Carole Douglas - Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Kenny's voice had sunk to a reverential hush.

“What kind of work do you do, Kenny, when you're not doing Elvis?”

He hung his head a little. Maybe he was shy, or maybe the helmet of hair was too heavy a burden to carry. "Shoe salesman in the mall. And no, they don't make blue suede shoes anymore, least not for guys. Say, those are some sharp heels you got on there."

“That's the general idea," Temple said. A three-inch heel was a portable dagger.

Chapter 12

I Forget to Remember to Forget

(A catchy song Elvis recorded for RCA in 1956; record execs were much higher on it than his next recording, "Heartbreak Hotel")

He'd look at the old photos now and then.

Where had he gone, Young Elvis? And Middle Elvis—didn't those damn Egyptians have a Middle Kingdom or somethin'? He didn't count for much, Middle Elvis. A flash in the developing pan: for a few blinks of the camera's eye lean and mean in a black leather suit. Just a bridge over troubled waters. And then there was Jumpsuit Elvis, and he'd been pretty good almost to the end, except you could see it in his eyes, in the photos. Zonked on pharmaceuticals. So finally he became Ultimate Elvis. Fat and Forty Elvis. Even Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show took potshots at Fat Elvis. That had hurt. He watched TV a lot. And he didn't shoot out the screen, either. He was too weary by then to hit back.

Parade-blimp Elvis. Nothin' to hide behind but his own excesses. But were they ever his own? Ever'body owned him. Hismama and his daddy, his Colonel Parker and his Memphis Mafia, his playgirls and his maybe-real girls, who touched him just enough to make him not ever wanta get burned that way again.

When he was young, he could eat what he wanted, play wlth what he wanted, screw what he wanted. Or what wanted him.

And everythin' movin' did.

Oh, yeah.

That's all right, Mama.

The King frowned. It wasn't all right, Mama. Never had been.

No one had told him. He never knew he couldn't just keep on keepin' on. That there'd be consequences.

Consequences! Hell, that was the name of a town in New Mexico with "Truth or" in front of it. He'd never visited that tank town, though the Colonel had him traipsing through every whistle-stop in America. Never out of America, though. Turned out his whole career was driven by what Colonel Parker had to hide. Where were the tell-all books about that? How the Colonel was an illegal Dutch alien, so he kept turning down flat all of the million-dollar offers to play Europe or Japan or Australia, challenging moves that would have kept a performer interested in his own life and career, instead of getting bored to death. Or on the way the Colonel kissed the King off to Hollywood, for thirty-two quick-shoot movies that minimized his performing talent just to maximize everybody's profit. Or how he ran him ragged in Las Vegas with two shows a night because the Colonel owed millions in gambling debts to the International Hotel owner, even when it later became the Las Vegas Hilton. Colonel played and Elvis paid. And paid. And paid, until there was only one way to stop.

No use crying over spilt buttermilk, though.

The Colonel was finally dead now after living to the ripe old age of eighty-seven. And Elvis is still going strong, in one way or the other.

He bestirred himself to open one of the long row of mirrored closet doors.

Time to go out. To see and be seen. Let's see. What would he wear? His pale, beringed hand reached out for something white.

Chapter 13

All Shook Up (Elvis's 1957 all-time hit, thirty weeks on the charts; Elvis's "Yeah, Yeah" here inspired the trio of yeahs in Lennon and McCartney's "She Loves Me." Elvis had recorded a song named "Yeah, yeah, yeah" in 1954.)

Matt Devine was thirty-five minutes into his midnight radio show, but it felt like he had only spent about ten minutes at the microphone.

Maybe he was getting good at this.

Or maybe this had been an easy night.

He'd had the usual lovelorn listeners he inherited from Ambrosia's earlier "music for misery" three-hour show. "Music for misery" was Matt's name for it. Also "soft rock for hard times." To be fair, not everyone who called in was feeling blue; some wanted a sentimental song to celebrate a new love, or a dedicated parent or sibling. Still, it added up to a three-hour stint of with-it schmaltz.

Matt and his "serious" talk show was supposed to be the heavy hitter; the real counselor. But it was hard for Matt to take the emotional scratches and contusions of call-ins to WCOO-AM seriously after months of handling hot-line counseling for ConTact. There the daily owies ranged from domestic violence to drug overdose to suicide, life-threatening problems that were sometimes still in progress.

Still, he had debuted on this station to handle an almost-infanticide, and he'd rather help apply Band-Aids than perform CPR any day.

“So what d'you think, Mr. Midnight?" the tentative female voice was asking for all the world to hear. "Should I ditch Spencer and stick with Kirby?”

Given names nowadays! Hard to imagine what a St. Spencer or a St. Kirby would be like. As for a St. Tiffany. . .

“Tiffany, it's your life. You're only sixteen. You don't have to choose anyone yet. You have a right to tell both guys you want to play the field. You have a right to pick one, or neither. What you don't have a right to do is be dishonest with them, or yourself."

“Right." She didn't sound like the road had become clear and straight ahead of her, or ever would. "I know! Maybe I should find a third guy. That way neither one can blame the other, or me."

“You could try life without a boyfriend for a while." "Really? I never thought of that."

“Maybe you don't need to know more guys. Maybe you need to know yourself a little better so you can figure out what guys are right for you."

“Oh, that is such a radical idea, Mr. Midnight. Guess what I'm gonna do? Nothing. I'm gonna stay home nights and listen to your show, and figure out what everybody else is doing. It'll be like going to school, right?"

“Maybe." At moments like this, Matt longed to simply end the conversation with some schmaltzy song, as Ambrosia did. With a voice as warm and mellow as her cafe-au-lait skin, "Ambrosia" was producer Leticia Brown's seven-to-midnight alter ego. Mr. Midnight, unfortunately, sang a cappella. "Whatever you do, do it for yourself first. If you don't know who you are, you won't be able to tell who anyone else is."

“Oooh. That is so right on. Thank you, Mr. Midnight.

I'll be here, listening to you.”

That's what Matt was afraid of. In the commercial radio counseling game, it seemed that the messenger, not the message, was the big attraction.

Radio was an anonymous medium, but it wasn't a private one, like the hotline. Matt still felt uneasy about the difference.

In the control booth, Ambrosia/Leticia was giving him the thumb's-up sign. Her beautiful, upbeat face was his lifeline. She didn't have to stay after her gig, but she had hired him. She planned on babying him along, es- pecially after his spectacular debut.

“Great, Matt," her deep voice, so like a cat's that had swallowed a brandy Alexander, purred over the headphones. "You're developing quite a teeny-bopper fol- lowing."

“That's good?"

“That's very good. That's the groove the advertisers crave.”

And that's what was happening while they talked: commercials were playing, paying his salary.

Leticia lifted a forefinger like a chorus director. When it descended, another voice was humming in his ears, male this time.

“This, ah, that midnight talk show?"

“Certainly is. The Midnight Hour on WCOO-AM: talk radio with heart." Matt delivered this corny line with as much heart as he could muster.