Elvis Aaron Presely

                              

Dream from last night: I was getting ready to seasonally jettison the sociological dregs of Peoria and embark on a book signing tour in Ireland ( being a writer who  is soused half his waking hours and can still ineluctably quote rote passages verbatim from Joyce’s Ulysses  does have its benefits).  My plane was scheduled to leave later that afternoon and for some reason I inexplicably go into the bathroom culled from childhood and cut my long hair,  the ricocheting image mirrored back to me reflecting exactly that of Jason Priestly circa 90210 renown. When I was in high school I used to go through a cylinder of Aqua Net a week so that my hair would be caked with this intractable plateau arched above my forehead like a balcony at a sophomoric thespian dress rehearsal of Grease. With my high school hairdo I continue to pack for Ireland finding myself seated on the backsteps of my childhood home with my friend Tim Flanagan. Somehow all the diva’s (beautiful untouchable high school seniors to our listless libido freshman) pedaled by on banana seat bikes. Tim was always coy around the opposite sex but he turned to me and brazenly proposed that he, “could too” get Martha, Holly, Vanessa and Julie to lift up their tops like mermaids. I told him there was no way he could achieve that but Tim, with a confidence seldom exhibited sans consulting the oracle  of the standard Dungeon & Dragon ten-sided dice, waltzed over and said something and the next thing these sirens were giggling and doffed their (replete with shoulder pads)tops. While I was optically sliding into second base I heard my mom’s voice maternally beckoning  me to come inside. I told her I still had to pack for Ireland and mom informed me that, “ It’s time for you to know our greatest family secret.” Mother then told me that Elvis Presley was still alive and that I was his grandson and that he wanted to meet me before I went to Ireland on my book tour because he was getting old.

 

 

Akin to the sloppy late-night cable cinema of my youth, the dream then jump cuts and I find myself outside Granpa Elvis’ house, which was this three story log-cabin on a secluded southern strip of land next to a waterfall. The portion of the house I entered was adorned with all these black and white frames of Elvis in the late 50’s. The room was flooded with beautiful yet disconsolate loners that were artistic and heavily harbored Bohemian vibes. Mom looked at me and informed me, “That I wasn’t allowed” to hit on any of the females because ‘everyone was family and they are all my second cousins.” Before going into the next room I saw Elvis next to my late-father. My father died suddenly twelve years ago this February and it’s always nice when he appears in my dreams. Grandpa Elvis gives me a hug, but, understandably I want to hang out with my father. I give dad a long embrace, tuck my nose into his shoulder, sniffed his powdery after-shower scent.  My father and I go for a hike trying to scale the abutment of the bucolic waterfall behind Grandpa Elvis’ house.  We get half-way up the side of the waterfall when we get stuck in this mud whose color can best be delineated as ‘neon-taupe.’ We turn around and scale down to the side of the landscape and I tell my father how much I miss him. When we get to the bottom everyone is partying outside. Elvis hands me a beer (a Schlitz tallboy) and fires up a cigarette. Elvis then turns to me and inquires if I would like to fire his gun.   My dad (keeping with the corporal integrity of his earthly persona) refused to fire buy I accepted the invitation and started firing along side Elvis. Elvis kept insisting that I call him Granpa and we kept drinking more Schlitz and smoking more cigarettes all the while my anxiety that I was going to miss my flight to Ireland. I asked Grandpa why he decided to hide and he rhetorically retorted, “With all the shit that was going on, wouldn’t you?” The dream ended with myself firing Elvis’ gun at a bowl of cherries (or maybe they were enhanced renaissance grapes). Elvis then began to get drunk and fell down. As I helped grandpa up I asked if he was okay and the last thing he said to me was, “I know man, tallboys.” (referring to the beer) all while laughing.

 

 

I don’t know much about elvis, except that he died the same year I was born.  You can imagine the shock when, after waking up and wikepediaing his name, I discerned that dream I harvested about Elvis Presely transpired in the waning hours of what would have been his 79^th birthday. Unreal. Alright dad, elvis and Ireland, time for this   wayward writer to crack open a tallboy and get some work done. Succulent Sobriety 2 starts t’morrow….