<< Back 9/18/02 A moving date with the King of contradiction By Jay Hardwig I’ll admit my heart skipped a beat when I first learned about Mobile Graceland. Brought to you by the good folks at Stationary Graceland, it is nothing less than Elvis-in-a-truck, a trailer full of relics and wonders from the halls of his former home. Hauled around American interstates for the better part of a year, Mobile Graceland made a two-day pit stop at Harrah’s Casino in Cherokee on Sept. 7 and 8. When I heard it was coming, I knew I had to go. And I had to take my son. At two years old, Eli is not too young for a first taste of Elvis — only a fool would think so — so on a sunny Sunday afternoon we take the winding drive to Cherokee, intent on gaining an audience with the King. The thought of a trailer full of Elvisania fills me with sweet anticipation, and I wonder just what we’ll find. I’m hoping there will be at least one television set shot full of holes; perhaps a steaming plate of fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches resting on top. Upon arrival in Cherokee, we are greeted by a big black trailer truck, with a smiling Elvis painted artfully on the sides. His rich baritone rings out from loudspeakers mounted on the sides, and an aluminum stairway beckons us inside. I’m excited, but at the same time I’m troubled: could Elvis really be contained by something so small, a 53-foot trailer hauled in on Highway 19? I pause outside the casino, seeking a slim spot of shade from which to watch those pilgrims leaving the trailer, old and young alike blinking in the noonday sun. Are they overcome, overwhelmed, brought to their knees by the terrible beauty of it all? Not exactly. If anything, the folks leaving the trailer look faintly disappointed. It’s the look of people who did not expect much, and got about what they expected. An inauspicious sign, but I march on. All Elvis traffic is directed through the casino, so with a pounding heart and confident stride, I roll Eli towards the front doors. Before I can even place a hand on the smoky glass, I’m met by a beefy security guard with a no-nonsense glint shining off his clean-shaven head. “No one under 21 allowed in the casino,” he informs me, not gruffly but not exactly sweetly either. “He can’t come in.” I’m crushed. It’s unAmerican, to deny my boy viewing rights for mobile Graceland. We’ve driven over an hour to see Elvis-in-a-truck, and I can’t stand the idea that we’ve driven in vain. Like Chuck D, I’ve got reason to believe we won’t be received in Graceland. I look again to the giant Elvis on the side of the truck, and now I can’t tell if he’s smiling or leering at us. Shifting uneasily from foot to foot, I set my course: I’ll head straight for the trailer entrance, skipping the prescribed pathway through the casino, and try to talk my way in. It works. The woman taking tickets agrees to look the other way while we hop in line — I do believe the spirit of Elvis moved inside her —and soon we’re at the front steps, ready to meet the King, with “Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love” spilling from the outdoor speakers. Another step and we’re inside. It’s dark and crowded. Along one side of the trailer is a bank of videos showing Elvis clips. Along the other, a museum-quality glass case holding precious artifacts from the Mothership: a guitar, a comb, a Bible; the shirt he wore in Jailhouse Rock, the coveralls from Viva Las Vegas, a rhinestone-studded gabardine jumpsuit from his 70s heyday; his third-grade report card, his honorable discharge papers, and (yes!) a fan letter from President Nixon. Included in the reliquary are his 16-carat diamond TCB ring, his turquoise-handled Colt .45, his black belt and karate togs. Even in this thin collection you can sense an eccentric greatness, a devil-may-care pop sensibility that achieves magnificence through the magnitude of its bad taste. Elvis lives. When Eli says he wants to “get down,” I don’t know if he means he wants me to put him on the floor or if he’s ready to bust a few dance moves for the slowly shuffling crowd. I put him down, and soon he’s in headphones, watching a video of Elvis in his hip-shaking prime. He is enthralled. He reaches out to touch the shimmering Elvis, as if to absorb some of that cool, but it’s only a TV screen, and I know it’s going to take a lot more than a touch for Eli to capture that magic. The all-too-brief tour is coming to an end when I turn to see a jaw-dropping sight: a small boy in a white satin jumpsuit of his own, complete with sideburns, sunglasses, and a rhinestone eagle on his chest. He’s dancing and singing by the exit doors, and he’s no travelling prop: it’s Little E, an 8-year-old Elvis impersonator from High Point who has dropped by Mobile Graceland for the day. It’s not every day that you see a 3-foot-tall Elvis impersonator in the Carolina hills, so I did what any true fan must: I asked him outside for a photograph. He obliged, striking a practiced pose before running back into the trailer for another round of rock n’ roll. I’m still floating on air — Little E! In my presence! — when I meet his father outside the trailer. It seems that Little E took up the hobby less than a year ago, after watching some of his dad’s Elvis videos. He practices for hours every day and has dozens of outfits sewn by a family friend. He can’t seem to get enough of the King, and his dad understands why: “In my life, there ain’t been but one showpiece,” he tells me matter-of-factly, “and that’s Elvis Presley.” Indeed. But how to tell that to Eli? How to present Elvis to a 2-year-old? How to explain that he could contain so many contradictions — swinging hips and bloated excess, white soul and velvet capes — that he was both cool and tacky at the same time, both maudlin and sincere? You can’t. You can’t even try. You just watch and wonder. We went to Mobile Graceland not so much to admire, or reflect, or even mock. Rather, we went to participate in Elvis, to take part in one of the central rituals of American pop religion. Faced with disappointment, we walked away instead with the thrill of Little E still shimmying in our hearts. An improbable and sublime event, it renewed my faith in the beautiful absurdity of humankind. Expecting emptiness, we left fulfilled, and so I come to know what so many around me take for granted: Elvis moves in mysterious ways. (Jay Hardwig is a teacher, writer and the father of Eli. He lives in Asheville and can be reached at smardwig@worldnet.att.net)