Elvis Presley, Private Eye
I never seen Elvis but he was up to something. I remember that day just as clear. He come over to the house and he was slick, tight black jeans, a fancy cowboy shirt and his hair all slicked up, and polished cowboy boots that made him look even taller than he was.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asks him when I seen him.
“Why, I’m going with you, Uncle Buck. I’m going to be a truck-driving man.”
“Stuff,” I says. “You ain’t going nowhere dressed like that.”
“I sure as hell am,” he says, “Momma said I could. I got my high school diploma and everything.”
“Your momma know you talk like that?” I says, and that brought him up short. Elvis, well, he was kind of a momma’s boy back then. I wouldn’t hold it against him, you understand. That was just the way he was.
“Please, Uncle Buck,” he says, “please let me go. I drive real good.”
Well, that was surely true. Ever since I had knowed him, Elvis could handle a tractor. I worked out with him on his daddy’s farm one summer. He couldn’t have been more than ten, but it was like he was born to it, and that tractor his daddy had was a raggedy old thing. If you didn’t treat that clutch just right it would kick up a storm. You had to know that clutch, just know how it was feeling every day, or you’d have yourself a time.
“Well, maybe you can, and maybe you can’t,” I says. “But you sure can’t dressed like that. I’m fixing to deadhead down to Tupelo this morning to see a feller that owes me some money, and I could use a little relief. You figure your momma will let you go with me?”
“I’m going,” he says. “I’m gone. You watch me go.”
“I’ll watch you go,” I says. “But you ain’t going dressed like that. You come back here dressed like a working man and I might take you with me. But you remember to bring that high school diploma with you.”
“Oh, yes sir, Uncle Buck, I will,” he says, and off he goes, hair just a-flyin’. I had to laugh, because there wasn’t nothing Elvis was so fussy about as his hair. I figured right then that if Elvis was more set on going than taking care of his hair, I’d have to take him with me.
I’d been hauling for some time for this feller Mr. Carlson, outside of Tupelo, who had the biggest old hog farm you ever did see. He stiffed me on my last run, and I didn’t think I’d see that money, the way we talked, but this feller come through on the way to St. Louie and told me Mr. Carlson said I could have my money with $50 extra for my trouble if I’d come down today. I got me a Ford V-8 for trips like that, but I got to revving her too high the night before, showing off for some gal, and I blowed a piston head. When I’m with a gal, I get careless. I just do. So I had to take Bessie instead, and she needed a little cleaning. I’d been letting things accumulate a bit for the past year or so, and there warn’t really room for two. The way I figure it, a man, when he’s driving, has got to keep his eyes on the road. If you got something in your hand, you just fling it, and worry about it later. So I had considerable chicken bones and pop bottles to take care of, mostly pop bottles. I like an RC and a Lucky to get me going in the morning, and maybe a cherry smash about ten o’clock. Grape Nehi’s good too, if they got it. It’s got more of a perky taste than that orange. I like a root beer too, but you’ve got to drink it cold. Hot root beer will take the skin right off your tongue. You can’t let it sit in the cab. So I got me a little cooler in the back to take care of things, along with my funny books. I used to haul for DC Comics, and I got ‘em all—Superman, Batman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, World’s Finest—you name it. I do like a good funny book, and Elvis, he does too. He reads ‘em more than I do.
I’d got most of them bottles out when Elvis come running back. He didn’t look much better, really, but at least he got rid of those black jeans. Wearing pants like that will start a fight every time. He had a cardboard suitcase in one hand and a big old bag slung over his shoulder.
“Elvis,” I says, “we’re just going to Tupelo. It ain’t but two hours.”
“Oh,” he says, “I got to be ready.”
“You got your guitar?”
“You know I do.”
“Yes, I know you do. I hope you know how to play it.”
“I surely do, Uncle Buck, and I’m going to be famous someday. And I’m going to write a song all about you.”