Blood Lite

I. Hotter than the Hinges of Hell

Well, ain't this just a kicker? Here I am, lyin' in a pile of my own mess on the goddamned bathroom floor, the life ru

Well, let me just set the record straight here, folks: The King of Rock 'n' Roll didn't die on no shitter.

No siree, Bob.

And I sure as hell didn't die of no drug overdose, either. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't take goddamned drugs. Hell, I hated drugs. Wish I coulda wiped out every drug dealer on the planet. Even had a plan to lure 'em into Grace-land, then have me and the rest of the Memphis Mafia (always loved that nickname, by the way) unload on 'em with a bunch of Uzis, but—alas—that plan never came to be: I moved on to a fleeting obsession with horses, bought me a whole ranch of 'em, and by the time I remembered the drug dealer thing, I'd sort of just... moved on.

But back to this little matter of my demise: Hard as it might sound to believe, the King of Rock 'n' Roll died from exposure to sunlight.

Same way all vampires do.

All the freaky shit started after I wrapped Change of Habit—and the less said about that picture, the better: I mean, Lord have mercy, there ain't enough lipstick in the world to gussy up that pig. Change of Habit ended up being the final movie I made, and it sure as hell wasn't a case of savin' my best for last. Habit was one of my worst pictures (I'd put it right up there with Girls! Girls! Girls! and Harum Scarum for those of you keepin' score).

After the critical and commercial beating the picture took I was feeling pretty low. Looking for some excite­ment in my life. A way to capture something that I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way. Something that'd make me feel like I did when Sam Phillips and Scotty Moore and Bill Black and me cut our first record at Sun back in '54; or like when the three of us did the Louisiana Hayride; or when the Colonel got me my first big record deal with RCA; or like watching nekked girls wrestle with each other and hopin' they'd kiss; or—hell—even the feel­ing I got as recently as the year before, when I made "The '68 Comeback Special." Christ Almighty, folks loved that show. Me? I thought it was just okay. Some of the musical numbers were pretty hokey, even by the standards of the time, but-—boy oh boy—did the ladies flip for that black leather outfit Bill Belew designed for me. Thing was hot­ter than the hinges of hell, but it got me more poontang than most men see in three lifetimes.

Priscilla and I had fallen on hard times—I think she was datin' her dance instructor, and I was dating just about anything that had two arms, two eyes, and a fish taco between its legs—so I had started up the old ritual I had with the boys of renting out the Memphian for a bunch of all-night movie marathons that summer.

On this particular night, it was late May/early June of '68, I was in a funky kind of mood, so I had Hamburger James pick up prints of three fittingly offbeat movies: Planet of the Apes (man, I wanted to serve those damned dirty apes a helping of King-Fu), 2001: A Space Odys­sey (fuckin' thing made no sense—I think the reels were mixed up or somethin' because a giant kid was born at the end of the picture!), and Madigan (pretty good crime flick; little gritty for my taste, though).

By the time the credits were rolling on the last movie, it was almost five in the morning. The sun would be up soon, and we were all durn near exhausted—which might explain why I ignored the First Rule of Being Rich.

First Rule of Being Rich?

Never Do Something Yourself that You Can Pay Somebody to Do for You.

Yet me, Elvis Motherfucking Presley, one of the rich­est sonsuvabitches in America?

I ignored the rule.

And that's when the rest of the night—hell, the rest of my life—really started goin' south. You thought Clambake was bad, what happened next made Clambake look like Gone With the Fucking Wind.

Hamburger James had split early—something about his wife goin' into labor or some shit like that—so that meant David Stanley, my second-in-command (and stepbrother), was supposed to return the film reels back to the guy we rented 'em from. But David was feeling under the weather, and I could tell he really didn't wa

Everyone looked at me like I'd just sworn off pussy for a year, but I assured 'em it was something I wanted to do.

Alone.

You see ... I was getting tired of the crowds of people always around me. I know, I know: I only had myself to blame. I was the one who put all my friends on payroll and made 'em leave their wives and kids to be at my beck and call 24/7, but still. A man needs some time to himself once in a while, and, like I said, there was something about that summer that had me in a bit of a funk. I was only thirty-four, but I felt old, baby. Like they say, it's the terrain not the mileage—and I had seen me some pretty rough terrain through the years.

So with no small amount of reluctance, the fellas packed the film canisters into the back of the truck, and I waved good-bye as I headed out into the darkness of early morning.

Lemme tell you something. It was thrilling.

There were no cars on the road, and it took me back to the days before I became the most famous man on the planet; took me back to almost fifteen years ago, when I was nineteen years old and driving a delivery truck for Crown Electric.

As the quiet highway spread out before me, the dark sky began to turn into the beautiful purples and pinks you only find in Memphis, and it was suddenly like . . . like time traveling or something. For a few minutes there I was that fresh-faced kid again, with a tender heart, big dreams . . . and no idea how quickly dreams turned into nightmares. Gone was the hardened man who could trust no one, including his friends and family. Life was normal—or at least what I imagined normal to be—and it felt like I was on my way home from a long night of mak­ing deliveries, my pretty little wife waiting for me in our modest house, our children fast asleep in their small but cozy bedrooms, the world unaware of my existence.

I smiled at the thought, looked out at the horizon as the sunlight began to swing its golden scythe across the fields in the distance, cutting down night into day.

Which is when I ran over him.

I saw the poor bastard standing in the middle of the road out of the corner of my eye and slammed on the brakes.

But not soon enough.

The scraggly-looking kid's body made a disgusting thud as the truck slammed into him, his face shattering the windshield, his body flipping end over end before finally landing on the pavement behind the truck like a sack'a moldy potatoes.

Since these are probably my last words before I leave this mortal coil, I guess honesty is the best policy: I have to admit, first thing I thought about was how royally this was going to screw things up. Last thing I needed was all the bad publicity ru