Outside Graceland, Looking In

Take a strip of paper, twist one end of it a half-turn
(180 degrees), then tape the ends of the strip together.
Voila - you have a Mobius Strip. You will find it is
a topological form
with some amazing
characteristics.
For one thing, you will find that
simple twist has
transformed your paper from
a two-sided strip into a
continuous band with only one side!

That is what I hope the essays and reflections in this blog will be. I don't want to make or take sides. I want to assume a continuum with only one side. But each stop along my Mobius Strip will present life from a slightly different angle, at a slightly different tilt. One side, but many different views, many different adventures...

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A documentary called Elvis, That’s the Way It Is just aired on Chicago TV. It was a collection of interviews and rehearsal scenes with Elvis at the peak of his comeback career in 1970. I watched the movie and was reminded of my one brush with anything personally pertaining to Elvis.

I went to Memphis in the late 80’s. I was traveling alone by bus, stopping at various cities, hitting them pretty much cold just to see what adventures would unfold. When I got to Memphis, I found it was ALL about Elvis. I had heard of Beale Street and the blues and W. C. Handy. But all those notable Memphis people and places were eclipsed by the legend of the beloved rock-and-roll singer. Memphis was essentially a one-industry town. And that industry was Elvis.

I remarked on this monopoly to a friendly cabdriver who seemed in the mood to chat. “Oh yes,” the young African-American smiled. “This is Elvis’ town. Well, he was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, but everything important after that – he did here. And I imagine, when the time comes, he will die here,” the cabby predicted.

I chuckled. I thought he was joking, making mocking reference to the clinging belief of some simpler souls that Elvis was still alive, to be seen frequenting the local Burger Kings. The cabby had seemed so levelheaded up to now. But I caught the severe look he bounced back at me from his rear-view mirror. And I realized - he was serious. He was one of those who believed.

He had seen me chuckle. “Oh, so you fell for those reports that he died,” the young driver spoke sharply to me. “Well, if you would do your homework, you’d see it couldn’t be so. Did you read the autopsy report on Elvis – I mean read it carefully?”

I sheepishly admitted I hadn’t read that document at all. It seems everyone has his own opinion about what you need to know before you can call yourself an educated person. One acquaintance of mine has been insisting for years that I read The Mind Game, a psychology book that analyses people’s motives. Another acquaintance has told me I MUST read Middlemarch, the George Eliot classic. And I intend to read both those works – really I do. I have had Middlemarch waiting on my bedside table for years, in a deluxe Everyman edition – waiting for that perfect night when I’m not too tired or not too wired to launch into it and do it justice. Now another item was being added to my “must read” list. It seemed I couldn’t lay claim to being an informed citizen until I had studied Elvis’ autopsy report.

“You read it,” the cabdriver was pressing his case. “You’ll see I’m right. Look at the top of the report. It says it is the autopsy for ‘Elvis Aron Presley.’ There’s only one ‘a’ in Aron. Only one ‘a!’ Now it’s true they spelled his middle name that way on his birth certificate. But that was a mistake. And he corrected the mistake as soon as he had a chance. He changed it to the correct spelling – to ‘Aaron’ with two ‘A’s.’ Everyone here knew it was two ‘A’s.’ So, when the autopsy report refers to an ‘Elvis Aron Presley’ with only one ‘A’ – you know that’s their way of telling you it’s not the real Elvis who was buried. You just have to see what’s right before your eyes. Somebody else was buried in his place. Probably Elvis just needed to take a break. But you mark my words – he’ll be back!”

Properly chastened for my foolishness at believing all the premature newspaper accounts of Elvis’ death, I thanked the driver, paid him, and got out to continue my explorations of Memphis on what I hoped would be a more even keel. I eventually signed up for a GreyLine tour of the City. I had a choice of several tours, ranging from a “full-package tour,” to a more abbreviated overview. Since I had already done considerable “Walkin’ in Memphis” on my own, I decided to save money and just go for the latter. All I needed was to touch on a few more highlights.

But the bus tour proved to be a further celebration of nothing but Elvis. We made short work of the likes of Beale Street and St. Jude’s Hospital. Then on to the real importance of Memphis, to its place in history as the cradle of Elvis’ singing career. We lingered in front of the Sun Studio, the small, squeezed storefront where Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins – and Elvis – had made their first major recordings. Our tour guide next drove us to a large, gray block of a building. He pointed to a second-story balcony and informed us that that was the balcony of the public housing apartment where the Presleys had lived for several years after coming to Memphis. They had been receiving Public Aid. However, we were cautioned not to take the lawn chair that was out on the balcony as a real Elvis artifact. Our bus driver announced through the microphone that the chair had been brought there by the current residents of that apartment.

Then on to the Heartbreak Hotel, and the lot where Elvis had likely bought his first pick-up truck, and the place where the Presley family had probably done their laundry during those first lean years. I had always liked Elvis, but really, I thought this magnification of the minutia of his life was a bit much.

Finally though, we came to the pièce de résistance of the tour. We pulled up in front of Graceland. And this was one aspect of Elvis’ life I really was interested in touring. Pictures I’d seen of the interior had led me to believe it was a place of ostentatious kitsch throughout - not a décor I would have chosen for myself. But perhaps I was wrong. Maybe there were private wings in there that were more cozy and relaxed. I wanted to get a first-hand feel of the place.

We all eagerly disgorged from the bus and assembled in front of that famous wrought iron gate with its large black musical notes. Our driver contacted a groundskeeper on his walkie-talkie, and the gates were swung open. We started to file through. But wait! Something was wrong. A large beefy hand levered up in front of me, blocking my progress.

“Not you!” the driver forbade. “Your ticket is just for the short tour. You have to stay outside!”

What? I started to stammer some protest, but it was true – I had just bought the “short tour.”

There was a handsome Australian couple along for this round of sightseeing. I had already crossed paths with them several times. We’d become friendly. I’d asked if they were newlyweds. They were so friendly and alive to each other. They laughed and said, “No, we’ve been married twenty-five years.” The husband was a policeman assigned to patrol the outback around Adelaide, Australia. This was their first big vacation in years. They had been looking forward to Memphis because the wife idolized Elvis. She told me that as a teenager, she had taped a large poster of Elvis to the ceiling over her bed. I thought this was a bit of a racy revelation to make in front of her husband. But he took it in good part. He didn’t seem to mind that he hadn’t been his wife’s first choice as a bed partner.

Now this indulgent Crocodile Dundee went to bat for me. He tried to cajole the bus driver into letting me pass. “The brochure doesn’t make it clear. It sounds as if an inside tour of Graceland is included.”

But the driver was adamant. “She’s only paid for the short tour,” he played trump again. “You have to stay out here,” he turned his stern repulse on me. And that was that.

The others filed through to see Graceland, the Promised Land. I had come so far, past rickety lawn chairs and Laundromats – but I was not to be with my comrades for the final ascent to the top of the Elvis experience. I was the only one on the bus who had been too stingy to sign up for the extended tour. Each tourist in turn looked with commiseration, with pity on me as he/she was ushered on to the highpoint of this expedition. But for all their looks of regretful sympathy, I noticed that they gave me a wide berth as they trekked by. Most of them had not heard why I was being excluded. So they could only surmise that I was somehow one of the great unwashed, someone not anointed for admission to the inner sanctum. So they charily filed past me, and I was left, a leper, alone on the sidewalk. The gates clanged shut – me on one side; my bus mates on the other side of those musical notes.

I watched the tail of their procession move down the long driveway and disappear inside the mansion. How should I pass the time? We’d been told that a sweep had recently been made of the mansion’s gate and immediate surroundings. Groundskeepers had removed the accumulation of love notes and pictures that were daily attached and strewn nearby. But already some more avowals of undying devotion had been stuck in place. I occupied myself reading one cri de coeur after another. “Elvis - Love you Forever!” said one post-it note staked on the gate. “I (heart) Elvis” was chalked on the sidewalk by my feet.

I knew I would probably never get back to Memphis. I pressed close to the gate, looking wistfully through to the private Graceland – the Graceland that I would never see.

And I thought – back in the day, was it possible that Elvis sometimes looked wistfully out his window at this public sidewalk – the sidewalk where he could never stand?