Baby, Let's Play House Part 18

At Kennedy Veterans Hospital, the most famous man in America was reduced to being just another U.S. male, undergoing processing, enduring the rigors of a physical, and weighing in (185 pounds). Photographers caught him with the rest of the recruits, stripped down to his underwear.

Later that afternoon, he raised his right hand before Major Elbert Turner and swore the words that made him a soldier. "Congratulations!" Major Turner told the group. "You are all privates. That's the way you'll be addressed from now on." Private Presley was put in charge of the unit.

As Colonel Parker worked the room, cheerfully handing out balloons stamped KING CREOLE KING CREOLE, Elvis hugged and kissed his mother. Her big face was puffy, and her brown eyes swollen with tears. They hung on each other until even Elvis felt self-conscious, and then he kissed Anita. "Little," he said, "I love you, and I will return, and don't forget me." Anita didn't want him to see how upset she was ("My heart was being torn away because he was my first love"), but they were all crying now-his mother, his father, Anita. It was time for him to board the army bus for Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

He looked at Lamar and the Cadillac limousine that had brought him there that day, and suddenly it was a symbol of everything he had worked so hard to get. Now it was all about to be gone. It was like a dream.

"Good-bye, you long black son of a b.i.t.c.h," he said to the Caddy, and everybody laughed. Then he climbed on the bus to begin life anew as Private Presley. Five hundred screaming girls saw him off.

At Fort Chaffee, the new inductees got their shots, and then predictably had their hair sheared off. Elvis, whose pompadour once swam with "sweat and goose grease," as Time Time magazine noted, listened to the whirring of the electric clippers and blew the flying fuzz off his hand. "Hair today, gone tomorrow," he said in a studied line, and the news media-fifty-five photographers and reporters-dutifully wrote it down. By the end of the day, the army confirmed what he already knew: He would be stationed at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas, the largest army post in the United States, and a.s.signed to the Second Armored Division, General Patton's "h.e.l.l on Wheels" outfit. magazine noted, listened to the whirring of the electric clippers and blew the flying fuzz off his hand. "Hair today, gone tomorrow," he said in a studied line, and the news media-fifty-five photographers and reporters-dutifully wrote it down. By the end of the day, the army confirmed what he already knew: He would be stationed at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas, the largest army post in the United States, and a.s.signed to the Second Armored Division, General Patton's "h.e.l.l on Wheels" outfit.

On March 28, en route to Killeen, the army transport bus made a stop for lunch at a diner in Hillsboro, Texas. For a full twenty-five minutes, Elvis blended in with all the other new privates in their fatigues. But a caravan of fans also made the trek to Texas. Suddenly, a young voice squealed, "There's Elvis!" and a small riot broke out. After he left, girls wrestled over his chair.

When the bus arrived at Fort Hood about four-thirty in the afternoon, a clutch of thirty newsmen stood waiting in summer clothing, holding notebooks to their eyes to s.h.i.+eld them from the Texas sun. Private Presley was the second soldier off the bus. Sure, he'd salute for the cameras, he said, flas.h.i.+ng his Hollywood smile, and then he held a press conference before going off to his first army meal of fish and French fries. A dozen teenage girls hovered outside the mess hall. "Let us see him, and we'll go away!" they cried, but the military police shooed them off. Soon, Elvis's fan mail would number fifteen thousand letters a week, all of it redirected to the Colonel's office in Tennessee.

On March 29, Elvis woke up not to Lamar or Alan at the foot of his bed, but to five dozen other men all around him. Some of them wanted their pound of flesh from the millionaire singer, now earning seventy-eight dollars a month. Fellow soldier Rex Mansfield, who was on the bus with Elvis coming out of Memphis, remembered how they teased him: "Where's your hound dog?" And "Aren't y'all lonesome for your teddy bear?" They were all watching him, waiting for him to screw up.

But Elvis was determined to fit in. Each arriving recruit received twenty dollars in cash for toothpaste and other basic necessities, and a sergeant immediately seized his moment.

"Presley, give me that twenty dollars-you don't need it."

"Naw, Sergeant, I'm broke."

The teasing would stop when they saw he didn't want any special privileges, that he did his KP and guard duty and marched with a seventy-five-pound pack in the irrepressible heat, eating the Texas dust like everyone else. Elvis was an okay guy, they decided, and who'd have thought that? And Elvis was even more surprised to find out that he liked the army-the organization, the respect of men, the routine, and predictably with twinless twins, the uniform, the infinite replication. It served a psychological need.

Besides, the fans had no intention of going away. Fort Hood was an open base, meaning soldiers could receive civilian guests when they were off duty, and "the girls seemed to know where he was, as if they were sending secret messages to each other, fired by hormones," wrote one reporter.

It was true. Jane Levy Christie, then a high school junior, thought it was too gauche to scream and carry on over Elvis, but she and her friends went searching for him anyway. ("We found him and took him for a ride to the Dairy Queen, which our boyfriends didn't like very much.") Only once did things get problematic. Dorton Matthews, a sergeant, heard a commotion one night around midnight. There were fifteen or twenty women in the barracks, giggling and looking for Elvis. The army couldn't put up with such sorority pranks. "We had to have guards after that."

But Elvis was not precisely as alone in Killeen as he appeared. Lamar, who had tried to enlist with him, but at 260 pounds flunked the physical ("They tried to get me clearance through the surgeon general"), just drove on down in Elvis's Lincoln Mark II and checked into a motel. Elvis was glad to see him, but the truth was that he wanted Gladys. He fell into a deep malaise.

As his depression worsened, Master Sergeant William Norwood saw the misery on Elvis's face and took him home to place a phone call. After that, Elvis was a frequent visitor to the Norwood residence, where the sergeant became a confidant, offering hot coffee, home-cooked meals, and fatherly advice. "When you come in my house, you can let it all out," Norwood told him in a rural drawl. "But when you walk out of my front door, you are now Elvis Presley. You're an actor. You're a soldier. So, by G.o.d, I want you to act! Don't let anybody know how you feel on the inside."

During basic training-reveille before 5 A.M. A.M., sharpshooter practice, crawling over barbed wire-Elvis found another soft shoulder in Eddie Fadal, a theater owner who had been a deejay in Dallas in 1956 when the young singer made the rounds at radio stations. Eddie wasn't in the army but lived in Waco, forty-five minutes away, with his wife, LaNelle, daughter, Janice, and son, Dana.

At the base, the Lebanese-American talked his way through security with a picture of himself with the singer. He found Elvis in the dayroom, s.h.i.+ning his boots. Would Elvis like to come out to the house at 2807 Lasker Avenue and visit on weekends? The Fadals were a warm and welcoming family, he said, and Elvis could relax and listen to the latest 45s. Elvis said he had to stay on base for two weeks, but then sure, thanks, he'd be there. He showed up not long after, but the first thing he did after meeting Eddie's family was phone his mother.

Eddie remembered the call. "When he got her on the line, all he said was, 'Mama . . .' And apparently, she said, 'Elvis . . .' And from then on, for a whole hour, they were crying and moaning on the telephone. Hardly a word was spoken."

Now Anita started coming down for weekends, though she'd slipped into town before, staying at the Norwood house, Elvis sneaking out of the barracks to be with her. She was surprised at what a regular guy he'd turned into, without his hair dye and the lifts in his shoes. His skin was so beautifully tanned, and for the first time since she'd known him, he was just as normal as anybody else.

"He would come over and then we would go in the backyard and look up at the sky. We'd talk about all the things we were planning on doing, like getting married, all the things in the future."

And he meant it. Being in the army had changed his thinking. One time when they drove to Dallas with Eddie, Anita went to the restroom, and Elvis called Eddie over to the car. "He put his foot on the b.u.mper and said, 'Eddie, when ol' E here gets ready to get married, it's gonna be to that girl, Anita Wood, and no one else. She's the one.' "

He took her to the Fadals' house, where LaNelle cooked a pound of bacon for him-burned crisp, like he liked it-and Eddie got him banana and chocolate cream pies from the Toddle House. In fact, Eddie built a room onto the house just for Elvis, decorating it in pink and black, and outfitting it with a piano and the latest hi-fi equipment. There wasn't anything Eddie wouldn't get for Elvis. And that included prescription drugs, both uppers and downers.

"My father knew all the doctors in town," says Janice. "It was easy to get a prescription filled. He'd say, 'Elvis needs to sleep.' "

If Elvis's relations.h.i.+p with the older man seemed vaguely odd and unhealthy, no one said anything about it at the time. Everybody just concentrated on having fun. In May, Anita celebrated her twentieth birthday, and the Fadals got a cake for her. Elvis, too, made a special effort, slow dancing with Anita in a circle, and softly singing, "Happy, happy, birthday baby . . ."

Eddie turned on the tape recorder, and Elvis and Anita sat for their first home recordings, Elvis playing piano, and the two of them singing Hank Williams's "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You." Anita, who had her professional recording debut coming up in June, was nervous about her first record.

"I wish they'd let me pick it," Elvis is heard saying on the tapes. He worried that Anita's producers would try to turn her into Julie London. "They gotta give her somethin' like Connie Francis's songs. Somethin' with some guts to it."

Looking back, "It was the greatest time that I ever spent with him," Anita says. "He was a soldier boy, and I was his girlfriend from back home, and we were in love and we were together with friends. We just had a wonderful time."

On May 31, Elvis got a two-week leave before his next phase of training, a concentration in tank warfare. After a week in Memphis, where he had an oddly somber family portrait made with his parents, he drove to Nashville for an all-night recording session at RCA's Studio B. On the surface, nothing seemed right. He was wearing his uniform ("Simple, I'm kinda proud of it"), and it was his first session without Scotty and Bill, who had quit in a money dispute, leaving only D. J. and the Jordanaires from the old lineup. But musically, Elvis was in fine form. By the time they wrapped things up, he had several hits in the can ("I Need Your Love Tonight," "A Big Hunk O' Love") to keep him on the charts while he was away. It would be his last recording session for almost two years. in tank warfare. After a week in Memphis, where he had an oddly somber family portrait made with his parents, he drove to Nashville for an all-night recording session at RCA's Studio B. On the surface, nothing seemed right. He was wearing his uniform ("Simple, I'm kinda proud of it"), and it was his first session without Scotty and Bill, who had quit in a money dispute, leaving only D. J. and the Jordanaires from the old lineup. But musically, Elvis was in fine form. By the time they wrapped things up, he had several hits in the can ("I Need Your Love Tonight," "A Big Hunk O' Love") to keep him on the charts while he was away. It would be his last recording session for almost two years.

When Elvis returned to Fort Hood, he applied for permission to live off base with his family. All soldiers who completed basic training could request permission to live with their dependents, though for most soldiers, that meant wife and children. On June 20, he worked a deal with Stylemaster Mobile Homes for use of a three-bedroom trailer in exchange for photographs of himself and his parents and grandmother in the unit. They parked it near Fort Hood, and that weekend, Elvis, Vernon, Gladys, Minnie Mae, and Lamar moved in. And when Anita came down on weekends, flying in from New York where she was doing a summer television series with singer Andy Williams, she'd stay there, too.

At first Gladys was elated, even in a trailer. She was taking care of her son again, and they were together. But then it got so cramped, and the air-conditioning didn't work right, and the toilet stopped up, and Gladys couldn't get any rest, fans knocking on the door night and day. Her mood soured, Anita remembered. Even the scrub trees bothered her. "It was in the hot summertime and in the middle of a field way back in the woods, because that's where you had to be if you wanted any privacy at all. It was a difficult time."

On July 1, Vernon moved them all to a large three-bedroom brick ranch on Killeen's elite Oak Hill Drive, paying the owner, Judge Chester Crawford, an exorbitant $1,400 for two months. Elvis obligingly stood outside in the big yard and signed autographs, and everybody was happy again. They all went to the Fadals for the Fourth of July, where Gladys ate hamburgers and talked with LaNelle, and soon Gene and Junior came down.

Elvis had everything he needed now. Minnie Mae fixed his beloved purple hull peas and sauerkraut and wieners, and he'd hug and kiss on the skinny ol' firecracker of a woman, Minnie slapping the devil out of him when he'd play tricks on her.

On the base, he was doing well in his ten weeks of advanced tank training. He liked the sixty-ton M48 Patton Tanks, liked being in Patton's division, liked being a gunner, liked it all. He was a good soldier, winning sharpshooting medals and placing third in tank gunnery, even as the big sh.e.l.ls damaged his hearing. When Sergeant Matthews put Elvis in command of a tank, the other soldiers begged for someone else. "He's working us to death," they griped.

Anita thought he had finally found himself, and Rex Mansfield wondered the same. "He loved the army," said Rex. "It was a way to express himself and find out who he really was."

But the last happy chapter of his life was coming to an end. Suddenly Gladys's health began to spiral. She lost her appet.i.te, and she seemed so listless in the Texas heat, found it hard to breathe. Lamar saw what was happening. "One day I looked at her, and she had a yellow tinge to her eyes. I went to Elvis and I said, 'You need to call a doctor. Something's wrong, and I mean it.' But he didn't want to hear about it."

Her liver was giving out. Gladys was jaundiced, suffering from acute hepat.i.tis.

Within days, her skin took on an ocher hue. Lamar again pleaded with Elvis. They fought about it ("If you don't let her go to the hospital, buddy, she's going to die right here on you"), but Elvis didn't want it to be true, insisting she'd get better. Then Red came down, and the two of them forced Elvis to act. A local doctor came to the house and recommended that Gladys return immediately to her own physician, Dr. Charles Clarke, in Memphis. On Friday, August 8, Elvis drove his parents to Temple, Texas, and put them on the train.

"She didn't want to go," Lamar says. "She knew she was dying."

Vernon and Elvis, Methodist Hospital, Memphis, August 12, 1958. After threatening to go AWOL, Elvis had just received emergency leave to visit his stricken mother. (Robin Rosaaen Collection) (Robin Rosaaen Collection)

Chapter Sixteen.

"Wake up, Mama, Wake up"

As Elvis completed his advanced tank training the next day, August 9, 1958, Gladys was being put into an ambulance and taken to Methodist Hospital, where she'd once been a nurse's aide. Her condition was listed as grave. was being put into an ambulance and taken to Methodist Hospital, where she'd once been a nurse's aide. Her condition was listed as grave.

Vernon called Lamar.

"You need to tell Elvis to get up here as quick as possible-tomorrow if he can!"

"He's out in the field, Vernon," Lamar said. He borrowed a jeep and went out and got him. The next day, Elvis, now frantic with the realization that Gladys could die, tried to get home. But he was set to begin basic unit training, and his captain denied emergency leave. Gladys's doctor called military personnel in Was.h.i.+ngton and stressed the urgency of the situation, but only when Elvis threatened to go AWOL did the army grant his leave. On August 12, Lamar flew with him from Fort Worth to Memphis, where Elvis got a cab to the house, and then drove up to the hospital on his own.

When he went over again the next morning, August 13, Gladys told Elvis she was feeling better, that the doctors were saying she could go home the next day if she kept improving. He breathed a sigh of relief, kissed his mother, and went home for a few hours before returning in the afternoon.

In the interim, Gladys had another visitor, Dotty Ayers, a fan who had met the family after writing Gladys a letter of support at the height of Elvis's negative press.

"We were in the room talking, and they brought in some flowers and asked Gladys to sign for them. Her hands were swelled. She was swelled all over, and she asked me to sign for her. I signed, 'Mrs. Presley,' and laughed and said, 'I didn't think I would ever be signing this name.' She said, 'Don't ever give up hope, honey.'

"Gladys looked at me, and she must have had a premonition or something. She said, 'Dotty, I don't think I'll ever see Graceland again.' I said, 'Gladys, you know the doctors said that you're better.' She said, 'I know, but I just got this awful feeling.' She said, 'Will you promise me something? Will you watch after my boy, 'cause there's just so many people that don't care about him.' "

Billy Smith went back with Elvis to the hospital later that day. They stayed until nearly midnight, Elvis patting her, asking if he could do anything for her.

"Mama," he asked. "Do you want me to stay the night?"

"No, son, everything's okay."

"Well, I might go to the movie, and then I'll come back by here."

"No," Gladys said. "Just go on to the movie now, and come back up here tomorrow. If I need anything, Daddy will call you."

He kissed her, and then he left and picked up Frances, Gloria, and Heidi to go to the Crosstown Theatre.

"I don't think Elvis had any idea she would die," Billy says. "He really thought she'd get better."

But Gladys knew the truth. "Son," she said, "when you come back tomorrow, make sure the other patients have these flowers."

When Elvis got home, he asked Lamar to drop off the girls and told him Gladys had asked about him two or three times. But Lamar had been running back and forth, taking Minnie Mae up to the hospital and talking to the doctor. "They drained something like a gallon and a half of fluid off of Gladys two days before she died. But Elvis said, 'Come with me in the morning and we'll go see her, 'cause she's going to be all right.' I said to Billy, 'She's not going to make it through the night.' "

Billy went up to Elvis's room, and they watched TV a little while before drifting off. Suddenly Elvis raised himself on the bed. "Something's wrong," he said. Billy asked what he meant. "I don't know. I got an eerie feeling." Then he laid back down.

It was a little after 3 A.M. A.M. on August 14, and Vernon, sleeping in a chair at the hospital, woke up to the sound of Gladys struggling for breath. Her face was a yellow mask of fear. Gladys Love Presley, age forty-six, was in full cardiac arrest and would die within minutes. on August 14, and Vernon, sleeping in a chair at the hospital, woke up to the sound of Gladys struggling for breath. Her face was a yellow mask of fear. Gladys Love Presley, age forty-six, was in full cardiac arrest and would die within minutes.

Shortly after, the phone rang downstairs at Graceland. Lamar was still out, and at first, Elvis just let it ring.

"It's late, Billy," he finally said. "Maybe you should go down and get it."

When Billy answered, "I heard Vernon say, 'Oh, G.o.d-' He was just sobbing. He said, 'Tell Elvis . . .' Then he really broke up. I don't know if the nurse took the phone from him, or if he handed it to her, but she got on, and I could hear him crying in the background."

"Tell Elvis he needs to get up here quick as he can," she said. "His mother has taken a turn for the worse."

Billy ran upstairs. "That was the nurse. She said to tell you that you might ought to get up there, that your mom is starting to slip."

"He said, 'Oh, my G.o.d! No, Mama, no!' I think he knew, but he didn't want to believe it." Elvis quickly pulled on his white shoes, a pair of white pants, and a white ruffled s.h.i.+rt. "We ran downstairs, and we jumped into the Lincoln Mark II, and we tore out of there like all h.e.l.l had broke loose. The whole time we were driving, he said, 'Oh, G.o.d, I'm scared! I'm afraid I've lost my mama!' "

When they got to the hospital, Elvis, nearly hysterical, slowed the Lincoln and jumped out, leaving the car in drive and letting it run over the breaker. Billy shoved the gears.h.i.+ft in park, and then he took off, too, leaving the car running, the lights blazing, both doors open. Elvis was way ahead of him now, running, running, running to Gladys.

Upstairs, as Elvis turned the corner, Vernon was just coming out of Gladys's room. His face hung in folds of grief. Vernon reached out his arms, and Elvis rushed toward him. "G.o.d, son, she's gone!" he cried.

"All the color just drained out of Elvis's face," Billy remembers. "He was white as a sheet. He started to sob this kind of unearthly sound. It just went through me."

Father and son, so unable to show affection before, held each other and cried unashamedly in the hallway. Then Elvis broke away. "I want to see her," he said.

"No, no, son," Vernon pleaded. "Don't go in there."

But Elvis wouldn't be stopped. "No, I've got to see my mama!"

With Billy by his side, Elvis entered the room where Gladys lay, so very still in a pink nightgown. An oxygen tent was pulled back from her face. She had a restful look about her.

Elvis leaned over and lifted her head, and pressed his cheek to hers. He cried and stroked her head, and then patted her on the stomach the way he had when he was a child, the two of them alone, with nothing but each other, in Tupelo.

"Oh, G.o.d, Satnin'," he said. "Not when I can give you everything in the world."

He stood petting her, talking to her in their little language, until Vernon and the nurse pulled him away and took him down the hall to the waiting room.

About 4 A.M. A.M., Lamar arrived back at the house in the black Cadillac. The wind was blowing, and the front door open. Minnie Mae came out on the porch and said, "Gladys is dead. We need to go to the hospital."

"We shot over there," he remembers, "and that elevator opened, and I've never heard such crying, and screaming, and hollering in my life. It was unbelievable. This wailing, almost like wolves. It made me shudder. I came around the corner and Elvis was walking toward me, and he said, 'Lamar, Satnin' isn't here.' And I said, 'I know, Elvis. I know.' "

Lamar sat with him for a long time. He wanted his mother to have an old-fas.h.i.+oned southern visitation and service at home, he said, and Lamar offered to help with the arrangements. As they were on their way to the car, leaving through the loading area at the back of the hospital, the attendants brought Gladys's body down to be transported to the funeral home. "He wouldn't let her go for the longest time. He was sobbing, saying, 'She's all I ever lived for! She was my best girl.' "

They sat in the car in the parking lot, both of them crying, and then they went back to Graceland so Elvis could make a few calls. One was to the base, requesting extended leave. Another was to Eddie Fadal.

"Eddie," he said, his voice cracking, "she's gone! I've lost the only person I ever really loved!" Eddie tried to console him, and finally Elvis choked out, "Can you come?" Eddie said yes, of course, and Elvis told him he'd send Junior to the airport to get him.

The Memphis Funeral Home took care of the body, and then they brought Gladys back to Graceland, the house she had lived in barely a year, the mansion that had never felt like home.

Elvis saw them coming up the drive. "Daddy, Mama's comin' home," he called to his father. Elvis asked the attendants to put the copper-and-silver casket between the music room and living room, and they placed her there. Elvis walked over to where she lay in her blue dress, a gla.s.s top covering most of the body. He then asked that the lower half of the casket be opened, so that he might see her feet, which were clothed in little slippers. Elvis removed them, and ma.s.saged her feet and hands, and then, taking a comb from his pocket, rearranged her hair. Lamar couldn't stand it.

"He got nearly hysterical. Started that wailing again. It made my skin crawl."

Elvis's first cousin Harold Loyd heard about Gladys's death on the radio and came right up from Mississippi. Now he wondered if Elvis had lost his mind. "He was in pitiful shape. His eyes were all swollen and red. He would walk over to the casket and say, 'Wake up, Mama. Wake up, Mama. Wake up, baby, and talk to Elvis.' "

He kept it up, parading from the couch to the casket, pleading with her, fondling her, lapsing into baby talk. At one point, he went out on the porch and sat on the steps near one of the stone lions that guarded the entrance. Billy went to the door and watched him, saw him put his arm on his knee and bury his face. "He just cried something awful. I followed him out there, but I didn't know what to say or do, so I just let him be." Afterward, he sat up almost all night and stared at her.

When Eddie got there the next day, Elvis and Vernon were standing at the casket. Both of them touched the body "like they wanted to pick her up and kiss her," Eddie thought, so he walked in quietly. Vernon was wailing, and Elvis was chanting and smoothing his mother's forehead, comforting her, comforting himself, almost going back into the womb.

"Mama," he said, "you never would dress up for me, and now here you are dressed up in the most beautiful gown. I never saw you dressed up like this."

Eddie felt as if he had intruded on a private moment, but then Elvis saw him and brought him up to the casket. "Mama, here's Eddie. You know Eddie. You met him in Killeen." Eddie got chills, and then Elvis took her hand.

"Look, Eddie, at those hands," he said, "those beautiful hands. They worked so hard to raise me."

Anita was in New York when Gladys died, and after taping her Andy Williams program that night, she got on a plane. Lamar met her at the airport.

When they pulled up at the house, Elvis and Vernon were sitting on the front porch, weeping.

"Little! Little! Little!" Elvis cried. "I've lost her! I've lost her!"

Anita put her arms around him, and then he pulled away and said, "Come on in. I want you to see her."