by Ginger Alden
One afternoon, Elvis was asleep and I decided to visit Dodger on my own. I went to her room and knocked on her door. When Dodger invited me in, I found her seated in bed.
“I just wanted to say hello,” I said.
Right away, Dodger’s conversation turned to her grandson. “I’m so proud of Elvis,” she said. “You know, Gladys was a strong mother. She worried about Elvis. When he was small, she saw him and another little boy fighting, and Gladys ran out with a broom to chase the other boy away. Gladys even had Red West up against the wall with a kitchen knife once, for saying something about Elvis.”
I wasn’t familiar with this name at the time, so I politely nodded and encouraged her to go on. Dodger told me that Gladys sometimes cooked fish in the house; Elvis hated the smell of it and that’s why he hated fish now. I had learned this earlier on tour, too, when an aide asked what I wanted for dinner and I told him fried shrimp. As the bodyguard, Sam, brought Elvis and me our food that evening, he had said to me, “Good luck eating that in front of Elvis.”
Elvis didn’t say a word when I first began to eat, but then he asked me to prop the container’s top up so he couldn’t see my food. When I told Sam this later, he said, “I can’t believe you ate that in front of him.”
It was nice talking with Dodger. She was sweet, opinionated, and funny. Best of all, she seemed as eager for me to marry Elvis as I was. Dodger told me that she loved me and hoped Elvis and I would have a little boy. “I was tired of seeing that blond stuff come down the stairs,” she said.
I wasn’t sure who she was talking about, but Dodger was the first person to really make me feel like part of the family.
I mustered up the courage that same day to go out back and visit Vernon, too. When I walked into his office, he was at his desk and Patsy Gambill was at hers.
“Hello,” I said, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. I was there for just a few minutes, because Vernon looked busy and I didn’t want to interrupt him. It wasn’t a long visit, but at least it was a start.
CHAPTER 22
By now it was the middle of May and getting close to the next tour. As before, Elvis seemed anxious about his upcoming performances. He started again asking for more medication to help him get back to sleep whenever he woke up.
For the first time, I learned from his nurse, Tish, that she sometimes gave him placebos. This meant Elvis had unknowingly been going to sleep at times without as much help, which I found comforting to hear. Once again, I wondered if Elvis’s dependency on medication to fall asleep was more in his head.
On the other hand, I also saw that Elvis was sometimes wakeful after taking a packet. It was difficult for me to know whether his insomnia was so chronic that the medication didn’t work when they gave him a regular dosage, or whether he’d just been given a placebo then. This was something I definitely wasn’t qualified to judge.
I had another concern as well. I wondered if this medication could be harmful to Elvis in the long run. A few times, it seemed clear to me that it had affected his mood and behavior in negative ways.
Sometimes a nurse named Marian Cocke also visited and would dispense medications to Elvis. It wasn’t clear to me why since Tish was living on the grounds. I would learn after Elvis passed away, that she was a private-duty nurse and friendly with Dr. Nichopoulos, who continued to stop by Graceland to check on Elvis as well and sometimes administered medications to Elvis himself. On occasion, there would be give-and-take between the two men, the result of Elvis expressing what he wanted for sleep and what Dr. Nichopoulos thought he should have. There were times when the doctor told Elvis he didn’t need any more, which I agreed with.
I continued to wonder how, with nurses and Dr. Nichopoulos tending to him both at home and on tour, Elvis had gotten to a point in his life where he was so dependent on this sleep medication. Because I had once seen Elvis forget to take a packet and fall asleep, I thought it would have been great for his doctor to do an experiment and just not give Elvis any medication for a night or two. I would have helped him with that.
But this never happened in my presence. Dr. Nichopoulos seemed to be trying to manage the situation, rather than create a final confrontation or intervention.
Once, shortly after Dr. Nichopoulos had left Graceland, Elvis mentioned to me that the doctor owed him a lot of money. He didn’t go into any detail at the time, as if it was just another thing he wanted me to know. However, a thought crossed my mind then: Was this why Dr. Nichopoulos had not drawn a line in the sand when it came to curtailing Elvis’s sleep medication? Was he afraid of losing his job with Elvis?
• • •
The next tour started on May 20 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and would end on June 2 in Mobile, Alabama. At one point during the tour, Elvis and I were sitting in a car on our way to an airport to travel to the next city. A song I liked came on the radio, and I softly began to sing along.
One of the lyrics was, “Make love to me tonight.” As I sang this, Elvis tapped me on the leg and motioned toward our driver. Apparently he was afraid the driver might overhear me.
Embarrassed, I stopped singing. Did Elvis think singing that song made me look less than proper? I was aware of the irony here. For someone whose image was based on sex appeal, Elvis was surprisingly conservative and protective of how others saw me. Perhaps this was also the image of me he preferred to hold on to for himself: as young, innocent, and inexperienced in many ways, which I certainly was. He was old-fashioned that way, despite the rock-’n’-roll and Hollywood life he had personally experienced.
Elvis had come of age in the 1950s and it was now the spring of 1977. I was just out of my teens. Despite being somewhat of a tomboy, I was not a feminist. I identified more as a southern belle who liked car doors being opened for me and other chivalrous, gentlemanly gestures. About the only feminist advance that directly touched my life was being able to wear pants in high school. I simply hadn’t paid much attention to politics at that time, and although Elvis watched the news, he didn’t typically talk about politics either.
Despite being older than I was, Elvis was still strikingly handsome in his very early forties. But he was human, like we all are, and I suspected he was sensitive at times. I really thought it was unfair how tabloids sometimes printed unflattering photos of Elvis taken from certain angles while he was onstage. My suspicions that he might feel sensitive about his looks were confirmed when Billy Smith once told me not to ever show Elvis any unflattering photos of himself. I would never do that, but I wondered if he were speaking from experience.
One particular night caused me to wonder what it must be like for Elvis to be constantly faced with his younger self in movies and magazines. He had arrived at my house, where he wanted to go straight to Rosemary’s room despite the late hour.
“Let’s get Rosemary up!” he said with his usual boyish enthusiasm, walking down the hall and flipping on the light in her room. She woke and blinked hard as Elvis took a seat on her bed.
Elvis started talking to her and then lay down on his stomach, asking me to massage his back. While I did this, he noticed some albums sitting on the floor beside Rosemary’s bed and started flipping through them.
When he came across one of his own albums, Elvis: The Sun Sessions, he stopped and pulled it from the stack. The cover was illustrated with a picture of a young Elvis standing on his toes, in mid-movement, microphone in one hand and a guitar hanging from a strap around his neck.
I wondered what was going through his mind as Elvis carefully studied the album for a few moments. Shortly, I got my answer: “I like that,” he said, then placed it back among the others.
Elvis didn’t look drastically different to me at forty-two than he had back when he was my age. He was simply older. But it was still hard to believe I was with the same person as that singer rocking out on the cover of the album. It was almost as if there were three different men: that young Elvis on t
he album cover, the movie star Elvis who’d done all of those films, and now the serious, spiritually curious adult Elvis who was here on my sister’s bed, sharing his life with me.
Elvis was fully aware that he wasn’t twenty years old anymore. A couple of times he made comments to me in reference to that. After one show, for instance, he felt the audience hadn’t been very responsive.
“Everyone wants to see the ‘old’ Elvis,” he said.
On the other hand, he also went on to tell me he actually thought his voice was stronger now than it had ever been. I agreed. I’d heard many of his earlier recordings, and I certainly thought Elvis’s voice had grown richer. His voice was at its peak.
• • •
I rarely knew if Elvis was going to introduce me during his shows. He knew I was shy about having the spotlight on me, but he got a kick out of doing it anyway.
I usually sat onstage behind his soundmen; however, one time, I had to sit farther away. Elvis introduced me and wanted me to come up onstage. It was a long walk, but no sooner had I reached the top of the steps onto the stage, when Elvis immediately asked me to go sit down again. The crowd got a laugh out of that.
In our hotel room afterward, I said, “I’ll get you for that,” and started to tickle him. This was the first time I had ever done this, and I was delighted to discover that Elvis was ticklish. I loved to hear him laugh.
• • •
About a week into the tour, we were in Elvis’s room after his show in Binghamton, New York, when I started thinking about how, in the midst of my new life with Elvis, the combined force of his personality and my own feelings for him had swept me along on this emotional riptide. Elvis had become my total focus. I had become so consumed by being with him, and by taking care of him, that my own needs and identity had been partly steamrolled by trying to keep up with his fast-paced life and be the best partner I could be for him. I loved him and wanted to be with him, but I also was starting to feel a little lost.
I understood the pressure Elvis was under, and I was prepared to put any thoughts of my own career aside to support him. However, Elvis had his interests and passions, and I began pondering how I could integrate some of mine, like art, into our life together. I especially missed painting.
The breakup of my parents’ marriage was also weighing on my mind. I knew my mother and father would probably be better off living separately, yet I felt a deep underlying sadness, sure this would be definite. I just wished things could be different for them.
That particular night in Binghamton, I experienced a complex convergence of emotions brought on by my own feelings of loss, coupled with my ongoing anxiety about Elvis’s dependency on sleep medication and the effects the drugs seemed to sometimes have on his personality. I really wanted to help him. Everything suddenly hit me like a freight train and I began to cry. I just needed to, if only to relieve the emotional pressure.
When he saw my tears, Elvis thought I must be upset with him. “You’re not happy with me,” he ventured.
I shook my head. How could I begin to explain? Then words came rushing out. “Elvis, I love you,” I said. “It’s not that. It’s my parents, my art, it’s all these things.”
Finally, perhaps because I was in such a raw, vulnerable state, I added, “I also worry about you and your medications sometimes.”
Elvis was quiet. I knew he didn’t like being confronted about any of his habits. This time was no different. Still, his response shocked me to the core. “I think you should go home for a few days,” he said.
This really hurt. It also seemed unfair. I had just been trying to reach out to him, to really communicate honestly with him about my feelings. I didn’t want to leave at first, but then I reconsidered. Maybe Elvis was right, and it would be good for me to go home and sort through my thoughts and get some rest.
Elvis picked up a tour schedule from his night table, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. When I looked, he had written “Come back here” and drawn an arrow beside “Baltimore, Maryland.”
I left Binghamton and flew home to Memphis, still uncertain about my decision to leave and feeling emotionally shaken. Now I was embarrassed as well. What would those around Elvis think about me leaving so abruptly?
I tried putting on a brave face when I showed up at home. “I’m just taking a little break,” I told my family. “I needed to rest, and Elvis wants me to return to the tour in a few days.”
I didn’t try to explain more than that. My emotional turmoil was too difficult, too complex, and too private, to explain.
Fortunately, my family was as supportive as always. They didn’t press, and I didn’t go into detail.
Once I was home and things were quieter, it was easier to sort through my emotions. Elvis may not have been focused on my personal interests, I realized, but when I had told him about my grandfather’s health and the problems my parents were having, he had been sensitive about what was going on in my life. In fact, Elvis had jumped into action and done everything he could to make things better. I began thinking about his many responsibilities, especially when he went on tour. Now I felt guilty and upset about not holding things together better. I could only hope that Elvis knew, at least on some deep level, that I’d brought up the medication because I cared so much about him and his well-being.
I thought Elvis would call me, but the next day went by without a word from him. The following day there was still no call. Now I had to wonder whether we were breaking up. I stayed at home and rested. I felt absolutely miserable.
Finally, he called me on the third day. “I miss you,” Elvis said, adding that he wanted me back on the tour. I was happy to hear his voice and told him I missed him, too. Elvis immediately began arranging my return.
The next morning, a car pulled up in front of my house. I assumed it was one of Elvis’s aides sent to bring me to the airport. But, as I walked out the front door, I saw that Elvis was sitting in the backseat.
I was stunned! I couldn’t believe he’d left his tour to pick me up.
It wasn’t exactly an intimate moment, though. A bodyguard, Billy Smith, and Larry Geller were also in the car. I felt embarrassed as I joined them. The last thing I’d wanted was to put anyone out, or to create an inconvenience for Elvis.
Elvis smiled at me, but he was quiet. I couldn’t say anything, either, with everyone else in the car, so I leaned my head against his shoulder, wanting him to know with this small gesture how happy I was to be with him again. In response, Elvis took my hand and held it as we headed to the airport.
Once aboard the Lisa Marie, Elvis and I went into his bedroom and talked a little. “I know you’re upset about your parents,” Elvis said, “and I want you to listen to me, Gingerbread. I’m gonna help with that.”
I remembered how he’d told me the night I left that he thought I was unhappy with him. I carefully thought through how to express my true concerns.
Finally, I said, “Elvis, you mentioned that you thought I was unhappy with you. I love you, but it’s how the medication makes you act sometimes that I don’t like.”
Putting his hand up to his head, Elvis began thumping his temple with his forefinger. “Ginger, you don’t understand me,” he said.
“Elvis, I’m trying to,” I replied.
I could tell Elvis was finished talking about this, because he changed the subject. “If you like art,” he said, “we’ll do something about it. We’ll find you a place where you can do your art.”
I suspected Elvis meant a room at Graceland. This moved me deeply, because it meant he had been listening to me after all. I thought maybe a little of what I was saying was sinking in. That was the important thing. We were making progress.
Any conversation about medication would have to be approached carefully and in time. I knew I couldn’t change things in one day, but I was determined to keep trying.
• • •<
br />
Elvis performed in a few more shows after that. Once, when he was seated at the piano and singing “Unchained Melody,” a few audience members threw some coins onstage. This infuriated Elvis. He thought people were trying to hurt him.
I tried my best to calm him down afterward. “Elvis, people pay to see you,” I said, “and when you sit down, they can’t see you as well. Your audiences love you. You could probably walk onstage and just stand there for an hour, not singing, and people wouldn’t complain. They want to see you that bad.”
Vernon, however, was more blunt. He once told Elvis, “Son, they don’t pay to see you sit down.”
We returned to Memphis, where we would stay for a couple of weeks until Elvis’s next tour. Elvis asked Larry and his backup singer, Kathy Westmoreland, to remain in town. Unbeknownst to them, he had decided to give each of them a brand-new Lincoln Continental.
I was at Graceland on June 4 when Elvis invited them to come over that evening. With Billy Smith and Ricky in on this surprise, Elvis presented Kathy and Larry with their new cars.
Elvis was in a great mood. He had indulged in the kind of grand gesture that he so loved doing and looked content. Before long, Charlie came outside, too, to see what was going on.
As Kathy and I looked over her car, Elvis asked me to take a test ride with her. I didn’t know Kathy but she seemed like a nice woman. We circled around the neighborhood and made small talk.
Back at Graceland, everyone was gone by the time we returned except for Billy. He was standing on the porch with a solemn look, holding the jug of water that Elvis had with him when I left. I got out of the car, sensing something was wrong.
Billy handed me the water, asked me to take it up to Elvis, and walked away. Why was Billy acting so mysterious? Suddenly feeling anxious, I nearly ran upstairs.
