He wasn't just an Elvis Impersonator.

He Wasn’t Just an Elvis Impersonator .

He wasn’t just an Elvis impersonator. In Edward’s mind, he was THE Elvis impersonator, or at least was going to be. It has all started when he was 13 years old. He was extremely bored one Sunday afternoon, so he decided to watch a movie on the old movie channel. He wasn’t a fan of new movies. In part this was because he didn’t like video games. This isolated him socially from most of the other boys in his class. Generally he was socially isolated, from boys and girls his age

           So he turned on the television, and sat down with a bag of chips and a root beer. The movie was Blue Hawaii. After only a short time, he was hooked, on the movie, on the music, on the man.   He had to have more.

           Over the next few weeks he downloaded all the Elvis movies he could. He especially liked those movies in which Elvis began as a troubled young man who wasn’t understood by those around him. Edward could relate.  And he began to say “thank you very much” with his Elvis voice at every possible opportunity. And there were lots of those. 

           Edward already knew a little bit about playing the guitar, so he began to practice singing, strumming and strutting like his hero. He was confined to the dark, dingy basement of his house for these activities. His folks were fans of Elvis, but they needed a little distance from their son’s music all the same. 

           His first public performance came about a year later at his middle school’s annual show. 

While he didn’t yet have a proper flashy Elvis outfit, he had his hair styled Elvisly, and he started to grow sideburns, the only boy in his school to have those.

           He was the hit of the show. It blew him away that people were applauding his passion. Over the next few years he developed his act, performed at Elvis Impersonator shows, being considered something special because of his young age.

By the time he had graduated from high school, Elvis impersonating had become his career. Within a few years he became a regular part of the Elvis circuit.        His version of “His Latest Flame”, was his specialty: “Marie’s the name, of his latest flame.”

           But it was a lonely life for Edward.  He was almost always on the road. And he still lived in his parents’ basement. He could afford an apartment of his own, but he didn’t want to feel the emptiness of returning, however briefly, to an empty ‘house that wasn’t a home.’

           Then his parents, who had him when they were both in their late 30s, decided to sell the house, as part of their retirement plan. Edward would have to get his own place. He might have been able to put together enough money to pay a decent down payment on his parents’ place. But the walls would echo the silence of a single person house once filled. So he rented an apartment over a local bar where he often played. After his last “thank you very much”, he would walk slowly up the poorly-lit stairs.

A Need to Get Away

           He was feeling empty. So he decided that he needed to take a vacation, something he had never done before. He felt a desire to get away from his life. Of course, he felt that he should go to Hawaii, and visit some of the beaches that he had seen each time that he watched “Blue Hawaii.” This might be a good idea in terms of the emptiness. Elvis had never failed him before.

           The hotel, and the room he had rented, both faced the beach.   The person who checked him in laughed when she saw Edward’s Elvis hairdo and sideburns. She told him that he was not the first so coiffed to stay there.

           When he got up on the first morning, he sat in a soft chair and stared out at the sea. The waves beckoned to him to join them. He had to respond.

There were a few people having breakfast when he went down from his room. They included a young woman who had finished eating and was now writing on a large pad of paper. He wanted to ask her what she was doing, but he did not have the nerve. Without being Elvis he did not have the confidence to talk freely with women. And he had just showered, so his Elvis coiffure was not greased back in its usual, identity replicating way. He did, however, smile at her, when he walked back. She didn’t smile back as she was intent on her writing. He didn’t realize that, so he felt rejected by her. Unfortunately, he did not see her watch him go out the door.

           Edward needed to get out into the water. He took off his shirt, and the long pants he wore over his bathing suit. He lay them down upon the big towel he had carried with him. Then he walked into the shallows and towards the crashing waves. When he entered the water, he felt like he just wanted to keep going on and on into the sea. It wasn’t anything well thought out, just a very powerful pull like a riptide of the mind. When he was in a little over his waist, a large wave that he had seen coming hit him hard and knocked him over. He was having a hard time keeping his head up and he swallowed some water. He didn’t have a lot of fight in him, for a number of reasons. He passed out.

           His first feeling afterwards was that of being dragged to shore. When his eyes finally opened he saw a familiar face. It was the writer in the restaurant. Being little more than merely conscious and following a whim based on one of his favourite songs, Edward asked his rescuer what to him was a reasonable question.

“Your name wouldn’t be Marie would it?”

 “No, it is Agatha. I was named after my parents’ favourite author. She is the reason I write, even though my stories are now very different from hers. I didn’t start that way. My copy-cat novels never did well, and only one got published. But recently I have had more success with books that are more me.

           “Let me tell you what I do for a living, Agatha. You might laugh, others do. (She then shook her head) And before I forget, Thank you so incredibly much.” She listened to what he said about his career to that point. He ended his talk by saying. “And now, I ain’t nothing but a hound dog” with the full Elvis voice.  Agatha laughed and grabbed his hand. They then walked down the beach hand-in-hand. It was a beginning. Working together, they would eventually prove that he wasn’t just an Elvis impersonator.