The two men exchanged another of their insiders’ glances: should we tell him? Jerry decided to do exactly that. “It’s a riot. The Elvises we got. Just when you think you’ve seen ‘em all, along comes a whole new act. Like Velvet Elvis.”
“Velvet Elvis?”
“Yeah, man. Very cool. Wears this black velvet jumpsuit with these neon decorations, just like a velvet painting.”
“Beeeeau-ti-ful,” Mike said, nodding and curling his lower lip instead of the Elvis upper one. “You should see that one under the stage lights. And it’s a woman.”
“You mean a dyke,” Jerry corrected.
“Well, the jury is out on that one, but not the outfit.First class. Original. There’s always room for originality in an Elvis competition.”
“But not too original,” Jerry said. “There’s a certain ranking for the songs and stuff. You got to deliver on the classics. Can’t go too far off the path.”
“But Velvet Elvis is pretty impressive. Great shoulders.”
“Yeah. Velvet Elvis is okay. I don’t think she’ll win shit. I mean, a woman …”
“And then there’s Velveeta Elvis.”
“Yeah. Cheesy!”
Their raw crescendoes of laughter threatened to split jumpsuit seams. Matt had read that the overweight Elvis had actually done that.
“Styles his hair with Cheese Whiz!” Jerry got out between guffaws. “Dude from Dallas, where I guess Velveeta is the local, you know, cure-all.”
“Yeah, they probably use it instead of Viagra there!” Both men were laughing themselves almost off their chairs.
“Anyhow, Velveeta Elvis is no lightweight. Must go two-seventy. And he has a white jumpsuit and all the stones are this yellow-orange—”
“Like those yellow bulbs they embed in streets. We call him ‘Warning Light Elvis’ too.”
“That guy just won’t give up.”
Matt hated to interrupt the laugh fest. “Anybody get so serious about impersonating Elvis that they don’t give it up—ever? They won’t go—” He glanced at Temple. She knew the phrase for what he was trying to say.
“They don’t ever go out of character,” she supplied.
The two guys barely blinked at her interjection, though they responded to it.
“Oh, yeah,” Jerry said. “The Ever-Elvises. These are not professional-caliber impersonators. They never walk away from a gig. They are the gig.”
“These yoyos show up at Graceland in costume! Tacky, tacky, tacky. We are talking wannabe wannabes.
See, we don’t have any delusions. We know we aren’t Elvis. We are performers. These guys, they are head cases. They gotta walk like Elvis, talk like Elvis, dress like Elvis, sing like Elvis out there in the real world. Among the public. On the street.”
“Sad,” Jerry put in for the coda.
“So … you don’t approve of people like that?” Matt wanted to be sure.
Mike had no doubt. “They give us all a bad name.” “They should be taken out and shot,” Jerry said. “Or stabbed?” Temple suddenly suggested.
The men were too deep in their disdainful duet to notice her, or the sharp relevancy of her question.
“Just drowned, maybe,” Jerry conceded, as if one mode of murder were less violent than another.
“Yeah. Elvis is dead.” Mike shook his dyed, lacquered head. “It’s too bad that creeps like those aren’t.”
“Amen, brother.”
Mike and Jeff, Elvises of one mind under the skin, grinned absolute agreement at each other.
Chapter 17
Turn Me Loose
(Written for Elvis in 1959 when he was in the army; Fabian recorded it first, and it hit the Top Ten)
This is one occasion when I do not have to worry about keeping a low profile while working undercover. I mean, this Kingdome place is a zoo.
Flrst of all, you figure on dozens of performers milling around in the dressing room area. Not just chorus members, mind you, but all solo acts. (If you can ever consider impersonating someone else as a solo act.) Then you have the costumes, which are stiff enough with glittering gewgaws to stand on their own, like a space suit. I am beginning to think that these fancy jumpsuits are capable of going out and doing a show on their own power. I mean, in this case it is a very close call as to whether the man makes the clothes or the clothes make the man. Or, in this case, the King.
This makes me sorry to see my little doll and Mr. Matt Devine wasting their time going around and talking to various of these impersonator dudes when it would be much wiser to cultivate a unique source. Talk to one Elvis impersonator, and you have talked to them all, is my point.
So my target is not this plentitude of dudes, but the lone little doll among them, and I am not referring to Miss Temple. Once she has led my friends to the Elvis concession and turned them loose, the subject fades out into the hall, where I am waiting.
A classic line in crime detection is French: cherchez la femme.
In plain English, this means tail the frail.
So I pitter-patter after Miss Priscilla, aka Quincey.
Frankly, I do not expect much to come of this. I expect to end up back at her dressing room, where she will resume obsessing about the state of her resemblance to a woman who at least is still alive, even though this particular semblance of her evokes the Bride of Dracula.
I can understand the King’s fixation on the color black, however.
No wonder he dyed his wimpy golden locks to the color of soot. I am glad that my rival for the cat food spokespurrson role, Maurice, has not thought to turn his yellow coat black like mine. Elvis, I heard Miss Electra holding forth, dyed his hair because even from the first he wanted a film career and he felt dark-haired dudes had a stronger screen presence. Dudes like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, or James Dean. Well, James Dean was a little wishy-washy in the hair color department, but Tony Curtis was another favorite of Elvis, and he was black as Midnight Louie.
Another thing Elvis was into was black leather. I come by mine naturally: nose, footpads and eyeliner, only I do not have to apply mascara like some Adrian Actor dude.
So I cannot fault the guy for changing himself around to look like me. Maybe not me personally, but my kind of cat. We are considered tough hombres, let me tell you, and the ladies really go for that macho look.
Why he wanted his Miss Priscilla to also look black tothe max, I do not know. I myself prefer a bit of variety in my private life. But everyone is entitled to his little quirks, and Elvis, a born collector of everything from cars and ‘cycles to girls and horses, was dealt a full hand of little quirks too.
So there I am, only a few steps behind these cute chunky old shoes, and I almost run into Miss Priss’s pale hose when she stops at a door that is not hers.
It is all I can do to keep my whiskers from tickling her calves. I do not manage to keep from gawking up her Aline skirt to check out a garter. Nobody wears garters anymore but snakes. Sure enough, Miss Quincey has been accurate enough to Miss Priscilla’s era to be wearing a garter belt. I am impressed by her acting verisimilitude.
She does not notice me, though, not even my vulgar surveillance.
She opens this door, darts in, and turns to close it so fast she leaves me standing in the hall extracting my whiskers from the doorjamb. I have just received a most unexpected and unattractive crimp in my facial hair.
Now I am really curious! Just what is so secret behind that door? I retreat to a nearby trash container, hunker behind its cola-streaked side, and wait.
When Miss Priscilla comes out, I will be ready to dash in, or my name is not Mr. Lucky.
Actually, my name is not Mr. Lucky, but there are times when it should be.
Chapter 18
King Creole
(The title song from a 1958 film)
“And I thought that Mike and Jerry were a twin act,” Matt said, staring at the next-door dressing room chockfull of burning hunks of Elvis.
“I guess their dressing room was unusually deserted,” Temple said. “Say, wasn’t Elvis a twin?”