EXCERPT ONE

        Elvis was in a funk. A fluid purple don’t-step-on-my-blue-suede-shoes, return-to-sender, suspicious-minds sort of funk.
       It just hadn’t been fun yet, man, since arriving the day before in pouring rain. Elvis didn’t go out in the rain because of the impurities – not to mention radioactivity from all those nuclear tests, man – and it hadn’t really stopped raining since he stepped off Gladys, his private jet. He had read about acid rain, man, and wasn’t taking any chances.
     He leaned back in his chair, pushed close to the window of the Confederate Plaza Radisson presidential suite and fingered a chunky diamond ring on a finger. Twenty-first floor, man. Best view of the city, baby. But no action. Just sitting here waiting for the rain to stop. Man, the colonel would know what to do about this. He’d set something up, man, that would be fun. Maybe do a movie, or make a quick trip to Vegas.
     No. No, Colonel Parker was long dead of a heart attack. Elvis knew that. Well, sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t. Some days he did and some days he didn’t. This was one of those days when he did and he didn’t.
     Rain streaked down the window and Elvis watched drops race each other to the bottom. Man, where was Red? Where was Sonny? Joe Esposito? The Guys. Long gone and finally living their own lives away from Elvis, who got religion, of sorts, after cheating death back in 77 at Graceland, now long abandoned and a museum to his life, when God Hisownself – or someone remarkably like him – strolled into the Memphis hospital and leaned over Elvis, bloated and marble white on the gurney, and said, “Elvis, you have been fucking up big time, son, and now it’s time to choose whether you die this instant or get a life that’s worth a damn and not some pharmaceutical odyssey.”
     To everyone’s surprise, he straightened up. With the help of Betty Sue Thomas, a pretty nurse who had cared for him at the hospital and who was pragmatic enough to know an opportunity when she saw it, Elvis got straight. Betty Sue stayed up with him when he saw snakes crawling walls, when he sweated through his pajamas and whimpered like an infant and pissed his pants. She held him and brought him truckloads of books on the Shroud of Turin and Native American religion and all schools of philosophy and astrology. She grabbed him by the lapels of his pajamas and virtually screamed into his face that his saintly parents, the beloved Gladys and the devoted Vernon, would not forgive him in heaven should he fail to win this battle, and slowly he began to accept it as true.
     Betty Sue somehow got his backbone back in him and he fired the Memphis Mafia – generously, of course: new cars, cash, some rings. Betty Sue became his confidant, mother figure, nurse, and even his lover when he could. No more massive doses of Demerol, no more uppers to perform, no more downers to sleep. It had been a rough, ugly transition from a pill-popping egomaniac to something resembling a human being that could actually go out in the sunlight, drive a car, even balance a checkbook. Not that he needed to balance a checkbook. Not ever. But Betty Sue showed him how just the same.
     Of course, shocking Elvis back from zombie land was not without its damage. He could not be left on his own for great periods of time and so Betty Sue hired an ex-marine turned social worker named Clark Ritchie to be his personal assistant. Clark hovered in the background, ready to provide direction if Elvis drifted, to be a sort of man Friday. Clark had the room next to Elvis’s suite and was trying to give Elvis as much space as he could on orders from Betty Sue, who decided not to come along because she wanted Elvis to feel he was on one of those great adventures he would abruptly launch back in the old days that seemed to energize his wandering mind and give it focus. Clark was there to make sure the famous Elvis focus didn’t get too adventurous or self-destructive.
     At 64 Elvis still colored his hair but had allowed the sideburns to sprout some salt and pepper. A concession to age that was hard for him at first. He was pot-bellied and still insisted on elaborate costumes sometimes, such as capes and Edwardian jackets; but the stomach didn’t matter to his fans. He was Elvis, he was E, he was still the torrid singer that prompted announcers to say “Elvis has left the building,” and he still had the quick, infectious grin and mischievous eyes that seemed always to make women swoon.
     Elvis grabbed the remote control, fired up the TV, and found one of his old ones – “Follow That Dream.” In the movie Young Elvis hefted a Thompson submachine gun. Old Elvis smiled and remembered the feel of the gun in his hands. What was that Beatles song? “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” Yeah, man.
     Later, when Clark came in with his clothes for the C.S.A. reception that evening, Elvis just nodded absentmindedly at the choice of jacket Clark offered – one of the many Edwardian jackets – and sighed, remembering Young Elvis and the Thompson. Back in the old days he’d have had a pair of Colt .45s tucked in his waistband.
     Back in the old days he might just have shot the TV out.
     Yeah, baby.


EXCERPT TWO

     Grail had hung up his clothes and retreated to a sumptuous leather chair in the Raddison lobby, away from the intrusions of telephones and C.S.A. State Department toadies, and even the incessant rain, which though it came down in sheets outside could barely be heard in the snug ambience of the quiet and majestic lobby. He had been thinking again of his father – no smoky six-foot Ts floating like a jellyfish this time, just the hard reality that the man did actually exist, was alive, lived omewhere, had a life, and Grail knew almost nothing about him. Grail distracted himself as best he could with the Washington Post, though he strongly suspected it would take something more physical than reading. Still, Grail had begun to relax, to not think.
     After a while, and quite randomly, he looked up from the Post and blinked in disbelief. No, he thought, it could not be. But indeed he could have sworn, just for a puzzling moment, that Elvis Presley darted out of one of the elevators. Though cloaked in a full length dark raincoat, a Chicago Bears cap jammed tight on his head, the man suggested the unmistakable Elvis profile of sideburns, big glasses, and big hair – now gray, but still a great mane. Elvis, or whoever it was, looked both ways and then scurried off.
     Elvis Schmelvish. Grail frowned and fidgeted in his chair. Did he need a drink? He did cast a questioning glance across the lobby at the entrance of the Gettysburg Lounge. Or perhaps he was just tired, his brain undisciplined as a result and susceptible to confusion. Had it really been Elvis? After all, he was in town to sing at the Reunification Ball. Grail yawned. No way. Surely the man would have his own secret entrance. Security teams to whisk him in and out of limos behind the hotel. A secret elevator? Grail dismissed that as too James Bondish, even for Elvis Aaron Presley, the King of rock and roll, who Grail was sure would not be walking around in public. Grail picked up the paper again; but almost immediately something in him wouldn’t let go of it, couldn’t let go. Dammit! He jumped up and just had to know, just as some people had to know if they had left the iron on, or the front door unlocked, the back gate open, the water running.
     Grail leaned over a low wall of Swedish ivy behind his chair and saw a carpeted hallway leading past the hotel hair salon. Whoever the man was, Elvis or not, he was slowly making his way toward a hotel exit far down the hallway, occasionally looking over his shoulder but seemingly unconcerned and in no hurry. His gait was relaxed and casual, a saunter as though without a care in the world. At the door the man stopped and leaned into it, but did not open it right away. It was as if he was taking in the outside world skeptically, suddenly unsure of whether to actually go out or not.
     Grail had positioned himself at the corner to the hallway and slyly looked around, just as the man pushed fully against the door handle and stepped outside. “What the hell am I doing?” Grail said loud enough that a young woman passing by shot him a frown. Grail hurried down the hallway to the door and peeked carefully outside. The man had not yet reached the street corner. The rain had stopped, awfully mysteriously and abruptly, Grail noted, and when the man looked back once Grail nonetheless knew it really was Elvis. The king of rock and roll was actually wearing a Chicago Bears cap and a trench coat, and was sneaking toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
     Fascinated and happy to be doing something to take his thoughts off his father, Grail followed Elvis for several blocks. It was as if Grail was drawn by a magnet, powerless to resist. Occasionally someone would seem to recognize Elvis, but the King was in gear now, strolling with confidence, the Bears cap pulled down a little tighter, but clearly enjoying his foray into reality. The sun had even peeked from around a cloud, compelling people to look up as if discovering it for the first time. Grail tailed Elvis for a few more blocks with absolutely no clue why he was doing it. Finally a woman did stop Elvis for the inevitable autograph, and while he signed Elvis cast an inquisitive glance toward Grail, who pretended to window shop in front of an Eddie Bauer store. Before a knot of fans could form Elvis abruptly crossed the street and slipped into a stream of pedestrians unaware of the king in their midst, but an alert Grail noticed as Elvis ducked into Starbucks.
     It began to rain again as Grail crossed the street and entered Starbucks. He stood just inside the door and tried to conceal himself behind a shelf of coffee beans as he scanned the room for Elvis. The king was nowhere to be seen. As he edged past the entrance to the bathrooms he felt something hard pressed into his back and felt a hand on his shoulder, and then he was gently but firmly pulled back into the shelter of the bathroom alcove. The hand released him and Grail whirled around and faced Elvis, who had a pistol barely protruding from inside his trench coat.
     “Good Lord,” Grail said, then wondering if it was the appropriate response for being held up at gunpoint by Elvis Presley.
     Elvis flashed the famous sneer, his lip trembling like it had in so many beach movies and drug-enhanced Vegas performances, but he slowly put the gun down and then tucked it into the waist band of his pants.
     “Don’t fret, man,” Elvis said. “It’s just a replica .45. It don’t shoot. Clark thinks I don’t know the difference, but I do.” The sneer again, but friendly. He seemed to sense Grail was not a threat.
     “Who’s Clark?” Grail said, puzzled, still a little awed to be lurking in a bathroom alcove at Starbucks with Elvis Presley.
     “Clark’s one of my guys. Hell, he’s my only guy. Why are you following me, man? Are you with the CIA, or do you just want an autograph?”
     “The CIA? Lord no. Did you really think – ”
     “Didn’t know what to think. I have to be careful.”
     “Is the CIA really following you?”
     “Maybe,” Elvis said, glancing down at his shoes. “The U.S.A. has always held it against me some that I took C.S.A. citizenship. But hell, man – I’m a southern boy.”
       Grail was speechless. His mouth opened once but he didn’t know what to say. He began to smile, to acknowledge that although he had never given Elvis much thought in his entire life, now he was sensing what the king’s legions of fans always knew: the man was simply one of the most charismatic persons ever to stride the earth, even now, at 64, paunchy and faded, the sideburns mostly white, the rest of the hair long since gone gray.
     “So, man, want to get some coffee?” Elvis said. “Starbucks has the best. Sometimes I sneak out in disguise back in L.A. and have a cup at a Starbucks in Beverly Hills.”
     “Don’t people recognize you at all?”
     “Naw, man. In L.A. I wear a fake beard and stuff. Besides, in Beverly Hills there’s so many famous people a guy in a cap and beard is just another dude in the background.”
       They bought coffee and Elvis guided Grail to a table in the back of the room, partially hidden by ferns. Several people regarded Elvis suspiciously, but no one seemed to recognize him.
     Elvis sipped his coffee. “Yeah, man – I love Starbucks. So, man, like I was saying – who are you?”
     “Grail Hudson.” They shook hands.
     “Are you a fan?” Elvis looked hopeful.
     “No.” Grail immediately regretted it. “I didn’t mean to suggest I wasn’t, that I – what I mean is I know who you are. I’ve seen some of your movies and all that, it’s just –“
     “S’okay, man.” Elvis was grinning. “Not everybody’s a fan. So, what do you do, Grail?”
     “I’m a professor.”
     “No fooling?” Elvis seemed genuinely impressed.
     “Yes, that’s right. I’m a history professor at the University of Illinois. And I apologize for following you. I don’t know why I was. I saw you come out of the elevator at the Raddison – I was sitting in the lobby – and I guess I didn’t believe it was you. I guess I just wanted to find out. I don’t know.”
     “Hah! You’re a fan after all.” Elvis said, and then he suddenly appeared pensive, seemed to be searching for something, and then it came to him: “Grail Hudson? I know that name, man. Sure I do.” He leaned forward. “You wrote Birth of a Confederate Nation. Yeah, baby. I read a lot of books, but I remember that one. It’s brilliant, man, But you were a little hard on old Bobby Lee, as I recall.”
     “Yes, I hear that a lot.” Grail was truly impressed: his book had been read by Elvis Presley, and he thinks it’s brilliant. But then Grail wondered if that was actually a good thing, being judged brilliant by a garish old icon like Elvis. Still, it was great to just hear someone had read it other than nervous C.S.A politicians.
     “You know,” Elvis continued, “ I recall a particular line from the book. Let’s see, it went something like, uh, but the Confederacy, now a legitimate nation after a war that seemed to promise it would never be a nation, must now not fail to win the other war, the one for a legitimate national identity. Did I get that right?”
     “Yes,” Grail said. “That sounds word for word, I believe. I’m flattered.”
     “Well hell’s bells, Grail. I reckon I’m the one who ought to be asking for an autograph.” Elvis was beaming, and Grail beamed back, but after an awkward moment Grail realized Elvis was waiting for something, and it dawned on Grail after a few more seconds of staring at Elvis’ incredibly white teeth that it really was an autograph Elvis was waiting for. He had even fished a pen out of his trench coat.
     “I have a copy of my book back at the hotel,” Grail said. “Would you like me to sign it for you? Would you accept a copy as a gift?”
     “Man, would I ever,” Elvis said, and he was on his feet, an arm outstretched to help Grail up and they filed around tables and exited Starbucks, where Grail noted again that the rain suddenly stopped. He even saw the makings of a rainbow. They walked quickly down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Raddison, Elvis remembering more lines from Grail’s book, but then abruptly shifting the conversation to his theories on the Shroud of Turin. When they reached the hotel Elvis nearly bounded through the door, but Grail hesitated, looked back for a moment, strangely aware he was looking to see if anyone had followed them. As he reached for the door handle it began to rain again, great cascades of it, the sun sprinting to the cover of clouds, and Grail had the nagging notion that it could not rain when Elvis was outside.