Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

(Winfield Scott wrote this for Elvis, who recorded it in 1970 and was seen rehearsing the song in the documentary Elvis—That's the Way It Is)

Pools of lamplight lay on the pavement like the spotlights Hercule Poirot walks through during the opening credits for his series on PBS's Mystery! Matt enjoyed the various characters, particularly Miss Lemon, Poirot's tart spinsterish assistant, who reminded him of many an efficient parish secretary.

The opening sequence always stirred memories of a cane-carrying Charlie Chaplin jerk-stepping out of the frame of some black-and-white silent film.

Matt felt he was moving under the stop-motion influence of a strobe light too. He always felt stiff and tired leaving the radio station, as if he'd been doing physical, instead of psychic work.

When someone appeared from the dark in front of him like a ghost, he stopped, alarmed.

“Mr. Midnight?”

She was young enough that his first instinct was to ask what she was doing out alone at this hour.

But she wasn't alone. Another figure edged into the puddle of light ahead of him. Another young girl.

“Can we have your autograph?" the second curfew-violator asked.

“On what? And I haven't got a pen.”

  The first girl mutely extended a rectangular sheet.

Matt was shocked to gaze at his own image, a blackand-white version of the color photograph used for the single billboard the station had mounted in his honor.

“Where'd you get this?

“We called here earlier today to ask about autographs, and they said they were having some photos made up." Oh, they did, did they? Since when?  But here was a rollerball pen extended by fan number one. Matt looked around, finally spotting a newspaper vending machine. He went over and placed the photo on its slightly corroded metal top. Barely enough light spilled from the parking lot to show where the photo was pale enough to write on.

And what would he say? He looked up, smiling uneasily at the sober-faced girls ... they had become three.

He felt surrounded, as if they were the brides of Dracula and he had stumbled into their grim, encompassing midst.

What would he say? Write, rather. Uh . . . best wishes. Dull. Ah . . . good listening, regards ... ah, Mr. Midnight? Or Matt Devine. No, Matt Devine wanted nothing to do with this charade. The pen took over for his vacillating mind. "Good Listening, Mr. Midnight." What did that mean? Who knew?

“Could you put my name on it?"

“Name?"

“Up there, over your shoulder. "To Cheryl Baker." "Cheryl Baker." He began writing it.

“Uh, no. With two r's."

“Huh?"

“There are two r's in Cherryl."

“Oh. Well, I'll make the upper part of the 'y' into an `r' and ... how's that?"

“Great! Thanks, Mr. Midnight. You were really super with that poor girl. Is she okay?"

“As okay as she can be at the moment. I think she'll get better with time."

“That was so awesome." Fan number two crowded closer to extend a second photo.

He knew right where to sign this time. "And what's your name?"

“Xandra with an 'X.' "

“You'll have to spell that.”

She did, letter by letter, as if she'd done this before. Fan number three advanced in turn.

This was no slip of a girl, but a heavy-set woman in the whimsical cat-print scrub-clothes that nurses wore nowadays. She must have come on her way to—or from—the night shift at a hospital.

This fifty-something veteran of such interchanges knew exactly what he was supposed to write. "From Mr. Midnight and Elvis, to Diane."

“I don't know if I'm entitled to sign Elvis's name." "You've talked to him, haven't you?"

“I'm not sure. Are you?"

“Oh, yeah. I have listened to everything Elvis for years. I've been to Graceland three times for the August memorial."

“Wouldn't it be . . . pretty amazing if Elvis really were alive, and after all these years started calling some obscure radio show in Las Vegas?”

She shook her shoulder-length hair, which had once been springy and black but now was frosted with broad brush strokes of white. Matt guessed she'd worn the same haircut for three decades, and had worshipped Elvis through every one of them.

“Nope," she said matter of factly. "I mean, not thatit's not amazing, but Elvis was pretty amazing himself. He wouldn't give up on his fans. And if he did get too tired and sick to go on, he might have arranged to disappear. He had the money to go anywhere or be anybody."

“So why would he come back via live radio, over twenty years later?"

“He knew how to make an entrance." She smiled and snapped the gum she was chewing. Matt caught a faint, nostalgic whiff of Juicy Fruit. "You can just never tell what Elvis might do.”

Matt recognized pure faith when he saw it. He had never seen it shown to anything other than a religious figure. Maybe the shrinks who identified Elvis as a shaman, a primitive holy man, weren't all wet. Didn't the faithful visit the burial shrine at Graceland every August, and every day of the year, making it second only to the White House in annual visitor count?