Draft for a Gothic Elvis

Elvis Presley lives in a castle surrounded by Cadillac cars. His skin is oyster-pale, and he writhes like a worm, slithering back and forth. He mesmerizes us. And Priscilla draws "her long black hair out tight," and she plays "Are You Lonesome Tonight," while Elvis turns his face upward and whistles along with Priscilla and beats his wings, and he crawls "head downward down a blackened well." 

We push our faces through the velvet curtain and see "the whole man slowly emerge . . . and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss . . ." Elvis-lizard, a baby ghoul, a worm. A green faced Elvis inches through the twilight, drawing closer to your sleeping hand. 

Today, it is snowing. I walk toward the entrance, and I see what appears to be a small wad of black electrical tape that has been stuck to the bricks. I reach out and poke it with a pencil eraser. It moves. It is a little black bat, an acolyte of Elvis. 

Elvis squirms from under the stage and grabs hold of the nearest poodle skirt. His hair is wet and black. He is hungry for so much experience. Soon his body will fill up with experience. Then, he will climb onto the toilet, like everyone does, and grin at his own reflection in the water.

This Elvis is in fishnet stockings and sticking his ass way up in the air. This one is terrified of fire. This one is contemplating Young Werther's sorrows, and struggling across a glacier.

Many of the teens who die in fiery automobile crashes are listening to Elvis's songs broadcast over the radio. These teens are covered in blood, and the trunks of their jalopies are full of bobby socks and Stephen King novels or the films based on those novels. These films might include Sometimes They Come Back. 

In Stephen King's The Night Flier, a vampire flies around the country visiting small regional airports. He arrives in his Cessna Skymaster, a flying coffin. He arrives and he eats everyone in the airport. It's up to a tabloid reporter played by Miguel Ferrer to solve this mystery.

But I'm off topic. We were talking about Elvis, not about aviator Draculas. This castle is surrounded by broken down Cadillacs. Every car is full of blood and teenage catastrophe. The swamps are full of radiation and parasites: here's the sound of a fist being plunged into a pot of macaroni and cheese; here's the banana being sliced and gently placed onto the peanut butter. 

When Elvis wakes from his coffin, he is spectacular. His mouth is the shape of an Elvis mouth, but it also includes a drop of Halloween blood, just like mom used to do. He looks right at the camera and lifts his hands, revealing his long wormy fingers covered in rings. When he stands up, he begins to dissolve into a fog. His dungeon is filled with prop sand and colorful inflatables.

He churns in a black vinyl world. I do not mean psychobilly or The Misfits or Rocky Horror Picture Show or any of that stuff. I mean we are caught in his web, and Elvis is coming to eat us all. He will fill the world with his hunger. He will make it our problem.