Last Ride to Graceland (26 page)

I'm stunned. I'm not a lucky person. I've never even won movie tickets or a piece of Tupperware in a church bingo game, and now this man is giving me this car. This car that I know without thinking costs more than my daddy's whole house.

Elvis reaches over and grabs my hand. Presses it into the steering wheel with his own. “Drive, Honey Bear,” he says. “Get your pretty little ass out of here and keep driving. Go as far as you can go until the water stops you.”

I blink back tears. “Why are you doing this?”

He holds out the test tube. It must have been in his hand all along.

“Because you're pregnant,” he says.

CORY

L
ucy doesn't like Fred. That seems like a bad sign, because Lucy is the most indiscriminate creature I've ever met. Even that time he lunged at the Montgomery La Quinta desk clerk, it was just a matter of being overenthusiastic about a treat and he was wagging his tail again two seconds later.

But Lucy has had a low growl rolling around in his throat since the moment we pulled up in this back parking lot and got out. The hair is standing up on the back of his neck as I drag him toward the side yard, where Dirk and a scrawny little man are leaning against a white split fence. I probably shouldn't have brought the dog here. He kept getting progressively agitated as I drove through the mazelike back roads that lead away from the front gates, the tour buses, and the crowds. And now we are walking slowly toward Dirk and what must be Fred. His gray hair is thin and longish for a man, curling up on the ends. He's wearing a string necktie that makes him look like he's getting ready to sell me some fried chicken.

On top of all that, the first thing he says to me is a criticism.

“I cannot believe,” he says, “that you let a coonhound ride in Elvis Presley's very own Stutz Blackhawk.”

He has his palm outstretched and for the briefest of moments I think he wants to shake my hand. But then I see that no, he's held his hand out palm up. He wants the key.

“You're expecting me to hand over my car just like that,” I say. “You think you'll take it from me the second you see me. Candy from a baby. “

“You can't lose something that wasn't yours to begin with,” he says.

“Elvis gave my mother this car,” I say, but even I can hear the fear in my voice.

“Oh, I'm not suggesting Honey stole it,” Fred says. We're both talking louder than two people normally talk. Shouting across an unnatural distance, because Lucy's still straining on the leash and I'm afraid to take him any closer. At least he's stopped growling.

“Honey was a good girl,” Fred goes on. “All I'm saying is that she borrowed it. Borrowed it for an extended period of time.”

“Thirty-eight years.”

“Thirty-eight years. Fair enough. And now her daughter has brought it back.”

I look down at the keys in my hand, suddenly aware of how hard it will be to hand them over. I've been in that car for four days, more or less, and I know I've driven it thoughtlessly, despite all of Leary's warnings about how the whole thing could blow at any minute. But the tires haven't shredded and the en
gine hasn't overheated and I know I've been lucky. The Blackhawk was a gift from fate that I damn near squandered.

Stalling for time as much as anything else, I walk back to the car and start pulling my possessions from the back. It occurred to me on the shuttle that once I release this car to Fred, I won't have any way to get back to the Memphis airport La Quinta, or to Beaufort for that matter. I haven't thought out this part of my adventure at all. In fact, this part is pure Cory Beth Ainsworth, to be so focused on how you're going to get to a place that you never stop and think twice about how you're going to get yourself back.

Fred's expression sours even more as he watches me yank out my backpack and toss it in the dirt, then lean back and get the guitar, which I set against the backpack, and finally Bradley's waders. I line them up too and there you have it, the sum total of my worldly possessions.

“What the hell are those?” says Fred.

“Waders. For fly-fishing.”

“I know what they are. Why the hell did you bring them here?” he asks, and just then, before I can say something else stupid, Dirk steps forward. He has a gift for inserting himself into a situation at the perfect moment, and the minute he comes toward us, Lucy calms down. He extends a hand toward the dog and suddenly Lucy's all licks and wags and sniffles.

“Here's what's going to happen,” says Dirk.

His tone is calm and perfectly pleasant, but I'll wager the man has never said those five words all together in his life, at least not in the presence of his father.

“Cory here is going to hand over the keys to the car,” Dirk
says. “And you're going to sit down and listen real carefully to a tape she has. It's the last recording anybody on earth has of Elvis Presley singing, and he is furthermore singing with this girl's own mama.

“That's right,” Dirk goes on when Fred frowns and tries to break in. “It's Elvis and Honey Berry on that tape, collaborating on an original piece of music. And since both of them are unfortunately deceased at this point in time, the girl standing here in front of you, Miss Cory Beth Ainsworth, is now going to sing that song in their place. She finished it and she's going to record it, and Graceland is going to release it.”

There is a moment of dead silence and then Fred's eyes slide back toward the guitar. “Can she even sing?” he asks.

“She can sing real good,” says Dirk, and he smiles at me. “I heard her yesterday when we were walking around the church, letting the dog take his crap. She's a lead singer by nature, that's my opinion. Not meant to stand in the back with a bunch of other girls, meaning no disrespect to her mama.”

Fred starts to say something, probably to ask his son what the hell he's talking about with the dog and a church and me singing lead when all he was supposed to do was go straight to Tupelo and fetch my troublesome ass to Memphis. He gets as far as opening his mouth to drown Dirk in a flood of questions, but then he stops himself. He wants the car. He wants it real bad. Bad enough to take a bit of guff off two people he sees as no better than kids.

“Show him what I'm talking about,” says Dirk, and he hands me the guitar.

I give Fred a few quick lines of “Love Me Tender” standing
right here in the gravel. Dirk likes it. He closes his eyes, rocking back and forth between one big foot and the other. Lucy's pleased too. He gives me a little backup, in fact, pulling his mouth into an O and crooning along. Only Fred is unmoved by my rendition. His expression never changes and he folds his arms across his chest.

When I finish he says, “You sound like your mother.”

“Only when I sing.”

“Only when you sing? Fool answer. What you should be saying is thank you. 'Cause I hired her, didn't I? There must have been a hundred girls at that open call and your mama was the only one I took.”

“Then thank you. You're right. That's what I should have said the first time.”

But Fred is still frowning. “You grew up singing Elvis? Your mama taught you?”

“Actually, no. I just started singing Elvis . . . the day before yesterday.”

I can tell he doesn't believe me. He thinks I've spent a lifetime moving up and down the East Coast, stopping at every little bar I can find and ripping off my slight connection to the King. He thinks I'm nothing more than another pretender, a poser and a wannabe, but he stops himself before he pushes too far. There's still a negotiation in the works, after all.

“So you claim you got a tape of Elvis,” he begins, “and you claim he's singing some song nobody's ever heard of . . .”

“It's my mother and Elvis together,” I say. “And I think the tape was made just a day or two before he died. My guess would be they were in the jungle room.” I don't tell him that I
hatched this theory today, staring down into the room, thinking that the way it was covered in cloth from the floor to the ceiling and sunk down three steps, it would be a perfect place to sing. And if I thought that, I bet Mama once thought it too. I'm finally starting to face the fact that despite thirty-eight years of protest, I'm exactly fucking like her, both the good and the bad.

Fred is nodding, almost despite himself. I bet he hardly ever nods. I bet his head is used to going side to side but not up and down. It's probably getting ready to snap off right here in the parking lot.

“They sang sometimes there in the jungle room,” he admits. “Recorded some too.”

“So I think she started out alone, late at night,” I say, “and he heard her and came in and he took the lead and she came in on the harmony and I've got it all on tape. Right here.” I pull the tape from my jacket pocket and hold it out. Fred looks down at it.

“And why am I supposed to think this recording is authentic?” Fred asks. “The world is slap full of people who think they sound like Elvis.”

“Oh, it's authentic all right,” says Dirk. “You can have them run whatever tests people run on this kind of thing and I swear to you, Pop, they'll every one come back telling you that this little eight-track tape sat undisturbed in that car for all those years. Honey started the song and Cory finished it and now we're going to take her over to Sun Records and—”

“Sun Records?” Fred looks down and spits. “Hell, Sun Rec­ords ain't no more than a hole-in-the-wall these days. A tourist trap.”

I'm thinking it takes a lot of balls for a man standing in a
Graceland parking lot to spit on the ground and call anything a tourist trap, but Dirk is ready for that one too.

“No, sir,” he says. “I'm asking you to reconsider. Elvis did his first record at Sun, back in the day, and it's only fitting that his last one comes out of there too. It gives the whole thing . . . what's the word, Cory Beth? The word that means something's exactly equal going back and forward?”

“Symmetry,” I say, because for once I know where Dirk is heading. “So yes, it's only fitting that Sun Records releases Elvis's first record and his last one, sixty-two years apart. May lightning strike me if I don't have a little bit of him singing on this tape. You'll hear it clear enough when you listen.”

“We can start with that little clip of Elvis and then fade into Cory's voice,” says Dirk, like it's all been decided. When the hell did he get so smart? “So she's going to give you the keys to this car and you'll gonna call up Sun Records and tell them that we're delighted—”

“Delighted?” Fred says skeptically, then he spits on the ground again. “Nobody here is delighted about goddamn anything.”

“Well, I guarantee they're going to be delighted about this,” says Dirk. “Because they're gonna be hearing the sound of cash registers clinking all the way to California.” He's been my champion without fail for the last two days, and I'm going to have to find a way to thank him when this is all over. But then again, judging by the way he's smiling, maybe Dirk is going to have to find a way to thank me. Something about this situation is making him stand up to his daddy for the first time in his life, and he likes it.

“We're going to call Sun Records and tell them this is their
lucky day,” Dirk goes on. “Tell them that we are delighted . . . extremely delighted . . . what's the word, Cory Beth?”

“Ecstatic,” I say.

“Ecstatic to have found, after all these years, the last recorded words of Elvis Presley. We're going to tell them that this treasure was brought to us by the daughter of one of Elvis's long-lost backup singers, Honey Berry, and that now, after all these years, the song will be released. Tell them that Cory could have taken this . . . this . . .”

“Artifact,” I say. “This precious piece of American history.”

“She could have taken it to any record label in America,” says Dirk. He's rocking so hard back and forth on his feet now that I'm afraid he's going to topple over. “Any record company in America would have rolled out the red carpet just to have a chance for the last recording from the King, but Miss Ainsworth wanted there to be . . .”

“Symmetry,” Fred and I say in unison. Lucy thumps his tail.

“And furthermore . . .” says Dirk.

“Good God,” says Fred. “There's a
furthermore
?”

“There is,” says Dirk. “And furthermore, we're gonna see to it that this song debuts on the Sirius Elvis station across the street and it'll be for sale in every gift shop at Graceland. The fans will gobble this story right up like butter on a biscuit.”

“But Graceland and the estate of Elvis Presley—” Fred starts.

“Dad,” Dirk says gently. “You got no business standing here speaking for Graceland or the estate of Elvis Presley. You know as well as me there's a whole lot of people who've gotta be asked. But I believe they'd think all the better of you for bring
ing this to their attention. You being the one who helped find this . . . this . . .”

“Artifact,” I say.

“This guaranteed number one hit,” says Dirk.

Fred looks at me. He looks at the car. One of us he wants bad and the other one he doesn't particularly want, but a lifetime in the music industry has taught Fred how to smile while he swallows a bitter pill, and he smiles now.

Lucy is waiting right by my side, whining a little low in his throat. I'm shaking, and I guess the dog can feel it. But this time I'm not shaking because I'm nervous, I'm shaking because I know Dirk is right. His plan, in fact, is nothing short of brilliant. A new release with Elvis, even just a line or two from Elvis, will be big news. If I play my cards right—spiff up the lyrics and sing it as good as I can—this eight-track can be the start of my whole new life.

Of course the person getting screwed in all this happy-­happy is Marilee. It's not quite right to say that Mama wrote the song free and clear when she probably only wrote the lyrics. I think about calling her down in Fairhope. Telling her what's unfolding and asking her what she thinks, but then I remember her holding out her strong, dark hand to me and saying, “Take this tape, it's yours,” and I know that all this is nothing more than what she expected would happen. She knew I'd end up turning the car over the moment I drove it onto the property of Graceland, and she also knew that the tape was my true legacy, with the power to lift me to a higher plane
. She still feels bad about Mama
, I think.
Still feels bad about sending her out onto the highway pregnant. This whole thing has been her way of ­evening the scales. Doing for the daughter what she wasn't able to do for the mother.