outside the circle. We generally slept through the day and were up and around when the rest of the city was asleep.

  Elvis didn’t run his house like a tyrant, and he didn’t lord over us like he was master of the house. On a day-to-day basis we treated the house as our own. There might be a bad day when Elvis was in a dark mood and everybody walked on eggshells, but that wasn’t the norm. He wanted us to treat Graceland as a home—you had to respect the place, but you could also be entirely comfortable there. It was understood that he was the one doing the work that made life at Graceland possible, and what he asked for in return for all that he shared with us was that we help and support him. If you thought of being with Elvis simply as a job, then maybe there were things to gripe about. But I thought of being with Elvis as simply being with Elvis—I couldn’t have been happier, and it seemed like pure gravy that I got a paycheck, too (I’ve still got the stubs—$75 dollars a week, $69 after taxes).

  My internal clock didn’t always synch with Elvis time, so I was usually up before him or any of the other guys, and spent a lot of late-morning hours just walking around the calm, beautiful grounds. I got in the habit of turning up in the kitchen around noon, where I’d sit at the little counter there and have my breakfast while Vernon’s mother, Minnie, at the other end of counter near the red phone that called up to Elvis’s room, tucked into her lunch. Grandma Presley was warm and welcoming to me from the start—in fact, I always addressed her as Grandma and she always called me “son.” Gradually, our talks moved from idle talk to something deeper and more special, and our meal together became an opportunity for shared confidences and commentary about all the goings-on in the house. I’d come to Graceland as a friend of Elvis, but it meant a great deal to me that Grandma considered me a part of the family. (Not all of the Presley family members were quite as easy to get along with: A few years later, Graceland also became home for Elvis’s Aunt Delta, Vernon’s sister, after her husband died. I don’t think anybody who knew Delta would describe her as “warm and welcoming”; in fact, she was fairly nasty, and after a hit from her “secret” whiskey stash, she’d start cursing out anybody she laid eyes on—except Elvis, of course. Luckily, for some reason, she liked me, too, and I didn’t get cursed at nearly as much as some of the other guys.)

  For all the luxurious trappings of Graceland, that little kitchen counter served as an important social hub of the house. Not only was that the spot for breakfast with Grandma, it was also where Elvis and the rest of us would gather at the very end of the night when we got back from the movies or the roller rink. We’d sit on the kitchen stools, and Elvis would put his feet up on the counter. There’d be some quiet talk, going over the events of the day, and if we needed a final snack or a cool drink we were tended to by Graceland’s night-shift maid, Pauline, one of the dearest and most beloved members of the Graceland staff (Pauline was black, but I heard Elvis say several times that he thought she looked a lot like his mother). At four or five in the morning, we’d call it a night and head from the humble counter back to our beds, while Pauline would continue cooking and cleaning for the coming day, always taking time to send us off with one of the sweetest smiles in Memphis.

  Just before Christmas of 1964, Elvis asked me to come with him and Marty for a ride across town. We drove to a small home in a working-class neighborhood in Midtown. This was the home of Gary Pepper, one of Elvis’s earliest fans, who had become his first fan-club president. When Elvis stepped off the train in Memphis after returning from Germany, the first person to greet him was Gary.

  Gary suffered from cerebral palsy, and had a hard time communicating and getting around without a wheelchair. But he was a very bright guy, and for all the special care he required, in some ways he was taking care of his not-very-well-off family. Marty had let Elvis know that Gary needed a new wheelchair, and this trip was made to deliver the chair as a Christmas present. We knocked on the front door but got no answer. Elvis peeked through a window, and then quickly walked into the home. The scene that greeted us when we stepped in behind Elvis was, to my eyes, nightmarish. Gary was crawling across the floor of the small living room. His father wasn’t around, but his mother was, and she seemed to be completely out of it—in a trancelike state. Elvis immediately went right for Gary, got his arms around him, and helped get him up and comfortable. Gary was terribly embarrassed to be seen this way, but Elvis talked to him quietly and let him know it was OK—he was there to help him in any way he could. Once we had the new chair inside, Elvis lifted Gary into it and made sure it was adjusted correctly.

  I remember feeling weak. This scene was so awful, and I felt I wouldn’t have known how to go about helping this poor disabl
ed young man. But Elvis didn’t hesitate to put his hands on him and comfort him. To him, this was simply a friend who needed his help. Elvis was a Hollywood star and a rock-and-roll legend, but nothing seemed more important to him right then than lifting Gary Pepper into a new wheelchair.

  Christmas was a big deal at Graceland, and the guys were always concerned with finding a great gift for Elvis. That first holiday, we presented him with a fancy leather-bound Bible that had a sketch of the tree of life on its front page—Elvis’s name was on the trunk of the tree and each of the guys got their own branch. Written below the tree in English, Latin, and Hebrew was one of Elvis’s favorite quotations: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” In return, Elvis gave each of us a $1,000 bonus and a fancy jeweled wristwatch that had been made by Harry Levitch, a favorite Memphis jeweler who’d been a very early supporter of Elvis’s career. Mr. Levitch was also happy to do special work for Elvis, and these watches had an unusual face that could go black and then reveal either a cross or the Star of David. When I asked Elvis what it meant, he said, “To make you think.”

  A couple of weeks later, the guys presented Elvis with a collective gift for his thirtieth birthday—a gold tree-of-life pendant (which became one of his most-worn pieces of jewelry). I spent most of my Christmas bonus to purchase my first, personal gift to Elvis—an intricately detailed collector’s gun with a very unusual curved handle (at the time, it didn’t strike me as strange to follow up a Bible and a Tree of Life with a firearm—now I think it probably says a lot about the dynamics of the Memphis Mafia). Elvis didn’t say much about the gun at first—it was always easier for him to be a gift-giver than a gift-receiver. But I was happy to see that on movie nights at the Memphian, he carried my present around in its leather case.

  In addition to my new watch, I had a connection to Elvis right in my wallet—an Elvis A. Presley American Express credit card and an Elvis A. Presley Shell service-station credit card (I was authorized to sign for both). If things looked like they were going to stay quiet, I often spent some time taking care of Elvis’s small fleet of luxury cars. I’d get behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce or a Lincoln Continental or a new Cadillac and take the car out to get washed and gassed up. There was a car wash just down the street from Graceland where the vehicles always got special treatment, and I loved just cruising down there, watching heads turn. Handling a Rolls was a much finer experience than piloting my old ’49 Dodge, and I certainly didn’t have to keep a case of oil ready in the trunk of the Caddies. In fact, I now had a much finer ride to call my own—for personal trips I was using the same white ’56 Lincoln Continental that I’d seen Elvis leaning up against in Miami.

  Most of the other guys would turn up at the house around five or six P.M., and if things got busy it was usually to work out the logistics for one of our usual activities: a football game, or a night at the Rainbow, the Memphian, or the Fairgrounds. All those outings still held a thrill for me, but the nicest part of living at Graceland was the chance it offered to spend time with Elvis. In those days at the house, I think one of my greatest pleasures was simply the fact that moments with him didn’t have to feel like special events anymore. We were close, we were friends, and it was the most normal thing in the world to spend time together. Yes, he was my boss, but I never called him that, and he didn’t expect me to. I was proud to work for him, but the friendship was always more important than the business relationship.

  One day when I was down in my basement room, Elvis came through the door—a fairly rare occurrence—carefully stepped over my puddle and, in a low, quiet voice, said, “Let’s go for a ride.”

  A few minutes later Elvis was at the wheel of the latest Lincoln and we were driving north on Highway 51. I’d assumed Elvis wanted my company for some conversation, but he was quiet and intense—clearly not in a talking mood. A few miles down the road we pulled off into the Forest Hill Cemetery, and Elvis expertly navigated the twists in the road to get to a spot he was familiar with—his mother’s grave site. He didn’t say anything, and I stayed in the car for a moment while he got out and walked up the grassy, sloping hill to the massive monument marking the grave. It was maybe eight feet high—a Christ with his arms outstretched standing before a cross and flanked by angels, all atop a large, multitiered pedestal. Seeing him before that monument, it came to me that, perhaps for the very first time, I could see my friend as a small, fragile human—just like any other. Despite everything else in his life, he was a guy who had lost his mother and missed her terribly.

  Elvis stood there for a while, and then, slowly, carefully, with his bare hands, he began to clean the grave—dusting the stone, brushing away some spiderwebs, clearing away some weeds at the base. His hands moved deliberately, with care and tenderness, and I found myself moved with sympathy for him. But I really had no way of understanding what he was feeling—I’d been so young when I lost my mother that I had no idea of what exactly I’d lost. I had no memory of her, and only a single locket photograph. Watching Elvis act as a humble, loving son, I found myself wondering what that kind of love felt like.

  He got back in the car, and we rode back quietly to Graceland. Nothing was said, and nothing needed to be said.

  I went on a few of those rides to Forest Hill through the years, and I was with Elvis the day he went to the monument maker across from the cemetery to sketch out his own design that he wanted added to the stone—a design that included a Star of David, a crucifix, and the Bible quote, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” In all the years I knew Elvis, these trips were the only times I witnessed him openly demonstrating his feelings for his mother. As on that first trip, he never said a word about her. And perhaps he wanted me with him because I had lost a mother, too, but we never talked about that, either.

  Elvis’s readings had taken a decidedly spiritual turn—a turn very much encouraged by the well-read and spiritually minded Larry Geller. Larry was still officially working as Elvis’s hairstylist, but it was clear that Elvis valued the esoteric discussions he could have with Larry even more than he valued the haircuts. And while Larry still sometimes had some trouble mixing in with the Memphis guys, I found him a very interesting and likable personality.

  Elvis devoured the books Larry suggested to him, and then expanded his reading list to include works he discovered on his own. It wasn’t unusual to sit up late at night with Elvis and hear him discuss the intricacies of books like Autobiography of a Yogi, Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, The Impersonal Life, by Joseph Benner, or Cheiro’s Book of Numbers. Elvis hasn’t ever gotten much credit as a thinker, but it was striking to me back then how much he struggled to make sense of the life he was blessed with and how hungry he was for a sense of meaning and purpose. He hadn’t had the opportunity for a formal education, so he’d sometimes head down a path that would turn out to be unsatisfactory or just too far out, but eventually he’d sense that happening, and with a little more education I think he might have understood better what he was looking for and how to look for it.

  Elvis was always a little embarrassed about his lack of formal education, and he was well aware that he was seen by many as a poor, dumb, Southern country boy who had gotten lucky. But I have to say that I learned more from him in our late-night conversations than I ever learned from anybody else, and if I could get any moment back with him I’d ask for one of those nights: he and I staying up late, chugging Mountain Valley water and seeking out the meaning of life.

  Living at Graceland, it wasn’t only Elvis that I got closer to. I also began to develop a much closer relationship with his father, Vernon, and with the young woman he’d chosen to share his home and life with, Priscilla Beaulieu.

  A lot of the guys did not have warm feelings toward Vernon, primarily because of his perceived role as tight-fisted money-handler and bearer of bad news (Elvis never wanted to be the bad guy—if someone was going to be fired, Vernon conveyed the message). There was also some resentment toward Vernon because of the perception
that he didn’t have the skills to match the supervisory position he was in around Elvis. But I don’t think Vernon gets enough credit for rising to the occasion the way he did. He was a dirt-poor working man who suddenly found himself managing the personal affairs and finances of the world’s biggest superstar, and he did a pretty good job of it (given the spending habits of that superstar, I don’t think a team of expert accountants could have done any better).

  Some of the guys joked that Vernon was just plain cheap, because if Elvis wanted something special for Graceland, Vernon’s idea of going upscale was to shop at Sears. True, but understanding how he and his family had lived for so long with nothing and how hard they had worked, it made sense that he knew the value of a dollar. And it definitely helped to have Vernon watching the checkbook when Elvis went on a buying spree. Compared to some of the folks I’d known in North Memphis, Vernon struck me as being fairly sophisticated—always looking like a kind of poor man’s Clark Gable. He wasn’t really “one of the guys,” and never tried to be. But I always enjoyed talking with him in his office out behind Graceland—he had both a sense of calm and a dry, offbeat sense of humor. And I can picture him shuffling in from the office and coming through the kitchen, stopping over every pot to take a little taste—pinching up some greens here, some chicken there—and giving a little grunt that meant the meal was going to turn out all right.