by Jim Butcher
Well, let me just set the record straight here, folks: The King of Rock 'n' Roll didn't die on no shitter.
No siree, Bob.
And I sure as hell didn't die of no drug overdose, either. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't take goddamned drugs. Hell, I hated drugs. Wish I coulda wiped out every drug dealer on the planet. Even had a plan to lure 'em into Grace-land, then have me and the rest of the Memphis Mafia (always loved that nickname, by the way) unload on 'em with a bunch of Uzis, but—alas—that plan never came to be: I moved on to a fleeting obsession with horses, bought me a whole ranch of 'em, and by the time I remembered the drug dealer thing, I'd sort of just... moved on.
But back to this little matter of my demise: Hard as it might sound to believe, the King of Rock 'n' Roll died from exposure to sunlight.
Same way all vampires do.
All the freaky shit started after I wrapped Change of Habit—and the less said about that picture, the better: I mean, Lord have mercy, there ain't enough lipstick in the world to gussy up that pig. Change of Habit ended up being the final movie I made, and it sure as hell wasn't a case of savin' my best for last. Habit was one of my worst pictures (I'd put it right up there with Girls! Girls! Girls! and Harum Scarum for those of you keepin' score).
After the critical and commercial beating the picture took I was feeling pretty low. Looking for some excitement in my life. A way to capture something that I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way. Something that'd make me feel like I did when Sam Phillips and Scotty Moore and Bill Black and me cut our first record at Sun back in '54; or like when the three of us did the Louisiana Hayride; or when the Colonel got me my first big record deal with RCA; or like watching nekked girls wrestle with each other and hopin' they'd kiss; or—hell—even the feeling I got as recently as the year before, when I made "The '68 Comeback Special." Christ Almighty, folks loved that show. Me? I thought it was just okay. Some of the musical numbers were pretty hokey, even by the standards of the time, but-—boy oh boy—did the ladies flip for that black leather outfit Bill Belew designed for me. Thing was hotter than the hinges of hell, but it got me more poontang than most men see in three lifetimes.
Priscilla and I had fallen on hard times—I think she was datin' her dance instructor, and I was dating just about anything that had two arms, two eyes, and a fish taco between its legs—so I had started up the old ritual I had with the boys of renting out the Memphian for a bunch of all-night movie marathons that summer.
On this particular night, it was late May/early June of '68,1 was in a funky kind of mood, so I had Hamburger James pick up prints of three fittingly offbeat movies: Planet of the Apes (man, I wanted to serve those damned dirty apes a helping of King-Fu), 2001: A Space Odyssey (fuckin' thing made no sense—I think the reels were mixed up or somethin' because a giant kid was born at the end of the picture!), and Madigan (pretty good crime flick; little gritty for my taste, though).
By the time the credits were rolling on the last movie, it was almost five in the morning. The sun would be up soon, and we were all durn near exhausted—which might explain why I ignored the First Rule of Being Rich.
First Rule of Being Rich?
Never Do Something Yourself that You Can Pay Somebody to Do for You.
Yet me, Elvis Motherfucking Presley, one of the richest sonsuvabitches in America?
I ignored the rule.
And that's when the rest of the night—hell, the rest of my life—really started goin' south. You thought Clambake was bad, what happened next made Clambake look like Gone With the Fucking Wind.
Hamburger James had split early—something about his wife goin' into labor or some shit like that—so that meant David Stanley, my second-in-command (and stepbrother), was supposed to return the film reels back to the guy we rented 'em from. But David was feeling under the weather, and I could tell he really didn't wanna make the trip. Looking back, I think I was just searching for something new to do—some new spin on old habits; some way to reconnect with something that was dead inside my soul—so I offered to drive the truck and return the canisters of film myself. You know, get away for a little while—even if it was only for an hour or so.
Everyone looked at me like I'd just sworn off pussy for a year, but I assured 'em it was something I wanted to do.
Alone.
You see ... I was getting tired of the crowds of people always around me. I know, I know: I only had myself to blame. I was the one who put all my friends on payroll and made 'em leave their wives and kids to be at my beck and
call 24/7, but still. A man needs some time to himself once in a while, and, like I said, there was something about that summer that had me in a bit of a funk. I was only thirty-four, but I felt old, baby. Like they say, it's the terrain not the mileage—and I had seen me some pretty rough terrain through the years.
So with no small amount of reluctance, the fellas packed the film canisters into the back of the truck, and I waved good-bye as I headed out into the darkness of early morning.
Lemme tell you something. It was thrilling.
There were no cars on the road, and it took me back to the days before I became the most famous man on the planet; took me back to almost fifteen years ago, when I was nineteen years old and driving a delivery truck for Crown Electric.
As the quiet highway spread out before me, the dark sky began to turn into the beautiful purples and pinks you only find in Memphis, and it was suddenly like . . . like time traveling or something. For a few minutes there I was that fresh-faced kid again, with a tender heart, big dreams . . . and no idea how quickly dreams turned into nightmares. Gone was the hardened man who could trust no one, including his friends and family. Life was normal—or at least what I imagined normal to be—and it felt like I was on my way home from a long night of making deliveries, my pretty little wife waiting for me in our modest house, our children fast asleep in their small but cozy bedrooms, the world unaware of my existence.
I smiled at the thought, looked out at the horizon as the sunlight began to swing its golden scythe across the fields in the distance, cutting down night into day.
Which is when I ran over him.
I saw the poor bastard standing in the middle of the road out of the corner of my eye and slammed on the brakes.
But not soon enough.
The scraggly-looking kid's body made a disgusting thud as the truck slammed into him, his face shattering the windshield, his body flipping end over end before finally landing on the pavement behind the truck like a sack'a moldy potatoes.
Since these are probably my last words before I leave this mortal coil, I guess honesty is the best policy: I have to admit, first thing I thought about was how royally this was going to screw things up. Last thing I needed was all the bad publicity running over some kid in the middle of the night was gonna bring me. I mean, shit, it's one thing to daydream about a life lived without riches, driving a truck for a living, renting a small house somewhere out in the middle of nowhere—but it's another to actually lose all of your riches, women, and earthly possessions.
No thank you. Me and my daddy and my momma were dirt poor back in Tupelo, and the thought of goin' back to anything resembling that type of life was terrifying.
It's good to be the King, and I wasn't in no hurry to give up my crown just yet.
I stared in the rearview mirror at the dead body splattered across the pavement, and all I could think of was how bad I wished I was lying in my bed at Graceland,
Grandma cooking up some eggs and bacon and sausage and taters and waffles and biscuits with gravy and grits and corned beef hash for breakfast.
I could feel my foot on the gas pedal, itching to hit the road. It'd be so easy to tap that sucker down real quick-like and drive away ... but I'm happy to report that the angels of my better nature prevailed. I was a good ol' boy at heart, and rather than hightail it out of there, I turned off the ignition, got out of the truck, and wandered over to the kid to see if there was anything I could d
o to help him. Lordy lordy lordy, was he was in bad shape. Just lookin at him gave me a case of the willies, and I knew it'd be a long time before I'd get the image of his splintered face out of my mind. It took everything I had to keep my nachos and hot dogs and popcorn and soda and M&Ms down—and it was just when I thought I was gonna hurl all over the dead sonuvabitch that he opened his eyes.
Let me repeat that:
The fucker was dead, but he opened his motherfucking eyes.
Which made him undead, see?
And before I knew what the hell was goin on, he sat up straighter 'n my pecker right before a threesome and grabbed me by the neck. I tried a little of the old Elvis-Fu (the karate technique I tried, if you want to know, was Heavenly Ascent), but the kid was just too durned strong: my elbow glanced off his chin without him letting out so much as a yelp.
He got to his feet real quick-like, raising me up off the ground as if I was lighter than a box a doughnuts, and I tried some more karate, but it was pointless.
I ain't gonna lie to you: I was scared, man.
Real scared.
But even bein' afraid, I wasn't gonna cry like a little baby about it. Hell no. This sonuvabitch wanted to tussle, we was gonna tussle. I kicked him in the nuts, but the dude must've been wearin' a cup or somethin' because it didn't faze him; he just kept holdin' me two or three feet off the ground with that monstrously strong arm.
I'd finally had enough, looked the bastard square in the eyes: "You better finish this thing, baby, cuz I'm Elvis Aaron Presley; you don't kill me now, I'm gonna make your life a livin' hell!"
The fella cocked his head as if I was speakin' gibberish.
Was it possible there was somebody in the world—in Memphis, no less—who hadn't heard of me?
I was stunned—until his eyes flickered in dim recognition, and he uttered with vocal cords gravelly as kitty litter:
"The Kiiiiing!"
I nodded. "That's right, son, the King," and the excited look in the kid's eyes suddenly filled with fear. But after a few moments, I realized it wasn't me he was afraid of:
I followed his gaze over my shoulder, discovered that the dude was staring at the risin' sun on the horizon. He was freakin' out. Frankly, I didn't give a shit if it was my words or the damned sunlight that had put the fear a God into him; all I cared about was gettin' away from this creepy fucker.
He started to go weak in the knees—but right before we fell to the ground he opened his mouth real wide. I winced at the sight of his mouth full of teeth: there were just too many of 'em, and they were all pointy and sharp, like ... like—
Oh shit.
This sonuvabitch was a vampire.
A real-life goddamned bloodsucker.
His wounds started to heal right before my eyes . . . like .. . like he was Jesus Christ or something ... and the wider his mouth opened, the more I realized he was about to turn me into an Elvis sandwich.
He moved forward, started to wrap his lips around my neck.
Last thing I remember before passing out was smackin' him real hard and tellin' him I wasn't into none of that gay shit.
II. The Mother of Invention
The Colonel was pissed.
How in the hell was I supposed to make any more movies if I couldn't be out in the sun? That was the whole formula: get me drivin' a race car or a motorcycle or a speedboat, pair it with a snazzy location (Hawaii, Acapulco, Florida, Arabia, what have you), and—voila!—two weeks later you had yourself a motion picture.
But that was PV, baby: Pre~Vehis. Some of the fellas in the Memphis Mafia took to teasin' me about gettin' myself turned into a damned vampire, thought it was a real hoot to call me "Velvis, the Vampire Elvis." That might seem like a funny reaction to you, but David and Jerry and Red and Lamar and the rest of the boys—they were used to crazy shit happenin' all the time. Vampirism was just one more once-in-a-lifetime thing to add to their big old list of once-in-a-lifetime things that happened while hangin' out with yours truly. Besides, what were they gonna do? Quit? Hell, I paid all their bills, bought 'em houses and Cadillacs and all kinds of shit. They learned how to deal with the Big E bein' a vampire—with smiles on their goddamned faces.
But dealing with the Colonel was a different matter. All that fat old man saw was the bottom line—and there was no way I could be on location makin' movies since the sun did somethin' nasty to my skin. Twenty seconds out in the sunlight, and my damned flesh started to melt right off.
But, truth be told, I was kind of relieved. I was tired of the movies anyway, and as long as we could keep the whole vampire thing out of the press (you have no idea how much shit we kept out of the press; this wouldn't be too difficult), I was glad to have me an out. Thirty-one pictures was a lot of celluloid, baby—only problem was the fact that about twenty-eight of 'em were crap.
But even though my body of work in the screen trade can best be described as "quantity over quality," good or bad, very few people have made more pictures than me.
It was time for a new chapter of my life to begin.
Velvis had turned the page.
So while the Colonel figured out how to keep the Elvis Train rollin', me and the boys started tryin' to make the whole "creature of the night" thing work for me. Tell you the truth, it wasn't much of a stretch. I'd essentially switched days and nights years ago, staying up all night and then sleeping all day, so I was used to being a night owl, and all the stores and restaurants and movie theaters all across the country would stay open all night for Elvis Presley and a few of his friends with one simple phone call.
Frankly, a vampire never had it so good.
But, sure, there were a few physical difficulties to get used to—like the time I didn't get to bed until after the sun was up (nevermind the fact that, as usual, I'd been inside all night): the light blasted through the windows in Graceland like a bucking bronco, and I had to take cover beneath a few passed-out groupies while the boys scrambled around to get all the windows closed and hang drapes over 'em and shit like that. The next night I had David and Red and Lamar hang a bunch of tinfoil on the windows to block out the sunlight the next morning—and we were happy as the devil at the crossroads to discover that it worked perfectly.
Within a few days the whole house was covered in the stuff, and I'll be damned if Graceland didn't turn out to be the fanciest vampire coffin you ever saw. Tinfoil came to be sort of a precautionary habit with me, so if I had to be driven anywhere during the day the boys would tinfoil all the car windows the night before. Same with all the airplanes and hotel rooms and any other space I might need to use during daylight hours.
I also had to stop wearing the crosses I was so fond of, because they burnt something fierce against my skin.
One time it got so bad, my chest started smokin', and Sonny had to blast me with a fire extinguisher. But, as my momma, Gladys, taught me to do so well, I eventually turned lemons into lemon meringue pie: I had Lowell Hays, my jeweler out in Beverly Hills, design me a bunch of TCB pendants to wear instead, and those went on to signify my personal style and sense of individuality better than some frumpy old crucifix. Hell, by that point in my life I wasn't even sure the ol' Gray Beard existed anyway, and the TCB thing seemed much more inclusive.
Another tough thing to get used to was the cravings. God Almighty, did I wanna suck me some blood. And I tried it once, but it made me puke all the waffles and sausage and pork rinds and Popsicles I'd had for breakfast right back up. I just couldn't never get used to bitin' into some poor chicks neck—and I sure as hell wasn't gonna bite into no dude's neck.
Yet, having all the money in the world enables you to get creative—which is where the drug rumors started. I decided that I'd just have my good friend Dr. Nick inject me with blood once every coupla days or so. It beat the hell out of suckin' blood, and it allowed me to prevent turnin' anybody else into a vampire, something that would be a pain in the ass for someone without my resources.
Only problem with the injections—aside from the drug r
umors—was that it made me get all bloated after a bad transfusion a few years back. You think I didn't know I'd gotten fat, baby? You think if it was just a matter of cuttin' back on the cheeseburgers I wouldn't a done it? C'mon, give the King some credit. The blood transfusions took a toll, but it was the only way I could avoid eatin' some poor bastard, so I kept on doin' it—whether it made me fat or not.
But now I'm just complainin'; feelin' sorry for myself. Truth is, for a while there, the whole vampire thing was great. I was lookin' lean and mean, losin' weight faster than a hooker loses her panties, and I experienced an increase in my physical abilities. I mean, let's face it: before I was turned into a vampire, I wasn't exactly the world's greatest karate master. Yeah, I tried hard, and practiced all the time (and paid Ed Parker and Kang Rhee a shitload of money to make me an eighth-degree black belt), but you look at those pictures where I was tryin' to show my stuff— pictures like Blue Hawaii or Speedway—and you can tell: I wasn't exactly a natural.
Now take a look at the concert footage of my acts in Vegas—after I'd been "turned:" I'm like a whole different cat out there, baby. I'm the Tiger Man. I'm nimble and fast and able to bend my legs one way and my torso another and my arms still another. My strength and dexterity were superhuman. Literally. And for a year or two, I was grateful to be a nosferatu.
The Colonel knew the only way to keep the gravy train rollin' was to find some way for me to perform to a crowd in a controlled environment, where I'd be out of the sunlight, and able to stay indoors all day if necessary.
Sound familiar?
You said it, bubba: Viva Las Vegas! indeed.
It was perfect, really. Like my hairdresser, Larry Geller, used to say: Necessity is the mother of invention.
We woulda never played Vegas for all those years if it wasn't necessary for me to stay out of the sun. I'd a probably made another thirty pictures, and never had that great second-to-last (that's "penultimate" for all you college boys out there who think I don't have me a good vocabulary) chapter of my life before the infamous fall from grace. So, I don't know, even though my time in Vegas eventually brought me a bad case of the bloodsucker blues, I'm still grateful for the bumps in the road that led me there. And even though it was the whole vampire thing that led to my early demise, I'm still sorta glad for the experience.