A Little Thing Called Life

by Linda Thompson

  “Linda, you need to come home right away,” said my brother, Sam, who had been working for Elvis as a bodyguard for the past few years. Even though Elvis and I were no longer together, he had kept Sam on as a trusted employee.

  “Oh my God, Sam,” I said. “Is he really gone? Is Elvis really dead? Could Lisa be mistaken?”

  “You need to come home to Memphis as soon as you can get here,” Sam answered, seemingly unable to articulate the doom-filled words that would in fact confirm my desperate query.

  “Sam, is he dead? Please tell me the truth!” I pleaded.

  A pause, a sigh, then a resigned and defeated, “Elvis is gone. You need to come home.”

  The words escaping from Sam’s tight throat broke the last piece of my heart, still clinging to the hope that Elvis might somehow be alive.

  “Sam, stay with Lisa,” I said. “Take care of her. Let me speak to her again, please.”

  I rambled to the little girl, who was no doubt reeling, reassuring her as best as I could, and telling her I would be there soon to “mug her noggin.”

  “C’mere, you, get over here and let me mug your noggin!” Elvis would growl through grinding teeth when he was overwhelmed with his need to show affection for Lisa Marie or me. He would grab the backs of our necks, look deeply into our eyes with those otherworldly eyes of his, then press his forehead, hard, onto ours. He would then close his eyes tightly, grit his teeth together, and forehead to forehead, press and roll slightly to “mug noggins.” It was apparently something his beloved mama did with him when he was just a “little shaver.”

  Elvis couldn’t resist baby talk. He spoke it fluently, received it hungrily. I understood both the intensity and the silliness of the gibberish, since my own family communicated with each other in the same loving fashion. It was always the tone in which Elvis and I spoke to each other. If he addressed me as Linda, I knew our conversation would be serious. He always called me by pet names, such as Ariadne, in homage to Ariadne Pennington, a little three-year-old girl character in one of his movies, or more commonly, Mommy. Looking back now, these both seem a little odd to me, but at the time, they felt quite natural.

  I hung up the phone. Silence. Time to grieve. No one to comfort, no one to comfort me. I was hesitant to call anyone, because Lisa had told me that nobody knew. I certainly didn’t want to alert the media. I sat there in my quiet apartment, in my grief and disbelief, and began to cry.

  If there had ever been any notion of reconciliation, any chance that Elvis and I might have gotten back together, it was now dashed; between Elvis and me, there were no more maybes. The finality of this knowledge sank into my heart and deepened my grief. I would never again hear that voice I’d loved so much, except on the radio. I would never again feel his touch. I would never again have the chance to say anything I had left unsaid.

  I turned on the television, hoping the news would break and I’d be free to call someone. Finally, it did. It was confirmed: “Elvis Presley died today at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.” The voice droned on, and then something inexplicable happened: The anchor moved on to other news. How could that be? I thought, my irrational mind full of grief. There is no other news. There is nothing else. Suddenly I was confronted with a difficult truth to absorb—life does indeed go on, and we must roll along with it. But for those of us who are shocked into stricken grief, we must be gentle with ourselves, and others, and allow for that time of mourning. And looking around my apartment, I came to see just how difficult this would be for me.

  The space of my apartment was still filled with Elvis’s energy. I was sitting on an army green sofa he had given me from his Beverly Hills home, on which he and I had sat and lounged together. On my walls were the paintings he had also given me from his home. The bed I lay down on was a bed he and I had shared together. When I retreated to the bathroom to look in the mirror at my tear-swollen face, it was a mirror that he had looked into and seen his own reflection in. When I sat down to have a cup of tea, I was seated at the glass-topped table at which he’d also sat. Looking at the four white wicker fan-backed chairs, I recalled him sitting across from me, and still saw his face lingering there.

  I stood and washed my cup in the sink, realizing that nowhere was safe in that little apartment because he had been in all of those rooms with me. From the living room, the sound of the news drifted in, as the channel I had turned on earlier was revisiting the story of his passing with expanded and repeated coverage, and I could hear him singing, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Hearing his voice, and those words, of all words, of course, I just lost it. So many feelings, rushing me, stirring my memories. I could still feel him there with me, his presence and the history we’d shared together, and even to this day, I can recall vividly, viscerally, the essence of who and what Elvis Presley was in my life. He had breathed that same air I was breathing, and now, he would breathe no more. I started crying again, and this time I couldn’t stop.

  Elvis had now more than left the building. His soul had “slipped the surly bonds of earth and winged and soared where eagles dare not fly.” Elvis loved the Blue Angels’ creed, that lovely prose he quoted often. In so many ways, he was not of this earth. He felt a strong connection to the spirit world and to the ethereal, that he was merely “passing through” this world.

  Maybe Elvis is home at last, I thought.

  As word spread, some of my friends began calling to check on me. Between calls, I started the process of packing, with memories of Elvis still flooding my thoughts. How he used to come in through the back sliding glass door that led out to my little patio and the alley beyond, because he couldn’t just walk in the front door. How he used to baby-talk my dog, a little Maltese he had given me.

  Sometime shortly after I began to pack, all the power went off in my apartment. Not long after that, my next-door neighbor knocked on my door and stuck her head in.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Can I do anything for you? We heard the news about Elvis, and we know he was a big part of your life. We used to see him slipping in the back door here.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “But, no, I have everything I need. Oh, is your power off?”

  “No, ours is fine,” she said. “Let me know if you do need anything.”

  I smiled and nodded as she closed the door behind her. As the day darkened into night, I began to light candles to better navigate around my apartment. A few friends came by, including my workout buddy, Deborah.

  “Oh, how sweet, you’re lighting candles for Elvis,” she said.

  “Well, not really,” I said. “I have to see to get ready to fly out of here, and there’s no power in my apartment.”

  I was not unaware of the strangeness of the situation. It was downright eerie. As the night wore on, and the power remained inexplicably out in my apartment only, I began to consider all the candles for Elvis after all. It was his first candlelight vigil, a tradition his fans have carried out every anniversary of his passing since that day.

  And so, with candles lighting the way, I put one thing after another in the suitcase, until I was confronted with a question:

  What would he want me to wear to his funeral?

  Even though I went through the motions of going to my closet to survey the many dresses Elvis had gotten made for me in Las Vegas by the dressmaker-to-the-stars, Suzy Creamcheese, I knew immediately what I would wear to his funeral. Still, I paused at a really pretty black backless dress I’d bought at Giorgio’s on Rodeo Drive, when Elvis sent me on a shopping spree there toward the end of our relationship. I knew that wasn’t what he’d want me to wear, and besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate to wear a backless dress to a funeral in Memphis, a Southern Baptist capital. Knowing how Elvis had been deeply influenced by colors and numbers, and their spiritual significance, I chose the dress I’d always known I’d wear, a lavender silk dress, not the traditional black outfit. Elvis believed that all shades of purple emitted the highest spiritual vibrations and consid
ered the color to be the most closely connected to the purity and power of God. That was enough of a fashion endorsement for me.

  I didn’t care if eyebrows would be raised because I wasn’t wearing traditional black at a funeral in the conservative South. I only wanted to honor Elvis’s sweet soul and his deepest beliefs. Coincidentally, I’d been wearing a skirted bodysuit with lavender flowers on it the night we met, and so it was the perfect symbol of our union. Quite honestly, I felt a little smug that I knew him so very well, and could nearly channel his thoughts and feelings. Wearing a lavender dress in a sea of dark mourners would be my way of communicating with Elvis’s spirit.

  It was between him and me, and I knew he would have heartily approved.

  “To Where You Are”

  Who can say for certain

  Maybe you’re still here

  I feel you all around me

  Your memory’s so clear

  Deep in the stillness

  I can hear you speak

  You’re still an inspiration

  Can it be

  That you are my

  Forever love

  And you are watching me from up above

  Fly me up to where you are

  Beyond each distant star

  I wish upon tonight

  To see you smile

  If only for a while

  To know you’re there

  A breath away’s not far

  To where you are

  Are you gently sleeping

  Here inside my dream

  And isn’t faith believing

  All power can’t be seen

  As my heart holds you

  Just one beat away

  I cherish all you gave me every day

  ’Cause you are my

  Forever love

  Watching me

  From up above

  And I believe

  That angels breathe

  And that love

  Will live on

  And never leave

  Fly me up to where you ae

  Beyond each distant star

  I wish upon tonight

  To see you smile

  If only for a while

  To know you’re there

  A breath away’s not far

  To where you are

  A breath away’s not far

  To where you are

  LYRIC: LINDA THOMPSON

  Chapter Two

  Made in Memphis

  My love for Elvis began long ago in my little Memphis girl’s heart. In my mind, it seemed perfectly logical that I would grow up to marry the man everyone in the Mississippi Delta talked about and swooned over, and whose music was rocking the world. Why not aim high?

  “Y’all know what, Mama and Daddy?” I declared at the breakfast table one humid Memphis morning. “When I grow up, I’m gonna marry Elvis Presley!”

  My parents smiled indulgently.

  “Well, now honey child, by the time you grow up, Elvis will be too old for you,” they said.

  “I don’t care, he’ll still be singing ‘Hound Dog’!” I retorted, undeterred.

  And so he was.

  My family was “country”—Southern to the core, as was Elvis’s. Country connotes much more than a musical genre. It indicates strong familial ties, a particular preference for “soul food”—country fried, refried, chicken fried anything, double dipped, extra creamy and thickened gravy (not on the side). In fact, just fry any food group. If it’s fried, it’ll always taste good. Add some overcooked vegetables, preferably turnip greens steeped in ham hocks or salt pork for flavoring, and finish it off with hearty corn bread baked in the oven in a cast iron skillet. Of course, the unique musical mélange of the region is so much a part of life in the South that it was a form of sustenance for us, too. It certainly was for Elvis. Southern gospel, country, blues, rock, and the amalgamation of all those genres engendered his redefinition of music as we know it today. Although Elvis drew on familiar Southern musical forms, he was a true original, and he created a sound that was his alone.

  My mother, Margie White Thompson, was five feet ten inches and 126 pounds of dark-haired beauty when she married my father, Sanford Able Thompson, a six-foot-tall, 165-pound handsome young man. He had just returned from two and a half years of service fighting in Germany, Belgium, France, and England during World War II. The first time my father saw my mother, he turned to his army buddy in the restaurant.

  “You see that woman over there?” he declared. “I’m going to marry her.”

  For him, it was truly love at first sight. They knew each other for only six months before they married, and their marriage lasted for forty-five years, until my mother died. My father never remarried. She was the one love of his life.

  Even with their deep love, theirs was not an easy life. They both had their own privations growing up in the Depression-era South, and these shaped much of their adult lives. My mother had been one of five sisters born to a poor tenant farmer and his housewife. She had to quit school before graduating to help her father work in the fields, picking cotton, sawing logs, and plowing rows with a team of mules. Her statuesque height, fitness, strength, and determination came in handy for the hard work she had to do.

  Her long legs couldn’t move fast enough when she decided to get married at only eighteen, just to get away from her difficult life, and in the process she said “yes” to a man who would prove to be abusive. She soon became pregnant, which only made things harder. Mama told us the story of when she decided to leave her philandering new husband. It seems she was eight months along when hubby pulled into their driveway with a date, who waited in his car while he changed shirts. I don’t believe he escaped with that new shirt intact, and that was the end of that ill-fated union.

  My mother’s first child was a boy, and she named him Donald Joseph. She readily took to mothering and brought her newborn treasure home to live with her parents. Donald Joseph was a gorgeous baby, Mama said, with perfect little features, long eyelashes, olive skin, and a head full of dark hair. Sadly he died in my mother’s arms when he was only weeks old. Mama said when she went to his crib to gather him in her arms, a beautiful blue light mysteriously moved across his bed. She knew then something was wrong. My mother was left devastatingly alone with the love only a mother knows lingering in her aching heart.

  Years later, when my brother, Sam, and I were born to Mama and Daddy, she became obsessed with protecting us and made certain we never doubted how deeply she was devoted to us. We would come to understand that her overprotective nature was the result of her tragic loss so many years before, a loss she never overcame. Her deep sadness over Donald Joseph stayed with her until she left this earth.

  My father graduated from high school in Monette, Arkansas, a place he liked to refer to as “God’s country.” It was anything but. Oh sure, it had its own charm, as do most quaint, small towns. But as in many of the small Southern communities of the day, there was a heavy pathos to go along with the oppressive humidity.

  Like Elvis’s father, my daddy worked very hard, picking cotton, plowing fields, milking cows, and doing all the chores that come with country life. He would revel in telling Sam and me stories about when he was a little boy, our favorite being about how he and his brothers took turns riding their milk cow, Susie. It all seemed so Tom Sawyeresque that I guess we idealized our daddy’s childhood, imagining it was more fun than it was in reality.

  My mama and daddy helped to create and mold the person I still am today. Their hardships growing up, their successes and losses, their absolute selflessness in regard to their children, and their complicated relationship with each other still flow through my mind and memory, becoming an intrinsic part of who I am.

  My relationship with my mother, however, was a complicated one. We lived in dread of her anger and frustration, for her sake as much as our own. When she lost control of her sensibilities, things started flying. My poor father was usually the brunt of her rage. When Mama was hav
ing one of her tantrums, she would say unthinkably unkind things to Daddy and throw anything from ashtrays to full coffeepots at him, without thought of the damage she might be doing to her children’s psyche, much less to my father’s flesh and bones. I felt protective of him, yet helpless in my ability to deflect her anger toward him, so I quickly became a “daddy’s girl.”

  Making things harder was the fact that we were poor, and we knew it. God bless my mother, she didn’t have the “tools” we all refer to now to keep her from hysteria when the bills came due that we were unable to pay. She went into panic-and-blame mode. My security was threatened every time (and there were many) I heard my mother becoming hysterical about the conditions under which we lived. She would have to balance our family budget down to the last nickel, and didn’t quit her calculations until our meager books were balanced. Still, there was often not enough money to pay our rent, and then Mama would embark on her passionate tangents about how she was going to leave “big M” (Memphis), take us with her, and divorce Daddy.

  Because of all this, my childhood was not an easy one. As a matter of fact, I’m now certain that as a child, I effectively learned how to “walk on eggshells” to avoid inciting anger and contentious confrontation, an instinct that would later carry over to my relationship with a volatile Elvis, and perhaps others. As a little girl I vowed to never treat my man with less than total respect and kindness. In a way, I unconsciously prepared myself to put up with more indignation and potential mistreatment, although I only became aware of this later in life.

  Living through someone’s tirades was never a comfortable experience, but it was a familiar one. I learned how to compartmentalize the variable behaviors of those I loved. My mother, like Elvis, was inordinately affectionate and loving, and I never doubted her devotion to me, but that intensity could turn on a dime and become highly reactive, unbridled anger. Very unsettling, but familiar nonetheless. When you don’t crumble at repeated verbal lashings, you eventually don’t feel as threatened by them. However, let me state here and now as an older, wiser, more experienced being, that verbal abuse—and abuse of any kind—should never be tolerated. Sometimes we tend to make excuses for those we love, but that’s not our responsibility. We all should own our actions.