Graceland

by Bethan Roberts

  Her fists itch to upend the table and send the beer, Elvis’s glass of milk, even her beloved hen and rooster salt and pepper shakers – a wedding present from the church – flying into her husband’s lap. She’s aware that Vernon’s story is a fiction, and is pretty sure of the real reason they have to leave. He’s been driving somewhere every night for the past month, and, most mornings, he smells of the still. After all, when they were first married, Vernon was warned by the police for making moonshine.

  ‘I know what it is,’ says Vernon. ‘You don’t wanna leave that little girl of yours.’

  This is enough to bring a stricken look to Elvis’s face, though Gladys doesn’t think this is necessarily on Magdalene’s account. When Elvis is with Magdalene in church, Gladys can see her son watching the girl not for herself, but for her voice. When he sings alone, she knows he’s nervous as all get out, but he puts his whole self into the song. When he sings with Magdalene, any fool can see his frustration in the way he holds his shoulders high as Magdalene misses a note. He wouldn’t do that, she thinks, if he were truly smitten with this girl. He might see the mistake, but he’d let it go. He’d forgive her trespasses, just as she has Vernon’s. Most of them, anyhow.

  ‘She’s gonna be mighty impressed you’re leaving for Memphis,’ says Vernon, drawing his son into his arms. ‘Bet she ain’t never been there!’

  In fact, Magdalene has been, on the same church trip as Elvis and Gladys. Uncle Noah drove them to the city once in his school bus, to visit the Zoological Gardens. When Gladys thinks of Memphis, she thinks of polar bears and tigers and Odell being sick in a bucket, of the big park where the animals were and how that green space was contained by well-kept paths and signs telling you where and where not to go. Perhaps the whole city is as ordered and neat as this, despite what folks say about the low-down, unholy goings-on there.

  Vernon holds Elvis at arm’s length and says, ‘You gonna be a big city boy.’

  Gladys cannot sleep that night. As she often does when her own mind keeps her awake, she goes to Elvis’s pallet and gazes on her boy. Sometimes the sight of his slumbering body, so warm and at ease, will enable her to relax into sleep.

  When she kneels by the side of his bed and peers into his face, his eyes flick open.

  Instead of speaking, she simply peels back the sheet and heaves herself in beside him. He nuzzles into her side, and she kisses his damp forehead.

  ‘We can come back,’ she whispers, ‘to visit.’

  ‘We can come together,’ he says.

  ‘We’ll do that.’

  ‘I’ll drive you.’

  ‘OK, baby.’

  ‘We’ll be together.’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘I ain’t letting go of you, Mama.’

  ‘I know it, son.’

  ‘There, there.’

  ‘There, there.’

  Mr Mayhorn is counting up the takings when Elvis crashes through the door. He looks up for a second, nods, then goes back to his money.

  Elvis stands, panting.

  ‘Show don’t start for another two hours,’ says Mr Mayhorn, cupping his hand at the edge of the counter and scooping coins into it.

  ‘I’m leaving!’ Elvis blurts. ‘I came to tell you I won’t be coming no more. Not ever again.’

  Mr Mayhorn drops the coins into a cotton bag and draws the string tight. He rests it on the counter and takes off his eyeglasses to focus on Elvis.

  ‘Sounds serious,’ he says.

  ‘We’re going to Memphis. Tonight. Daddy decided just yesterday. Mama’s real upset. We gotta leave Grandma behind, too – for now, anyway … And I won’t see you or Sam! Or my girl, Magdalene! She’s gonna be broken-hearted. I can’t believe it, Mr Mayhorn, I just can’t.’

  Mr Mayhorn lets him run on, then he slaps a hand down, hard. Elvis watches the counter tremble, and almost expects it to let out a note of grief in response.

  ‘Boy,’ Mr Mayhorn says, quietly, ‘you lucky. You getting out of here. You escaping! You getting free!’

  Elvis looks at him, bewildered.

  Mr Mayhorn raises his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Don’t tell me you ain’t dreamed of going someplace else.’

  Of course he has. So many of the songs he loves speak of hitting the road, cutting loose, going over the rainbow, way out west.

  ‘You want to stay here and do what your daddy does? That it?’

  But there’s also no place like home. His mama likes to sing that one, sometimes, and she sounds like she means it.

  ‘I just don’t wanna leave.’

  ‘Bullshit. You wanna leave so bad I can smell it coming off you. Man can’t hide a thing like that.’

  ‘But, Mr Mayhorn, I came to say goodbye, and that I’ll miss this place, and you …’

  Mr Mayhorn removes his eyeglasses and wipes a hand over his face. ‘Go on, now,’ he says. When Elvis doesn’t move, Mr Mayhorn crosses the room, places a hand on his shoulder and shoves him gently towards the door. ‘Get going. And don’t come back.’

  At home, Elvis sits on the back step and weeps. Tracing a line in the soil with his shoe, he thinks about his loss, and it seems limitless.

  Then he remembers somebody who will be sad to see him go.

  He is just about to cycle all the way to Magdalene’s when he has an idea. She won’t ever forget him if he can make it clear how much he loves her.

  Vernon is busy packing up the Plymouth – a recent purchase – and Gladys is washing the dishes when Elvis slips into the bedroom. Clothes and papers are spread across the mattress, and a suitcase lies open on the floor. Peering beneath the bed frame, Elvis is relieved to discover that his mama’s shoebox is still there. He reaches in and slides it across the boards. Gladys has shown him the contents of this box many times. Hastily, he opens it and removes the ivory comb that belonged to Doll, the grandmother he never knew, the paste brooch in the shape of a robin with a cut-glass eye and a broken wing, the piece of lace from a great-aunt’s wedding dress, the report cards from every year he’s been at school, and finally finds what he’s looking for: his parents’ marriage licence. He shoves the other items back in the box and slides it beneath the bed. Then he pockets the licence, together with a pencil, and makes for the door.

  Once he’s cycled down the hill, across town and onto the shoulder of the highway, he stops and leans the document on a lamp post. On the back, he does the best he can to copy the official seal of Pontotoc County, and writes, in script he wishes was neater and more suitably cursive, MARRIAGE LICENSE AND CERTIFICATE of Magdline Morgan (he has never known her middle name) and Elvis Aron Presley. He also writes the date: September 11th, 1948.

  The sun is getting lower as he crosses the levee, and the insects start to sing in the long grass. He pedals faster. Vernon has told him they will leave after dark because driving at night is the best way to travel. As he cycles, Elvis prepares what he will say to Magdalene. I got to leave for the city, but I want you to know that I’ll always love you, and here’s the proof. He’ll hand her the licence and she’ll gaze on it, a little puzzled. Then he’ll say, Maybe we’ll be married some day, when the time is right.

  He cycles uphill towards East Tupelo, standing on the pedals to gain more momentum. Her eyes will fill with tears but he’ll hold her hand and say, Can you wait for me, Magdalene? Can you be pure and true? She’ll nod, silently, and he’ll kiss the top of her head, and then they’ll cry together. Or perhaps he won’t cry. She might not appreciate that.

  He finds her house in darkness. The porch is empty, and there’s no truck outside, so he creeps around the back to try to get a look in the windows, but with all the lights out he can’t see much. He sits on her porch steps, thinking he’ll wait it out. It’ll be more romantic this way; she can find him sitting alone in the evening gloom. He curses himself for not having brought his guitar – he could’ve strummed a sad tune to welcome her home.

  The train’s whistle tears through the evening and the sky turns deep orange. Lights start
to come on in the neighbouring houses. He hopes somebody will come out and spot him waiting patiently, so they can tell Magdalene what she missed, later.

  But nobody comes. From the look of the sky Elvis guesses it must be past nine by now, and his mama will be frantic. He stands and takes a last look at Magdalene’s house. Perhaps he should post the licence through her door. He could write her a note about his leaving on the bottom. Then he imagines his mama’s reaction to her marriage licence going missing, and he slips the paper back into his pocket, picks up his bike, and makes his way down the dirt road. The girl will never know what he did, but it feels good to have done it.

  Graceland, January 1958

  Pink, white and blue.

  In the warm gloom of the kitchen, Gladys has laid three pretty pills on the counter before her. One is pink and no larger than a pinhead, one is a blue capsule that puts her in mind of ammunition, and the other is a thin white disc. The colours would look good on a spring coat of the kind Elvis’s girls often wear: lightweight, high-collared, cropped at the waist and of little use against a March wind. Placing each pill on her tongue, she allows herself a moment to taste the dead chalk of the drugs, then takes a swig of beer, closes her eyes, swallows, and manages not to gag. Doctor’s orders. She knows the pink pill is for her weight, but exactly which problems the others are supposed to tackle is a little fuzzier in her mind. She hopes they will at least deaden the throb in her ankles.

  It is midnight, and the mansion is quiet. Her husband turned in an hour ago; even Minnie Mae’s television is silent. And this morning her son left for Hollywood. The army has granted him a deferment until 24 March, leaving him free to work on the New Orleans movie. He says this picture will be better than the others. He has high hopes. The script, every line of which he memorised before leaving, is based on a popular novel, and the songwriters he likes are working on the music.

  Perched on her stool, Gladys feels cocooned by the pastel appliances and thick drapes. She undoes the top button of her pink housecoat. The kitchen – low-ceilinged and without a sufficient through draught – has always been the warmest spot in the house, and the only one that’s ever felt homely. For the first time since Elvis left, Gladys’s body feels, if not at ease, at least fairly comfortable. She has taken her medication, she has poured her beer, and she has sent Daisy home, because she wants to drink in peace while she waits for her boy to call.

  Taking another gulp, she thinks, as she often does at this hour, of that night a couple of summers ago when Elvis’s pink Cadillac burned up on the highway. She’d been dreaming that Elvis was in a fire before she woke to the phone ringing and his excited voice telling her there’d been an accident but he was just fine; she should’ve heard the horn as his car went up in smoke, though! It had sounded, he’d said, like a dying cow. Then, as now, she could clearly picture the flames, feel their heat and glare, the way they must have made Elvis shield his eyes as he stood on the ridge, watching his beautiful car burn. Gladys presses her fingers to her lips, worried that horn sound may be the kind of noise she is making now. Sometimes she hardly knows what’s coming from her mouth.

  Partly to hide her own sounds, and partly from habit, she reaches for the portable record player. Her son keeps several portables in the house, so he can hear what his songs sound like to his fans when they play them in their bedrooms. Gladys runs a hand across the papered ridges of its surface before clicking the clasps open and propping up the lid. Then she twists the knob and lowers the needle.

  She’ll play it just once.

  Her son’s voice begins, at once familiar and strange. It’s ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. She has always loved the upbeat rhythm, the way the song is so happy to plead for love, so exuberant in the face of loss. It’s been her favourite ever since Elvis recorded it, but these days it never fails to bring a lump to her throat.

  To Gladys it feels as though her son has already become a soldier. While he was an entertainer, or even a movie star, it seemed he might still become what she wanted him to be: settled, married, a father. She didn’t have much influence, but at least she had some. What influence can she have over a soldier? A soldier is no longer a boy, but a man. A man with a gun, or driving a tank; a man capable of killing; a man who has seen things no woman has witnessed. He will become one of them, now.

  She turns down the volume. Her husband is a light sleeper, and will be mad if he knows she has stayed up again, crying. Vernon hates what he calls her goddamn dismals. She hasn’t once reminded him of his own intense melancholy all those years ago when he returned from the state penitentiary, although she has come very close.

  The sudden pulse of the phone’s ring goes through her. She switches the record player off, then picks up the receiver.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘Baby! You at the Wilshire?’

  ‘Safe and sound. We got the suite.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful hotel.’

  ‘It’s nice. But it ain’t home.’

  ‘How was the journey?’

  ‘Long. Is Anita there, Mama?’

  Gladys hesitates. He’d wanted Anita to sleep in his room while he was gone. But this morning, after his family and friends had said goodbye to Elvis at the train station, Anita had headed back to her apartment before Gladys could speak with her.

  ‘Mama? Can you put Anita on?’

  ‘She ain’t here, son.’

  There’s a pause. Over the line, she hears a woman’s voice, and a door slamming.

  ‘I told that girl I wanted her home when I called.’

  Gladys reaches for her beer. Holding her hand over the receiver, she takes a drink.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Can you call her, get her over?’

  ‘It’s late here, Elvis. You might could try her apartment.’

  ‘Call her in the morning, then. Tell her I want her to stay with you while I’m gone.’

  ‘I think she had some work to do—’

  ‘She says that, but what she gotta do? I don’t want you being alone.’

  ‘Daddy’s here.’

  There’s a noise like static, and he disappears for a minute. Gladys can just make out other men’s voices, calling his name.

  ‘Baby? You there?’ she says.

  She hears him say, ‘Wait a minute,’ and laugh. ‘I gotta go, Mama.’

  ‘I miss you, Elvie.’

  ‘I miss you too. I’ll call tomorrow, OK? And get Anita to come.’

  He hangs up.

  Gladys spends a moment listening to the dead line. He’s told her nothing. She’s waited up, and all she has received are her son’s instructions to call his girl. Her heart knocks at her chest, and despite the usual ache in her legs she has an urgent need to move, fast. To go someplace. Anyplace. The doctor always said the diet pills would give her extra energy. Maybe she should use it.

  She replaces the receiver, then goes to her bedroom. She slips on her big fur coat and low-heeled pumps, cursing as she discovers the shoes are a little tight on her swollen feet. There’s no time to change, though; she must act now if she’s going to do this. If she waits, the pain will set a fire in her ankles and she will change her mind.

  Holding her breath, she tiptoes to the front door. She pulls back two locks and she’s out, standing beneath the glass lantern. Humming Jimmie Rodgers’s ‘Blue Yodel’, she hurries down the steps, into the night.

  2: MEMPHIS

  THE COURTS: 1949–1953

  1949

  At three-thirty in the afternoon, Gladys sits down for the first time that day. Miss Richardson from the Housing Authority is coming at four to interview her about Vernon’s application for public housing, and she has been working hard to set their room on Poplar Avenue straight. She gazes at the still-stained door, which she spent the best part of an hour rubbing with sugar soap this morning, and sighs. She’s washed and ironed the drapes, as well as the old quilt that covers the easy chair, and retrieved her best tablecloth from the trunk. Their pallet
bed is leaning against the wall and the bedding is folded neatly. She’s polished the window with vinegar and newspaper and has propped it open to air the place. The whole rooming house smells of damp and cigarette butts and blocked drains.

  None of them has slept well since moving to Memphis. There are sixteen families in this building, crammed into as many rooms, and the slamming of doors is a constant interruption. After eleven p.m., the cries from the street seem to grow louder and more frantic, and, even now, Gladys can hear the sound of radios from the rooms above and the crying of babies from those below.

  She’d heard the stories, of course. Back in Tupelo, Mr Martin, the butcher, regularly told Gladys that Memphis was a wicked city. He was fond of saying that Beale Street made Harlem look like a kindergarten. Gladys had little knowledge of Harlem, but she understood what Mr Martin meant: Memphis was the kind of place where Goose Hollow whores and their customers would be welcome.

  Nothing had prepared her, though, for their new neighbourhood of Little Mississippi. There is a smell here that still makes her draw breath. Even in January, she’s aware of the aroma of greasy hotplates, automobile fumes and liquor. As they’d driven through the outskirts of town for the first time on that warm September night, she’d taken in the lights of the juke joints, gas stations, cafeterias and car dealerships, and not one of them seemed in any way connected to the other. It was as though these places had sprung up, at random, and nobody cared enough to move or tidy them into some understandable pattern. It was nothing like the Zoological Gardens, after all. To Gladys, Memphis did not look like a city; it looked like a mess. In downtown Tupelo, there was order to the streets and leafy squares, but she couldn’t discern any here. As they approached the centre of town, the streets became narrower and the buildings taller and more frequent, but there was the same feeling of things being thrown down, of the city being made up as it went along.