Graceland

by Bethan Roberts

  He remembers, too, Noreen’s red hair through the trees, and how he covered himself in shame. If Noreen saw him now, she’d laugh in his face. And Vernon would, too. You think you got it hard? You oughta try my life, boy.

  Elvis decides that the best thing to do is not mention any of it to a living soul. He can just refuse to discuss it. Mama will press him, because she is used to him telling her everything, but he thinks maybe this time he can resist. He can keep this entirely to himself. After all, that’s what his daddy would do.

  Feeling a little better, he guns the engine and drives home.

  All week, Elvis relives Mr Phillips rubbing his ear and saying, ‘Thank you very much.’ Whenever his mama asks what happened, he holds up a hand and tells her he doesn’t want to talk about it. He does the same to Dixie, and she stops asking much quicker than Gladys.

  Then there’s a phone call.

  He’s in the Suzore Number 2 movie theatre, eating popcorn and watching an interestingly brunette Lana Turner in Flame and the Flesh when Gladys battles her way down the aisle.

  ‘Get yourself home,’ she hisses. ‘Rabbi Fruchter got another call from a Sun Records man.’ Then she glances up at the screen and says, ‘And what you doing watching nasty movies, anyhow?’

  Standing in Rabbi Fruchter’s hallway, Elvis twists the telephone’s cord around his fingers and hardly dares breathe. The man on the line, whose name is Scotty Moore, tells him to come to his house on Belz on Sunday to run through some songs with him and a friend.

  ‘We’re in a group called the Starlite Wranglers,’ he says. ‘You probably heard of us.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ says Elvis, trying to recall if he’s seen them anyplace. ‘You’re real good.’

  ‘So we’ll see you around three.’

  ‘What did Mr Phillips say about me, again?’

  ‘He said you sang.’

  Elvis waits for more, but nothing comes. So he asks, ‘Want me to bring my guitar?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Mr Phillips didn’t say nothing about me?’

  ‘He just asked me to listen to you, and tell him what I thought.’

  ‘So it’s a try-out?’

  ‘See you Sunday.’

  By the time Elvis arrives on Belz, he’s found out from Mr Cuoghi, who owns Pop Tunes, that the Starlite Wranglers are about as far backwoods hillbilly as they come, but Scotty Moore is respected in the clubs around the city for his guitar playing. He also learns that Mr Moore has a cute second wife named Bobbie, and that his first wife is living out in Washington with their kids. Elvis decides not to mention this part to his mama.

  The sidewalk by Scotty’s new one-storey house is clean and dotted with young trees. Up the street, a couple of kids are sitting on the kerb, too hot to do anything but suck on their Popsicles. It must be at least a hundred degrees out here. A man stops washing his car to watch Elvis as he walks up to the porch in his pink pants and white lacy shirt, which is sticking to his back. He carries his guitar in one hand, unsure whether he’s done the right thing in bringing it. It’s old now, and too small for him, and is covered in scratches. In the mirror at home, he’d held the guitar to his chest and practised what he’d say to Mr Moore: It sure is a pleasure to meet such a great musician, sir. I’ve admired the Starlite Wranglers a long time. I hope we can work together real well.

  A skinny woman with short dark hair opens the door. She’s wearing a pair of pedal pushers and has nothing on her feet. Putting a hand to her cheek, she inspects Elvis with what he takes to be alarm.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you, ma’am …’

  ‘Scotty!’ she calls back into the house, fixing Elvis with bug eyes. ‘The kid with the sideburns is here!’

  As she ushers him in, Elvis is careful to wipe his feet on the doormat, but he doesn’t apologise when his hand brushes her arm.

  The living room is so tidy it’s like nobody lives there. It’s bigger than his parents’ entire apartment, and the shelves are lined with stacks of magazines and records. There’s no TV, but there’s a record player on the table by the window, and a double bass propped against the wall.

  ‘I’m Bobbie,’ says the woman, using her hand to wipe some imaginary dust from the couch. ‘Can I get you something? A beer or …’

  ‘A Pepsi, if you have it, ma’am.’

  She nods towards his pants. ‘Where in the world did you pick those up?’

  ‘Lansky’s Tailors. They’re the best on Beale.’

  ‘That right? I might get myself a pair.’

  ‘You must be Elvis.’ A short man with a neat face is striding towards him. The man’s hair sits respectfully flat on his head and his jeans look very clean and new. He can’t be more than a few years older than Elvis but something about him makes Elvis feel childish by comparison. Slipping an arm around Bobbie’s waist and pulling her in close, the man says, ‘I see you’ve met my wife.’

  Elvis touches his nose. ‘She’s made me feel right at home, sir.’

  ‘Scotty Moore,’ says the man, holding out a hand. His nails look manicured, and his shake is surprisingly strong.

  ‘I’m a real fan,’ says Elvis, having forgotten the rest of his speech.

  ‘Bobbie got you something?’ Scotty asks.

  She frees herself from his arm. ‘I’m on it,’ she says.

  When she’s gone, Scotty grins, just briefly, and then looks serious again. ‘Sam said we might play around a little, see what happens. I got Bill coming over, too. He plays bass.’

  ‘I know. He’s real good.’

  ‘You seen us, then?’

  ‘Thousands of times, man.’

  To avoid Scotty’s penetrating eyes, Elvis leans his guitar on the couch and walks across the room to look out at the yard. The yellow grass is patchy and could do with straightening out round the edges. ‘You make a living out of performing?’ he asks.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Elvis turns to him. ‘But you mean to, right?’

  Scotty takes up his guitar, which has a good sheen on it and looks like it means business, just like him. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Me too,’ says Elvis, having just decided this.

  Scotty strums a few chords and says nothing.

  ‘I mean,’ says Elvis, stalking the room as he speaks, ‘Mr Phillips told me I could.’ He selects a few records from the shelf and flips through them, doing his best to appear careless. The Coasters. Muddy Waters. The Dominoes. The Platters. Hank Snow. Rudi Richardson. Coming across a Lowell Fulson, Elvis holds it up and says, ‘I love this guy.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I love all of these.’

  ‘Marion – Miss Keisker – said you’re a good ballad singer.’

  Elvis cannot stop a big smile springing to his face. ‘Well,’ he says, slowly, ‘Mr Phillips said I could make it, if I hooked up with you guys.’

  Scotty studies him for a long moment. Elvis goes back to flipping through the records.

  Then Bobbie calls out that Bill has arrived, and Scotty leaves Elvis alone in the living room. There’s a lot of noise from the hallway. Bobbie’s laughing, Scotty and Bill are both talking about the show they did last night, how crazy it was and what time they made it home and what time they woke up, and how it’s hot as all get out. There’s a resounding slap, which Elvis takes to be Bill’s hand landing on Scotty’s back.

  The door opens.

  ‘So this is the kid!’ says Bill, putting his big, grinning face up close to Elvis’s and grabbing his hand. He’s older than Scotty. His eye bags seem to be stained brown, like ashtrays.

  ‘I’m a big fan …’ Elvis begins.

  ‘Sure you are! Why wouldn’t you be? What’s your name, again?’

  ‘Presley, sir. Elvis Presley.’

  ‘Your mama give you that name?’

  ‘It was my daddy’s middle name.’

  ‘And he let you have it, all the same?’

  Elvis looks to Scotty, and then back to Bill, who’s grinning broadly.

  ‘Elvis h
ere says Sam told him he could make it,’ says Scotty.

  ‘With your help,’ says Elvis, ducking his head.

  Bill bursts out laughing. ‘Sure he did, kid!’ he says, slapping Elvis on the back.

  ‘So are we getting down to this thing or what?’ Scotty asks.

  Suddenly unable to stay in the room with these two men, one who seems just too big and loud to fit in the place, and the other so neat and contained that it’s downright spooky, Elvis excuses himself to the bathroom. As he rushes out, he hears Scotty mutter to Bill, ‘This won’t take long.’

  In the hallway, Elvis takes a deep breath. Maybe if he can just get his bearings, keep smiling, he can do this thing. My name is FEAR! he whispers to himself. People tremble and shake when I am near!

  He bursts back into the room. ‘What do you want me to sing?’

  ‘Up to you,’ says Scotty.

  ‘You know “I Love You Because”?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Scotty, leaning over his guitar and strumming it, making a deep and lovely sound which Elvis judges to be about ten times better than anything he’s managed to produce from his own instrument.

  ‘You can start,’ Scotty instructs.

  ‘You ain’t playing?’ Elvis asks Bill.

  ‘I don’t play on Sundays,’ says Bill, cracking open a beer. ‘It’s against my religion.’

  ‘He’s my second pair of ears,’ Scotty explains.

  Elvis tries to strum the intro, gets it wrong, apologises, starts again. His hands are sweating madly. Scotty and Bill’s eyes are on him, so he fixes his own gaze on the drapes, which are blue and covered in cream swirls that look like ice cream, and he tries to start singing, but he misses his cue, apologises, and has to start over.

  ‘Just relax, man,’ says Bill. ‘Everything’s cool.’

  Elvis manages to start singing this time, but just as he gets into the second line, and is beginning to feel as though he might be able to make it through the song, Scotty starts fingerpicking notes, so that his guitar sounds like it’s singing a completely different tune from the one coming from Elvis’s mouth.

  Elvis stops. ‘How’d you do that?’ he asks.

  Scotty shrugs. ‘Practice. We starting over?’

  Elvis begins the song once more, focusing on his own voice this time, determined not to be out-sung by a guitar. He tries to wring some emotion from the words, but he knows what he’s doing isn’t impressing Scotty or Bill too much. Even though he plays as though he has electricity coming from his fingers, Scotty’s face remains flat as an iron. Bill just stares and drinks, as if he’s got better things to do on a Sunday afternoon.

  They run through a few more ballads, and with each one, Elvis’s voice becomes weaker, and his heart sinks lower. After an hour, Scotty looks at his watch and announces that it’s been a real pleasure, and that they’ll be in touch.

  Elvis leaves without saying goodbye. He climbs into his car and races over to Krystal Burgers.

  After he’s got his order, Elvis drives straight back to Scotty’s, one sweaty hand on the wheel, the other on his paper package of food, and parks in front of the house. While waiting for his burgers, he had an idea that he could change their minds, that they could try again and it would all be different, but now he can hear music coming from the house. Unsure what to do, he starts in on the food. The afternoon has become even hotter. The sky seems to be pressing on everything. Nobody is out on the sidewalk, now. As he chews and swallows, he listens to the song drifting from the windows, and it sounds much better than anything they’d managed that afternoon. It’s a country song, ‘Bumming Around’, and although it’s fun, it’s got pump in it, and it sounds like Scotty and Bill are enjoying themselves plenty without him.

  Elvis grabs the door handle, ready to run up the path, hammer on the door and announce his intention to sing something else, something with a good beat behind it, just like the one they’re doing now, if only they’ll let him. They have to listen! But then they begin their version of Hank Williams’s ‘Kaw-Liga’, and Elvis lets his hand drop. Hank died just a few months ago, OD-ing on drugs in the back of his Cadillac, having drunk up all that money and fame. Mama loved Hank, and so did he. The thought of the country star stops Elvis from running up that path. What would Hank do? He wouldn’t go back to beg. He’d move on, find another opportunity.

  Elvis knows he ought to go home and tell Gladys everything. Perhaps they could cry together over Hank, and sing ‘I Saw the Light’, like they did back in January. But instead he starts the engine and drives a little way down the road, parks the Lincoln beneath the trees, and keeps listening to the music, banging his head over and over on the burning steering wheel.

  That night, he drives around downtown, calling in to the Green Owl where somebody is singing ‘Fool, Fool, Fool’, which makes him leave again.

  But the next evening, when he arrives home from work, Gladys and Dixie are waiting for him on the couch with the news that he’s had another call from Sun. Mr Phillips wants him back over there.

  This time, Elvis changes his clothes and shines his shoes before saying goodbye.

  The temperature is higher in the studio, and it seems to Elvis that he and Scotty and Bill are making heat and moisture more than music. Scotty is a little friendlier, patting Elvis on the shoulder and telling him to just relax and do it like they did at his house. For the first couple of hours, Elvis suggests songs endlessly, trying all his favourite ballads, putting everything he has into it, sometimes even breaking off in the middle of one to start another. Occasionally Mr Phillips tells Scotty not to make his guitar part too darn complicated. Other than that, he just rubs at his ear and looks impassively through the glass, like he did before.

  It’s almost midnight when they reach the end of ‘Harbour Lights’. Mr Phillips sighs and says they might take a break, then disappears to fetch them some Pepsis.

  When he’s gone, they look at one another in silence. Bill’s eye bags are bigger and browner than yesterday afternoon, and even Scotty’s shirt is creased and has become unhooked from the back of his pants. His hair, though, is still absolutely flat.

  ‘What I gotta do to make that man like me?’ Elvis asks.

  Bill and Scotty sit on the floor, Scotty leaning back on the piano and Bill using his bass as a prop for his elbow. Neither of them has an answer, so Elvis stays on his feet, and starts suggesting songs again. He’s used to being awake at this hour; he sometimes thinks he feels most awake between midnight and three in the morning. If he was home he’d be watching the street from his window, wishing he was out there. Now that he is out, not on the streets but in this studio, making music, he means to hang on to every moment of it, even if it’s not the kind of music that Mr Phillips wants to hear.

  ‘You know that ol’ Arthur Crudup song? “That’s All Right”?’ Elvis asks, and when they ignore him he launches into it, just goofing off, imitating Arthur’s raspy voice and leaping around as he sings, dipping his knees, tipping his head back and shouting the song to the ceiling as a way of releasing all his frustration while Mr Phillips is out of the room. He imagines he’s one of the Vampin’ Babies on the stage at the Midnight Ramble, and starts wiggling his ass and his shoulders in time. Soon Bill is laughing and joining in, getting up to slap the bass as if it needs punishing, twirling it around on the spot and crouching to wiggle his own behind. Then Scotty is standing and making his guitar sing along in its own peculiar fashion, and for the first time that evening, all three of them are smiling at one another. Elvis sings louder, stretching to some ridiculously high notes, swinging his arm in a slow circle in time to Bill’s bass, imagining now that he’s in Ulysees Mayhorn’s band, among the mops and lamps and upturned vegetable crates of the store.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  Elvis stops, abruptly.

  Mr Phillips is back behind the glass. He’s staring at Elvis hard, but he doesn’t look mad. He looks as if he has a thousand questions.

  ‘Elvis, I didn’t think you’d know that
song.’

  ‘We was just fooling around …’ says Scotty.

  ‘Well, do it again!’ says Mr Phillips. ‘Back up, find a place, and let me get something of that.’

  Elvis glances at Scotty, who shrugs.

  ‘Come on!’ says Mr Phillips. ‘You had something there! I don’t know what it was, but it was something.’

  They start over.

  * * *

  The day after Dewey Phillips played her son’s record on the radio – not just played it, but damn near wore it out (she heard it fifteen times: she counted), Gladys puts on her good shoes and informs Vernon that she needs to go downtown to pick up some special things for a cake to celebrate Elvis’s success. Vernon gives her a look which tells her he knows that what she really wants is to hear Elvis’s song over the radio in a shop or a cafeteria somewhere, so she can tell somebody that voice is her son’s. But he drives her anyway.

  On the way to the Piggly Wiggly, it crosses Gladys’s mind that she might see somebody she knows, perhaps Mrs King from her Lauderdale days, and Mrs King might even have heard the broadcast and be thrilled, not to mention envious. Even if she hasn’t heard it, Gladys will be able to announce the news. Oh, didn’t you hear? Dewey Phillips played Elvis’s record – yes, he has a record out – and apparently the phone lines at the station lit up like a fairground! And Dewey interviewed him, right there on the show!

  It’s mid-morning, and the heat in the car is so intense she has to close her eyes and concentrate on breathing steady. Vernon just frowns against the glare. They’ve both been up the whole night with Elvis, going over it all. Elvis made her repeat exactly what she heard on the radio during his interview. He was so excited and nervous that he had no idea what he was saying. Gladys suggested they get Dixie over, but Elvis told her that Dixie had left town last night, on a family vacation.