It\u2019s raining like a movie, and Stevenage bus station has no buses, just me and Salvation Army Bloke in his raincoat and wet hat with red ribbon, probably waiting for a bus to heaven, which he won\u2019t get from the SB2 stop, \u2018cos that goes to Oaks Cross Crematorium, which is kind of the opposite. I should tell him that, but instead I\u2019m thinking about my parents being dead and what it\u2019s like to be a teenage orphan\u2014a quarter bottle o\u2019 whisky, endless rain, and a long road ahead. Salvation Army Bloke approaches, I\u2019m jealous of his red ribboned hat. I tell him about both my parents being dead, he tells me the good news, that Jesus was an orphan too… sort of. I quiz him about God being Jesus\u2019s dad, and he says the good news, is that\u2019s a metaphor, I don\u2019t know what a metaphor is, I nod like I\u2019m picking up on the affinity with Jesus thing and ask to try on his hat and he says I can\u2019t. Then, confusing for Salvation Army Bloke, Mum pulls up in the car because no buses are running in this rain. As we drive off, Mum asks why I called her Auntie Mavis, I tell her I was thinking on my feet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At school, the caretaker\u2019s left his ladder out so I climb up it and wander around the roof, planning to chuck tiles off at the headmaster, get photographed for the Stevenage Gazette then get sent to a remand home. But no one sees me and I can\u2019t find any roof tiles. Instead, I contemplate my burning love for Sharon O\u2019Shaughnessy, she thinks my poems are weird and I\u2019m a weirdo, but you can\u2019t turn your back on love. My poems were weird\u2014I rhymed Sharon with baron. These were the challenges for an imaginative fourteen-year-old, undead parents, unrequited love, and finding rhymes for Sharon. That and how to get down off the roof now the caretaker\u2019s taken the ladder away so Mum has to come to school and have a \u201cchat\u201d with Miss Wilson about me. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming a habit,\u201d Mum says mysteriously. Looking back, maybe it wasn\u2019t so mysterious.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I record every song from every Elvis film on TV, and my shoe box cassette recorder is ready for more. No one is allowed into the sitting-room when my Elvis recording is in progress, my sister tried once, and her thumb is still a bit wonky from where I slammed it in the door. I press Play and Record. Elvis sings. He\u2019s singing to me. Straight into my soul. He knows all about Sharon, how shit school is, how tough it is being a weirdo, with a brain exploding with new ideas, like burying pennies in the vegetable garden and digging them up a year later when they\u2019re worth thousands of pounds as treasure. Elvis knows, and I know, that our friendship is our destiny. When Mr Freeman rails at me for having my tie on wrong, I think, “What would Elvis say?”<\/p>\n
\u201cAin\u2019t the tie that\u2019s wrong sir, it\u2019s the world out there.\u201d Another detention.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I linger in the woods by the school gate, Sharon\u2019s gate. She\u2019s approaching with Angie Evans, Elvis gives me a friendly shove forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi Sharon.\u201d I\u2019m casual and well-rehearsed. \u201cYou wanna take in a movie, go for a cruise, on the bike?\u201d Elvis gives a thumbs up from the woods.<\/p>\n
\u201dWhat bike?\u201d says Sharon, not going with the flow. Good job love is blind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a motorbike. A BSA.\u201d I don\u2019t have a motorbike, but fake it to make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBSA\u2014like Bull Shit Again,\u201d says Angie, which is sharp for a girl in the C stream for English. They giggle. \u201cWeirdo,\u201d says Angie as they walk away. Then… Sharon turns, looking back in slow motion. She sees me astride my BSA, leather jacket and revving engine. Elvis says, \u201cAin\u2019t no mistaking that look, son.\u201d We roar off on our bikes, Elvis with his guitar slung over a shoulder, we\u2019ll end up in some Vegas bar, have a few whiskeys do a few songs together, Sharon\u2019ll be there, with a look that says, I always loved you, you know that right?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I never told my dad that Elvis was my real dad, it would be too upsetting for him. He\u2019ll find out when Elvis comes to Stevenage, to haul me out this no-hope-town and take me home to Graceland. No more Lego houses and yellow buses and stupid fountain in the town centre, that we poured washing-up liquid into, bubbles overflowing everywhere, so they closed the town centre until they \u201cascertained the issue,\u201d and the old newsagent where Sharon had a Saturday job, and the freezer centre, four shops down, where I had my Saturday job, and the industrial centre where we all got apprenticeships a few years later, and the bank where Sharon eventually got a job until she married Phil Richards of all people, and had babies and got leukemia and died at forty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That summer, early Tuesday morning, my parents come into my room. Unusual\u2014Martians in the town centre, meteorite\u2019s trashed the school, tsunami disaster in the boating lake? They don\u2019t speak. They leave the morning paper beside my bed. It sits there with its headline\u2014\u201cElvis Is Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think about tidying my room. I look at the life size poster on my door.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this true,\u201d I ask Elvis, in his gold suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry kid,\u201d he says sympathetically.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve really let me down Elvis.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The good news\u2014it\u2019s not true. Because years later when me and Angie get married at the Little White Chapel in Vegas, we book Elvis for the wedding, and he sings Viva Las Vegas wearing that same gold suit. Thanks Elvis. Thanks for everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elvis is singing to me. Straight into my soul. He knows all about Sharon, how shit school is, how tough it is being a weirdo, with a brain exploding with new ideas, like burying pennies in the vegetable garden and digging them up a year later when they\u2019re worth thousands of pounds as treasure. Elvis knows, and I know, that our friendship is our destiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3347,3348,165,3349],"class_list":["post-19282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-elvis","tag-stevenage","tag-unrequited-love","tag-vegas","writer-tom-harvey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19844,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19282\/revisions\/19844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}