Never Mind the Pollacks Read online

  “Holy shit,” Norbert said.

  Gladys said: “Here’s the story. Vernon was working on an oil leak, the parking brake slipped, and the car ran him over. I’m going to tell the police that I saw the whole thing from the kitchen window, but nobody else did. Elvis is not going to jail. Not for accidentally killing that bastard.”

  “God bless you,” said Elvis. “But what do we do about the brains on my curb?”

  “Norbert,” said his mother, “go start the hose.”

  “Wait,” Elvis said. “Why would he wear a suit to work on the car?”

  “And bring me a garbage bag!”

  Vernon Pollackovitz’s funeral, held a week later, was attended by his wife, his son, the Presley family, Kemmons Wilson, twenty-seven employees of the Holiday Inn company, and two traveling rug salesmen based in the South. Everyone was late for the service except Gladys and Norbert, neither of whom wore black. The rabbi read the eulogy, which Gladys had written: “He was a prompt man, and in above-average physical shape. His work made him happy, much happier than his family, who he often called ‘his greatest disappointment in life.’ He thought his son was gay, or at least mentally lame, and he could only sexually please his wife if she worked him into a homicidal frenzy. Music was his enemy, everything he ate seemed to be covered with a gelatinous layer of fat, and his farts smelled like death. But he did own several life-insurance policies, and has left his son Norbert with a substantial fortune that the boy could never possibly squander.”

  Afterward, as the funeral party enjoyed a delicious dinner at a riverfront seafood house, Gladys Presley said to Gladys Pollackovitz, “How can I possibly repay you for saving my son from jail?”

  “I can think of one small favor,” Gladys said.

  Norbert got to plan his own Bar Mitzvah party. He invited all of Memphis through separate ads in black-and white-owned newspapers. Gladys set no restrictions on money, so Norbert rented out the Eagle’s Nest. He hired Earl’s Drive-In to do the catering, with an all-ages open bar. Through Sam Phillips, he signed Dewey Phillips to play records between acts. Little Milton did an opening set, and James Cotton stopped by to play “Cotton Crop Blues.” Everyone was drunk within fifteen minutes.

  At 10 P.M. on September 10, 1954, Elvis, Scotty, and Bill took the stage. The girls rushed the band, desperate pilgrims seeking baptism. They screamed and cried like harpies on the mount, swaying rapturously, their ponytails loosening in unholy surrender. As they pressed their rippling breasts against the pounding stage, they felt rock ’n’ roll slathering their dawn-thighs, and they were women born. The men felt the empty pit of jealousy down in a primal place, a slow grind of envy that could only emerge in a Cro-Magnon shout toward the musicians who’d upended their cheap and easy scores. Something was happening in America, but no one knew exactly what.

  Elvis sang “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” then he sang them again. At that point in his career, he didn’t know too many songs. Sam Phillips was by the stage, recording everything, nodding sagely, knowingly.

  “Ah wanna call the Bar Mitzvah boy onto the stage,” Elvis said. “Where is that Norbert Pollackovitz?”

  “Norbert, Norbert!” all of Memphis said.

  Norbert went up on stage.

  “How you doin’, little man?” said Elvis.

  “I’m wasted!” said Norbert.

  “Man, we gotta get you a new name.”

  “OK. I hate my name anyway.”

  “How about Pollack? That’s shorter.”

  “OK.”

  “Nick Pollack?”

  “Too many k’s.”

  “Ned Pollack?”

  “Naw.”

  “Well then,” said Elvis, “I’m just gonna have to call you Neal Pollack.”

  Sam Phillips felt a familiar tear on his cheek.

  “Neal Pollack,” he said. “What a beautiful, beautiful name.”

  That night, Elvis anointed Neal Pollack. His band played a familiar song that became somehow unfamiliar and then familiar again after a while. It was “Hava Nagila.”

  The crowd lifted Neal Pollack onto a chair, and Gladys onto another. They bobbed about the room. Gladys was drunk for the first time in her life, and it felt damn good. She whooped and ripped open her blouse. Three men simultaneously kissed her breasts.

  “Mein Gott!” she said. “I feel alive!”

  Dewey Phillips threw himself onto the stage.

  “Neal Pollack!” he said. “Today you are a man!”

  Pollack dropped out of high school and got on the bus with Elvis, Scotty, and Bill, riding that Mystery Train over the Blue Moon of Kentucky, on assignment for a little mimeographed magazine called Hillbilly Hot Rag! He followed that Hank Snow package tour through New Mexico and Mississippi, to the Grand Ole Opry, sneaking a peek at Mother Maybelle in the altogether, pinching the Carter Sisters’ collective Carter ass, and then up to Cleveland, where he met Alan Freed, another one just like him. “Let me tell you, Neal,” Freed said. “Jews who love rock ’n’ roll are born to run this country!” They listened to Jimmie Rodgers and Fats Domino all across Texas, Elvis blowing flies off his lips, Scotty and Bill becoming progressively less famous, Neal chugging the cough syrup, staring bug-eyed out the window, singing “Baby, Let’s Play House” as they steamed into New Orleans and Jacksonville and all roads leading to stardom.

  On stage one night in Texarkana, late summer 1955, a girl appeared in a ruffled blue dress, guitar slung across her chest, her mouth wider than the American highway, her skin perfect, her eyes full of hellfire. Neal Pollack watched her move her hips and he fell in love. She saw him from the stage.

  “There’s a boy I can use,” she said to herself.

  Soon, Neal Pollack found himself mending Wanda Jackson’s dresses on the bus while Wanda played for hundreds. She was a pitcher of delicious sugary cream. She was his bad, bad girl, and he was her good little boy.

  “I love you, Wanda,” he said one night as they lay beneath the stars because they couldn’t afford a hotel.

  “I know you do, baby,” she said. “Could you pass me the bourbon?”

  He did, and she slugged it. Then she kissed his little face, which he was shaving nearly every day now. Her tongue wandered to unforeseen places. Neal Pollack tasted the sour mash that to him would always mean love.

  “God have mercy, Wanda Jackson!” he said. “You are my forever!”

  One morning in early December 1956, Neal came home. Wanda had gone to visit her uncle in New York City, leaving him with a bunch of her clothes to take to the cleaners.

  “You have an uncle in New York City?” Pollack had said.

  “Honey,” she’d said, “I have an uncle in every city.”

  Neal opened the front door and beheld ruin. His mother’s velvet curtains were torn and stained. Stuffing billowed from the couches. The kitchen teemed with dirty dishes and piles of festering rat turds. Paint peeled off the walls in long lacquered sheets. A great, horrific, if somewhat metaphorical beast lurked in the dark hallways, breathing hateful fire from its blazing nostrils. The house stank of death and sex.

  In the foyer, Gladys lay naked, surrounded by candles. A sandy-haired drunk was fucking her wild, pounding her against the floor.

  “Yeeeeeeeee-hooooooooo!” he said.

  “Mom,” Pollack said, “what the hell are you doing?”

  “Hello, honey,” said Gladys, between moans. “Meet your new daddy, Jerry Lee Lewis.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Pollack said.

  Jerry Lee dismounted. He extended a hand.

  “Hello, kid,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” said Pollack.

  Jerry Lee pounded him on the jaw.

  “Don’t talk to your daddy that way,” he said.

  Pollack pounded him back.

  “I’m not your son,” he said.

  “Like hell you ain’t,” he said. “I married your mother one month ago today!”

  Pollack looked at Gladys, who shrugged through a daz
e of pills.

  “I was lonely,” she said.

  Jerry Lee hitched up his pants.

  “I like your spirit, son,” he said to Neal. “Have some whiskey.”

  “Nah,” said Pollack. “Too early.”

  To Gladys, Jerry Lee said, “Your men are hungry. Put on some damn clothes and make us some eggs!”

  She jumped on his back and bit his ear.

  “Arrrrrrgh!” he said.

  “Make your own eggs!” she said.

  “I’ll take some of that whiskey now,” Pollack said.

  Later that day, after Gladys had passed out, the Killer and Pollack drove over to Sun, where Jerry Lee was booked to play piano for a Carl Perkins session. On the way, they hit a pedestrian, and didn’t stop.

  “He could be hurt,” Pollack said.

  “Who cares?” said Jerry Lee.

  “I’ve gotta take Wanda’s clothes to the cleaners.”

  “Kid,” said Jerry Lee, “that woman is making a woman of you.”

  “But I love her!”

  Jerry Lee busted Pollack in the chops with a full bottle of gin.

  “Ow!” Pollack said.

  “Love is for weaklings!” Jerry Lee said. “And you’re the weakest of them all!”

  Neal next returned home a year later. He found his mother wallowing in a pile of shredded British tabloids. She was drinking gin and weeping.

  “Jerry Lee married his thirteen-year-old cousin,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Four months ago.”

  “Wanda left me for a preacher,” Neal said.

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  They had long misunderstood the region in which they lived.

  “Fucking Tennessee!” they said together.

  The fall of 1958 found Neal and Gladys heartbroken, rich, and bored. Neither of them felt much like doing anything. They cleaned the house, and had a contractor come repair the damage from the Jerry Lee years. Gladys put her hair back up and started dressing like she had before the wild times, went back to reading Goethe and staring out the window, listening to Bach records, cooking schnitzel and cholent for dinner. Neal started working on a novel that he called Long River of Tomorrow. Its protagonist was a young man with a guitar, misunderstood by a cruel world, who sold his soul to the devil so he could appear on American Bandstand. He’d written about seventy-five pages and was very pleased with himself. His mom seemed to like it, too, and they talked about where they’d go eat in New York when it was published.

  Dewey Phillips called one night. He wasn’t on the radio much anymore because he’d gotten all hopped up on pills.

  “Come pick me up,” he said. “Elvis just called. He wants us to visit him at Graceland. Bring some friends.”

  That was exciting. Elvis had stopped taking visitors months before. Neal put on a shirt and told Gladys he was going out. She just stared out the window onto Alabama Street, her eyes empty.

  “Go, son,” she said. “Go into the world and be young.”

  Neal loved his mama. She was all he lived for, with Wanda gone. When no one else believed in his writing, which was most of the time, she told him to keep going, because he was her little genius superstar.

  He kissed her cheek.

  “You’ll be all right,” she said.

  Neal picked up some friends and drove to Dewey’s house. Dewey was definitely on pills, because his pupils were like bowling balls, and he’d been drinking, too. They could smell it on his breath. He said “Dee-Gaw” to them, but very quietly, not like the Dewey Phillips Neal remembered from his first day in Memphis.

  “Thanks for setting this up, Dewey,” Neal said.

  “It’s nothing, boys,” he said. “Say, why don’t we stop by the Manhattan Club first and catch some of the house band?”

  “Aw, I dunno.”

  “Drinks are on me,” he said. “As long as you don’t have more than one apiece.”

  So they went to the Manhattan Club. Willie Mitchell and the Four Kings were playing, and people were dancing, and it kind of felt like the old Memphis again. Dewey bought a round and Neal bought two more. Soon Neal was grinding up against a big black girl and he felt alive.

  “Elvis is sending a Cadillac for us,” Dewey said.

  “Sure he is.”

  “No, really. The Cadillac is gonna pick us up right out in front. Let’s go wait in the car.”

  Two hours passed, then three. No Cadillac came. Dewey really began to fume.

  “Where’s that goddamn Cadillac? Fucking Elvis Presley has a few hit records and he thinks he’s too big for the Dewster, huh? Well, I’m gonna show him! Boys, drive me all the way to Graceland!”

  “I don’t think so, Dewey,” Neal said.

  “Do it!”

  They drove the four miles to Graceland. The security guard stopped them at the gates. It was about 2 A.M.

  “Tell Mr. Presley that Dewey Phillips is here to see him.”

  “Elvis is not taking any visitors.”

  “Well, he’ll see me.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  Dewey got out of the car.

  “You tell Elvis Presley that I made him, goddamn it, and he had better see me because there are some boys here who love his music and they know that he would never sell them out!”

  “No, sir.”

  “Neal Pollack is in the car!”

  The guard picked up his house phone.

  “Is it really Neal Pollack?” he said.

  “Yes, goddamn it!”

  “Because Elvis said that he wasn’t taking any visitors except Colonel Parker or Neal Pollack.”

  A few minutes later, a sad, lonely Elvis Presley loped down the drive. Neal had heard that his mother’s death had beaten the King down, but wasn’t prepared for the grief that overwhelmed Elvis’s face. He looked wise, but also lost.

  “I only want to talk to Neal,” he said.

  “Aw!” Dewey said. “Aw shit.”

  “Go,” said the King.

  Neal’s friends drove a few yards down the road and left him to talk to Elvis alone. They spoke through the gate. An eerie whistling wind blew through the Graceland elms. Some distant owl hooted twice. The night was cool with fear.

  “I’m going into the army,” Elvis said.

  “I know,” Neal said. “I read about it in Life.”

  “I don’t wanna go, but they say I have to.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My momma died.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s no fun being famous.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not what I expected. So. How’s your momma?”

  “She’s OK.”

  “Be good to your momma, Neal. No one understands a boy like his momma.”

  “OK, Elvis,” Neal said. “I will.”

  “And keep the spirit of rock ’n’ roll alive. I won’t be able to from here on out.”

  “Aw, you’ll get back to the old music,” Neal said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Tell people what it was really like. Let them know the truth.”

  “I intend to, Elvis.”

  “Now I have to go. The photographers lurk in the woods. They can smell me.”

  “OK.”

  “Remember your momma,” said the King.

  He faded back toward his mansion, America drifting into its endless tomorrow.

  They dropped Neal off at his house around 3 A.M. There was a lot of blood in the bathtub. Neal found a note attached to a fresh meat loaf in the kitchen:

  “My darling boy,” it read. “This is lunch for the next week. Put it on toasted bread with mustard. I also cleaned your room. Make me proud. Someday you’ll understand why I had to do this. I love you. Mama.”

  A darkness enveloped Neal Pollack’s heart then, and he knew it would never completely lift. He was no longer a boy. He was alone in the world.

  On February 3, 1959, Neal Poll
ack drove his Chevy to the levee. It was dry, but that didn’t matter to him. All his affairs were in order, the house sold, half his money in a blind trust for blind people who wanted to be musicians, the other half in his pockets or his knapsack. He looked upon the city of his boyhood and felt no sadness. Then he realized that a true American hobo didn’t drive a brand-new car.

  He left the Chevy, still running, for someone who might need it more. It was about a ten-mile walk to Sun Studios, but he had all day and he was capable. He got there around sundown.

  “I’m skipping town, Sam,” he said.

  Sam Phillips got teary.

  “They always leave,” he said. “It’s my fate as a man.”

  “Memphis is finished,” Pollack said. “American music is dead.”

  “Oh no, son,” Sam said. “You’re wrong. It will rise again. And you’ll come back to me. They all will, whether they’re in a Cadillac limousine or on the bus or crawling on their hands and knees. They’ll all come back to old Sam Phillips, and then, like Cousin Brutus said, we’ll be climbing those breakfast trees and eating country ham in heaven.”

  Neal Pollack, mature well beyond age eighteen, looked at his mentor sadly.

  “Sam,” he said, “I hate to tell you. There ain’t no breakfast in heaven. And there ain’t no trees.”

  Sam Phillips sighed for the ideals Neal had lost.

  “Where are you going to go, Neal?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” said Pollack. “Wherever the road takes me, into the real America, where real people sing real songs.”

  “Well, then, son, I wish you all the luck. Remember that you have a gift and that someday there will be publications devoted solely to music criticism. Don’t miss that particular boat when it docks.”

  “Sure, Sam,” Pollack said. “Sure.”

  With that, Neal Pollack wandered off with nothing more than a change of clothes, some trail mix, $500,000, and dog-eared copies of On the Road, Journey to the End of the Night, and Butterfield 8. The last one he wasn’t going to show to anyone else, but he couldn’t help it. He had a secret thing for John O’Hara.