From Memphis to Boston:
It's 2:30 a.m. on Beale Street, and Elvis sits across the bar from me downing a beer. He looks lonely, but his hair is midnight-black perfection. The bartender at this faceless dive next to Blues City Cafe‚ returns from the back room, and he and Elvis talk about a girl for a while. Katie and I are the only others here, and I'm fixated on the blue and red neon sign at B.B. King's Blues Club across the street that forms a Vegas-like halo behind The King. The bartender walks off again; Elvis finishes his beer, stands and straightens his rhinestone-studded white jumpsuit. He looks at us, makes eye contact and walks our way.
"You know who I am?" he says to Katie, swaggering like that alone is a pickup line.
"What's your name?" Katie tells him and introduces me. Elvis puts an arm around me, pats my left shoulder and sees a notepad and pen resting on the bar. Without coaxing, he picks up the pen and autographs the notepad. "There you go, son," he says proudly. He takes a deep breath of heavy Tennessee air and winks at us. "Now it's time for Elvis to leave the building."
He turns and scuffles across the floor, then stops abruptly at the door. Whipping around to lock eyes with ours, Elvis drops into a split, shooting middle and index fingers toward us. He bows his head, mumbles, "Thank you, thank you very much," and holds the pose for five full seconds. Elvis smiles and walks out the door.
The next afternoon, we check out Graceland Too, Paul McLeod's Holly Springs, Miss., home off of Highway 78, halfway between Memphis and Presley's Tupelo, Miss., birthplace. It's an outrageous thrift gallery of Elvis memorabilia: walls layered with Elvis record sleeves, bundles of Elvis magazines to the ceiling, racks of Sun Studios t-shirts, hundreds of three-ring binders with hand-typed sheets documenting Elvis? TV appearances to this day, ceilings covered in Elvis posters. It smells like a retirement home filled with 1940s National Geographic magazines.
Paul McLeod, a silver-haired fanatic who yaps unabashedly and constantly with loose and crooked dentures, claims everything in the house is Elvis-related, and the collection is insured for $11.5 million. Some (what looks to be an original "Hound Dog" 45 single) seem to hold weight, but others (piles of magazines like a TV Guide with Pam Anderson on the cover - displayed because a friend of her lawyer visited) only fill space for the tour. McLeod's wife made him choose between her and Elvis, and the name of their only son, Elvis Aaron Presley McLeod, should give away his answer.
He's proud of how far folks travel just to see his shrine ("from 50 states and countries, too!"), and boasts a good hundred albums of visitors? photos, in which Katie and I are now included. On the $5 guided tour, which he gives 24 hours a day, we learn obscure Elvis-related facts and much more. Out of nowhere, while explaining presidential offers he's had for the collection, McLeod, with a can in hand, bellows, ?Watch out, Coke makes me horny!? Katie takes two steps back.
On our way out, he asks if we have expired license plates handy. By chance, Katie just changed hers and has the old Colorado plates in the backseat. But what's it for? "Elvis sang 'Jailhouse Rock,'" McLeod says. "And, you know, inmates make license plates. So, there's the connection to Elvis. Told you, I collect anything that can be traced to Elvis."
We had planned to explore Atlanta and Raleigh, but the cities end up being little more than crashing points. It's after 10 p.m. when we roll into downtown Atlanta, and all kitchens are closed. A man in sparkly white Nikes, flawless jeans and a tucked-in polo shirt asks if we need help. Relaxed and friendly, he guides us three blocks down Spring Street to a sports bar, points to the door, then asks for bus fare. A few cigarettes are all I have on me, and he takes one, along with the last three bucks Katie has to offer. We charge dinner and call it a night.
Road fatigue causes Raleigh to be even less eventful, but I learn one thing about the area when stopping for gasoline. Saying, "Do what?" is the preferred way to ask someone to repeat themselves here. I quickly report this as a regional discovery to a friend in Texas who laughs it off and forgives my Yankee ways.
The air tastes like nickels as we approach Washington, D.C. It's just rained, and I love it. Reminds me of the daily drive home from work across the bridge into Ocean City, Md., during one misspent summer a decade ago. What I do not love, however, is driving into this city at 4:16 p.m. on a Friday. Traffic is stopped nearly dead for an hour as a bulky, sardined six-lane mess of aggressive drivers and unused turn signals on I-395 attempts to merge into D.C. on Route 1. Now I remember why I left the East Coast. This typical disaster makes me yearn for a dance through the Monday morning Mousetrap back home. Katie politely tells me to keep my fingers inside the car and reminds me of the murder rate in D.C.
The Dubliner saves the day. It's the most authentic Irish pub in D.C., and tonight, a man takes the stage with his two best friends: a Guinness and a guitar. By the second pint, he breaks into ?Danny Boy? and the entire pub sings, sweats and sways along. Katie's friend, Crazy Jane, and my buddy, Gerken, both live in the area and they meet us here. The combination proves a perfect and comforting antidote for a couple of road-weary souls. Much of the stick-to-your-ribs food looks like its fat content could make a Whopper blush, but at this point, it's essential. The smell alone from Guinness Burgers and Irish Beef Stew is like a coat from the cold.
Blind hope hides Jack Kerouac's grave. The dirt walking paths are marked with street signs, and we search the entirety of Edson Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts, for almost an hour before the light bulb clicks and Katie calls Crazy Jane, a master researcher at the National Archives.
It's Sunday mid-afternoon, and, as Jack might have, we kill time at The TrainView Tavern while waiting for Jane to call back. Spitting distance from the cemetery, it's a gray scene fitting the great Beat writer's descriptions of Lowell: A half-dozen factory workers are spread around the formica bar, wearing flannel and drinking Miller High Life; our bartender, an attractive woman in her early twenties with colossal blonde hair, swears she's getting out of this dead-end town and moving to Vegas next weekend; the only stall in the men's room has no door and faces the entrance.
Jane phones in directions: Take a left at Lincoln, just past 7th Street. Kerouac's is a flat stone behind the Blodgett family marker. Look for lots of cigarettes and alcohol. We stop next door for my unoriginal offering - an airplane-sized bottle of whiskey -and find the grave in less than three minutes. Kerouac's marker is about as flashy as the rusty Dodge pickup parked outside the fence. As told, it's littered with Miller High Life cans, cigarettes and a few flowers. I pull the one remaining Corona out of the car cooler, and Katie and I each take a sip. Then I pour the whiskey slowly across his name on the stone and top it off with the rest of the Corona, leaving my last pen for good measure. I pick up a No. 2 pencil someone left and put it in my bag. When I return to Denver, I will bury it by a plant in Writer's Square, named in honor of Kerouac and the Beats.
I fly back to Denver tomorrow morning. But first, seafood. At this very moment, I'm on the Boston pier staring down the remains of a fresh football-sized lobster at the No-Name Restaurant that costs less than the latest John Hiatt CD. Distant lights guide boats to shore, and the saltwater breeze is cleansing away all the middle-America humidity. After surviving much of the past week on gas station pretzels and cheesy popcorn, Katie asks if we should really indulge and split another two-pounder. Flagging down our waitress, I ask if it snows in the Rocky Mountains.