It’s Elvis week, so I thought I would write about … what else? My experiences with Elvis. Unfortunately, I never slept with Elvis; I was never hanger-on or a handler, so my experience is limited. I did go on a tour of Graceland once, but nothing much happened.
I also went to the Elvis vigil one year. Now I like Elvis, but I don’t like Elvis. I think I1m the wrong demographic, plain and simple. But my group of Memphis transplants and Memphis natives arrived shortly before midnight, armed with cameras and flashbulbs, ready for a show.
And we got it. There were devoted fans clad entirely in Elvis memorabilia, impersonators signing autographs, and one devil child who screamed at us to get away from her wax ground painting.
It was scary. Scarier even when, at around one in the morning, my friend
Ashley was demonstrating how she goes to public restrooms without touching
anything in the stall with her hands. That was bad, but it was borne out of
idle chitchat. Worse was when a Hawaiian Elvis impersonator saw her
performing this complicated series of karate-like maneuvers and squats and
said, 3Nice moves,2 and then something about dancing like the King.
Then, at around two in the morning, we heard reports that the line to
Elvis1 grave site was short, maybe 45 minutes. Earlier reports had pegged
that estimate at three to four hours so even though we hadn1t really planned
on going to the Mecca, we figured, what the heck? We1re here anyway.
We got in line, holding our white candles carefully in front of us so we
wouldn1t burn ourselves with melted wax. At first the line moved along
rather swiftly, getting us into the gates of Graceland within 15 minutes. We
talked in excitedly hushed voices about the event, the people around us,
everything.
But then the line stopped. Short. There1s no time limit on how long you
can stay at the grave and some pretty heavy mourners were up there.
Of course I can only gather that was the case. We were still way down at
the bottom, only feet past the gate. Maybe something else was going on up
there. Maybe Elvis himself was rising. I don’t know. So we waited. And
waited. Feeling the power of Elvis pull on our time. As we slowly began to
trudge up the hill, inch by inch, we started talking about things other than
Elvis. How we had to be at work the next morning. What had gone on at work
the day before. What someone’s boyfriend had said the day before. What
someone’s boyfriend was like in the sack.
We got crude. We got loud. We got dirty stares from the Elvis fans
around us.
It looked like it was about to get really ugly, so Ashley and I snuffed
out our candles and ducked out of line. But instead of going back down,
instead of turning around, we hightailed it up the hill. It was so dark that
without our candles, you could barely see us. We didn1t run all the way to
the grave. We didn’t even run. We just sort of snuck past 100 or so people,
you know, until we saw a large security guard.
Slowly merging back in line, we waited until the security guard left to
pull this little trick again, certain we’d soon be praying to, I mean,
mourning Elvis.
Unfortunately, running through the woods of Graceland had put us in a
rather jovial mood. We were sort of like Elvis outlaws. It made it all the
sweeter that my one trip to Graceland had been only weeks earlier and I
still felt a bit affronted at the general rudeness of the EPE employees.
But now, directly behind us in line was a very large woman suffering
from emphysema. Riding along in a powered wheelchair, she had brought her
own candles and an oxygen tank. And she loved Elvis.
I never got to the grave that night. My friend and I quickly pissed this
woman off with what she called our “disrespectful” attitude (She didn’t
mention the line jumping). She started cursing in our general direction and
at any moment, seemed poised to rise up from her wheelchair and beat us to a
pulp with her oxygen tank.
Beginning to fear for our lives– this woman was frothing at the mouth
and calling for our blood and she had her kinfolk with her– we quickly
ducked out of line and walked back to where our friends were waiting still,
way, way down the hill.
Ashley and I decided to leave instead of waiting with them. We’d had
just about enough Elvis for one year.
I guess the moral of the story is that old cliche: “When in Rome, do as
the Romans do.” That, or “Don’t mess with Elvis.”
