ELVIS

FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

by BELLE RANDALL

2003, 24 pages

The authentic cult of the saints consists not so much in the multiplying of external acts, but rather in the greater intensity of our love.

—PREFACE TO THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

ii

The first out of the womb was stillborn. They named him Jesse. The other, the one who lived, they named Elvis. “Lost half his self being born,” Gladys said of her baby.

xv

On the set of King Creole everyone agreed that Elvis was the most simple, thoughtful, almost preternaturally controlled and polite young man you might ever hope to meet. But occasionally he would lose his temper. One time he blew up at one of his back-up singers, the Jordanaires. Afterward he apologized. “You don’t have to apologize,” the Jordinaire said, but Elvis insisted. “Oh, yes I do. See that man sweeping the floor over there? If I hurt his feelings it would bug me until I went and apologized to him. I guess I'm a weird guy.”