Miss Keisker slides back into the room.
‘Take a seat, son. Mr Phillips will be ready for you in just a moment.’
Elvis does as she asks. She makes a note of his name and address, then takes his money. The bills are sweaty and limp from his pocket, but she doesn’t seem to mind. As she checks the amount, he seizes his chance.
‘You know anybody who’s looking for a singer, ma’am?’
This is actually what he’s come here for. Not to cut a record – although he’s burning to find out what his own voice really sounds like – but to reach other musicians, and to figure out how he might get himself up on a proper stage somewhere.
Miss Keisker leans back in her chair and considers him, clearly surprised that he’s found it in himself to ask a direct question.
‘Let me see, now … What kind of singer are you?’
‘I sing all kinds,’ he says.
She smiles. ‘Let me put it another way. Who do you sound like?’
And he replies, quite honestly, ‘I don’t sound like nobody.’
‘Is that so?’ she says, raising an eyebrow.
Mr Phillips puts his head around the door. ‘Ready?’ he asks.
Elvis leaps up and jabs his hand in the man’s direction. ‘It sure is a pleasure to meet you, sir.’
Mr Phillips nods. He’s even more groomed than his picture suggested, and his hand is cool. Holding the door open, he says, ‘Come in, son.’
It’s a plain room, a little bigger than Elvis’s own front yard, tiled white from floor to ceiling. In the centre stands the mike, as lonely as an abandoned child. There is no sound and, it seems to Elvis, no air, in this room. Just a hot vacuum that he cannot possibly fill.
Mr Phillips climbs into the safety of his booth and shuts the door. He’s looking not at Elvis but at the knobs and sliders on the desk, so it’s a shock when the man’s voice, suddenly loud, crackles over the speaker in the corner of the room.
‘What are you going to sing?’
Elvis can see his own reflection in the glass and, through that, Mr Phillip’s perfect hair. He attempts to sculpt his own back into shape without success.
The voice comes again. ‘Son? Do you know what you’re going to sing today?’
Only now does he make up his mind which song to perform. ‘“My Happiness”.’
Mr Phillips looks up. ‘All right. Are you ready now?’
Elvis nods.
‘You see that green light over there? When it comes on, you can start. Just relax and take your time.’
Elvis tries to feel Jesse’s presence, to address him silently, but nothing comes. It’s as though his brain is stuck on the dial between radio stations, and all he can get is static.
The light flashes on. He positions his slippery fingers on the guitar strings. Then he closes his eyes and tries to imagine he is not in this studio but sitting in the laundry room at the Courts in the warm semi-darkness, singing to Betty with the washtubs for accompaniment.
The guitar doesn’t sound good. It’s hollow and barely melodic. His voice is not as good as it can be, but maybe it’s good enough. And he was wrong about this room. Once he’s started to sing, it vibrates with sound. At first it’s discomfiting, this new noise. The room makes his voice different. He’s sung the song so many times and it has never been quite like this before. Realising that it sounds better – rounder, smoother, and yet more alive – he is able to push through to the end of the song.
Mr Phillips looks impassively through the glass.
What did you think of that, Jesse? Pretty good, huh? You couldn’t do no better, anyhow.
Mr Phillips checks his watch. ‘All right. I got that. And you’re doing a two-sided?’
Not even a smile or a ‘well done’. What had he imagined? That the man would come rushing out to shake him by the hand? That he would stand and clap? Well, yes. He’d imagined both those things.
‘I’m gonna do “That’s When your Heartaches Begin”.’
‘Go ahead.’
The green light comes again. He tries to find the song and sing it as it should be sung, as he knows he can. He tries to use the room to help him. But his eyes won’t close; they flick back and forth from the green light to Mr Phillip’s perfect, unmoving hair. Then the expensive-looking crispness of the man’s shirt. Then the reflection of his own ugly pockmarked skin. Elvis doesn’t make it to the end. Instead he stumbles, ducks his head, and says, ‘That’s the end.’
The green light turns red.
Mr Phillips frowns at the deck. ‘Take a seat with Miss Keisker. Your recording will be ready in just a moment.’
Elvis stands, looking into the booth, desperate for something else. Even some disappointment, a sigh, or a ‘That didn’t go so well, how about we try it again?’ from Mr Phillips would be better than this brisk efficiency.
What the fuck are you laughing at, Jesse?
Mr Phillips looks up. ‘Something I can help you with, son?’
‘No, sir. I guess not.’
‘Go take a seat, then.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Because there is nothing else he can do, Elvis leaves the room.
1954
At the Rainbow Rollerdrome, he leans on the railing and watches the skaters. Packs of girls glide and swish across the floor, their skirts flying like trash at the side of the highway. Other boys from Humes also stand and watch, but Elvis keeps his distance. Even he fears he may have overdone it tonight, a little. If he were to join them – and he wants to – they might ask where the bullfight is, or when he’s going to break into a Spanish dance. Earlier on, at home, he’d felt powerful and ready in his pegged pants and bolero jacket. He tries to hold on to that feeling as he scans the floor for Dixie Locke, who is fifteen and has dark eyebrows and a pointed chin, which she likes to lift in his direction.
Dixie is the reason he has started attending the Bible-study group at the First Assembly of God on McLemore. He’s been going to services there for a while now, mainly to hear the singing of the Blackwood Brothers, the gospel quartet who form part of the congregation. During Bible-study, the younger members sit in a circle in the stuffy, carpeted room off the church to discuss the meanings of the parables and try to relate them to their own lives. Dixie says little, and Elvis even less. It seems a long time since he was saved on the porch of Brother Mansell’s house, and he dislikes the church’s list of things he shouldn’t do. These days, music is where he feels closest to God.
When he was within earshot Dixie had said – was it deliberately loud? – that she was going to be here tonight. It’s warm in the Rollerdrome, which makes the scent of teenage sweat and popcorn stronger. Elvis doesn’t want to smell these things. He wants to smell her, Dixie. He thinks perhaps she smells like fresh milk with a little molasses. She might taste like that, too, if he can get her in his mouth. Red claims it drives the chicks wild when you suck their earlobes. You’ve got to nibble on an earlobe, as if it’s too cold to take a bite, as if it’s a Popsicle, he says.
They’re playing Teresa Brewer now, and Elvis straightens his body to let the music in. Sometimes it feels as if the music enters his spine and enables him to stand taller. Miss Keisker hasn’t called to say she’s heard of somebody looking for a singer, even though he keeps stopping by the studio, just to say hello. Maybe next time he could mention that to her. It’s like it goes into my spine, you know? Right up my back. She might understand that. She might even tell Mr Phillips that he said it.
Then he spies Dixie, skating alone at the edge of the rink. In her white pantyhose and a little pink skirt, her hair set in the usual neat waves that fall to her shoulders, she weaves in and out of the other kids. Watching her, he comes to the conclusion that she’s not the best skater on the rink, but she is, unlike many of the others, utterly confident in her abilities. As she pushes off, she half-closes her eyes and leans into the air as if reaching for something. She never wobbles, or pulls a self-conscious face. Then she sees him and, just for a seco
nd, her arms flail, but she continues to skate, completing another lap before allowing herself to look again. He raises his hand and she smiles, showing the gap between her front teeth, then glides over to where he is.
All at once, her boots are hitting the barrier with a whack, and she’s holding on to the railing, her hands close to his, and she’s talking, too. ‘I know you from church, don’t I?’
Wrong-footed by her being the one to speak first, Elvis can only nod.
‘You’re Elvis, aren’t you? I’m Dixie, Dixie Locke,’ she says, and laughs brightly. When her eyelids flutter, he relaxes a little. She is nervous, too.
‘I know who you are,’ he says. ‘Wanna get a Pepsi?’
‘Sure.’ Her voice is not so bright, but it is warmer, now.
He fetches two drinks as Dixie waits at a plastic table, skates lined up neatly beside her chair, chin resting on both hands. Before setting the cups down, he wipes the table with a serviette, then, unsure what to do with it, lets it drop to the floor, hoping she hasn’t noticed.
He sits opposite her. The sweet stickiness of the drink is sublime in his mouth and he feels so revived that he’s able to say, ‘I’ve noticed you. In church.’
‘What did you notice?’ she asks, chewing on her straw.
‘Your hair, mostly.’
She looks off towards the rink. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘that.’
‘It’s the same colour as my mama’s,’ he says, then wishes he hadn’t.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Real black, I mean.’
She lets the straw drop from her mouth into her empty paper cup and says nothing.
‘Sure hope I ain’t offended you,’ he says, because it is something to say.
‘Lord, no,’ she says, studying the cup. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Some girls are easily offended.’
She nods, holding a hand over her mouth.
There’s a pause.
‘What’s your mama like?’ she asks.
He brushes a hand across the ruffles of his shirt. Each one is deep red, soft as a rose petal. Where can he begin? ‘She’s real nice,’ he says. ‘Everyone thinks so.’ Then he adds, because he senses he should, ‘But she always wants to know what I’m up to!’ and feels immediately as though he has betrayed Gladys.
‘Mine too!’
‘Which is good, I guess.’
‘Kind of irritating, sometimes, though.’
He nods. ‘What about your folks?’
Her daddy is as tall as a tree and says about as much. Her mama is sweet but never misses a chance to read her the riot act. Her sisters get in the way but are cute, mostly. Her uncle is a tease and sometimes takes it too far. Elvis absorbs it all, amazed that Dixie feels easy enough to share this with him, and he wants to share something back, so they are even. But, when she’s finished, he just asks if she can stay for the next session. She says she can call her folks, they’ll be fine. And so they sit for another hour, talking about her family and his, about the church and the people they know there; Dixie makes it clear who she likes and who she doesn’t, and they discover a shared passion for the Statesmen. They’ve both seen the quartet at the all-night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium.
‘Those guys don’t just sing, they perform!’ he tells her, leaning back and hooking his hands behind his head.
‘I just love Jake Hess,’ she says. ‘The way he moves.’
He looks at her intently. ‘That right?’ he asks.
She giggles. ‘Oh, not like that!’
But he knows she’s lying.
‘We oughta go together next time,’ he says. ‘So I can keep an eye on you.’
‘I’d like that,’ she says.
Encouraged, he suggests they drive up to K’s for a hamburger, even though it’s ten-thirty and this will be the last of his money for the whole week. There isn’t a hint of hesitation in her voice as she accepts.
As he opens the door to the Lincoln, he says, ‘The car’s not mine.’
Red swears some girls will go with any guy who has a car, and Elvis doesn’t want Dixie to be one of those girls.
She pauses, studying his face. He’s not good at lying, never has been; he feels himself wanting to laugh and tell her it was all a joke, but then she says, ‘You can drive it, though, right?’ and he grins.
It feels like nothing on earth, driving the Lincoln with Dixie beside him. It’s January, and cold in the car. The old engine rattles as they cruise along Lamar. She sits close enough for him to be aware of her shivering. He still has a piece of board fixed where his side window should be, so he rests his arm on the back of the seat, close to her shoulders. Dixie edges a little closer. They’re both silent as the lights rush to greet them on the dark and lonely road.
What is the right thing to say to a girl as you drive into the star-clustering night? Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all, but she’s opening her mouth to talk again and so he gets in first with, ‘I like to sing.’
Because he wants her to know that. He wants her to know how important it is, and how he means to be as good as, or even better than, Jake Hess.
‘I heard that,’ she says.
‘You did? Who told you?’
Is he known for this thing, even beyond his immediate friends? His scalp tingles with joy.
‘Oh, you know. Folks.’
‘I’m gonna try out for the Songfellows.’ Something he hadn’t quite decided upon until this moment.
‘That’s wonderful, Elvis,’ she says. ‘I’d love to hear you sing.’
And only then can his hand let go of the seat and find her knee. It’s warm and thrillingly alive beneath his fingers. ‘You will,’ he says. ‘I promise.’
When they arrive at the drive-in, it’s still cold in the car, even though he leaves the engine running, but nothing can stand in the way of his enjoyment of K’s hamburgers. They are the most delicious food he knows. In fact, he finds it hard to think about anything else while he is eating this burger. Dixie, the late hour, the music coming from the car radio (it’s Dean Martin, and he loves Dean’s smoothness, just as he loves the roughness of Muddy Waters), all fade as he sinks his teeth into the sweet and giving bread, tastes the sour smack of gherkin and tomato and the salty depth of the meat itself. He can hardly believe that now he’s out of school and in a job it’s possible to afford such things on a regular basis. There is only this: the chewing and swallowing, and the next mouthful. Elvis tries not to gobble, for the girl’s sake. His mama is always saying, Slow up, baby, it’ll still be there one minute from now. But it’s never felt that way to him. He must get it in his mouth, all of it, right now. And with each mouthful there is that small pang of regret that this one brings him closer to the last, closer to the moment when the hamburger will be no more.
He chases crumbs and drips of sauce round the wax paper with a finger until he notices that Dixie has left half her burger untouched. He stares at what’s left on her tray as she chatters. Noticing his eyes on her food, she offers him what’s left. While he finishes up her burger, she’s jittery. She keeps glancing at her watch and laughing and saying it doesn’t matter, they won’t mind.
His mama will mind, but she won’t say anything. Gladys will be sitting up, looking at the clock, listening to the radio, unable to sleep until he is home. But, tonight, that is her problem.
As Elvis hands their empty tray to the car-hop, Dixie fiddles with her hair, waiting. The stiff set of her waves reminds him of a corrugated fence, but he chases this thought from his mind, and reaches for them anyway, finding he can push his fingers right in and touch her unguarded neck. Her collar is high but not high enough to protect her earlobe, which he takes between his finger and thumb. She shivers and pulls slightly away, and, knowing he’s risking losing her, but not caring, he moves closer, as he’s seen it done in countless movies. Once he watched Red necking with Wendy Snipes and it seemed that their faces were so deeply connected one of them would consume the other soon enough. More than
anything, it looked like hard work – Red’s body was tense and absolutely still while his jaw did everything for him, and Wendy was pushed back, her head crushed against the wall of the schoolyard. He senses this is not what Dixie wants. She doesn’t want to be squashed against concrete and have her jaw overworked, as if she’s chewing through a piece of gristly meat.
And so he chooses her hot cheek first, letting his lips brush against it; then he moves to her jawline, which is unmistakably tense. Her breathing is quick and shallow. As he finds her lips, he tastes malts and lipstick – he recognises the flavour from his own experiments with his mama’s make-up – and thinking of this urges him on until he has her mouth open to his own.
‘When can I see you again?’ he asks, drawing back.
‘Tomorrow.’ There is something new in her eyes, a kind of triumph. It reminds him of his mama’s look, the first time he brought a real wage home. Excitement and gratitude. But mostly gratitude. Finally, her eyes say. Finally, here it is: what I was waiting for. What only you can give me.
And it’s this look, rather than the kiss, nice though it was, that makes him forget he is even driving as takes Dixie home. It’s like the engine is him; his foot part of the accelerator, his hand melded to the steering wheel. He has only to make the smallest gesture for the car to take him exactly where he wants to go.
* * *
In the kitchen, Gladys stands above her son, watching him shovel egg into his mouth. She’s risen early, so she can catch him before he leaves for work. Often, now, she won’t see him in the mornings, and only briefly in the evenings. He likes his new job, driving a truck for Crown Electric, and she never has to prise him from his bed to get him there on time. Sometimes he borrows the truck on weekends to take her to church with him, and they’re both proud to sit up front and watch the road disappear so far beneath their feet.
Graceland Page 20
