‘Come on,’ says Sam, plucking at Elvis’s sleeve.
‘Listen to your young friend here, Elvis,’ says Joe. ‘He talks a lot of sense.’
But Elvis is not listening. He can hear only the trombone, which is sliding out into the evening again.
He’s not listening, either, to the shouts from the pool hall, the slamming of the huge door to the Elks’ Club, or even to the singing inside the church as he cycles home along North Green Street with Sam on the crossbar. He sees lights from the houses, the swaying of porch swings, the flutter of women’s skirts as they step out with their young men, the black glint of the electricity wires scoring the sky. He sees it all, but he doesn’t hear a thing, because Ulysses Mayhorn’s trombone is still exploding gently in his mind.
After he’s dropped off Sam – and neither boy utters a word of goodbye – Elvis lets himself into the house. At the table, Vernon, Gladys and Dodger are waiting. The glare of the overhead light gives their faces a greenish tinge. Vernon is eating his corn and does not look up, but Gladys jumps to her feet and, before Elvis can duck, swipes him across the head with the back of her hand.
It’s not a hard blow, but it does reduce the volume of that trombone.
Dodger says, in a low voice, ‘Boy don’t deserve that.’
Gladys rubs at her hand.
‘Sit down, Glad,’ Vernon orders, licking his buttery fingers.
Gladys ignores him. ‘Where you been all this time?’ she demands.
A place has been set for Elvis, so he pulls up a chair and sits, calculating that this will buy him some time to think of a reply.
‘Answer your mother,’ says Vernon.
‘Sorry I’m late, Mama,’ Elvis mumbles, eyes on the table.
‘I was out later than this when I wasn’t much older—’ Vernon begins.
Gladys cuts him off. ‘Times was different then. And you wasn’t raised round here. Lord knows who’s out in them streets.’
‘Glad’s right,’ says Dodger. ‘Gotta be real careful out there.’
‘Where you been, son?’ asks Vernon.
‘You might wanna eat that chicken, fore it gets cold as a witch’s titty,’ whispers Dodger, patting Elvis’s knee.
‘Don’t you dare touch that plate till you told me where you been, Elvis Presley!’ His mother is standing over him, close enough for her spittle to land on his cheek. He can’t find that trombone, now.
So he faces her. ‘Listening to some music,’ he says, slowly.
‘Boy’s always loved music!’ says Dodger.
‘Where you been listening to some music?’
He hesitates, then recovers. ‘Church.’
‘You been all the way over East Tupelo?’
‘Naw. Church on North Green.’
There’s a pause.
‘The nigger church?’ asks Vernon, pushing his empty plate away.
‘Not inside! Just outside, listening.’
Dodger chuckles and shakes her head. ‘Well, butter my behind and call me a biscuit,’ she says.
‘What for?’ asks Vernon.
‘I told you. I was listening. To the music.’
‘You sure that’s all you was doing?’ asks Gladys. By the softer tone of her voice, he can tell that she is ready to believe him.
‘I told you, Mama. I couldn’t lie to you, you know that.’
‘You weren’t round one of them juke joints, were you?’
‘Course not!’
‘Bad things happen in them places.’ Gladys sits down, apparently relieved. ‘A juke joint’s no place for a young boy like you.’ She touches his hair.
‘What was you doing listening to a bunch of niggers?’ Vernon asks.
‘They sing pretty, Vernon. You got to admit that,’ says Gladys.
‘Pretty crazy,’ says Vernon. He widens his eyes and waggles his hands.
‘At least it’s holy music,’ says Gladys. ‘Who was with you, Elvie?’
‘Couple of boys from school. It’s kinda a thing with some of the Milam fellas.’
‘Their mamas know they was at the coloured church?’
‘Sure.’
Gladys sighs. Then she takes up a spoon and ladles mashed potato onto her son’s plate.
‘Well, I hope you was careful on the way back, and didn’t talk to nobody.’
‘I was, Mama.’
‘Maybe I could come meet you, next time.’
‘Ain’t no need. I got the bicycle now.’
‘Boy’s all right, Glad,’ says Vernon, rising and stretching. ‘He don’t need you to watch over his every move.’
Gladys serves Elvis a helping of greens. ‘Just tell me next time, you hear?’
He nods and starts in on his food, wondering how long he can keep this wonderful thing a secret from his mama.
* * *
Elvis goes to Mayhorn’s store whenever he can, with or without Sam. He takes his guitar with him, and somehow it seems protection enough. As the summer goes by, Sam comes less often, and by the end of August, Elvis is going to the store alone.
One evening, the music is so good that he stays long after the sun goes down. It’s not that he thinks it’s better than the music in church. It’s more that he’s discovered it’s possible to like both kinds equally; that both kinds rub along in a funny sort of way. He knows other folks find Mr Mayhorn’s playing ungodly, but he can’t see that. It seems to him that this music gives him everything he needs, everything he didn’t even know he wanted. God must be in it somewhere! So why should he move? How can it be important to be home, even if Mama is waiting? He stays so long that more men arrive, some with women on their arms. The women stand off to the side and chatter when the music stops, their dark, painted lips moving quick.
‘Fine-lookin’ ladies over there, ain’t they?’ says Joe.
Elvis ducks his head.
‘Don’t let their menfolk catch you gaping.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You got a little girl?’
‘Yeah,’ says Elvis, sitting up straight. ‘Name of Magdalene.’
‘Magdalene? As in Mary Magdalene?’
‘I guess.’
He’s familiar with the story of the fallen woman. How she used her long hair to cover her nakedness in the desert. How she washed Jesus’s feet and wept at the crucifixion.
Joe laughs. ‘Boy, you don’t need to look for trouble, do you? It finds you!’
‘She’s a good little girl, sir. Real fine.’
Joe shakes his head. ‘Sure she is.’
Elvis scowls, feeling he ought to make some kind of stand for Magdalene’s honour.
‘Anyways,’ says Joe. ‘Mr Mayhorn wants to meet you.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘I done told him, ’bout this funny white boy who keeps hanging round, and he says he wants to get a look at you.’
Elvis has imagined many times what Ulysses Mayhorn might look like. Sometimes he’s pictured him as a huge figure with a handsome head as large as the room and hands that can reach you, wherever you are. Other times, he’s figured him to be nothing more than an old coloured shopkeeper with a limp.
‘When?’ Elvis asks, unable to keep the urgency from his voice.
Joe touches him on the shoulder. ‘Soon.’
On his next visit to the store, Elvis imagines Magdalene sitting next to him, listening. Instead of perching on the splintered wood of the Mayhorn steps, he’s in a fancy auditorium, and he can feel the warm skin of her forearm against his own. She’s wearing her best lace collar and cuffs, and her skirt rests easy on her pure white knees. Lately, they’ve been sneaking to the woods behind Priceville cemetery to lie side by side. He takes her there to see Jesse’s grave, and she doesn’t complain when he suggests they rest beneath the pines on the way back. It reminds him of the tornado game he used to play with Corinne beneath his cousin’s house, but so far he hasn’t asked Magdalene if she will lie on top of him. Her moods are unpredictable, and if he hasn’t praised her performance in church highly
enough she’s capable of ignoring him for an entire week. If he could bring her here to the store, maybe she would understand his longing to feel her whole body pressed down on his, her soft hair falling about his ears, covering his head like water.
But there is no way he could bring an eleven-year-old white girl to this place. He hasn’t even told her that he comes here.
Joe taps him on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Now’s the time.’
Elvis scrambles to his feet, happy, for once, to leave his daydream.
Inside the store, the air is thick with cigarette smoke, sweat, and the tang of moonshine. This is what it must feel like, he thinks, to walk into a juke joint. He is glad to be wearing his good pair of tan pants and the white cotton jacket given to him by his new friend James. James also attends Milam but isn’t as highfalutin as some of the other kids. After the school play, he’d told Elvis he’d done a good job. And, more importantly, James’s brother is Mississippi Slim of WELO. Every Saturday, Elvis still goes along to the courthouse for the Jamboree, and hopes to be noticed by Slim, but now James goes with him. Elvis believes the jacket was once Slim’s own – James swears that it was.
The other men watch Elvis as he follows Joe deeper inside, beneath the large scales hanging from the ceiling, past the sacks of meal and maize, the barrel of mash for hogs, the shelves groaning with canned greens, beans and pork. Beneath the long counter at the back of the store are boxes of matches, candles, Hay-Po hair oil, leather rollers, combs, razors. But the place is transformed in this light. Two oil lamps cast long shadows and make even the empty crates, which have been shoved to the side to make way for the musicians, glow warmly. The guitarist sits on an upturned box, his instrument resting on his lap like a sleeping child. He’s twisted to the side, deep in conversation with another man, but Elvis notices the crisp creases along the sleeves of his lime-coloured shirt. His guitar is dark red, and much bigger than Elvis’s. It shines even more deeply than Mississippi Slim’s guitar. Elvis is so distracted by the instrument that he jumps when Joe grabs his arm and spins him round. Before he’s had time to take a breath, he’s looking into a pair of big yellowy eyes.
‘Elvis. This here’s Mr Ulysees Mayhorn.’
He is not much taller than Elvis. The top of his head is bald, and the hair around his temples is grey and stands out like wings. Sweat is lodged in the wide wrinkles of his forehead. His black silky shirt is embroidered on the shoulders with unicorns. He is squat and solid, and when he opens his mouth the men around him stop talking.
Mr Mayhorn sticks out a meaty hand. Taking it, Elvis feels the bones in his fingers grind together, and gets a strong whiff of alcohol. He cannot tell if this is liquor, or cologne.
‘You interested in the blues, Elvis?’
‘Yessir!’
‘You friends with Lorene Bell’s boy, I hear.’
‘Yessir.’
‘Where is he?’
Elvis looks round the room, then at Joe, who shrugs.
‘Truth is, sir, I don’t reckon Sam loves the music the way I do.’
Mr Mayhorn fingers a button on his silky chest.
‘You live in this neighbourhood, Elvis?’
‘Yessir. Up on North Green.’
Mr Mayhorn places a hot hand on Elvis’s shoulder. ‘OK, boy. You good.’ Then he turns back to his musicians.
Joe moves forward, ready to take Elvis back to the steps, but Elvis stays where he is. ‘Mr Mayhorn, sir?’ he asks, quickly. ‘Will you show me your trombone?’
Without looking at him, Mr Mayhorn replies, ‘That depends, Elvis. Will you show me yours?’
The store explodes with laughter. Elvis’s skin burns. For a second he stares at the wooden floor. But then he gathers himself and says, ‘I would, if I had one.’
He’d hoped that would bring more laughter – and it does, a little.
Mr Mayhorn looks over his shoulder and flicks his eyes over Elvis’s white jacket. ‘Kinda busy now, son. Come by the store some time when I ain’t practising.’
At lunchtime the following day, Elvis walks out of school. He grabs his guitar from the space between the stationery cupboard and the blackboard, and heads for the bathroom, but instead of going in he ducks around the side and pushes open the door to the schoolyard. Behind him are the sounds and smells of the canteen: steel on steel, boiling meat, hundreds of young voices raised in excited conversation. Without looking back, Elvis straps on the guitar and hurries to the gate which leads to the eastern sidewalk.
He crosses onto Allen Street, sprinting away from the bright red school buildings. He doesn’t think about his growling stomach. If he can get to Mr Mayhorn on his lunch hour, he has a chance of being introduced to the trombone.
It feels wrong to be out on the heat-blasted sidewalk when everyone else is inside, or resting in the shade of a porch. Hitting North Green, he slows to a jog. The sun burns the back of his neck, and he wishes he’d worn the white jacket so he could turn up the collar. Most places – the pool hall, the juke joint, Mr Harris’s store – are closed, with the blinds pulled down. He gets the feeling that nobody in the world is outside at this moment. He is free to do exactly as he wishes, without fear of another soul witnessing his actions.
He hopes Mr Mayhorn will ask if he can play, so he can show him the chords he’s mastered, and maybe sing some, too. The guitar doesn’t yield to him as he would like: it’s hard to learn, and has none of the instant joy of singing. His fingers become thick and creaky on the strings. But wearing it has become a uniform, a shield. If nothing else, he can use it to beat time.
When he reaches the store, he’s pleased to find the blinds closed and the door shut. A sign says, Back at 2pm! RC Cola and fruit crates are stacked high in the front yard. He can smell chicken’s feet – he knows the aroma from Sam’s house – and it sets his mouth to watering.
He picks his way round to the back, then climbs the steps to the door, guessing this leads to the Mayhorn living quarters, and Jesse is suddenly there.
You can’t knock on a nigger’s door.
Why not?
’Cause you ain’t got the balls. You should turn round and run right back to Miss Camp. You love her.
I don’t. I love Magdalene.
Sure. She ain’t never gonna give you an inch, boy.
I just gotta find a way to get to her—
You gonna knock on that door?
Elvis stares at the rusty curlicues of the screen, and wishes he’d been able to bring Sam with him.
Got any money on you? ’Cause you know the nigger’s gonna need paying.
I got my lunch money—
Knock it, then.
He knocks, and immediately there is barking from what sounds like at least a dozen dogs.
A girl no more than a few years older than Elvis opens the door and squints through the screen. Her apron is covered in roses and her bangs are in rollers. Over the rest of her hair is a net, like the one Dodger wears in bed. She pulls the collar of her dress tight.
The dogs – Elvis can see three – gather around her legs and sniff at the screen. They are large and beautiful, with silky hair and long ears.
He realises she is waiting for him to speak.
‘Howdy, miss,’ he begins. ‘I’m here to see Mr Mayhorn.’
She peers at him quizzically, then calls back over her shoulder, ‘Daddy! Somebody here for a visit.’
‘Hope I haven’t called at a bad time,’ Elvis says.
‘Who’s there, Dinah?’ Mr Mayhorn’s voice.
‘Tell him it’s Elvis Presley,’ says Elvis.
‘Say what?’
‘Elvis. Elvis Presley.’
‘It’s Ellis Presley, Daddy.’
There’s a short pause, then Mr Mayhorn calls, ‘Bring him in here.’
‘He says come in,’ says Dinah, wrenching the screen back.
The dogs jump at Elvis’s legs, barking.
‘Don’t pay them no mind,’ she says, walking through the living room. ‘They’s hungry but they
can’t eat till Daddy finished.’
He stumbles after her, his legs hindered by swishing dog tails. Crates from the store are piled up in here, too, and there’s a threadbare easy chair with another dog, smaller than the rest, curled on its seat. Dinah opens a door and points him into the kitchen.
The walls are painted a dark, flaking green. At a wooden table sits Mr Mayhorn, wearing his undershirt.
‘You’ll have to wait for me to get through eating,’ he says. His hair is flatter than it was the other evening, and he has on a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles which look tiny on his heavy face.
The dogs immediately lie at Mr Mayhorn’s feet, looking up at him expectantly. He ignores them, and continues to scoop rice from his plastic plate and into his mouth with swift precision. Not a grain is spilled from his fork.
‘Sit down, boy.’
Elvis does as he’s told, taking the chair opposite Mr Mayhorn. He props his guitar against the wall, but Mr Mayhorn doesn’t seem to notice it.
‘You hungry?’
‘No, sir,’ says Elvis, but his eyes won’t move from Mr Mayhorn’s food.
‘Dinah, fix Elvis a plate.’
Dinah, who has been standing in the doorway, watching, turns to the stove and fishes a couple of fried claws from the skillet, then heaps the plate with rice.
Mr Mayhorn has a claw in his hand, so Elvis copies him, closing his eyes and biting into the skin, his teeth grazing the bone. It’s chewier and denser than his mama’s fried chicken, but it has a deep savoury flavour that he likes.
‘That was mighty good,’ says Mr Mayhorn, finishing up. ‘Thank you, girl.’ He gestures to Dinah to come over, and whispers something in her ear. She giggles, glances at Elvis, who smiles his best smile at her. Then she slips from the room. Elvis wonders if she is old enough to be married, and whether he can ask Mr Mayhorn such a thing. Perhaps he can say something about her making somebody a fine wife one day.
He thinks better of it.
Mr Mayhorn wipes his big fingers on a napkin, taking care to clean each one thoroughly. ‘Now. What was so urgent you got to interrupt my food?’
Elvis swallows. ‘You said to come by when you ain’t working, sir.’
Graceland Page 12