Baby, Let's Play House Part 42

But another night, he'd had a couple of drinks, which Ann realized was a rarity for him, and she woke up in the middle of the night freezing in her negligee. Suddenly, she realized she was soaked, but she just moved over to the edge of the bed and stayed there.

"When he got up, he was mortified. He said, 'Oh, my G.o.d, Annie Pie, Annie Pie, oh, my G.o.d, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you wake me?' Then we were sitting out with the guys, and he said, 'I peed all over the bed. Do you believe it? Poor thing! She was huddled in a little corner there. She didn't say a word.' " He didn't seem embarra.s.sed to talk about it, but after the maids came up and carried the mattress out of the suite, n.o.body said anything else about it.

When Linda found out about Ann, she didn't think that he was really with with her, but still, "I felt it was a violation of our relationship, and certainly something he wouldn't have tolerated." She'd had an inkling he was with other people now and then: Sherry Williams, for example, came along to Palm Springs with the group, and then when Linda was away with a girlfriend, Sherry spent a week at Graceland. "I wondered, 'What's this all about?' I didn't realize that Elvis was seeing other women when he was with Linda." But mostly Elvis just wanted company. "We did a lot of things, theater, karate, shopping. . . . Basically, I think he wanted someone to stay with him while she was gone. However, it was one of the more intimate times I had with him." her, but still, "I felt it was a violation of our relationship, and certainly something he wouldn't have tolerated." She'd had an inkling he was with other people now and then: Sherry Williams, for example, came along to Palm Springs with the group, and then when Linda was away with a girlfriend, Sherry spent a week at Graceland. "I wondered, 'What's this all about?' I didn't realize that Elvis was seeing other women when he was with Linda." But mostly Elvis just wanted company. "We did a lot of things, theater, karate, shopping. . . . Basically, I think he wanted someone to stay with him while she was gone. However, it was one of the more intimate times I had with him."

Then there was a dalliance with Nanette Kuklish, a broadcast newswoman who went to Vegas "on a mission to meet Elvis Presley, and I wasn't going to give up." He came on to her twice, the second time in Linda's presence: "She was sitting right next to him. His head was turned in my direction as we were talking, flirting, and laughing . . . we saw each other a week later at his home in Holmby Hills."

"Elvis wanted to be happy," Marty saw. "He just didn't know how to do it. He felt it was too late for him to find happiness. He could have found it with Linda. But instead of concentrating on that, he looked back at Priscilla and thought, 'Maybe I'm not cut out to be married.' "

For Linda, it was past disillusioning, as the two had been together "literally twenty-four hours a day for the first year that we were together," and within two weeks of meeting her, Elvis told her he was in love and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But as she grew and matured, she also became more aware of her own needs, and what Elvis could and could not give her.

"I think the timing was bad," Linda a.s.sesses. "Not to take away from the magnitude of it, but I was young and he was just coming out of a marriage. It was a transitional kind of relationship, even though it lasted well beyond the transitional years. We planned to be married, and then the time just kind of pa.s.sed us."

Jo Smith remembers how crazy Elvis had been about Linda: "She had a peach-colored outfit, and when she wore it, he would bite at her. He would be talking, and as she pa.s.sed by, he'd go, 'And so and so . . . gnaw-gnaw-gnaw-hhhhnnnnhhhhh.' Like a shark or something."

But what started out as marathon lovemaking sessions in Las Vegas dwindled down to "once a year" s.e.x and lifesaving heroics.

It wasn't so much that he was truly impotent, though there were times when the drugs rendered him so. "We discussed s.e.xual things," Dr. Nick reports, "and I think more than anything else he got preoccupied with having more of a mother figure around him to take care of him. I don't think it was because he couldn't perform. I just think that's what he was interested in."

And so he continued to hit on other girls right in front of Linda, including twenty-one-year-old Sheila Ryan, who arrived in Vegas at roughly the same time as Ann Pennington. Joe, who thought Sheila was gorgeous and had tried to date her himself as his marriage was ending, brought her backstage in early 1974. Elvis saw her across the room and, trying to figure out an excuse to approach her, threw a grape at her so he could come over and apologize without Linda being suspicious. He hit her right between the eyes, smack in the forehead.

"I had grape juice running down my face. He flung it from about fifteen feet away, and I mean, it was an amazing shot amazing shot! I thought it had to be a mistake, because n.o.body would do that. But Joe was laughing, and Elvis was laughing, kneeling down and saying, 'Oh, I'm sorry' over and over, and Linda was so nervous in her yellow jersey dress that it turned a different color from under her arm down to her waist."

When Elvis looked up at her, Sheila finally realized that Elvis had actually thrown the grape on purpose, so she wasn't surprised when Joe was on the phone, having dialed her every few minutes for two days while she was changing apartments: "Where in the heck have you been? My boss likes you and wants to see you."

She was so angelic-looking, she could have pa.s.sed for a fourteen-year-old. And though she'd been on the cover of Playboy Playboy magazine just that previous October, she was a virgin, a Catholic girl from the burbs of Chicago, Franklin Park. For some reason she couldn't quite figure out-she had self-esteem issues, as well as what would later be diagnosed as Asperger syndrome-men flocked at her feet. She'd left home fleeing from a crazy boyfriend, intending to go to L.A. But she got only as far as Las Vegas in her worn-out Volvo and wasn't sure what was next. magazine just that previous October, she was a virgin, a Catholic girl from the burbs of Chicago, Franklin Park. For some reason she couldn't quite figure out-she had self-esteem issues, as well as what would later be diagnosed as Asperger syndrome-men flocked at her feet. She'd left home fleeing from a crazy boyfriend, intending to go to L.A. But she got only as far as Las Vegas in her worn-out Volvo and wasn't sure what was next.

Sheila was thinking about all that as she rode up the elevator to Elvis's suite between shows. He gave her a hug, and "he was dripping wet with sweat, and he had a white towel, and the towel was dripping wet, and he had no qualms about just sweating all over me."

Immediately, he made a little dig about the fact that she was wearing slacks, but they were the best things she owned. To Sheila, who would be Elvis's only hippie girlfriend, slacks meant dressing up-normally she wore jeans with holes in them-and now she felt sheepish. "They're Sir For Her," she said defensively, meaning they were a good brand.

"Why do you dress like a man?" he continued. She looked at his stage outfit, which reminded her of a Dalmatian, and then she gave it right back to him.

"Does Cruella know you have her cape tonight?"

He let out a hearty laugh. He liked it that she was capable of such quick and funny repartee, and he admired her s.p.u.n.k. But she could see he was even more nervous than she was, and that a girl in a pair of slacks, with her hair stuck flat to her head, wasn't going to do it for him.

Still, she got in a snit when he ordered her to put on some eyeliner. And when he said, "Your bathroom is over there," she thought, "Oh, it's my my bathroom, is it?" She was just a little bit miffed, but in a fun sort of way, and as she made her beeline, she flipped him off, but in the front so he couldn't see. bathroom, is it?" She was just a little bit miffed, but in a fun sort of way, and as she made her beeline, she flipped him off, but in the front so he couldn't see.

"And don't sa.s.s me, either," he called out. Sheila shook her head. How did he do do that? that?

In the bathroom, she rummaged around and did the best she could with the little makeup she had in her bag, and when she reappeared, he stunned her. "Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asked.

Sheila was certainly attracted to him, but she didn't know whether it was love, and she wouldn't decide for seven months. She would be his last significant girlfriend. But at that point, all she knew for certain was that Elvis had made it clear how he felt. And that "once you are on the other side of that black velvet curtain, life is never the same."

They ate dinner in the bedroom after the second show, and then he moved near the platform bed and sat cross-legged on the floor. People always threw all kinds of odd things on the stage to him, and this night, he brought back a baby's bib, a plastic fireman's hat, and a necklace with a cross on it made of gold twigs, with the initials platform bed and sat cross-legged on the floor. People always threw all kinds of odd things on the stage to him, and this night, he brought back a baby's bib, a plastic fireman's hat, and a necklace with a cross on it made of gold twigs, with the initials EP EP and a star set into the bars of the cross. and a star set into the bars of the cross.

Since he hated being called "The King," he gave her the necklace. Then he put on the fireman's hat and asked Sheila to tie the bib around his neck. To her astonishment, he began to speak in a tiny voice.

"I'm Elvis! I'm Elvis Presley! I'm a baby! This is my bib! Sit here by me!"

She could tell that he wasn't just goofing around, that he really wanted wanted to be a baby, and he wanted his mother. to be a baby, and he wanted his mother.

"I thought, 'Oh, boy. We have problems here.' And I knew I had to make a decision right then and there. She thought for a minute: 'Can I do this?' And the answer was, 'd.a.m.n right I can.' "

They spent most of the night together, and while it never got anything close to being s.e.xual, it was romantic. He sang to her on the balcony, and he was very kissy-very, very very kissy, she thought-and they had a lot of fun just rolling around with their clothes on. Later she was relieved he wasn't the sort of cuddler you have to push off of you all night long. kissy, she thought-and they had a lot of fun just rolling around with their clothes on. Later she was relieved he wasn't the sort of cuddler you have to push off of you all night long.

She let him fall asleep, and then around 5 A.M. A.M., she got up and went back to her apartment. Six hours later, Joe was on the phone. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, where are you? The boss is furious!" She realized then that she was expected to stay the night, and when she got back to the hotel, she a.s.sumed Elvis would be thrilled to see her. Instead, he was mad. He was sitting at the breakfast table, and his leg was doing a Saint Vitus's dance.

"He said nothing, and I was perplexed. He said, 'Follow me,' and I did, like a little geisha. We went in the next room, and he pulled out a hypodermic needle, filled it with Demerol, flicked it three times so there were no air bubbles in it, and handed it to me." Then he put his thumb into the elastic waistband of his pajamas and pulled it down just far enough.

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Uh-huh." She'd been a nurse's aide, so she wasn't unfamiliar, and she gave him the injection.

"I said, 'How was it?' and he said it was okay, but I knew it had to be better than what he got from whoever else was injecting him, because his whole bottom was bruised with contusions, and hard, with scar tissue. You couldn't really penetrate the skin."

She didn't blame him for wanting it. "Demerol is a great way to start the day when you're around what he was around."

But there, on the continuation of their first date, Sheila had an epiphany: "I knew that I had been sent there for the downfall. I have always been a believer, and I've always known that there is a Higher Power. I knew that Priscilla met him to marry him. And Linda met him for the girls' time, and I met him for the downfall. That's what I felt my job was, and I accepted it. I never thought that I would fall in love with him. I just loved him and wanted to take care of him."

He wanted to take care of her, too, but first he had to put his mark on her. When the shot worked its magic, he had Joe order up a fashion show from Suzy Creamcheese, who brought over racks and racks of dresses. "When you walk through that showroom," he told Sheila, "I want everybody's eyes on you. I want everybody to know you're mine. I don't want to know that you even existed before this moment. You were born just for me."

When they finally made love, she was afraid. She'd tried it once with her last boyfriend, and she was too dry, and he couldn't enter her. And then there was all that guilt tied in with her religion, so it was emotional and confusing. She'd never heard of a man who preferred pumping to actual s.e.x ("In the Catholic faith, he'd get warts on his hand"), but Elvis was thinking of her benefit. So she wouldn't get pregnant, "he pulled out and finished himself off and put it all over my belly.

"The first thing that crossed my mind was, 'Oh, my G.o.d, he's perverted.' Because I was just so naive. My second thought was that I wasn't enough woman, that my v.a.g.i.n.a must have been the size of the Grand Canyon, and that he was bouncing off my insides, so he had to hold on to himself. I thought he was so much more sophisticated, so it had to be me."

Eventually, Dr. Nick advised her to go on birth control. Yet sometimes she and Elvis just wrestled on the bed and had pillow fights, or he'd tell her stories, like the time he dry humped a famous British pop star in her panty hose and rubbed himself raw. But when they did become more intimate, it was a familiar ritual.

"He did this little dance. It was the, 'We're going to do it dance,' his little mating call. He was uncomfortable with the beginning of it, so he'd walk on one side of the bed. As soon as he had a certain look on his face, he would turn away, and scratch his head, make sure the lights were right, and then pull off one of his shoes and then one of mine, and talk about the weather for five or six minutes. At the time, I thought it was just adorable, because I knew what was coming, so I would get a little wet."

Despite all the women he'd been with, she was surprised that he was still shy at certain aspects of lovemaking, though he liked giving oral s.e.x.

"He would start at my ankles, and then go up, and once he had his head in my m.u.f.f, with his hands reaching up to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, all of his shyness went right out the window. He made jokes, and he would come up and look me straight in the eyes."

Because she was inexperienced, at first she wasn't sure if she really had an o.r.g.a.s.m. Elvis was a tender lover, but she couldn't relax enough, she thought.

To help her through it, Elvis said an Indian wise man had told him that there was one way to find out for certain if a man had satisfied his woman.

"He said that if the lips on her face were cool, she'd had an o.r.g.a.s.m, because all of the blood had rushed to her v.a.g.i.n.a. Once I was familiar with the story, he would make references to it. And then when I would be making the appropriate noises and sounds of ecstasy, he'd say, 'Okay, I'll see if I took care of my baby.' "

She didn't want to disappoint him, so "a couple times, I was quick to wet my lips and breathe in. I didn't want him to think he hadn't done the job. Then one time I was getting ready to wet my lips, and before I knew it, I was in full-blown o.r.g.a.s.m. I was like, 'Oh my G.o.d!' And he laughed so hard."

With Sheila, he rarely asked for oral s.e.x in return. Generally, he thought that's what prost.i.tutes were for, not girlfriends, though Sheila thought it had to do with the fact that he wasn't circ.u.mcised. "He didn't seem to want it. He was a giver and it didn't stop at giving cars and jewelry-even s.e.xually, he was a giver."

They were good together, at least for a while, and Elvis seemed completely under her spell, bemused by her crooked smile and what he called her "bubble b.u.t.t."

However, their s.e.xual appet.i.tes didn't always match. She understood his rules, that "I was never to be a first-thing-in-the-morning kind of girl," and that "there couldn't be a natural odor to me anywhere." But she hadn't counted on the sleeping pills. One morning, she had douched, showered, powdered, puffed, dressed, and prettied to his expectations, and now it was Sheila who did the mating dance. First, she tickled his nose with a feather, but she watched in frustration as it rose and fell to the breath of slumber. Next, she took all his rings from the bedside table, put them on her own fingers and made tapping sounds, sitting right next to him on the bed.

"I didn't want to get in trouble, but I wanted to play. I wanted to make love, and I really wanted him in me. But he didn't wake up, and I was sitting there, sitting there, and sitting there."

In his conscious moments, Elvis appreciated Sheila most of all because she made him laugh, and he found her naivete fresh and disarming. He liked to roll her middle name, "Marie," together with her first, so it came out as a mush of sound-"Sheila M'ree"-but he also had several nicknames for her based on her haircut. One was "Dennis," for "Dennis, the Menace," and the second was "Chicken Head." The latter was reminiscent of what he'd said to actress Goldie Hawn when he met her while taping the '68 special: "He walked up to me and he tousled my hair and he said, 'You look like a chicken that's just been hatched.' " Shirley Dieu understood that the concept of an intelligent girl who acted like a ditz was a turn-on for him.

"That's how Sheila was, like Goldie Hawn. She had that same dumb blond personality. Priscilla asked me one time, 'What is it that Elvis sees in Sheila? She's not his type.' But she would just say the stupidest things. For example, if Elvis would walk in the room and everybody would be really quiet, Sheila would be like, 'What? Why is everybody quiet?' And then laugh. She just was oblivious to it all, and she would think out loud when she talked, like, 'Uh, I don't know . . . uh . . .' It was cute, and just really funny. And that's what made her entertaining."

One person who wasn't entertained was Linda Thompson. After Sheila had been alone in Vegas with Elvis for eight days, Linda found out about it, and as Shirley remembers, "Linda was so jealous of her that she had us all convinced that Sheila was a hooker. She told everybody that Joe had picked her up, and after he had paid for her, she wanted to be with Elvis." Shirley actually believed it for a while and then learned better.

Elvis and Linda had a terrific row over Sheila on the phone during Sheila's first stay, and it opened Sheila's eyes to both the volatility and the importance of his relationship with her.

"I heard a tone coming out of him that was so guttural that I thought, 'He must be fighting with Priscilla.' I was in the bathroom and I stayed there, because I didn't even want to believe that there was someone in his life who could make him this angry. She was just letting him have it, and he was explaining to her when he would be home and when she could come see him again, and it was very, very disturbing. He was saying, 'You've always gotta do it, don't you? You've always gotta twist the knife so that my gut can't even breathe.' He just got vehement. And that's when I came to find out that Linda, who he let on was 'just a girl,' was very much a part of his life. That was a rude awakening for me."

What puzzled Linda the most was how paradoxical Elvis was in terms of romance. On the one hand, she knew that he loved her immeasurably and that he was devoted to her emotionally. He took the time to articulate his feelings, saying, "I know that I haven't been completely faithful to you. I know that you don't understand a lot of the things that I do. But you have to know that you could never be with anyone who would love you more."

And so they would remain in each other's lives. But there would continue to be plenty of compet.i.tion. Not only would Linda and Sheila pa.s.s each other on the moving sidewalk in the Las Vegas airport at one point, but when Sheila went on tour with him in March 1974, Elvis had Marty pick up Ann Pennington in Monroe, Louisiana, while someone else took the departing Sheila to the plane. For Ann, "I had a little 'ouch' about it, but it was like, 'That's the way it is.' "

After March, Sheila didn't hear from him for months, understanding that she and Linda were "sort of running a horse race . . . we were neck and neck and then I fell behind." And so she moved to Los Angeles and made no effort to get in touch with him. During the interim, Elvis reconciled with Linda, threw a twenty-third birthday party for her in May, and let her redecorate Graceland in a brilliant red color scheme, replacing the original blue.

Linda was the woman who best met his tricky combination of requirements-s.e.xy, yet motherly, gentle but feisty, and perhaps most important, spiritual. Still, Elvis thought he hadn't found exactly what he was looking for, and one night that spring, he took Larry Geller aside at the Monovale house. "I've got to meet someone, man. You know a lot of women. Fix me up."

To Larry, it was preposterous. Elvis was the biggest s.e.x symbol there was.

"I don't know, Elvis," Larry said.

But then he thought of Mich.e.l.le Meyers, who booked rock groups for all of the clubs and knew every girl in town. Larry dialed the phone. "Oh, I know this girl, and she'd be great," Mich.e.l.le told him. That evening, Elvis sent one of the guys to pick her up and bring her to the house for a party. But when she came in the door, Elvis turned sharply to his friend.

"His eyes popped open, and it was like, 'What in the h.e.l.l did you do to me?' "

She was disabled and hobbled in on a cane.

Elvis treated her as he did all the rest of the women there that night ("Honey, would you like some food?"), and she settled in with the group. But when the conversation grew dull, Elvis turned to Larry's younger sister, Judy, a live wire who had come up to the house a number of times. At five foot six and 120 pounds, Judy was tall and thin, with long, dark hair and green eyes, and Elvis had always liked her. He'd also met her twin, Elaine, some years back when Larry brought her on one of the movie sets.

"Elvis was sitting on the couch with beautiful women on each side of him, but they were posed like mannequins-they were afraid to talk to him," Judy remembers. In contrast, and just to breathe some air into the room, she peppered him with questions: "Elvis, how did you get your black belt?"

The night wore on, and about 1:30 A.M. A.M., Larry suggested it was time to go. Judy walked over to Elvis, still on the couch and surrounded by women, and kissed him briefly on the lips. "Nice seeing you," she said. She was almost out the door when he yelled out, "Hey, I never kissed you before!" Judy shot him a flirty glance.

"It wasn't so bad," she purred.

"That's all he had to hear. He got up, grabbed my arm, walked me out to the car, took my purse off my hand, and started French kissing me in the car."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Larry thought. "My sister with Elvis!" He hurried away with a quick good-bye.

Now Elvis looked Judy square in the face. "Will you stay?"

"Absolutely not," she said. "You're with another woman."

"Will you come back again tomorrow night? I won't be then."

"I'd love to," she said. But down deep, "I was scared out of my mind. Out of my mind mind! I took a Valium to go to his house."

She was so frightened, in fact, that Larry had to drive her, steering the car up to the gates and through all of the screaming girls who taunted, "You can't get in! You won't get in!"

Inside, Lisa Marie did cartwheels and handstands to entertain her father's guests. After a quick h.e.l.lo all around, Judy sat next to Elvis on the couch, while Larry and a few of the guys filled the rest of the chairs in the den. Larry was even more nervous than his sister, and finally blurted, "I can't take this! I have to go!" Soon, everyone else left, too, and then it was just Judy and Elvis watching television. After a while, Elvis said, "Come on. Let's go upstairs."

His bed, big and round, sat in a curved wall of mirrors, "so that wherever you looked, you'd see Elvis." Judy stared at the ornate chamber of seduction, felt her heart jump, and almost lost her nerve. "I was thinking, 'I can't believe this! It was stunning.' " But it paled in comparison to the sight of Elvis emerging from the bathroom in navy blue pajamas piped in powder blue. "He really was to die for. I couldn't even look at him. I thought, 'I'm with Jesus Christ.' That's how powerful he was, like nothing you have ever seen before. He was so hot it was scary."

The elegant pajamas never came off, but it didn't matter. He and Judy spent the whole night hugging and kissing, doing everything and nothing. The high point came when, "He laid on top of me, held my face in his hands, looked into my eyes, and said, 'I love your mouth.'

"I can't believe I didn't pa.s.s out."

But Elvis soon did. Around 3 A.M. A.M., he asked if she minded going downstairs and getting his dinner. The cook had left it in the refrigerator, he said. "You'll know what it is when you see it."

Judy made her way to the kitchen, fixed his plate, gathered the silverware, and brought it all upstairs, only to find him lost to the world. "I said, 'Elvis . . . Elvis?' I thought he was dead. I didn't know. I was scared. I took my finger and pushed on his eye to see if I could get a reflex. I didn't see him take anything, but whatever he took hit him hard."

She stayed with him, not really knowing what to do, and after a while, he got up, ate a little, and then fell back to sleep, not waking again until 8 A.M. A.M.

"Will you spend the night with me?" he asked, meaning the rest of the day. But Judy had had enough. "At that point, I was so freaked out, I said, 'You know what? I think I should go.' " Elvis looked disappointed, but called for one of his stepbrothers. "Open the gates," he said through muzzy speech, "and make sure she gets out okay."

His appet.i.tes continued to run more to the cosmic than the carnal. In late August 1974, he was back in Vegas, and on September 3, he took in Tom Jones's performance at Caesars Palace, climbing up onstage with the Welsh star who had been his friend since the 1960s and singing "American Trilogy." 1974, he was back in Vegas, and on September 3, he took in Tom Jones's performance at Caesars Palace, climbing up onstage with the Welsh star who had been his friend since the 1960s and singing "American Trilogy."

Afterward, actress and beauty pageant winner Susan Anton was invited back, where Elvis started showing her his karate technique. Soon he suggested they take the party over to his suite. The two of them sat talking on the couch for a while, and then he said, "Come with me. I have something to show you."

"I thought, 'Uh-oh, here it is. This is the move.' He took me down the hallway to his personal room and motioned for me to sit in a chair. And then he sat on a footstool in front of me and began reading from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet." The Prophet." Even though Elvis was an icon, Susan could see "he was just a sweet country boy under all that. It was like talking to a big brother." Even though Elvis was an icon, Susan could see "he was just a sweet country boy under all that. It was like talking to a big brother."

Whether Susan realized it or not, Sheila was with him that night. By August, when she still hadn't heard from him, she phoned him in Vegas, and he invited her to fly over when Linda, who attended opening night, went home. He'd garnered terrific reviews, the Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Reporter calling it "the best show . . . in at least three years. Presley looks great, is singing better than he has in years, and was so comfortable with his show-almost all new songs-the packed Hilton showroom gave him several standing ovations." calling it "the best show . . . in at least three years. Presley looks great, is singing better than he has in years, and was so comfortable with his show-almost all new songs-the packed Hilton showroom gave him several standing ovations."

But on September 2, his closing night, when Sheila, Priscilla, and Lisa Marie were in attendance, he delivered two long stream-of-consciousness monologues in which he seemed compelled to explain the recent events of his life. He was just coming out of Marty Robbins's song, "You Gave Me a Mountain," and started by saying the song had nothing to do with him or his ex-wife.

"She's right here," he said of Priscilla. "Honey, stand up. [Applause] Come out, honey. Come out, come on out. Turn around, let them see you. [More applause] Boy, she's . . . she's a beautiful chick. I'll tell you sure, boy. Boy, I knows 'em when I picks 'em. You know? G.o.dd.a.m.n.

"And then at the same booth is my girlfriend, Sheila. Stand up, Sheila. [Applause] Turn around, turn around, completely around. Sheila, hold it up. Hold it up. Hold the ring up. Hold up the ring. The ring. Your right hand. Look at that son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Priscilla sank deep into the booth as Elvis began discussing the reasons for the divorce, the $2 million settlement, and Mike Stone, purposely confusing the words stud stud and and Stutz, Stutz, referencing the car. "Mike Stone ain't no stud, so forget it," he said. "I wish [Mike] was a stud, you know. He's a . . . referencing the car. "Mike Stone ain't no stud, so forget it," he said. "I wish [Mike] was a stud, you know. He's a . . . nice guy nice guy."

He went on to sing "Softly as I Leave You," but then later in the evening, he was at it again, this time trotting out the Patricia Parker paternity rumor, saying, "I had a picture made with that chick, and that's all. And she got pregnant by the camera."

The audience responded nervously, mixing tight laughter with applause, and seemed to fear what might come next. Now Elvis wanted to address another rumor, that he had missed shows because he had been "strung out" on drugs. He had the flu, he insisted, his voice growing angrier and more agitated. "If I find or hear an individual that has said that about me," he ranted, "I'm going to break their G.o.dd.a.m.n neck, you SON OF A b.i.t.c.h! [Screams and applause] That is DANGEROUS! I will pull your G.o.dd.a.m.n tongue out BY THE ROOTS!" And with that, he bizarrely switched gears and calmly segued into "Hawaiian Wedding Song" from Blue Hawaii. Blue Hawaii.

"I was in shock," Priscilla said later. "Because [in the past], he would never, ever let on to the audience what his emotions were. . . . This was [so] out of character for someone who had so much pride. Everything that he was against, he was displaying. It was like watching a different person."

Sheila was also perplexed. He'd given her the ring just before the performance, "and I was a little frightened, because I thought maybe he was going to ask me to marry him. It was a crystal ring with diamonds set on the top, and it was huge! I was excited by it, and then disappointed when I realized what it was all about. It was so he could introduce me and have Priscilla turn green with envy. When he said, 'Show them the ring, baby,' I mean, he made that ring big enough for the entire showroom to see from the balcony."

Sheila was confused about all of it, including where she stood in his life. They went to Palm Springs together for five days afterward, and then Elvis went home to Memphis, to Linda, who wasn't certain about her role, either.

While he was there, he bought Billy and Jo Smith a 1975 Woodcrest doublewide trailer with three bedrooms, and installed it in back of Graceland. The entourage of old hardly existed anymore-the guys were all getting older now, and they had different priorities and families of their own.

Out in California, Elvis had called Patti Parry, who was engaged to be married and living in Malibu with her fiance. "He said, 'You've got to come up here now.' I said, 'Elvis, I'm moving.' He said, 'No, no, I need a haircut.' I said, 'I just cut your hair.' He said, 'Please.' So I left, and when I got up there, he gave me a mink jacket. I said, 'You're not losing me. You'll never lose me.' He got nervous, because he didn't have that many friends. Not really."

Elvis had added some new guys to help with costumes and security in recent years-Al Strada, karate expert Dave Hebler, and soon he'd bring in Dr. Nick's son, Dean. His stepbrothers, too, had taken on some of the old responsibilities. But Elvis didn't feel the loyalty from them that he had from the old gang. And Red, who Sheila considered to be the only real friend Elvis ever had, knew that the Stanleys numbered among Elvis's drug connections, along with a member of the backing group, Voice. When Red found out the singer was supplying Elvis with hard drugs, his famous temper rushed to the fore. "I kicked the door in, I stomped the guy's foot and broke [it], said, 'You keep bringing them, I'm just gonna work my way up.' " Everybody thought it was a good idea if Billy Smith were just a little closer, to keep an eye on things.