Elvis

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Elvis Presley lived across the street from the butterfly bush, next to the anonymous neighbor.

His baby blue single-wide looked ordinary, surrounded by a chain-link fence on three sides and a wall of broad-leaf ivy on the other. An unruly mulberry tree dominated his yard, blocking out the sun so his grass grew in clumps.

We lived in a mint-green single-wide trailer on the other side of the anonymous neighbor. Our trailer space featured a chain-link fence, a small Mulberry tree, Bermuda grass, and a flower bed filled with purple irises and pink carnations. In the back was an old wooden storage shed for bikes and camping gear, although it was infested with black widow spiders. 

Elvis’s kids, Penny and Billy, were not yet in kindergarten. They could hardly wait for me to come home from school so we could play together. When I showed up at their gate, you'd think I was a celebrity, not Elvis.

Penny had caramel skin, dark hair and brown eyes, just like her brother. She always wore dresses that poofed at the waist, black patent leather shoes, and frilly white socks. She didn’t like to get dirty. On the other hand, Billy lived in T-shirts and blue jeans splattered with mud from building his car cities and roads in his messy sandbox. 

Elvis was a large man with a black pompadour and long sideburns that made him appear older and heavier than he did in his movies on TV. His thick glasses magnified his eyes.

When I knew Elvis, he wasn’t married to Priscilla yet. His wife seemed ordinary, like Mom, but she wore loud flower-print dresses and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread. 

I always wondered how Elvis managed to find the time to make his movies while working in the oilfields, but I never dared to ask him. Every night, he'd come home from work tired and sweaty, with grime under his fingernails. Billy would climb onto his lap, and the two of them shared a beer from a bottle and ate salted peanuts in front of the TV until dinnertime.

Penny and I often played together at her house because I preferred not to be at mine. She couldn't leave her yard, and her mom worried someone might steal her. The latch on Penny's gate was too complicated for her to open, but I could easily unlatch it whenever I wanted to play. 

After I got home from school and changed into play clothes, I went to Elvis's trailer. Penny and I took turns riding her new toy, Marvel the Galloping Mustang Pony, a birthday gift from Elvis. Marvel was tan, with a white mane, dark black eyes, and ears that pointed intently forward. His tooled leather saddle looked almost real for plastic, and so did his bridle and reins. Inside his hooves were wheels that allowed him to move. When I sat on Marvel's saddle and bounced up and down, Marvel strained under my weight. Even though I didn't get far scooting along Penny's cracked sidewalk, I imagined us galloping until Mom called me home for dinner.

Sometimes Penny and I played in Billy’s sandbox. We’d dig a hole with kitchen spoons and fill it with water for Marvel while we drank Kool-Aid from bathroom Dixie cups.

Penny idolized me, but that didn't last long.

I wanted Marvel the Galloping Mustang more than anything. In my dreams, he was a real horse grazing in my yard, nibbling on Mom's carnations, and she didn't seem mind. I was obsessed with Marvel and couldn't wait to get home from school to ride him. I even gave Penny a nickel to let me ride Marvel for another turn, but she didn't understand sharing. In my imagination, Marvel and I galloped across the wild plains with a herd of wild mustangs while Penny trailed behind us, sobbing and begging for her turn. Elvis poked his head out of the trailer door, cursed, and told me to go home. 

That day, I realized I was too big to ride Marvel, too old to play with Penny, and that Mr. Bogden was no Elvis!