“Oh,” Roger said, glancing at me.
I nodded and looked out the window. But to my surprise, I wasn’t done talking yet. And it felt like the talking might be okay. A little shakily, I continued. “We were supposed to go to Graceland in July. Charlie, my father, and me.”
Roger looked over at me and smiled. “Then we should get you there, I think.”
I turned to him, about to apologize for how out of the way it was, how we were backtracking, but I stopped myself. Maybe I was on a quest of my own.
“So?” I asked, after we’d been driving through Kentucky for two hours and I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore. Even on the interstate, there were green rolling hills on either side of the car, for as far as the eye could see. It looked like pictures I’d seen of Ireland, but I had no idea that parts of my own country looked like this. It hit me once again just how big America was, and until now, how little of it I’d seen.
“I like it,” Roger said, his fingers keeping time to the first song of Avenue Q. “I didn’t know musicals could be funny.” He glanced over at me, his sunglasses already on. But for once hadn’t commented on the fact that mine were AWOL.
“No,” I said, though I was relieved that he actually seemed to like my music and wasn’t just pretending. “I mean, what happened with Hadley?” I asked.
Roger didn’t say anything for a moment, just switched on the cruise control, causing the car to lurch forward a little before it settled into its steady speed. I glanced over at the speedometer and saw it was exactly at seventy. “It wasn’t what I was expecting,” he finally said.
“What had you been expecting?” I asked, dreading the answer but needing to hear it.
“I guess … in the beginning,” Roger said, choosing his words carefully, “I’d been hoping that we could get back together.” As soon as he said it, I realized that was exactly the answer I hadn’t wanted to hear. Which, coupled with what Lucien said, made me realize that at some point, without my knowing it, the way I’d been thinking about Roger had changed.
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.
Amy Playlist #1
“Going to Graceland” or “Roger Gets an
Introduction to Musical Theater”
SONG TITLE
ARTIST
“Avenue Q”
Avenue Q
“One Short Day”
Wicked
“All That’s Known”
Spring Awakening
“Someone Like You”
Jekyll & Hyde
“When I Look at You”
The Scarlet Pimpernel
“All the Wasted Time”
Parade
“I’d Give it All for You”
Songs for a New World
“I Believe”
Spring Awakening
“I Can Do Better Than That”
The Last Five Years
“The Best of All Possible Worlds”
Candide
“Bill”
Show Boat
“Consider Yourself”
Oliver!
“This Night”
Movin’ Out
“Where Did We Go Right?”
The Producers
“Wheels of a Dream”
Ragtime
“Still Hurting”
The Last Five Years
“You Can’t Stop the Beat”
Hairspray
“For Now”
Avenue Q
“Nothing in Common”
Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes
“Remember?”
A Little Night Music
“But then—I don’t know,” he said, changing lanes again, even though there wasn’t any reason to. “I’d stopped thinking about that in the last few days. And then when I saw her, it was like she didn’t even look the same to me.”
I had seen Hadley; I found this hard to believe. “Really.”
“I know it sounds weird,” he said, with a little smile. “But it was like I was seeing someone I used to know, a long time ago. And while she was talking, I kept thinking about things I’d forgotten—like how she hated my music and how she used to keep me waiting for hours to call me back, and how she never got along with my friends. And … I don’t know. I kept thinking back to the way she ended things. And just like that, I didn’t need to know why it had ended. I just knew it was done. That it had been done for a while.”
“Wow.” I remembered how she had looked after the conversation. “I take it she wasn’t too happy with that?”
“No,” Roger said. “I think you could safely say that.”
“So now what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking at me. “Now what?”
I looked over at him, and my heart began to beat a little more quickly. I was pretty sure that he meant the trip. We were both talking about the trip. Weren’t we? I looked out the window. He was single now in a way he hadn’t been before. I was suddenly very aware of the fact I had just thrown my hair up into a ponytail that morning without brushing it. “I don’t know,” I said, turning back to him. Our eyes met for a long moment before he moved his back to the road.
“Graceland, right?” he asked, looking straight ahead.
“Graceland,” I confirmed.
Roger glanced over at me quickly and smiled, then stepped on the gas, taking the car out of cruise control and up to seventy-five.
It would have been impossible to miss Graceland once in Memphis—it had its own exit off the highway. And once we got off the interstate, we had clearly entered Elvis country. A Days Inn promised a guitar-shaped pool and Elvis movies on demand, twenty-four hours a day. Ahead of us on the road, bizarrely, were two pink Cadillacs driving side by side. And next to the turn for the Graceland parking lot was the Heartbreak Hotel, advertising reduced rates. We paid ten dollars and drove into the lot, but we weren’t at Graceland yet. The mansion, as it was referred to on my ticket, was across the street from the parking lot, Elvis’s airplanes, three gift shops, and restaurant.
We went with the mansion tour. The VIP package included access to the “jumpsuit room,” which I didn’t think I needed. After we’d gotten our tickets, we stood on line for the bus behind a German couple and in front of what looked like three generations of a family—grandfather, father, and son. As the line curved around, every group was directed to stand in front of a Graceland backdrop to get their pictures taken. It seemed that this was compulsory—the woman taking the pictures kept explaining, her voice tired, that if you didn’t want the pictures, you didn’t have to buy them. When Roger and I reached the wall, we stood side by side, a little awkwardly. “Closer,” the picture-taking woman said with a weary sigh, hoisting her camera. Roger took a step closer to me and then slowly—as though making sure I’d be okay with it—put his arm around my shoulders.
It was like every nerve in my body was suddenly awake. I smiled for the flash, but was really thinking about how I’d never noticed how sensitive my shoulder was before, how I was hyper-aware of his arm resting across it. How I could feel his breath rising and falling where our sides were touching. “Next!” she called, and we moved apart, not looking at each other, both of us paying a lot of attention to our audio guides. We boarded the small bus that would take us across the street, and after we got on, the driver closed the door and started it up. We drove out from the parking lot, and the driver signaled to turn up the driveway. I looked out the bus window and saw the open Graceland gates, decorated with Elvis with his guitar and musical notes, and the brick wall that led up to the gates—the one that was totally covered in the famous graffiti. And then we pulled up the driveway, and there it was, on top of the hill, and smaller than I expected: Graceland.
We had to follow the audio guide’s path through the house and weren’t allowed to retrace our steps, but we were permitted to go at our own pace. Roger, seeing that I was taking more time—and pictures—than he was, went on ahead as I walked throug
h the mansion. The house itself was incredible. Every room was overdecorated, and every room had a motif—many, my audio guide told me, chosen by Elvis himself. The whole place was a shrine to sixties decorating.
I stayed in the Jungle Room the longest. And it wasn’t like I was really expecting anything to be there—of course not. And yet, I still stood there, waiting. Just in case. But I didn’t see anything except an empty room, a family room that nobody had used for years, Lisa Marie’s stuffed panda sharing a chair with an unplayed guitar. As I walked through the mansion, looking at the perfectly arranged rooms that nobody lived in any longer, I thought of my own house, standing empty, welcoming strangers HOME!
After the first few prompts, I turned the audio guide off as I made my way through the house and into the office, and then the studio and building dedicated to memorabilia—costumes, an entire room full of records, jumpsuits standing upright and empty, and Elvis, Elvis everywhere.
I took my pictures, I looked around, but as I continued with the tour, it felt like my vision was narrowing, like the Elvis-bedecked walls were closing in on me. I wondered what my father had thought of the exhibits, and what trivia he could have told me, all the little details I was missing. I realized I didn’t even know how old he’d been when he’d visited. But I’d never asked him. I’d never asked him a lot of things. And now I’d never know. Coming to Graceland had been a mistake, I felt, as I looked at all the Elvisness that surrounded me. It was a shrine to what my father had loved, and I should not have been there alone. It was just wrong. I was at Graceland, and my father wasn’t with me. And he wasn’t ever going to make the trip. He was never going to get to come here again. He was done listening to Elvis and driving to Tennessee and taking souvenir pictures. And it was all because of me.
The tour finished out by the pool, and I raised my camera to take a picture, until I realized what was at the end of the pool. Elvis’s grave.
It was surrounded by flowers and wreaths and teddy bears, in front of an eternal flame and flanked by the graves of his parents. I stepped closer and read the inscription on top in raised bronze lettering. I stared down at it, feeling my breath get ragged. There was one part that I couldn’t look away from. GOD SAW THAT HE NEEDED SOME REST AND CALLED HIM HOME TO BE WITH HIM. WE MISS YOU SON AND DADDY.
My vision swam with tears, the eternal flame in its Plexiglas blurring in front of me. Home? How could he be called home? This was his home. But at least he’d been buried here, by the house he loved so much. At least he wasn’t alone, and far away from everyone in his family. At least people were doing their best to remember him. At least he hadn’t been abandoned in Orange County.
Well they’ve been so long on Lonely Street they ain’t ever going to look back.
—Elvis Presley
TWO MONTHS EARLIER
My mother, Charlie, and I stood in a line, looking down at the small brass marker in the ground. The overly solicitous funeral director had shown us the plot, then backed away, telling us he’d be nearby if we needed anything.
I couldn’t think of anything we’d need that he could provide, so I’d just glared at him while he talked, then felt bad about it as he left and waited a respectful distance away. The cemetery, Pacific View, was beautiful—we’d been informed on our drive up to the plot that John Wayne was buried there. But we were in Orange County, an hour and a half away from Raven Rock. And I didn’t like to think of my father alone out here, so far away from home.
I didn’t want to think about him at all, and it seemed impossible to me, as I looked down at the small brass marker—BENJAMIN CURRY. BELOVED HUSBAND, FATHER, AND EDUCATOR—that my father was in there. He had always been too tall for things, complaining about tiny movie theater and airplane seats. How could he fit below a marker the size of my hand? How was that possible? And as I looked at my mother and my brother, both staring down at the ground, nobody saying anything, the whole thing just felt wrong. We shouldn’t have been putting him in the cold, dark ground. We should have scattered his ashes in the Jungle Room or over the fields of Gettysburg or even on our lawn he loved so much. He shouldn’t have been in Orange County, surrounded by strangers, most of whom were probably old and had died peacefully of natural causes.
My mother cleared her throat, then looked at Charlie and me. I looked back at her, not wanting to, telling myself that I’d learned by now, but still waiting for her to say something. Or put her arms around us. Just to somehow make this better. But she turned and walked away, heading toward the funeral director. I looked at Charlie, who was still staring down at the ground. His eyes were red, and I actually had no idea what the cause was today. We were standing fairly close—I could have extended my arm and touched him—but it felt like we were miles apart. Why weren’t we talking about this? Why weren’t we reaching out to each other?
Charlie left as well, heading toward my mother, leaving me alone. Alone with the small piece of ground that held what was left of my father, I reached into my pocket and took out what I’d brought him. When I’d been in the 7-Eleven that morning, looking down at the candy display, I’d suddenly panicked, because I couldn’t remember what his favorite flavors were. Why hadn’t I paid more attention? Why hadn’t I realized that one day he wouldn’t be there to ask?
I’d finally gone with Butter Rum and Wint-O-Green. I took them out and placed them on top of the marker, where they rolled back until they hit the raised B of his name and stopped. It had always been my job to give him Life Savers. And now this was the only way I could do it. I looked at the candy, knowing it would be taken away, uneaten, when the flowers were thrown away every week.
Then I turned away too, leaving him all alone.
I took a trip while I was gone. I cashed in all my savings and bought an El Dorado, drove to Tennessee.
—Jason Robert Brown
“Are you okay?” Roger asked.
I nodded, looking straight ahead as we crossed the parking lot to the car. I’d left the postcard on top of the graffiti wall, underneath the heaviest rock I could find on the street. I hadn’t said much when I’d met Roger by the middle gift shop. I still didn’t feel like saying much.
We got into the car, and Roger reached into his pocket and pulled out a small tissue-wrapped object. “I know you’re probably not going to want them,” he said as I looked at him, surprised, “but they seemed too good to pass up.”
I tore off the tissue paper and saw that he’d bought me sunglasses—Elvis-style gold-rimmed sunglasses. I looked down at them in my hands and thought about my own sunglasses, shattered in the impact—I’d seen one of the lenses on the ground, mixed with all the auto glass. It was stupid to refuse to get new ones. It wasn’t like it was going to do anything. I gave Roger the best approximation of a smile I could. “Thank you,” I said, slipping them on. “What do you think?”
He gave me a real smile in return. “Lovely,” he said. He started the car. “Lunch?”
Roger had discovered his own version of heaven, and it was Krystal, a fast-food chain neither of us had heard of before. And it was good—the burgers were mini-burgers, and the fries were extra salty. And there was sweet tea as a drink option. We ate sitting in the way-back, the door raised, our legs dangling over the edge. We had the view of the Tennessee-Alabama Fireworks emporium across the street, and I noticed Roger looking at it a little too interestedly, when not exclaiming over the perfection of the burgers.
I held the atlas on my lap, looking down at the country, amazed by how far we’d come. We still had a little ways to go, but it seemed like most of the country was behind us.
“What’s the plan?” Roger asked, holding out the fries to me. I took one and dipped it in the barbecue sauce container sitting between us, while he made a face. He did not approve of barbecue sauce on fries, I’d found out.
“I don’t know,” I said, even though, as I looked down at the map, I could see where I wanted to go. We weren’t that far from it either. Just one state away. “I should tell you something.”
Roger put the fry that was halfway to his mouth down and looked at me. “My brother’s not at an academic enrichment camp,” I said. “He’s in rehab.” The word, ugly and loaded, hung between us in the car for a moment.
“Oh,” Roger said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said with a short laugh. “And I was thinking …” I traced my finger across Tennessee and to North Carolina. To Asheville. “I think that I need to see him.”
Around one a.m. we were outside of Asheville. We hadn’t talked much on this drive. We’d listened to Walcott’s demo, which made up in volume what the lead singer lacked in pitch. Roger had put on one of his mixes, but then asked if he could listen to some of my musicals in their entirety, since he was having trouble following the stories, hearing the songs out of context. He’d liked The Producers so much, he’d listened to it twice.
We were here. But I’d realized, as we drove across Tennessee and the time got later and later, that we’d have to wait until the morning to see Charlie. While Roger had been humming along
Amy Playlist #2
Pay No Attention to the Boys Behind the Curtain/The Henry Gales
TRACK LIST
1. New Way of Thinking
2. South of Lincoln, West of You
3. Surrender, Dorothy
4. Fields of Poppies in Technicolor Red
5. Late Last Nite
6. Tell Me How
7. Where I Am Is Where I’m From
with Nathan Lane, I’d been thinking about my brother. After all those months of not speaking, suddenly talking to him was the only thing I wanted to do. It seemed like it was time.
We pulled into the parking lot of a Wal-Mart so we could take stock of how much money we had for a hotel tonight and figure out where we were going to stay. I’d just assumed it would be closed—everything else around seemed to be—but the parking lot was strangely full of RVs and semi trucks, the lights on tall metal poles still on. “Is Wal-Mart open?” I asked, as Roger pulled into a parking spot. Three spots away was a huge silver Airstream trailer, glinting in the floodlights.