Conversations with Elvis (a fragment)

Elvis: When did you hear about me, Honey?

Me: You mean when did I first become aware that a person called Elvis
Presley had once existed? And that he was in some way culturally
significant?

Elvis: Uh-huh.

Me: I live in an age where the proliferation of the media means that
we're constantly inundated by images and text and information.
Television captures visual images and projects them into our homes.
Movies fill the big screens in theatres. The Internet provides a
seemingly inexhaustible supply of data. Then there's magazines and
covert and overt advertising and so on and so forth. And this visual
explosion has created this kind of, er, compelling iconography.
You are everywhere. You're on mugs, posters, playing cards, badges,
life-size cut outs etc. You've been immortalised in the media. There's
been so much written about you, posthumously as well as in your own
lifetime, that there's almost no point in me even having this
conversation with you now, because anything I say is bound to be just
another hackneyed rendering of a million other peoples articles and
opinions about you.
So, to answer your question, I think I've mostly always been 'aware' of
you. Ever since I've been aware of things outside a child's sphere of,
like, mum and dad and home and grandparents etc. Your image is
everywhere.

Elvis: It's hard to live up to an image. The only time I ever felt like
myself was when I closed the door and locked it from the inside.

Me: But it was YOU that created the image. In the beginning, anyway,
when you burst on to the scene in '56. Nobody had ever seen anything
like you when they tuned their television sets in to the Dorsey
Brothers' Stage Show. The way you danced, your D.A. and sideburns, the
way you sang that black rhythm and blues, the unprecedented reaction of
teenage girls. You weren't just different. You were dangerous. And it
was you who created that image. You were a pioneer. You were
brave,

Elvis: Nah, I was pure scared.

Me: When your mother was alive you weren't scared of anything. It was
only toward the end that the image seemed to be controlling you. "The
King of Rock n' Roll". It seemed to gather momentum until it became
larger than you. You couldn't catch up.

Elvis: Priscilla said my problem was that I served too many
masters.

Me: That's true. But the conflicting elements of your character were
always part of your appeal. Like Monroe, you were simultaneously sexual
and vulnerable. There was more than one facet to you that lent you
charisma. Like the image of you as a poor humble country boy,

Elvis: Oh, I don't know what makes 'em think that. (Stands up,
smirking, to raw attention to his huge solid gold belt adorned with
eagles and diamonds). I got this little 'ole belt
here&;#8230;.

Me: I know it seems funny now, given how far you've come since those
days, but it IS an intrinsic part of your image. You managed to
transcend the crushing poverty you were born into and become THE
twentieth century icon. You're the American David. You're the American
Dream. You taught us that the American Dream is really the Dream of
Excess.

Elvis: All through when I was growing up we were poor as Job's turkey.
But I was a dreamer. I read comic books and I was the hero of the comic
book. I went to movies and I was the hero of the movies. So every dream
I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times.

Me: So, you got whatever you wanted. Cars, girls, and all. Francis
Bacon once wrote, "It's a miserable state to have few things left to
desire and many things to fear, and yet that is commonly the case of
kings."

Elvis: You're damn straight it is, Honey.