E

“It’s a lawsuit. From Bullington’s attorneys. Accusing you, and us, of defamation.” John Bedoun, the paper’s editor, holding the Service of Notice, glared at Clare Rodgers. “You assured me your source was genuine.”

“He touched her up during the South Carolina primary. When she objected, he called her the C-word,” said Clare.

“Well, he denies it happened. He says the woman is an opportunist. She’s refusing to testify? What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, John. She’s not returning calls. I have no idea what’s happening.”

“They’ve paid her off, damn it! That’s what’s happening. Now we’re at risk.”

The St Cloud Times was a small Minnesota independent daily and this story had thrust it into national prominence. A successful lawsuit against the paper could bankrupt it.

“We have to print an apology and retraction. They say they will withdraw the action if you personally apologise.”

“I will not!” she spluttered. “We can’t let that misogynistic bastard get away with it again. I won’t be intimidated into shutting up.”

“You have no choice. Apologise or resign. The paper will not go down with you. We publish a retraction tomorrow morning.”

The editor walked out of her office.

Clare knew she couldn’t fight this without support. Bullington would bury her financially.

The next morning, the retraction, and the apology, were published in the morning edition. The lawsuit went away.

“I’m taking you off news for a few months,” said Bedoun. “You need a holiday. Go to the Grand Canyon. Take your dog. Get some rest.”

“I don’t need a rest. I need to work.”

“Not in news, you don’t. You’re way too hot.”

“Give me something, John. I’ll go crazy. Please.”

He looked at her. Clare Rodgers was a good reporter. She had had a good story, but had been naive. So had he.

“Okay. There is something. A human interest piece. The Annual Elvis Presley Convention, down in Memphis. Go and cover that. Cool off.”

“Memphis? Are you kidding me? Elvis impersonators? Come on, John.”

“No, Clare. That’s all I’ve got for you. The readers will like it. There are more Elvis sightings in Memphis than anywhere else in the world. Maybe you’ll luck out.”

 

The next morning, Clare Rodgers flew to Tennessee and checked into the Memphis Hilton, fifth-floor suite. The lobby was filled with Elvises.

She showered and ordered a sandwich and a Dr Pepper from room service.

The Hilton ballroom was decorated to resemble a kitsch version of Graceland, if that was possible. It was packed with cowboys wearing large hats and embroidered shirts. Most of the big teased-hair women looked right out of the 1960s.

Her press pass got her a table near the judges.

The first contestant out of the chute was from Tokyo. Short and squat, with dyed black hair, sprayed into the famous pompadour. Plastic-looking. White jumpsuit. He sang a Japanese broken-English “Hound Dog” and had all the microphone and leg movements down. Solid round of applause from the crowd. The judges seemed amused, but not too impressed.

Next up were twins. Both dressed in black leather pants, and jackets open at the neck. Young Elvis. Two handsome fresh-faced boys. They sang “Heartbreak Hotel” and were good. A great reaction from the crowd.

There was an Aboriginal singer from Australia on next. He called himself “Elvis Parsley—Elvis’s black cousin, from Downunder”. He made a credible stab at “Teddy Bear”, forgot the words halfway through, but recovered brilliantly, finishing out the verse in an Aboriginal language. He had an infectious sense of humour and the crowd connected with him. The moves were spot on, but he didn’t sound anything like Elvis. No one cared.

And so on. For two hours.

Afterwards, Clare went backstage to talk to the contestants. The Aboriginal guy tried to flirt with her. She laughed, ignoring him, grabbing herself a glass of white wine from the refreshment table, wondering if she had enough for some kind of story. She wanted to go home.

A thinnish man approached her, a teenage boy by his side. “Are you writing something about the show?”

Clare attempted to be cordial. “ Yes. Did you like it?”

“Oh yeah! We come every year. This is my son, Max. He met Elvis in person.”

She looked at the boy and laughed. “Elvis died in 1977. You weren’t even born then.”

“No, ma’am,” the father said. “Max met him a couple months ago. Even heard him sing …”

Christ! thought Clare.

“… he’s living with his wife in the hills,” continued Max. “They like the peace and quiet up there.”

“How wonderful,” Clare said, cynically. “I’ll definitely put that in my article.”

“You’re funning with us, now,” said the man. “But my boy is telling the truth. He don’t lie. He’s met him in person …”

Clare was tiring of this banter.

“… he even made a little video of him singing, on his phone camera. Show her, Max.”

Max held out a USB drive. “You can keep it,” he said. “I got another one.” He put it down in front of Clare, then pushed a small white envelope towards her. “I found this in his brush in the bathroom, too. I think it’s his, ’cause his wife’s hair is black.”

“Here’s our telephone number if you want to talk some more,” said Max’s father. “I think it’s a damn shame.”

He gripped her hand tightly.

 

Back in her hotel room, Clare poured herself a scotch and began typing:

 

Dwarf Elvis Steals Show By Small Margin

 

She deleted it. How the mighty have fallen, she thought, sipping her drink.

She turned on the television. A local news show was showing footage of the contest. Tables filled with Elvis clones were joking to the cameras.

She clicked through the channels, looking for something to help her to sleep. She remembered the USB drive. Can’t be worse than this crap, she thought.

The footage was jerky. A room and a table. Some chairs. No people. She could hear singing in the background. The boy was pointing his phone away from the man singing. Probably feeling embarrassed about filming him. She wished the kid would just point the camera properly so she could get a better look at the singer.

The voice sounded remarkably like the real Elvis. All the nuance and subtlety. A cut way above what she had heard tonight. Whoever was singing could have won the contest hands down. Of course, depending on how he moved. The physical component was an important part of these impersonators’ shtick.

The picture suddenly swung around. A woman’s voice in the background: “Hey! No photographs!”

Split-second image of an old man. White hair. Dead ringer for Elvis, or how Elvis could have looked in his eighties.

Clare gasped. She replayed the end of the video. Hardly anything—the equivalent of several frames of footage. But a clear headshot—and dead in focus.

She caught an early flight back to Minnesota.

 

“Here’s your story.” She yawned, tossing the manuscript at the editor. “Now—how about a real job.”

“Did you have fun?” he snickered.

“Oh yeah. Real good. I even talked to a boy who had an honest-to-god Elvis sighting. He gave me a lock of Elvis’s hair. I didn’t even have to go to the gift shop. He took some footage of Elvis singing. Want to see?”

“I’m busy, Clare,” said Bedoun.

“You’ll be impressed,” she insisted.

“All right. Three minutes,” he said.

She played him the footage. The editor looked distracted, but watched. Then, the final image.

“Whoa! Who the hell was that?” He moved closer. “Play that bit again.”

“That was him, John. Old Elvis.”

“Damn! That’s good. Did you talk to that guy?”

“No. He lives in the hills. Only the boy met him.”

“Hey, what if it really is Elvis?” joked the editor.

“Shut up, John. Give me some work.”

“I’m serious, Clare. Why don’t you send that video over to Johnson, at police forensics. You’ve met Bill. He likes you. He could run a quick facial recognition on the image. See what comes up.”

 

Clare called the forensics lab and asked Bill Johnson to run the still through his database. She also asked him, discreetly, if he could do a DNA match on a hair sample she was sending over.

The results on the photo came through next morning. Allowing for a margin on ageing, it was a pretty close match: 87 per cent. Not bad. Johnson told her the DNA results would take another week.

Clare rang the phone number scrawled on the paper. Max told her he would go with her into the mountains if she could supply the vehicle and drive.

The next morning, Clare flew back to the Memphis Hilton and checked into the same room. Max met her in the foyer.

She hired a four-wheel-drive and started the long drive, with Max beside her, into the Smoky Mountains. After a couple of hours the highway became a dirt track.

“I hunt up here a lot with my friends. Mostly squirrel and possum,” said Max.

“Are you even old enough to carry a gun?”

“I been shooting since I was nine.”

The dirt road narrowed to a single lane. There had been no cars for half an hour.

“Not far now. Slow down,” said Max. He indicated a small driveway just near a rusted mailbox. Clare turned in.

After another mile, a grey wooden shack came into view, vertical timber slabs for siding, with a tin roof. An elderly woman was standing by the front door, holding a rifle, watching them.

“Park over there,” whispered Max. “We have to walk the rest. They get spooked by strangers.”

“Get back in your car. Get hell off our property!” the woman yelled. “Go on. Git!”

“It’s me, ma’am. Max. It’s okay. She’s with me.”

“Max, damn it, I told you not to be bringing folks up in here. Ronnie is going to be ticked,” she said, lowering the rifle.

“She’s jest writing an article on the convention and wants to meet him.”

The woman walked towards them.

“Howdy. I’m Anna Bercer. I guess if you a friend of the boy, it’s okay. You can talk to Ronnie, if he feels like talkin’. That’s all. No picture taking.”

She led the way up the front steps, onto a porch where an older white-haired man was sitting on a chair, drinking iced tea.

“This is my husband.”

He was the spitting image of Presley.

“Ma’am,” he said, nodding. He didn’t get up. “I’m not Elvis Presley, now, if that was what was going through your brain. They tell me I look like him, I know. I’m Ron Bercer. This is my wife, Anna. You a writer?”

He started rolling a cigarette.

“Well, you do look like him,” Clare said. “You have a great voice, too. Max played some music.”

Anna scowled at Max.

“I just want to talk to you about your life.” Clare looked at Ron.

“What do you want to know?” said Anna. “We live pretty simple.”

“I’d like to hear you sing,” said Clare.

 

“This is an heirloom,” he said. “Belonged to my uncle.”

The old man strummed a few chords on the 1953 Gibson blonde cut-away six-string acoustic. As he sang, his voice hovered in the air with all of Elvis’s trademark nuances, tender tone and vibrato. She had never heard a better imitation. It was as though he was channelling him.

“That was one of my songs,” he said, finishing up.

“Amazing,” Clare said. “Very impressive. How come you didn’t go professional?”

Ronnie looked over at his wife.

“Ah—that life ain’t for me. Singing in honky-tonks and living in trailers. We like it up here. Wouldn’t trade it for the other. That way didn’t work out too well for the real Elvis, now, did it?” He grinned at her.

“I have to agree with you there,” said Clare. “His last years were sad. Too much of everything. But he left a lasting mark on millions of people. Changed lives.”

“Folks get their lives changed every day,” said Ronnie. “Pop music got no exclusive claim on that one. Those people would have jes’ found something else to fill that hole. Hell, there’s folks all over the world ain’t never even heard of Elvis Presley.”

He got up and left the room.

“Ronnie needs his rest now,” said his wife. “He’ll talk to you later. All that Elvis talk makes him nervous. He don’t like considering the implications.”

“Sorry if I upset him,” said Clare. “Have you two moved around a lot?”

“We used to, but we been fortunate to have stayed up in these here hills almost eight years now. Cross your fingers, honey. We’re getting on.”

“Well, I won’t be the one to give away your address,” said Clare. “I promise.”

“Let the mystery be,” said Anna. “You know, Clare, Ronnie and a few friends, up from the valley, are playing a little tonight at the hall down the road. Why don’t you come on along.”

“I’d like that,” said Clare.

The wooden rectangular hall was simply built: one long room with a strong oak floor for dancing and a small stage, elevated four feet from the floor, with home-made proscenium-style curtains. Once it might have been a community centre, or perhaps used for worship services.

The audience was made up of mostly older couples, with a few children dashing about. A fair spread of men and women. The hall felt crowded even though Clare only counted fifteen people.

A band was setting up on stage and in the middle of a sound check—banjo, mandolin, stand-up bass and a fiddle, with Ronnie Bercer at the centre microphone, holding his big Gibson.

Anna told Clare that the banjo player, Bill Wicks, sang some nice harmony duets with Ronnie.

Wicks introduced Ronnie as “Lost Ron” and counted off the first number, an up-tempo hillbilly song. The band was tight, with the kind of rapport that only comes from playing together a lot for personal enjoyment.

After a couple of minutes, and some wild banjo picking, Ronnie’s strong, eerily familiar voice cut through the air. He sang the old Marty Robbins gunfighter ballad “Big Iron”:

 

There was twenty feet between them,
When they stopped to make their play,
And the swiftness of the Ranger,

Still talked about today.

Texas Red had not cleared leather,

When a bullet fairly ripped,
And the ranger’s aim was deadly,

With the big iron on his hip,
Big iron on his hip.

 

At the third verse, Wicks joined in with a close two-part harmony. The sound was thrilling. It was Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Bill Monroe, all in one. A bluegrass, hillbilly Elvis. No trace of the black blues, and rhythm-and-blues, that had given Presley his once threatening and controversial image. No sexual and cathartic hip movements. Ronnie just simply sang the song. As in some parallel universe, here was an Elvis, free and relaxed, inspired by the classic tradition of pure Southern music.

People started dancing and the band got encouraging applause.

The next song was a slow ballad, with two-part singing throughout. Another one of Ronnie’s songs. He didn’t seem interested in being the focus of the band. Wicks featured strongly on vocals and his high bluegrass-style harmony stood right out. Ronnie’s songs were very catchy. As a songwriter he was adept at a skill that even Elvis hadn’t possessed.

Song after song followed before the evening wound down. It was a warm night of music, and community, and everyone said goodbyes and disappeared into the dark in an assortment of old pick-up trucks and station wagons.

Clare walked over to Bill Wicks, who was packing up.

“That was a brilliant set. I’m Clare.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Are you a friend of Anna’s?”

“No, I just met them. I came down to Memphis to write a story about the Elvis convention and somehow ended up here.”

Wicks looked at her warily. “We don’t have much to do with newspapers. We keep to ourselves up here. I hope you don’t take offence.”

“No, not at all,” said Clare. “I’m writing a general story about the Memphis music industry and the convention. Ronnie and Anna explained the situation. I’ll respect your privacy.”

“We would appreciate that,” said Wicks. “People up here live different.”

 

Clare returned to the hotel and worked for a while on the article. The chat with Wicks, and with Ron and Anna, had been good, but there still wasn’t enough for a great story. Bedoun would hate it. She still needed something with teeth, quirky and personal.

She checked her e-mail. There was a message from Bill Johnson.

“Hi Clare, DNA results confirm a 100 per cent match on that hair with the DNA of Elvis Presley. Wherever it came from, it’s the real deal. Where did you get it? Bill Johnson.”

“Hey Bill. Thank you. I’m still checking it out. Until I have something concrete, please keep this under your hat. It could be nothing—or it could be everything. Clare.”

She sat down on the bed. According to the DNA result, Ronnie was Elvis. He and Anna had misled her. She had to go back and talk to them again.

 

Thunderstorms and flood warnings made it impossible for her to make the difficult drive back out. But she was certain she could remember the route without Max this time.

For the next three days, the weather was unrelenting, with fear of a local dam collapsing.

She sat in her room and worked, removing clichés, compressing, cutting out unnecessary waffle. Her boss hadn’t given her a word limit but she knew from experience that 3000 to 4000 words was standard, possibly 7000 for a scoop. If she could prove Ronnie Bercer was Elvis Presley, somehow faking his death, escaping to the hills, under the radar of the entire world, it would be the scoop of the decade. There would be no limit to word length. She could write a book. But first, she had to get something conclusive from the Bercers themselves. And photographs.

She unpacked her Nikon. She was no professional, but she was good enough to document this.

On the fourth day, the rain stopped. Clare hired a four-wheel-drive and began the drive, alone, back up the mountain.

She remembered the route, aided by her prodigious memory for names and details.

Clare drove up as far as last time, parked the car off to the side and stepped out onto the dirt. This time, there was no one to meet her. She walked up to the porch and knocked at the front door. No answer. She knocked again, louder. She walked around past the swing and looked in the curtainless window. The house was bare, empty as though ready for sale. The front door was unlocked. She walked in.

“Ronnie. Anna?”

No reply. Clare went back outside and sat on the step. They had gone. Now what? she thought. There goes the story. There goes everything. She heard a truck engine in the distance and saw a Ford pick-up truck winding its way up the drive. It stopped and Bill Wicks got out.

“Hey, Clare.”

“Bill. What’s going on? Where’s Ronnie and Anna?”

“Moved on,” he said. “He told me he had a bad feeling about all this and felt it was time to go. They’ve been thinking about it for a while anyway.”

“This is my fault,” said Clare.

“I wouldn’t be beating yourself up too much,” said Wicks. “It’s the nature of the critter. You can’t look and sing like he does without attracting attention, sooner or later. In this case, it was just later. Anyway, those two have moved around more times than a raccoon. I think part of them kind of looks forward to it. A change of scenery.”

Clare lit a cigarette. She offered one to him.

“Not used to store-bought ones.” He looked it over. “Obliged.”

Clare inhaled. “I wanted to talk to Ronnie about something I heard this week from my office. DNA on Ronnie’s hair. It was a 100 per cent match with Elvis. I wanted to see what he had to say about that.”

“Is that right?” said Bill.

“You can argue with the facial recognition, but you can’t with DNA,” said Clare.

“I suppose not,” said Bill. “What do you make of it?”

“I make of it that Ronnie is Elvis. End of story. Somehow, he faked his death and came up here to get away from the crazies. What else can it mean?” she said.

“Do you realise how impossible that sounds?” Bill said. “Elvis was the most recognisable singer on the planet. That would have involved a conspiracy as big as JFK. For a reporter, you sure haven’t thought this out too well.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “So, what’s your angle now? You won’t find him—I can promise you that.”

“I’ll just finish up the story, state the facts and forensics and let everyone else work out the rest. I’ve met him. I’ve heard him sing and perform. And I have a good photograph of him.”

“If you do that, Clare,” said Wicks, “not only will you be dead wrong, but you will be opening up a world of hurt for Ronnie and Anna. For all of us. The fans and media will descend on this place like grasshoppers so you can have your brief moment in the sun.”

“People need to know—” said Clare.

Wicks interrupted her. “What’s the matter with you newspaper people? Don’t you have private lives? Why is it so difficult to grasp the concept of privacy? Leave them alone! Those two have been through enough heartache in their lives without you adding more.”

“The world needs to know—”

“The world don’t need to know jackshit!” said Wicks.

“Elvis belongs to everyone,” said Clare.

“He ain’t goddamned Elvis! How many times do you have to hear it?”

“Who is he, then—with the same DNA?”

“It’s not my place to talk about it,” said Wicks.

“It has to be Elvis. The chemistry doesn’t lie. He faked his death—”

“Elvis Presley is dead, Clare!”

“Then how …?”

“Ronnie is Elvis’s brother,” said Wicks, exasperated, shouting at her. “His brother, Jesse Garon.”

 

Bill Wicks walked down to his truck, got a thermos of black coffee and came back to the porch. He filled the cap and handed it to Clare. He drank directly from the thermos.

“Elvis’s brother was stillborn,” said Clare. “Are you saying his twin was the one that didn’t die? That Ronnie’s Elvis’s twin?”

“Their mother, Gladys, was dirt poor. She wasn’t expecting two and the births were hard on her. Jesse’s was touch and go. Some well-to-do neighbours, the Hills, had difficulties having children of their own. Don’t look so shocked. People did things like that back then. Jesse was raised by the Hills.”

“And the birth records?”

“Were changed. Wasn’t that unusual, lots of people don’t even have certificates. No idea when their real birthday is.”

“And Elvis knew all this?”

“Elvis never knew nothing. Neither did Jesse. Both boys grew up unaware of their brothers. Gladys insisted on that. That was part of their arrangement. The Hills took Jesse as their own and named him Ronald.”

Wicks blew into the hot thermos to cool the coffee.

“Ronnie’s stepmother died when he was ten. His stepfather raised him alone from then on. Everything was fine until Elvis made it big. Then people started telling Ronnie he looked like Elvis. Hell, Ron could sing up a storm, too. Even as a teenager. Which made it even worse. Must have been something in their genes. But he wasn’t that influenced by Negro music, like Elvis was, as much as he was by hillbilly. He heard that kind of stuff all around him. Just before his step-daddy passed away, he told Ronnie the truth.”

 

“Jesus,” said Clare.

“Ronnie said a lot of things suddenly made sense,” said Wicks. “Why he looked the way he did. Why he felt a special connection to Elvis.”

“So why didn’t they ever make contact? All those years?”

“Elvis believed his brother was stillborn,” said Wicks. “He often prayed over that empty grave. Ronnie often thought about making contact, but he felt embarrassed. And a little ashamed. That his own mother would give him up—and keep his brother. He also watched what was happening as his brother became famous. That Las Vegas shit. Gaining all that weight. The drugs, the guns, the FBI. He didn’t want no part of any of that. He was also aware of Elvis’s reputation for generosity—and of his own poverty. He knew his brother would have gone out of his way to throw money and opportunity his way. He didn’t want to be beholden.”

“What a waste!” said Clare. “They could have sung together. Recorded together. Elvis could have done Jesse’s songs. Jesse is a great songwriter. They could have helped each other. Everything might have been different.”

“Well, that’s the way Jesse wanted it,” said Wicks. “He didn’t see it your way. That’s why they left. So you can do your damnedest now. But I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you could just forget you ever came up here. That’s all I got to say about it.”

Wicks screwed the cap on his thermos and walked back to his truck.

“Have a good trip back to the big city,” he yelled back. “I hope you do the right thing.”

Clare waved him off. She sat on the steps for about fifteen minutes. Then she began the drive back to Memphis.

 

“What the hell is this?” said John Bedoun, tossing the article down on Clare’s desk.

 

Australian Aborigine Wins Elvis Presley Competition

 

“Where’s the hillbilly Elvis story?”

“There wasn’t much there, John,” said Clare. “I checked it out. You wouldn’t have liked it. The guy was quiet—not much charisma. He had remarkable looks—and a great voice—but that’s about it. Talking to him was about as boring as sitting on a bench facing a wall. There are a dozen Elvis impersonators down there with better stories. The Aboriginal one was the most interesting.”

“So you wasted my money. You had that damn story before you went back,” said Bedoun.

“Well, I thought there was something more there, John, but I was wrong. Anyway, I told you I’m not cut out for these human interest stories. Give me some real news next time.”

 

Two months later, Clare was returning from an afternoon at the Minnesota State Art Gallery. The Van Gogh exhibition was on tour. She had wanted to see some of these masterpieces up close for years.

As she approached her mailbox, she noticed a postcard, half-in.

Dear Clare,

  Thank you for what you did. Or didn’t do! We appreciate it. You’re good folk.

    Kind wishes,

      Ronnie and Anna Bercer

 

There was no return address.