Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

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 alteration: drum/drum drum/drum drum/drum. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," the universe-opening theme music from2001: A Space Odyssey that live-concert Elvis had taken for his opening theme.

It was melodramatic, it was egomaniacal and pretentious, 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 frustrating years of inane movie-making, all engineered to provide the most money and exposure and least star satisfaction by the inimitable, pseudonymous, and bogus Colonel Tom Parker, carny confidence man turned theatrical manager. Some said Parker had mismanaged Elvis 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 exploded 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 spectacle on stage. Images of Elvis in performance were emblazoned on the collective popular memory. The impersonators 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 hysteria 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 hysterics 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 discreet way along the crowded hall. These Elvis impersonators 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 growling.

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 noticed 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 Quincey'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 gentleman 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.”