When Elvis returns from a night at the Rollerdrome with his friends, Gladys is waiting for him.
It is four a.m. He must report to the Memphis draft board for induction into the army at seven. Gladys has been awake all night, listening for the sound of his car coming up the driveway. Around three she gave up trying to sleep in her bed and decided to wait it out on the huge white couch, custom-built and not long installed in the living room. Although she thinks the couch ludicrous, she likes this room. The ivory drapes and the blue of the walls were her choices; she finds them restful. The colour of the walls makes her think of a bird’s egg, although Mr Golden, who helped them with the decor, called it Dresden blue.
Now Elvis stands in the doorway, looking at her from under his brow, a hopeful smile playing around his mouth. The others, seeing her there, stop their babbling and shuffle downstairs to the den. She hears Cliff say, ‘Army’s gonna be a breeze compared to facing your mama, boy,’ and one of the girls giggling in response.
Elvis sniffs and composes his face. ‘Mama.’
‘Elvis.’
She glances at the clock.
He takes the opportunity to stretch out on the couch beside her, placing his head heavily in her lap and closing his eyes. He smells strongly of cigarettes and perfume. Whether it’s Anita’s or his own, Gladys cannot tell.
‘Mama, can you do something for me?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Can you keep your eye on Anita? Truth is, I ain’t sure how much I can trust that girl.’
‘Any fool can see she’s devoted to you.’
He frowns. ‘But how do I know she really loves me?’
He’s asked this question before, of other girls. Usually Gladys would provide him with comforting words, saying that of course the girl can see the real him, and loves him not for his money and his fame but for his own self. But she’s no longer sure if this is true. Anita wants a career in entertainment, and does a good job of almost outshining her son whenever they are seen in public. So Gladys says, ‘Well, why don’t you just ask her?’
He sighs. ‘I’m dog tired.’
‘You oughta’ve gone to your own bed instead of out on the town.’
‘Mama,’ he murmurs, ‘it’s my last night in Memphis.’
‘Looks like morning time to me, son.’
He covers his eyes with one hand, as if he might drop off to sleep, which prompts her to shove him from her lap. He yelps and laughs, but Gladys isn’t smiling.
‘Now you listen. I want you to go and eat good,’ she says. ‘Then wash up and get yourself ready for the US Army. As if this thing ain’t bad enough without you showing up at the draft station looking like some alley cat just dragged itself in off Beale.’
‘I was at the Rollerdrome!’
‘But where was you after that?’
He throws himself back on the cushions and lets out a great huff of indignation.
She stands. ‘If I were you, I’d worry less about Anita loving you and more about how you’re gonna make it through today,’ she says, wrapping her housecoat tightly around her. ‘I’m gonna go fix you some breakfast.’
‘Daisy can do it,’ he mumbles. ‘You oughta take the weight off—’
‘Not this morning,’ she warns, turning for the door. ‘This morning I am fixing you breakfast.’
She’s sitting on her bed in her underclothes, staring blindly at the new pink dress laid out beside her, when Vernon comes in.
‘Glad. I sure hate to rush you, but we gotta leave soon.’
Her husband looks fresh and well ironed. He always enjoys having his picture taken for the papers; being before the camera seems to increase his brightness, as if a switch has been flicked and his lights have come on. It’s the same with Elvis. Vernon’s suit is new, a sombre shade of grey, and his shoes squeak as he crosses the room to sit beside her.
‘I can’t wear this one,’ she says, pushing the dress away.
‘But you bought it specially.’
‘It don’t feel right. It looks like a wedding outfit, when this here’s more like a damn funeral.’
‘Don’t start with the dismals, Glad.’
‘Why did I go and yell at him this morning, of all mornings?’
‘You was upset. We all are.’
‘Just fetch me the blue one, will you?’
Vernon goes to the closet and rakes through the dresses, holding them up for her ‘yes’ or ‘no’, tossing the unwanted ones on the carpet as he goes. She doesn’t have the energy to tell him to pick them up.
He holds up a dark blue one with a slash of cream silk at the chest.
‘That’s it.’
‘Put it on, then,’ he says, softly. He checks his watch. ‘Lord! It’s past six already.’
She snatches the dress away. ‘I’m losing my son today, and all you can think of is the time!’
‘You ain’t losing him, Glad. He’s going in the army, is all.’
‘He could be fighting in a war soon!’
‘Honey,’ says Vernon, looking into her face. ‘They won’t harm a hair on his precious head. Colonel will take care of that.’
‘Colonel?’ She almost spits. ‘If he could take care of anything at all, Elvis would never have got that draft letter!’
Vernon hangs his head. ‘You gotta get a hold of yourself. Boy’s gonna serve his country. Ain’t nothing we can do about it.’
‘I already lost one. I can’t lose another.’
He sits beside her and, to her surprise, takes her hands in his.
‘I lost him too,’ he says, quietly.
For a moment, she thinks about laying her head on his shoulder. But then she straightens her spine. ‘Give me a minute to get this thing on,’ she says, removing her hands from his and shaking out the dress with a crack.
Vernon stands and wipes his face. ‘Wear the diamond earrings,’ he instructs, before closing the door.
At the drafting office, Gladys tries to focus on following her son into the building without getting distracted by the crowds of reporters and fans on the sidewalk, but even inside there are camera bulbs flashing and people yelling his name. The Colonel seems to be herding them to and fro, chewing on his cigar and grinning like an alligator as he hands out balloons with the name of Elvis’s new movie, KING CREOLE, stamped on the side. Elvis somehow looks well scrubbed and rested, smiling and talking fast to anybody who asks him a question as if he’s had a solid ten hours in bed. Gladys knows he takes a little medication sometimes, when he’s on the road or working long hours in Hollywood. When she asked him about it, he told her all the stars take something to help them through, even Judy Garland, and that he would use the washbag she made him to keep his pills safe while he was gone. The studios arrange for doctors to prescribe medication especially, he said, which she’d thought very generous of them. But this morning, as Elvis signs papers and poses for picture after picture, Gladys notices his hand twitches even more than usual. The blue of his eyes has all but disappeared, replaced by the wide blackness of his pupils.
Vernon holds her arm tighter than is comfortable, keeping her as upright as him. They follow the crowd back into the cars and over to the Kennedy Veterans Hospital, where Elvis is stripped and weighed and measured and has all his fingers dipped in ink and rolled across a page as if he’s about to be taken to the state pen. The Colonel pats Gladys’s arm and whispers in her ear, ‘Your son is worth his weight in gold.’
More photos. More documents. Elvis eats an army sandwich, but Gladys can’t face any food at all. Then he holds up his right hand, managing to control the twitching for a minute, and says the words, I, Elvis Presley, do solemnly swear that I will have true faith and allegiance to the United States of America.
More photos, and suddenly everyone is leaving. She must say goodbye, now, and Elvis is there, right up close, still smiling although his eyes are all wrong, but she can’t smile back as he hugs and kisses her and whispers in her ear, ‘I’ll send for you and Daddy just as soon as I can.’
And as the reporters push closer to Gladys, calling her name now as her son boards the bus, she finds herself uncomfortably aware of how it would look if she were to smile and wave with the others when the newspapers have made such a great deal of her being a devoted Christian mother whose special bond with her boy has granted him the strength to become the star he is today. She wipes her cheek, and lets her mouth fall into a silent howl of dismay, just as though she were attending the funeral of her only son, and the flashbulbs blaze around her.