Which was why, an hour or two later, I found myself in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, making my way down an empty, carpeted corridor with flowers in hand. Flowers and a special gift. I was in the pediatrics oncology wing, where they treated children with cancer.
I approached the nurse’s desk, manned by two nurses. One of them looked up at me and smiled.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Beth Ann Morgan.”
She smiled warmly. “Ah, our little Elvis. She’s been getting a lot of attention with that article. Lots of flowers and cards.” She pointed to a nearby room. The door was open and from within I could see an abundance of flowers and bobbing helium balloons. “But no one has come to see her personally.”
I nodded, unsure of what to say, and so I spoke from my heart. “I was touched by her story.”
The nurse studied me, nodding. “We all are. She’s very special to us.” She studied me some more. “Obviously you are not family.”
Left unsaid was that I was obviously not family since Beth Ann Morgan had no family. I shook my head. “No, ma’am, but I would really like to see her.”
She continued looking at me. “She’s very sick. She’s taken a turn for the worse.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I would still like to see her.”
Now we had gotten the attention of the other nurse, and both of them were looking at me. The second nurse said, “Well, see if she wants any visitors. It couldn’t hurt.”
The first nurse nodded and stood. “Okay, but one of us will be with you at all times.”
“I understand.”
“Who should I say you are?”
“Just tell her I’m a fellow Elvis fan.”
She grinned. “Aren’t we all.”
She disappeared into the nearby room, and a moment later she came back. “Okay, Beth Ann will see you.”
Chapter Six
The figure on the bed was tiny, wasting away.
Beth Ann was still wearing her Elvis wig and sideburns, although the left sideburn currently sat askew on her face. She was wearing a rhinestone jacket. It was something cheap, probably from a Halloween shop. Her plastic Elvis aviator glasses were sitting on the swing-out table next to her. As I stepped into the room, I found her sitting up in bed, although I sensed she had recently been asleep. Still, she smiled brightly at me, and there was no indication in her smile—or in her sweet face—that she was very near death.
The nurse sat in a chair behind me and allowed me to approach the little girl, and I did so, stopping at the foot of her bed. Her feet projected up through the thin fabric of the hospital comforter about halfway down the bed. She was a tiny little girl; no doubt getting tinier each day, wasting away.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Beth Ann.”
“That’s a pretty name. My name’s Aaron.”
Her eyes widened briefly. Lord, she looked ridiculous in her Elvis wig and sideburns. Ridiculous and damned cute. I wanted to hug her. I also realized that she was, no doubt, bald beneath her wig.
“Elvis’s middle name was Aaron,” she said.
“Oh, really?” I said. “You know a lot about Elvis, huh?”
“I know everything about Elvis! I love him!”
“Do you know when he was born?” I asked.
“January eighth, nineteen thirty-five.”
“And when he died?”
“August sixteenth, nineteen seventy-seven.”
“Wow, you do know a lot about Elvis.”
“I told you.”
“Yup, you sure did. I believe you now.”
“I’m an expert.”
“I can see that,” I said. “So why do you like Elvis so much?”
Her face lit up. “He’s so cute.”
“Cute?” I said. “You’re too young to think he’s cute.”
“No. He’s cute no matter how old you are.”
It was hard for me to argue with that logic. “What else do you like about Elvis?”
“He was the best singer ever. But I don’t just like him. I love him.”
“Excuse me. I stand corrected.”
“But I also love him because he is my friend.”
“Your friend?” I said.
“I mean, I know he’s not my real friend, but sometimes when I look at his pictures or watch his movies, or listen to his music, I think he is talking to me, or singing to me, or looking at me, and he makes me so happy because I don’t feel so alone.”
I almost lost it right there. Tears sprung to eyes, but somehow I kept it together. I said, “I’m sorry you feel so alone, sweetheart.”
“It’s okay. I’m used to it.”
I looked over at the nurse sitting behind us. The woman, obviously exhausted, had her eyes closed and seemed to be dozing, but I doubted it. She was sneaking in a break, true, but I suspected she was also listening to every word, as well.
“So what’s your last name, Aaron?” the little girl asked, sitting up some more.
“King,” I said.
“Serious?”
“Serious,” I said.
“But Elvis was known as the King.”
“Perhaps it’s just a lucky coincidence,” I said.
She studied me, pursing her lips slightly. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Seventy-four.”
She started counting rapidly on her fingers, and when she was finished, she looked completely confused. “Elvis would have been seventy-four, too.”
“Wow, now that is a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“What does coincidence mean? You keep saying it.”
“It means that life can be very interesting sometimes.”
She shrugged, but seemed to like my answer, and smiled brightly. Her smile broke my heart because, really, she had nothing to smile about. Nothing but Elvis.
“I brought you some flowers,” I said.
“I like flowers!”
I noted that she only liked flowers, but she loved Elvis. I held out the flat box. “I also got you this.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll have to open it and see.” The moment the words came out of my mouth I realized my mistake. She didn’t have the strength to open the box, much less hold onto it. “But maybe I can open it for you,” I added.
“Sure!”
And so I did, setting the box down on the foot of her hospital bed and untying the red ribbon. As I pulled the lid off the box, Beth Ann sat forward in bed, trying to peer into the box. I next lifted out one of my original rhinestone jackets I had worn back in the early seventies. Beth Ann’s jaw dropped, and it kept on dropping.
“It’s Elvis’s jacket,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Is it real?”
“Very real.”
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!”
“Would you like to try it on?”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, it’s yours now. You can do whatever you want with it.”
“I want to wear it!”
“I’m sorry, she can’t,” said the nurse behind us. “She’s hooked up to an IV.”
But with a little pleading on my part, and a lot of begging on Beth Anne’s part, the nurse gave in, and a few minutes later, after some careful maneuvering, the jacket was on the little girl and the IV was back in place. Except the jacket looked more like a glittering robe on her, but I don’t think she cared much. She snuggled deeply in it, and ran her little hands over it for quite a while, all while making tiny, imperceptible little noises.
“That was awfully nice of you,” said the nurse.
“It’s the least I could do.”
She patted me on the shoulder and slipped around me and sat back in her chair. She closed her eyes and said, “Trust me, you could have done far less.”
I smiled, but she didn’t see me smile. I looked back to Beth An
n, who was still caressing the sleeves.
“Elvis really wore this?” she asked, her little noises finally forming into words.
“Yes,” I said.
“You swear?”
“I swear. It was, in fact, his favorite.”
“But how do you know—?”
Beth Ann never finished her sentence. In fact, her words seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in her throat. She looked up at me so sharply that her Elvis wig flopped over to one side. She ignored the wig and studied me carefully, and, for the second time in a matter of minutes, her mouth dropped open. This time it stayed open. It took the innocence of a child to see through me.
“Elvis?” she said.
I looked back at the nurse, but the nurse appeared to be asleep. I turned to Beth Ann and raised my finger to my lips. “Our secret, okay?”
She nodded, or tried to. Her eyes had somehow grown another inch or two in diameter. I don’t think she had blinked in a long, long time.
“Would you like for me to sing to you?” I asked.
She nodded again, and now tears filled her eyes and spilled out. I picked up a nearby plastic chair, brought it over to the side of her bed, and sat next to her. I gently took her tiny hand in mine and cleared my throat. And then I sang to her quietly, my voice low and meant only for her. As I sang, my old voice broke often, especially when I looked into this little girl’s eyes, this forgotten girl with no family or home, no parents or brothers or sisters. A sweet little angel who spent her own time cheering up other sick kids by dressing up as Elvis and singing to them. I squeezed her hand gently as I sang songs I hadn’t sung in thirty years. Sometimes Beth Ann sang with me, and hers was the sweetest voice I had ever heard in my life. But then she would grow weak and stop and just watch me with her impossibly huge eyes and hold my hands and cry softly.
And when the nurse finally touched my shoulder and told me that Beth Ann needed to rest, I leaned down and kissed the little girl on her forehead.
“Will you be back?” she asked.
“Every day,” I said.
Except she didn’t have another day. The next morning when I returned bearing more gifts—a pair of my original aviator glasses and a signed album cover—the same nurse who had sat with us looked up from the pediatric desk, shook her head sadly, and told me Beth Ann had passed in the night.
I heard later she had been buried in my jacket, and that most of the hospital staff had been there at her funeral.
Rest in peace, little darlin’.
And now, every Saturday evening, an old man who sounded remarkably like Elvis Presley, sang songs to the children at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, carrying on Beth Ann’s tradition.
It was the least I could do.
Chapter Seven
Kelly was my on-again/off-again girlfriend. Mostly we were off-again, as we had some serious issues. Mostly they were trust issues. As in, she didn’t trust me. As in, she felt I was holding something back. Ya think? Presently, we were on-again.
“I have a confession,” she said.
Don’t we all, I thought.
I waited. We were in a small restaurant here in Echo Park, a one-time cop-shop called The Brite Spot—and it was a rather bright spot on a fairly bleak stretch of Sunset Blvd. We were sitting across from each other in an old-school booth with deeply padded vinyl cushions. Kelly, normally calm and confident, was looking increasingly nervous and agitated. She was drinking some freshly squeezed orange juice and couldn’t decide whether to hold it or set it down. I was having decaf coffee, which I didn’t have any problem holding. As I sipped, the steam from my coffee obscured Kelly’s face into a sort of wavering, haunting mirage of a one-time beautiful actress who had taken the non-enhancement high road and let herself age gracefully. Now, too old to find steady work, she worked behind the scenes managing young talent. Well respected in the industry, I knew her to be fair and honest, a true bright spot of her own in this sometimes seedy business.
“I’ve hired a private investigator,” she said suddenly, blurting out the words.
I said nothing, although my heart rate immediately doubled the moment her words registered. I waited, viewing her from over the coffee mug, using it to hide my face. The Brite Spot didn’t serve alcohol for reasons unknown. I hate that.
Kelly took a swig of her orange juice, knocking it back. Very unlady-like. I continued saying nothing. Continued hiding behind my mug until I could get control of my emotions.
“Yes, a private investigator,” she said again, averting her eyes from mine. “I know how secretive you are and I knew this would upset you, but I don’t care anymore, Aaron. For us to move forward—for our relationship to really move forward—I need some answers, and I’m not getting them from you.”
I finally set down my steaming mug. A private investigator was digging into my past, perhaps even at this very moment. A past that needed to stay hidden. A past that needed to stay dead to the world. Blood pounded in my ears.
Kelly, unfortunately, was a one-woman gossip mill, unable to keep even the smallest of secrets to herself. Hell, half the rumors in Hollywood were spread because of her. It was because of this that I could never fully trust her with my own secret. One of the reasons why we were mostly an off-again couple.
When I disappeared from the world, I knew dating and having a girlfriend would be risky. Secrets were spilled, and mistakes were made. Which was why I mostly hadn’t dated, and why I lived alone. You can’t divulge secrets when you’re alone.
Of course, all that went out the window the day I met Kelly. It wasn’t love at first site, granted, but the chemistry was right and the connection was real. But my inability to trust her with my innermost secret continued to sabotage our relationship. She knew I was holding back, and it was driving her crazy.
It was a quagmire, sure, but I did my best to navigate through it. And if it meant fibbing to her on occasion, well, that was just too bad. Too much was at stake.
“I see I’ve upset you,” she said. Her fingers were moving rapidly, touching everything within reach. Currently, she was molesting a fork.
I reached out and took her wrists gently, calming her. Now was not a time to show anger—or even panic—over what she had done. I had to diffuse the situation now. True, I had taken great pains to conceal my past, even from the most aggressive of private investigators; still, anyone could get lucky and stumble on something I had missed.
As an investigator myself, I knew that as a fact.
I said, “I should have been more up front with you, yes. But I’m very private by nature. I don’t mean to be. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, Aaron, we’ve been dating for nearly three years and I feel I barely know you.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said. “I’ll work on it.”
“Then work on it now, dammit.”
“What would you like for me to do?”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Aaron. Hell, tell me anything.”
“Anything,” I said, thinking hard. I had a very detailed script that I used as an old standby. I recalled it now.
In that moment, two cops came in and sat in the booth behind Kelly, wearing the tighter uniforms of biker cops. Or, as I like to think of them, the cool cops.
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“California.” A lie.
She frowned, picked up a spoon. Set it down again. Twisted her napkin. Untwisted it.
“Yes, you’ve told me that. Aaron, my investigator tells me he can’t find any birth records in California. Or anywhere, for that matter. Can we talk about that?”
I had to give her something now or she would keep pushing, and keep pushing, and her investigator would keep investigating, and this could all blow up in my face.
Luckily, I had a little something prepared.
“I grew up poor, Kelly. I’m not proud of that; in fact, it’s damn embarrassing. I was schooled at home. I never went to high school or college. My father died when I was yo
ung and my mother was too sick to work.” I took a deep, shuddering my breath. “I dropped out of school at age thirteen and have been working ever since. Look, it’s a time of my life that I would just as soon forget.”
Hell of a performance, if I do say so myself. My voice had even cracked a little. Who said I couldn’t act?
Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The napkin in her hands had been twisted into shreds.
“But why no birth certificate? Why no military records, no real estate records, or marriage records, or even credit history earlier than a few decades ago. There’s nothing.”
I looked at her for some time. She held my gaze defiantly. In the past, I would have changed the subject. She knew that. But she was pushing this, and unless I gave her something to chew on, something that would really hold up, this woman could potentially cause my whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
“Kelly, I’ve done some bad things in my past. I was in trouble. I would have gone to jail...unless I gave up some names.”
I kept my voice low and even. No one heard, no one cared, and no one knew what the hell we were talking about. The cops were talking quietly among themselves while keeping a casual eye on those around them. Kelly caught on to me immediately.
“So you gave up the names,” she said, conspiratorially. She was loving this, perhaps too much.
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