In 1964, when Roy was a student at the University of Missouri, in Columbia, two friends of a recent acquaintance, Tom Booth, who occupied the room next to Roy’s in their dormitory, stopped by to see Tom while he and Roy were in his room playing records. Bill and Bob were from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where they had gone to high school with Tom, and where they still lived. Bill worked in a filling station and Bob in a lumber yard. They told Tom and Roy that they were on their way to Memphis, Tennessee, to visit Elvis Presley.
“He know you’re comin’?” Tom asked.
Bill and Bob both snickered, and Bob said, “Naw, we thought we’d keep it a surprise.”
Bill was a tall, lanky kid with sandy hair and a wispy mustache. Bob was shorter and even skinnier and already losing his hair. Both of them were eighteen, the same age as Tom and Roy.
“How do you know Elvis is at Graceland?” Roy said. “He might be off in Hollywood making a movie.”
Bob removed a pack of Lucky Strikes from the rolled-up left sleeve of his white tee shirt, shook out a cigarette, put it between his lips and lit it. He offered the pack around. Tom took one and stuck it in his mouth. Bob lit it off the same match, then blew out the match.
“We just want to see the place,” said Bill. “Be cool to check out the King’s crib, maybe eyeball his pink Cadillacs. Heard he bought one for each of his Memphis Mafia, and his mama, too.”
“I think she died,” Bob said.
In Bill and Bob’s honor, Tom put on a 45 of Elvis singing “You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care)”. After it finished playing, Roy said, “I really like Buddy Holly’s version of that one. You ever hear it?”
“Elvis does everything better than anyone else,” said Bob.
“Know who Elvis says is his favorite singer?” Bill asked.
Tom and Roy shook their heads.
“Mario Lanza.”
“I saw him in a movie,” said Tom, “wearin’ a pirate costume or somethin’. He’s pretty fat.”
“He’s fat, yeah,” Bill said, “but he’s got a real deep voice that Elvis likes.”
Bob nodded. “Elvis is startin’ to sound more like Mario Lanza now,” he said. “Like on ‘Devil in Disguise’.”
“ ‘Little Sister’, too,” said Bill.
Bill stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe, stood up and flicked the butt out the window. It was a late afternoon in October and the sky was getting dark.
Bob stood up and so did Tom and Roy.
“We’d best be movin’,” Bob said.
Tom and Roy shook hands with both of them.
“Let me know how it goes with Elvis,” said Tom. “Good to see you guys.”
“Nice to meet you,” Roy said. “Good luck.”
“Say hi to the King for me,” said Tom.
“You bet,” said Bob.
About four thirty the next morning, someone knocked on Roy’s door and woke him up. It was Tom. Roy let him in.
“What’s the matter?” Roy said.
“Bill and Bob were just here again.”
“They’re here?”
Tom shook his head. “No, they’re gone now, but they wanted to show me somethin’ before they headed back to Cape Girardeau.”
“What was it?”
“They got a cement birdbath in the back of Bill’s Apache pick-up. Said they stole it out of Elvis’s garden at Graceland.”
“Why?”
“Elvis wasn’t there. A guard at the gate told ’em the King was away in California or Hawaii makin’ a movie, just like you said.”
Roy got back into bed and Tom Booth stood by the window. The sky was turning pink.
“So they copped his birdbath?”
“Yeah. They snuck in somehow and took it, then drove back here for a pit stop. I went out and saw the birdbath in the bed of Bill’s truck.”
“Anything special about it?”
“Just looked like a regular old birdbath to me,” said Tom. “Thought you’d like to know. I’m goin’ to bed.”
A week later, Tom told Roy he’d heard from Bill and Bob. Apparently, after they’d gotten home to Cape Girardeau, they called Graceland and told someone there that they were big fans of Elvis’s, that they’d taken the birdbath and would return it if they could meet Elvis in person after he returned from Hollywood. They told whoever it was they spoke to that they would call back the next day, which they did. One of Elvis’s buddies, a guy named Red, told them that he’d called Elvis and Elvis said his movie was finished and that he’d be back in Memphis in a couple of days. Elvis told Red to tell Bill and Bob that if they returned the birdbath he wouldn’t press charges, and he agreed to meet them in person.
“Did they go back?” asked Roy.
Tom nodded. “Yeah, delivered the birdbath and the guard let ’em carry it to where it had stood in the garden and set it down. Elvis and Red came out and Elvis gave both Bill and Bob autographed pictures of himself and had Red take a photograph of the three of them with one arm around Bill’s shoulder and one arm around Bob’s. Bob told me that Elvis said they’d done a good service by showing him how his security at Graceland wasn’t what it should be, that everyone wasn’t as honorable as Bill and Bob. They told Elvis how they’d gotten onto the grounds and smuggled out the birdbath and Elvis said he reckoned as how one of these days they’d be doing bigger things and that he’d be reading about them in the newspapers.”
“They’re lucky he kept his word and didn’t press charges.”
“He made Bill and Bob promise to not tell anyone what happened because he didn’t want other people to think that by stealing something like they’d done would be a good way to meet him.”
“They told you,” Roy said.
“Yeah, but I was kind of there about from the beginning. I told Bill I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“You told me.”
Tom looked down at his feet for a moment, then back up at Roy and said, “Well, I just thought you’d appreciate knowin’ what a good person Elvis is.”