Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (40 page)

Oddly enough, the sole female Elvis impersonator
was also the only contestant to evoke Elvis the sleek
young sex symbol. Electra, not knowing Velvet's gen
der, grabbed Temple's forearm and hung on as Velvet
Elvis
strutted, purred, and stomped through "Tiger Man."

“That's
it!" Electra cheered Velvet Elvis on, under her breath. "That's it!”

That's
it, all right, Temple thought, a good part of the
young singer's appeal, only then the phenomenon hadn't
been noticed and named. The Androgynous Elvis.
Clai
rol on his hair, eyebrows, and sideburns, mascara on his lashes.

The fifties were more
decadent than they knew.

Temple found herself getting a kick out of the pro
ceedings. Some of the impersonators were so nervous
they shook (so had Elvis) but they had brought an in
nocent, sincere, raw energy to their acts that overcame
the
sophisticated theater-goer's expectations.

She
leaned back in her seat, scrunched down on her tailbone, and let her right
tennis shoe noiselessly tap the carpeted floor.

Beside her, Electra sat transfixed, her features lit by
the
reflected stage lights so she glowed like a, well, a thirty-six-year-old,
anyway.

Elvis
was gone, but his fans lived on, and they would never see him again. Only
imitations.

Temple scoured her memory
_.
for some performer
whose absence from a stage or the planet would deprive
her. All she could come up with was the Mystifying
Max, and that wasn't a fair comparison. Maybe she just
wasn't
born to be a fan. . . .

The onstage musicians must have been tiring of back
ing up such an endless parade of Elvises, who were be
ginning to blend one into the other. Even what they
excelled
at seemed lost in the sheer repetition.

You could hear the musicians' feet shuffling during a
lull, and those of the backup girl singers—and they were
no
more or less than girls in their fluffy outfits and hair.

Then she became aware of a figure, a ghostly figure
lost
in the dark at the back of the set.

The drums started pounding in deep, bellowing alter
ation:
drum/drum drum/drum drum/drum. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," the
universe-opening theme music from
2001: A
Space Odyssey
that live-concert
Elvis had taken
for his opening theme.

It was melodramatic, it was egomaniacal and preten
tious,
it was terrific theater.

The man at the back lifted his arms slowly to the
pulsing throbs of the drums, a short cloak he wore
spreading like wings. Then he turned and strode forward
into
the lights, a dead man walking.

He came onward. This was Edwardian Elvis of the
early seventies. This was the mature, recharged Elvis
who
had resumed live performance tours after nine frus
trating years of inane movie-making, all engineered to
provide the
most money and exposure and least star sat
isfaction
by the inimitable, pseudonymous, and bogus
Colonel Tom Parker, carny confidence man turned theatrical manager. Some
said Parker had mismanaged El
vis to death.

But he wasn't dead now. He
was in complete control.

Temple quite literally sat up and took notice. His
steps, timed to the thundering drumbeat, seemed to lift
her
off her seat.

He came right to the stage's very brim. If maddened
girls
weren't jumping up and down in the orchestra pit, screaming, they should have
been.

The band suddenly revved up and the still figure ex
ploded
into searing song and mind-bending motion. First came "Jailhouse
Rock" as delivered by a pneumatic drill. Then "Blue Suede Shoes"
and "Don't Be Cruel.”

Women started screaming in the audience. Temple
stared wide-eyed as Electra jumped up on her seat and
began clapping her hands. Temple blinked at the spec
tacle on stage. Images of Elvis in performance were
emblazoned
on the collective popular memory. The im
personators
had the patented poses all down, wide
stance, swiveling hips, knees
flexed, tippy-toe balance,
dipping almost to
the stage floor. Elvis fan or not Elvis
fan, everyone had images of Elvis branded into their
brains.

This guy made it all new, reinvented the moment as
if
twenty-some years had never passed. Evoked the same primal screams.

Temple felt herself about to surrender to the mass hys
teria that welled up around her like a ground fog filled
with
shrieking horns that happened to be people.

She clenched her fists and crossed her ankles under
her
seat.

By sheer willpower, she forced herself to stay calm in
a
monsoon of recognition and disbelief and ear-blasting nostalgia.

And then the performer suddenly stilled, and clasped
his mike like a sinner would a cross, and sang a sweet,
aching version of "Love Me Tender" that had the
hys
terics in silent tears.

Some
people wanted to see Venice and die. This
crowd only had to glimpse Elvis to go
to heaven.

Chapter 38

Jailhouse Rock

(A Jerry
Leiber and Mike Stoller song for the 1957 movie of the same name, a hit on
several U.S. charts and the first single in the history of British music charts
to debut at number one)

It
is a good thing that every dressing room door in the
backstage area is open, and that every dressing room
wall is
lined with mirrors.

This is how, despite the fact that the floor is full of
milling boots and blue suede shoes, I can make my dis
creet way along the crowded hall. These Elvis imperson
ators
are always checking out their hair and clothes in the nearest mirror.

A crocodile could be twining through their ankles, and
they
would never notice.

And I am far less noticeable than the average croc,
especially when I am not snapping my incisors and growl
ing.

So I slink on my belly like a snake of my great and
good acquaintance along the joining of floor and wall,
hoping
that the one person who could spot me in a coal
cellar (my devoted roommate Miss Temple Barr) is not in
the
vicinity.

You can bet I breathe a huge sigh of relief when I arrive
at the end dressing room occupied solo
by Miss Quincey
Conrad. I almost sound like a
dog. (Have you ever no
ticed that dogs
are very big sighers, especially when they
are settling down to sleep?
My kind, however, avoids the
extravagant
gestures, especially overt begging. You will
not hear huge happy—or
unhappy—heaves from us. Just
another of the
many little ways in which we differ from
the inferior species.) I cannot
resist peeking in. I have never seen a human
hairstyle
that reaches the height and hubris of Miss Quin
cey's Priscilla-do. I believe that I could curl up in
it
and
remain unseen for some time. As well as keep quite
toasty-warm,
if a bit tipsy on all that hair spray.

She is at the dressing table, doing her fingernails and
looking very bored indeed, despite the handsome gentle
man in a caped white jumpsuit who has one foot up on
an empty chair and a guitar in hand and is serenading
the
lady fair with "Love Me Tender.”

I
have to admire the dude's courting technique. You cannot
beat a good melancholy howl for making points
with the ladies. Sometimes, if you are lucky, they will
howl
right back.

But Elvis, despite all the onscreen lovelies he sere
naded in his thirty-two movies, was better off singing to
them, as he
continued to do with great results up to the
bitter
end.

So I slink away down the hall to the pleasant strains
of
song and story.

I
am hoping that the object of my quest is a little easier
to
reach this time. When I arrive at the door, it is shut.
Since it is made out of painted steel this is a severe
set
back, although not
unexpected. Here my native ingenuity
leaps to the four. I mean, fore. And to the four-on-the
floor
I am equipped with.

Since there is nothing so formal as a threshold, I am
able
to thrust a mitt under the steel door, pads and
shivs up. First I move my limb to the left and to the right, then
I stretch and strain, and stretch and strain with
all my
might. I do the pokey hokey
and turn my leg around, and
that is what
breaking in is all about.

Naturally,
I feel nothing but air, empty air. No one has
considerately
dropped a key on the other side of the door
that I can paw onto this side (so then I can go get Miss
Temple and get her to open the door for me, which
is the
last thing I wish to do,
because my investigation is not
yet ready for another operative's
messing with it).

I
am so exasperated it almost crosses my mind to sigh, although that is entirely
too doglike a thing for any self-respecting dude of my sort to do.

And then . . . I feel a flutter light as a moth in the
palm
of my pads. Eek! It tickles! I do not
do giggles either.

So I steel myself against the teasing sensation and
keep my mitt still. Smooth pad leather strokes mine. Play
ing footsie through the door might be a toothsome ex
perience were the Divine Yvette or some other lissome lady
on the other side, but I know what is on the other
side, and I do not want it getting overfriendly with my
pads.

So I pull my questing limb back under the door. Some
times what is denied is what is most desired. Face it:
what
is denied is
always
what is most desired, a fact which
accounts for the success of several crime families all
over
the globe.

I hear a soft pressure on the door's other side and fix
my
gaze on the locked doorknob above me.

I know the Stare will not be sufficient to get me to the
other
side of this door, given the circumstance, but I also know that Someone on the
Other Side Likes Me.

The silver steel knob jerks. Then jerks the other way. I
heard the sweet snick of a deadbolt being drawn. The
knob
rattles.

And then the door cracks inward, and I am again al-
most overwhelmed by the fruit-salad odor that sweeps out
the
open door.

I hold my breath, drag the cracked door open just
enough to admit my svelte form, and dart into the
dark
ness within.