Read In the Court of the Yellow King for Free Online Page A

tunes, baby. Except in song.”
    He led me into the living-room, still talking, and showed me where a bottle of Kentucky bourbon was kept, and a big Ball jar of something called ‘branch-water’ in the cupboard that I took to be springwater. Fine. Ice, too, and I found that in the icebox, like anybody.
    I didn’t notice Elvis taking a drink. But watching this boy-king, this Tutankhamun, pace around from living-room to kitchen with that twinkle in his big brown eyes, I realized that I was seeing the phantom future of Music itself. Women would melt for this. (Some men, too, especially in the Village.)
    But when Elvis looked at me again, I felt sick. “You know your public. Which are also mine. You’re kinda like a...” He snapped his fingers. “Like a lightning-rod for music. Like a prophet, Mr. F-”
    I waved a dismissive hand. “The King calls me Prophet, the King can g’wan call me Alan.”
    His upper lip curled, and the smile touched his eyes. Briefly, I saw the dumb kid with a spark behind all this. The dumb kid that had waved a six-stringed wand and opened a door to a world bigger than he could survive and stay sane. “You got your finger on their wants, Alan. I look beyond their wants and I can see their needs.”
    I smiled back, somewhat indulgently. “Well, I do fear to tread where you rush in.”
    At that, Elvis Presley sang the entire first verse of “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” until we were both snapping our fingers. But this time the shared smile never went above his lips. His eyes stayed the same.
    “Now, I know there’s a lot you probably want to know,” the King told me. “And we’ll kinda start in the middle and work at both ends, but...” Something happened to his eyes. Something I didn’t like.
    “First, I want you to meet my Mama.”

    Welcome to our home, Mr. Freed. Pay no mind to all these danged old cats. Won’t you sit down?
    Baby... I mean Elvis, my dear son, he says this won’t be home much longer. Neither will the old place, the one those newsmen always talk about. The one that still feels like home to me. This one’s much nicer, and to hear my boy talk there’ll be something I can’t even imagine.
    Oh, you were there? At the old place? Just walked on by, you say? That’s nice. You’re the disk jockey, yes. I listen to your programs. You seem all right.
    So you saw the old place. Hope you got a photo. Baby’s having some men come in and bulldoze the old place, then seed the ground with salt, just like back in the Biblical times. We’re Assembly of God here, probably donate the plot to the church right up the road.
    Vernon built that little wooden icebox of a thing the year before the big hurricane hit, the Big Blow. No running water, no indoor plumbing. Elvis says he’s going to build me... us... a new house. I told you that. You seen the Caddy parked out in the shed, I’m sure. Not that we know what to do with it besides a coat of Simonize and taking it to church on Sunday.
    I say ‘we.’ Maybe like Queen Victoria meant it, the royal ‘we.’ I won’t let Vernon drive it. He’d have the paint all scratched-up using it to go on scrap runs or haul lumber wherever to put someone’s new porch on for them for a tenth of what it’s worth so he can go drink that weekend. I’m past caring about any of that, now.
    No, I am. I see the look on your face. Vernon did his part already, so be damned to him. I forget if he’s in jail this month or not. Haven’t seen him around. Even a layabout with broken shoulders can still use his pecker. He did. I wear the pants here.
    Well, there must be a lot you want to know. Baby only recorded his first two songs three years ago. They were for me, Gospel songs for my birthday, and he paid Sam Phillips for the studio time out of the wages he got driving that delivery-truck fulla light bulbs.
    My boy is the Prince. He will be King, one day. My family will reclaim their birthright, as of old. Papa’s line only got