Chapter 30
I’ve got no beef with Elvis in general, you understand. I know all the words to “Blue Hawaii,”and if you get enough Fireball in me, I’ll back you up on “Kentucky Rain” at karaoke ‘til you’d think maybe America really does Got Talent. But I spent a summer painting names on ornaments at one of those 365 Days of Christmas! stores in a touristy mountain town. We only had one CD of “Holiday Classics” that played on a constant ten-hours-a-day loop, and I’m not lying to you, “Blue Christmas” was on it twice. By the Fourth of July, I was having nightmares that I’d been buried alive in Elvis’ coffin and he wouldn’t stop singing that song. “Maybe if I sing it louder, someone will come and rescue you,” his ghost proposed on a near-nightly basis. But no one ever did.