A Little Thing Called Life
Page 7
From the start, my life revolved around him and his schedule, and making him happy, which along with his laughter became the greatest source of my own happiness. The only time I have since known a love so deep and complete was when I gave birth to my sons and felt the unconditional, powerful force of a mother’s love. But at this moment of my life’s journey, all of my love was reserved for Elvis. When he woke up in the late afternoon or early evening, my day, too, could begin. At the Hilton, this meant a room service breakfast, which was laid out at the foot of our king-sized mattress so we could sit in bed together and dine.
As I immediately came to realize, this was a grandiose life, a life of being catered to, of presidential suites and private planes. He was “the King,” so people treated him accordingly. That took some getting used to for a girl from modest means like me, but when the fairy dust settled, I began to adjust to it as my new reality.
While we did everything together in those first days, he did send me out shopping for a whole new wardrobe. At the time, the height of Las Vegas fashion and fabulousness was the high-end couture dreamed up by Suzy Creamcheese, whose labels were emblazoned with the memorable tagline “Suzy Creamcheese Loves You!” Her boutique was frequented by the likes of Cher, Ann-Margret, Dionne Warwick, and, a few years later, Stevie Nicks. She had made stage costumes and everyday clothes for Elvis, not that there was all that much difference when it came to the glitz and drama of the clothes he wore onstage and in his day-to-day life. He sent me shopping as an expression of his generosity, as he knew I would never have been able to afford such clothes in my old life as a college student. He also wanted me to represent him well by looking glamorous and beautiful. So I bought these stunning, sleek jersey dresses that fit me like a second skin, and would peer at myself in the mirror with wonderment at my good fortune.
Elvis didn’t spend a substantial amount of time rehearsing, which left us with ample hours to enjoy each other’s company and get to know each other better. It was during my first few weeks in Vegas with Elvis that he decided to take me to dinner downstairs at the Hilton’s steak house. We never went anywhere alone, and so, as always, his entourage of thirteen guys surrounded us, a full convoy with bodyguards both leading and following behind. Although we were, of course, given the full star treatment and impeccable service by the restaurant staff, it didn’t take long for the whole adventure to go awry.
We’d been seated at a table in front of one of the windows that looked out onto the casino floor, and almost instantly, a stunned passerby stopped short at the sight of us, and then so did another. Their thoughts were written clearly on their startled faces: Wait? Is that Elvis Presley? It can’t be. But it is! As the crowd swelled in size, and with it, the palpable excitement of everyone assembled, it became clear that the onlookers were not going to disperse anytime soon. And who could blame them? It was just too remarkable an occurrence. People were not accustomed to seeing Elvis Presley out and about. By that time, his fame was so enormous that he had become an almost total recluse, and this moment right here was a clear example of why. It was as if he were magnetized. There were soon a hundred people gathered around, peering in the window at us, some of them even banging on the glass. It quickly became more than a little scary. He could have gotten hurt, the instinct to touch him was so strong in his fans. We decided to make a quick exit back to our room, and our usual room service dinner, using the garbage route, by now familiar to me. And that was the only time he ever tried to take me on a dinner date during regular dining hours.
About two weeks into our time together in Las Vegas, we decided to sunbathe in the late afternoon. I changed into my bikini and went to find Elvis in our bedroom. He was shaking a few pills from a bottle into his open palm.
“Do you want to take this?” he asked.
“What is it?” I asked, surprised, as he knew I didn’t take drugs.
“It’s just a little pill for tanning that promotes melanin,” he said.
“No, I tan just perfectly, thank you,” I said, trying not to let myself worry about what it meant that he even had a pill for tanning.
We stretched out together side by side, working on our tans, on two chaise longues on the balcony that extended from our suite at the Hilton. (Since we couldn’t go outside anywhere that was within view of the public, we had to find ways to bring the outside to us. We had multiple Las Vegas stays during which we literally did not leave the hotel once in several weeks, and such private havens kept us from feeling completely enclosed by the property. Later, I would find the grounds at Graceland were also a much-needed sanctuary for us.) I had that dozy, heat-drenched sensation after time spent in the blazing hot August Las Vegas sun, and I was fully relaxed, enjoying the feeling of his hand holding mine. I had by now grown accustomed to his physical demonstrativeness, which was near constant. Such visible displays of affection felt very comfortable for me, as I had grown up that way, with an incredible amount of physical closeness and love in my household. And so being with him felt like a homecoming of sorts. Without any apparent cause, he squeezed my hand in his strong grip, and I could sense that he was about to speak.
“You know what we’ve done, don’t you?” he said.
“What?” I said.
“We fooled around and fell in love,” he said.
“We have?” I said, my heart pounding with the truth of his words. “We did?”
He opened his eyes and looked at me; those impossibly long lashes, those deep, soulful pools of blue. The depth and intensity of the blue in Elvis’s eyes was intoxicating. His eyes were often described as bedroom eyes. I rather think they escaped the bedroom, though and circumnavigated the globe, gathering beauty along the way. Elvis’s eyes told his story and could be as mercurial as his personality, from the serenity of the blue Caribbean to the raging depths of the North Atlantic. They could twinkle with mischief, glare cold with anger, fill with tears of tenderness, and pierce your heart with the pain they sometimes mirrored from his soul. They were beautiful, and in this moment, they were telegraphing pure love right into me.
“Well, at least I have,” he said, pausing dramatically, always the master of timing, looking at me imploringly. “I love you. I’m in love with you.” I think I was a little shocked because we had only been together for about two weeks.
“I love you, too,” I said. “I do, I love you.”
He leaned across the few inches of space between us and kissed me, and we kissed and kissed, expressing the full depth of our feelings for each other and the great humbling grace of the divine power that had brought us together. We are in love. I let the reality roll around in my psyche and unleash butterflies in my stomach. We are in love. Elvis Presley and I are in love with each other.
After that, he told me every day, in so many ways that he loved me, with his many terms of endearment, and his kisses and caresses, and his generous gifts, and even with his practical jokes, which were how his playful, boyish side showed affection. He needed to receive a wealth of adoration, but he had a need to give just as much love in return, which made for a wonderfully passionate environment, most of the time.
As I’d come to learn, under the best of circumstances, he was more than a little needy, but especially in that first year, I was honored to be there for this man I loved so completely, and this legend who was loved by so many. I could tell he was deeply wounded, and more than a little insecure, in the wake of his divorce. He didn’t speak of it much in our initial days together, but I could tell from the little he did say that he’d been hurt immensely by Priscilla, because she’d left him for another man. Regardless of whether his own behavior or expectations of her had been fair or realistic, he hadn’t wanted his marriage to end, or his family to be broken apart. Still in pain over the dissolution of his home life, he needed me to reassure him and be the loving foundation on which he could build himself back up.
Because I knew he’d been married, I felt it was important for me to be honest with him about my own romantic history.
“I know about your past relationships,” I said. “I know you dated Anita Wood. I know you were married. I know you dated Ann-Margret and almost married her, and that you were in love with her. Do you want to know anything about any of my boyfriends?”
“Oh no, oh hell no,” he said, almost physically recoiling at the thought. “Don’t go any further. Don’t say another word. I don’t ever want to hear about anybody that you ever dated, anybody that you ever kissed, anybody that you ever liked. I don’t want to know. Don’t ever, ever, ever tell me about a guy that you think is handsome. Don’t ever mention a guy that you think is good looking, or a guy that you dated in high school or college. I don’t want to know anything about it. I’m a really jealous motherfucker. I don’t ever want to see you looking at another man. I don’t ever want to see you talk about another man. I want to know you’re mine and all mine.”
I was happy to reassure him, and yet, at the same time, I couldn’t help but be amazed by his reaction. Gosh, to be the greatest sex symbol in the world, the man that every woman wants to be with, and yet he’s so insecure he can’t stand to hear about anybody I ever dated. But the more I got to know Elvis, the more I came to understand that this was just one more aspect of his complex nature.
The first year of the four and half years we would share, we were together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, other than a few short trips he took to Thunderbird Jewelers in Las Vegas to buy presents for me, which he did frequently.
One day, he gave me a ring with a big, beautiful blue diamond surrounded by other, smaller white diamonds.
“Honey, I got this for you,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “It’s not my birthday. It’s not Valentine’s Day. It’s not anything.”
“It’s Tuesday, and I love you,” he said.
That’s the kind of romantic guy he was, generous with compliments, always making me feel appreciated and loved.
If he was in the shower, he had me talk to him from outside the curtain as the steam wafted the scent of his Neutrogena soap into the bathroom around me. We slept, woke, ate, read, laughed, and loved together, as if we were all either of us needed in the whole wide world.
Once his run of shows began, our day’s activities shifted to accommodate his needs as a performer. When we got up in the afternoon, he began getting ready for his shows with a routine he’d perfected by this point in his career. This meant steps to care for his voice, including a saltwater nasal douche to clear out his nasal passages, followed by all of these god-awful sounds, and spewing and spitting. It wasn’t the most romantic or attractive thing in the world, but he applied himself to his preparations with special attention. He also sometimes took shots to dry up mucus, and in Vegas, we slept with a humidifier. Elvis felt that he had been graced with a God-given talent; that God had imbued him with his incredible, incomparable gift, and he felt a great responsibility to maintain what he had been given, caring for his voice in a way that he did not employ with his body.
He also took steps to enhance his appearance, including his application of a touch of eyebrow pencil because his eyebrows were not as dark as one might have thought. And then Charlie Hodge usually came in to comb and spray his hair for him. Once Elvis was all dressed and fully done up, we went downstairs together, with his entourage, through the belly of the hotel, to the backstage area. One of the bodyguards escorted me up to my regular seat, which was a center booth in the show room.
When the lights went down before the show, there was a hum of excitement in the room. Many of these loyal fans had saved their hard-earned money, managed to purchase tickets for Elvis’s engagement in Las Vegas, and traveled from far and wide just to witness the King in all his glory. Their focus on the stage was intense, and with good reason. The way he charged onto the stage, the way he carried himself was absolutely electric. To this day, he’s the best entertainer I’ve ever seen. He put everything into it. And he was never more purely himself than when he was onstage. Not even the tiniest nuance was contrived or studied—it all came very naturally to him. That really was the way he talked. That really was the way he smiled, with the curl on one side of his lip. That really was the cocky way he stood, his confidence on display as he strutted and prowled the stage.
From the electrifying theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey that announced his onstage arrival, to the moment he threw his final scarf to the last hyperventilating, awestruck fan and sauntered off the side of the stage, Elvis was the world’s most famous rock star. And now he was my first and truest love.
“I Have Nothing”
Share my life; take me for what I am;
’Cause I’ll never change all my colors for you.
Take my love; I’ll never ask for too much …
Just all that you are, and everything that you do
I don’t really need to look
Very much farther. I don’t want to have to go
Where you don’t follow.
I can’t hold it back again—
This passion inside.
I can’t run from myself
There’s nowhere to hide.
Don’t make me close one more door.
I don’t want to hurt anymore.
Stay in my arms, if you dare
Or must I imagine you there?
Don’t walk away from me,
I have nothing—nothing—nothing … if I don’t have you.
You see through—right to the heart of me.
You break down my walls
With the strength of your love.
I never knew love, like I’ve known it with you.
Will a memory survive? … One I can hold on to?
I don’t really need to look
Very much farther.
I don’t want to have to go,
Where you don’t follow.
I can’t hold it back again—
This passion inside,
I can’t run from myself
There’s nowhere to hide
Your love—I’ll remember—forever.
Don’t make me close one more door.
I don’t want to hurt anymore.
Stay in my arms, if you dare
Or must I imagine you there?
Don’t walk away from me,
I have nothing—nothing—nothing … if I don’t have you.
LYRIC: LINDA THOMPSON
Chapter Five
The Other Elvis
As captivating as his stage shows were, it didn’t take long for me to see the toll that they could take on Elvis, often bringing out the neediest parts of him. As soon as he came off the stage and then finished the meet-and-greet portion of the evening, which happened in his dressing room downstairs before carrying the party upstairs to our suite, he reverted to being my baby. Safe in the personal oasis he created for us and carefully guarded from intruders, we curled together on our big king-sized bed. Once alone together, he clutched me close, as if wanting as little space between us as possible.
“Mommy, Buntyn’s really pitiful tonight,” he often said, his voice babyish and ravenous with need. “Buntyn really needs extra love tonight.”
Whenever this needy Elvis surfaced when we were alone together, I knew he genuinely did require extra love from me just then. I gladly opened up and showered him with all the feeling in my heart. Not only because I did love him so unreservedly, but also because it was just so endearing. Here was this musical idol up on the marquee, this incredibly powerful, iconic sex symbol who could sing like nobody else, move like nobody else, entertain like nobody else, while holding an enraptured audience in the palm of his hand, even make people laugh like nobody else. And yet, when he came offstage, he peeled back the godlike layers to reveal the sweet babe he was deep down inside. In fact, this tender core that needed to be cuddled and cared for in private was the part of Elvis that I came to love the most. And these were among the moments I cherished the most, because he seemed so vulnerable, and I felt so needed.
Ou
rs was a complete relationship—when the need arose, we got to be everything to each other. He was almost sixteen years older than I, and so it was natural for me to sometimes be the little girl, with him playing the daddy. More often that not, though, I was the mommy, and he was the baby. Sometimes we were lovers. Sometimes we were brother and sister. Sometimes we were best friends. We were all things to each other at one time or another. And Elvis was always, always everything to me.
Of course, Elvis being Elvis, and me being the malleable young girl devoted to pleasing and caring for him, on any given day he almost always chose the dynamic between us. There were times when I wanted to be the little girl, and I wanted to be stroked, and petted, and comforted.
“No, no, no, you can’t be the little girl right now,” he said. “I need to be the baby. You have to be the grown-up, and I’m the baby right now.”
And I always capitulated to his needs, so willingly selfless in my total devotion. I was very aware of the fact that I was not just taking care of him in these tender moments; I was also keeping him going for all of his legions of fans, to whom I felt a growing responsibility, because of how much they gave to him. For the first few years, at least, I was more than happy to put his needs above my own. After all, he was Elvis Presley.
One day when we were sitting together in bed, as we usually were when we were relaxing, he told me a secret that made me love the little boy he’d been, the little boy who got bullied at school, the little boy who grew up in the Memphis version of the ghetto.
“Mommy, you know these high-collared outfits, and shirts and suits that I wear?”
“Yes, honey,” I said.
“Before I was able to have those kinds of clothes made for me, I would always turn my collar up.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said, thinking back to the mesmerizing photos of him early in his career, which I’d admired in fan magazines long before he’d become my love.
“Everybody thinks I did that because I think I’m cool,” he said. “It’s really because when I was a little shaver, and I was sitting at the kitchen table, my mama and daddy used to come by and say, ‘Look at that little chicken neck. Look at that little scrawny neck.’”