All Shook Up
Dr. Gonads decided that for his summer vacation, he would fly down to Oxford, MS, to spend a week there with me. I knew this was an act of either great kindness or grave insanity, given that we had known each other for such a short period of time. Enthusiastically, he claimed that he wanted to visit the area of the country where I grew up because he was fond of me. So, of course, in order to test whether he was as giddy about me as he claimed, I decided to do everything I could to scare the living bejesus out of him in order to evaluate his sincerity. I fully expected that by the week’s end, he either would have already boarded an early flight back to DC or would have heeded the altar call and gotten saved, whichever one provided the quickest access to alcohol – communion, in-flight, or otherwise.
After spending a lovely Saturday evening with our friends Summer and JP at a Memphis Redbirds baseball game, the eager doctor and I made our way back to Oxford for the evening. However, I told him that I had a surprise for him, and instead of heading south on Highway 7 back to the hotel, I turned north and drove him to the sleepy little town of Holly Springs, MS.
In my opinion, although Holly Springs is a charming little place with an old fashioned town square, at night, there’s just something plain eerie about it. Maybe I only felt that way on this particular evening because I knew what was about to happen.
After having driven around the small town for several minutes while trying to get my bearings straight, I parked my car in front of an old, white, antebellum home just a couple of blocks from the town square. Guarding the front entrance to the house was a pair of lion statues lying on their bellies on either side of the porch steps. On their own, the two stone felines might have given the residence a stately air; but, considering that each sculpture was wrapped in blue tube lighting that spiraled around its torso, the house looked as if it might be a strip bar frequented by Siegfried & Roy. In fact, Dr. Gonads’s first reaction was that he thought I was taking him to a whorehouse.
I quickly assured the good doctor, though, that this was, in fact, not a whorehouse. It was Graceland, Too.
After we had knocked on the door several times to no avail, we finally heard movement in the house. I recognized the man who answered the door, as I had been to visit Graceland, Too, several years before. Paul McLeod is the owner and operator, and apparently, the biggest Elvis fan alive.
Mr. McLeod welcomed us into his home, as he does with anyone who knocks on his door on any day of the week, any hour of the day, and pays a five-dollar admission fee. Of course, after a person has visited three times, she becomes a lifetime member and doesn’t have to pay the five dollars for any future visits. Becoming a lifetime member is high up there on my list of things to accomplish before I die. That, and being a guest announcer at K-Mart during a Blue Light Special.
We soon found ourselves touring through each room on the lower level of the house, looking at album covers, magazines, and one gold lamẻ suit – just like Elvis’s -- in which McLeod will be buried upon his passing. As we made our way to the back room of the house, the Elvis aficionado started muttering something about Jailhouse Rock and his replica of the movie set. He then opened his back door, gave us his flashlight, and told us to go out in the backyard to see it. As he pointed toward the shed where a gold Cadillac was parked, we started walking as he also mentioned something about an electric chair.
As it was dark outside and our dentured docent spouted off about the photos he’d taken that captured the ghost of the King himself, I was a little queasy about proceeding through a junked-up backyard with nothing but a flashlight and a 160-pound homosexual Cuban doctor to protect me. I was even more concerned that McLeod himself refused to accompany us on our tour through the backyard. He simply stood on the back porch and coaxed us on by muttering, “Just a little further . . . Keep going . . . Thaaaat’s it, juuuuust a little further now!”
At any minute, I fully expected us to step on an “X” on the ground, triggering a steel cage to plummet from the sky, trapping us like caged chickens getting ready to be shipped to KFC. I had visions of McLeod then strapping us to toilet seats and doping us up in an effort to recreate that fatal night when the King overdosed and fell off his throne. I feared that we would be the final touch to McLeod’s masterpiece of re-enacting all things Elvis.
By the time I saw the back half of the gold Cadillac jutting out of the makeshift shed, I decided I’d seen enough and turned to go back. Not Dr. Gonads, though. The damned fool kept walking forward, complicit with McLeod’s instructions to just go a few more steps. When Dr. Gonads whispered to me to follow him, for reasons I still don’t understand, I complied. Once I reached the spot where he was standing beside the gold Cadillac, I muttered to him under my breath, “This is freakin’ me out!”
Just about that time, McLeod told us to shine our flashlight to the back of the shed. When Dr. Gonads did so, we both gasped in horror at the sight before us. All the way to the back was a life-sized electric chair, complete with one of those helmets that looked like it came from Frankenstein’s laboratory. As Gonads and I stood paralyzed in fear with our jaws open, McLeod shouted from the porch that the electric chair even had its own generator.
At that point, I turned and made a beeline back to the porch, for I knew that was the only escape route out of the house. I didn’t even look over my shoulder to see if Dr. Gonads was following me. I had already decided that if he wanted to stay behind and let McLeod turn him into a hunk a’ burnin love, then that was his business and I’d have no part of it.
We made it safely back to the porch, returned McLeod’s flashlight to him, and finished the tour of the house with wringing hands and sweat-laden eyebrows. Our tour was capped off with the intriguing information that one night around 4 a.m., some college co-ed who was dressed like Xena the Warrior Princess stripped buck naked on McLeod’s front porch, straddled one of the blue-lighted lions, and started riding it like a rodeo cowboy.
As I pondered this story and wondered whether that girl was my Xena look-alike friend Jeannie from Ole Miss, Dr. Gonads and I left the house and bolted toward the safety of my car. The last thing I remember was Dr. Gonads shouting into my ear, “That guy’s fuckin’ crazy!!”
Lest anyone should ever question whether Elvis really is still alive, I’m happy to say that he is alive and well in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
After spending a lovely Saturday evening with our friends Summer and JP at a Memphis Redbirds baseball game, the eager doctor and I made our way back to Oxford for the evening. However, I told him that I had a surprise for him, and instead of heading south on Highway 7 back to the hotel, I turned north and drove him to the sleepy little town of Holly Springs, MS.
In my opinion, although Holly Springs is a charming little place with an old fashioned town square, at night, there’s just something plain eerie about it. Maybe I only felt that way on this particular evening because I knew what was about to happen.
After having driven around the small town for several minutes while trying to get my bearings straight, I parked my car in front of an old, white, antebellum home just a couple of blocks from the town square. Guarding the front entrance to the house was a pair of lion statues lying on their bellies on either side of the porch steps. On their own, the two stone felines might have given the residence a stately air; but, considering that each sculpture was wrapped in blue tube lighting that spiraled around its torso, the house looked as if it might be a strip bar frequented by Siegfried & Roy. In fact, Dr. Gonads’s first reaction was that he thought I was taking him to a whorehouse.
I quickly assured the good doctor, though, that this was, in fact, not a whorehouse. It was Graceland, Too.
After we had knocked on the door several times to no avail, we finally heard movement in the house. I recognized the man who answered the door, as I had been to visit Graceland, Too, several years before. Paul McLeod is the owner and operator, and apparently, the biggest Elvis fan alive.
Mr. McLeod welcomed us into his home, as he does with anyone who knocks on his door on any day of the week, any hour of the day, and pays a five-dollar admission fee. Of course, after a person has visited three times, she becomes a lifetime member and doesn’t have to pay the five dollars for any future visits. Becoming a lifetime member is high up there on my list of things to accomplish before I die. That, and being a guest announcer at K-Mart during a Blue Light Special.
We soon found ourselves touring through each room on the lower level of the house, looking at album covers, magazines, and one gold lamẻ suit – just like Elvis’s -- in which McLeod will be buried upon his passing. As we made our way to the back room of the house, the Elvis aficionado started muttering something about Jailhouse Rock and his replica of the movie set. He then opened his back door, gave us his flashlight, and told us to go out in the backyard to see it. As he pointed toward the shed where a gold Cadillac was parked, we started walking as he also mentioned something about an electric chair.
As it was dark outside and our dentured docent spouted off about the photos he’d taken that captured the ghost of the King himself, I was a little queasy about proceeding through a junked-up backyard with nothing but a flashlight and a 160-pound homosexual Cuban doctor to protect me. I was even more concerned that McLeod himself refused to accompany us on our tour through the backyard. He simply stood on the back porch and coaxed us on by muttering, “Just a little further . . . Keep going . . . Thaaaat’s it, juuuuust a little further now!”
At any minute, I fully expected us to step on an “X” on the ground, triggering a steel cage to plummet from the sky, trapping us like caged chickens getting ready to be shipped to KFC. I had visions of McLeod then strapping us to toilet seats and doping us up in an effort to recreate that fatal night when the King overdosed and fell off his throne. I feared that we would be the final touch to McLeod’s masterpiece of re-enacting all things Elvis.
By the time I saw the back half of the gold Cadillac jutting out of the makeshift shed, I decided I’d seen enough and turned to go back. Not Dr. Gonads, though. The damned fool kept walking forward, complicit with McLeod’s instructions to just go a few more steps. When Dr. Gonads whispered to me to follow him, for reasons I still don’t understand, I complied. Once I reached the spot where he was standing beside the gold Cadillac, I muttered to him under my breath, “This is freakin’ me out!”
Just about that time, McLeod told us to shine our flashlight to the back of the shed. When Dr. Gonads did so, we both gasped in horror at the sight before us. All the way to the back was a life-sized electric chair, complete with one of those helmets that looked like it came from Frankenstein’s laboratory. As Gonads and I stood paralyzed in fear with our jaws open, McLeod shouted from the porch that the electric chair even had its own generator.
At that point, I turned and made a beeline back to the porch, for I knew that was the only escape route out of the house. I didn’t even look over my shoulder to see if Dr. Gonads was following me. I had already decided that if he wanted to stay behind and let McLeod turn him into a hunk a’ burnin love, then that was his business and I’d have no part of it.
We made it safely back to the porch, returned McLeod’s flashlight to him, and finished the tour of the house with wringing hands and sweat-laden eyebrows. Our tour was capped off with the intriguing information that one night around 4 a.m., some college co-ed who was dressed like Xena the Warrior Princess stripped buck naked on McLeod’s front porch, straddled one of the blue-lighted lions, and started riding it like a rodeo cowboy.
As I pondered this story and wondered whether that girl was my Xena look-alike friend Jeannie from Ole Miss, Dr. Gonads and I left the house and bolted toward the safety of my car. The last thing I remember was Dr. Gonads shouting into my ear, “That guy’s fuckin’ crazy!!”
Lest anyone should ever question whether Elvis really is still alive, I’m happy to say that he is alive and well in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
posted by Ritchie Miller at 8:36 PM
1 Comments:
Your story just cracked me up and reminded me of my many trips to Graceland Too (I am a lifetimer!) which were just like yours! At some point while I was in law school, he acquired that creepy electric chair thing and my reaction was very similar to yours! Oh and your story about your aunt in the hospital is great-- your family sounds so fun! Hope things are good with you!
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