There is just a door, big and shiny black. Leaning close, Elvis sees his own face in the new paint. He pats his hands on the cold wood, touching his reflection, and it makes a sound like somebody banging an empty bucket. He pats harder, watching his eyes appear and disappear beneath his hands, until he is beating on the door.
He is almost three years old, and standing outside Tupelo jailhouse with his aunt Lillian. It is a Thursday afternoon in winter, and frost is still on the sidewalk. His daddy is inside the jailhouse, because the men have taken him and won’t give him back, which makes his mama cry.
He must get in there, after his mama. She has gone, taking with her all the warmth and light in his world. He cannot hear her voice, but he is sure she must be calling for him.
The empty-bucket sound grows as he beats on the door. It vibrates along his arms, past the white cuffs his mother has sewn onto his shirt, and all the way to his chest.
‘Don’t be pitching a hissy fit,’ says Aunt Lillian, who is bony, and louder than Mama. ‘Your mama’s just visitin’. She’ll be out soon enough.’
Elvis yells for his mama.
Aunt Lillian grips his arm and yanks him away from the door. ‘Now you better hush up, or the police will come get you, too.’
Elvis yells louder, as loud as he possibly can. But still there is just the black mirror of the door, and his own face, appearing and disappearing.
Then a man comes out.
‘What’s all this hollering?’ he asks. The man has two chins and his breath clouds the air. He’s wearing a smart cap with a glinting silver star at the front, and on his hip is a pistol in a holster. Something about the way the man rests a hand there makes Elvis think of Brother Mansell touching his leather Bible.
Elvis stops crying, shocked by this sight.
Aunt Lillian steps back, but Elvis reaches for the pistol.
The man says, ‘No, no. That ain’t for young ’uns. When you’re grown, then you can hold it.’
But when Elvis makes another grab for the holster, the man crouches before him and weighs the pistol in his hands.
‘I guess you can touch it,’ he says, unlocking the barrel and spinning it around. ‘If you keep your mouth shut.’
Golden bullets – Elvis has seen these before, on the table at his grandfather’s house – tumble into the man’s hand like treasure.
Carefully, Elvis places his fingers on the pistol’s wooden handle. It is smooth and solid.
The man smiles. ‘That’s for protection,’ he says, pocketing the bullets and snapping the barrel back in place. ‘Yours and mine.’
Now Elvis’s attention is caught by the gleaming buttons on the man’s cuff. The cuff is stiff, not darned, and absolutely clean.
‘You like that, huh? My uniform?’
Standing, the man brushes himself off. His trousers have sharp creases, and his shoulders press at the seams of his dark blue jacket.
Elvis cannot take his eyes from him. For a moment, he forgets that his mama is crying inside the jailhouse with his daddy.
The man puts a hand to Elvis’s hair and lets it rest there. ‘Poor child,’ he says.
Then the door opens, and in the place of Elvis’s reflection is his mama. She steps towards him and with one sweep of her arms lifts him away from the man’s hand. The lightness in Elvis’s body as the sidewalk disappears beneath him is sudden and wonderful. He gazes into her wet eyes and says, ‘Mama!’
‘Elvis,’ she says, pressing her smooth cheek to his. He breathes in her good Mama smell.
She carries him along the sidewalk. Aunt Lillian hurries behind. When Elvis drags his eyes from his mama’s face, the man has gone.
Aunt Lillian’s kitchen is full of kids making noise. Cousin Billy keeps patting Elvis’s hair and saying, ‘Still the baby, huh?’ Lola Flora lies in the centre of the floor, kicking her heels on the boards and humming a tune. Bobbie rocks back and forth on her chair, pretending it’s a horse. Elvis races between his cousins, unsure which is best. He keeps an eye on his mama, who is sitting at the table with Aunt Lillian. Aunt Lillian is talking in a strong voice about how things are, and how they should be, as she pours coffee.
Elvis’s mama looks kind of blurry. Her face is redder and her eyes smaller than usual. Her body is folded up in its chair and she dabs at her nose with a handkerchief. It’s her best one: she’s shown it to Elvis and has told him she used it on her wedding day, because it was the only thing she had with lace on. Watching his mama lift the crumpled, damp cloth to her nose, Elvis suddenly finds it terrible to see that handkerchief getting spoiled. He jumps over Lola Flora’s body and whumps his hand down on his mama’s knee.
‘There, there, baby,’ he says in his clearest voice.
His mama stops dabbing her eyes, so he pats her knee again and repeats, ‘There, there.’
A smile plays around her mouth.
‘Glad, that boy of yours is sure surprising,’ says Aunt Lillian, putting down her coffee cup. And everyone in the room looks at Elvis.
His mama laughs, and her face seems to come into focus again. She lifts him to the safety of her knee, squeezing him around the middle, and whispers in his ear, ‘There, there, my baby.’