FROM A JACK TO A KING
I really can’t say why I’m even writing this book. I can’t imagine who’d wanna read the story of my simple life . . . but I’m gonna write about it none the less . . . maybe the fact that my life has been so plain’ll be interesting to some; maybe it’ll be the book to glorify all us regular guys who spent life trying to get ahead and only broke even; hopefully someone will read it and figure out how I missed the brass ring and get it for theirselves. Maybe others’ll get a kick outta reading about some old cracker that spent his life banging his head against the wall trying to breakthrough and be a big shot; if you’re like me, maybe it’ll help you to know that you ain’t alone.
The only thing I noticed that I had going for me over the other fellas in this here walk of life is this great ambition to be something more than I am . . . even now when I’m an old codger out on the last lap, I keep believing that I’ll be singled out for some kinda special recognition for something, before it gets all said and done, and I’ll become the person that I’ve always dreamed of being. So far this heap of ambition has been a heavy load to bear for me and those that’ve become involved with me in one way or another; it’s worked against me almost from the start and kept me from focusing on my life as it was . . . my daddy was a lot like that too, and I can’t rightly say that it ever got him nowhere . . . God rest his soul . . .
I’d like to think that I passed some of that off to my son, but I can’t say I was ever around him enough to do nothing for him except to make his life tougher . . . if that helped then it was in spite of me and all on a counta his Mother’s ways, who was a real fine woman with strong love in her heart. I’ve had me a pretty interesting life; I’ve been around and was there when some mighty big happenings took place . . close enough to’ve just missed out on being part of it. When the whole Rhythm & Blues craze first got started, all them years ago, I was right there in Memphis with a guitar in my hand . . . but I was strictly Hillbilly and didn’t go in for that style of music—I still don’t. At the time it wasn’t fitting for White folks to go in for that sort of music and I figured I’d be careful about not tainting myself by playing it. Little did anyone know that R&B was here to stay . . . well a few folks knew, but I didn’t listen to them, because I was born with this here thick skull on my shoulders.
Despite coming from humble beginnings, I always thought that it was in the cards that I was destined for greatness, which about means I was expecting some kinda big break or divine intervention to zap me like a lightning bolt from the blue and take me to the top. It made me mad when I didn’t get it, because I thought that I had it rightfully coming to me. When I didn’t get what I wanted I always found someone or something to put the blame on and it made me resentful and bitter and left me feeling like some unseen force was out to get me. When I did get me something good going, that I shoulda been proud of and took care of, I just kicked it aside because it weren’t getting me to the big time where I thought that I belonged . . . unfortunately this got me nothing and led me to nowhere.
It all began for me just after 4-a.m on Tuesday, January 8, 1935, in a little Mississippi town called Tupelo, in Lee County. It was sorta the gateway to Birmingham, Alabama, down Old Highway 78, for folks going back and forth from Memphis. It’s big claim to fame is being the gumtree capital and some folks go down to see the kudzu trees . . . I was born early on a frosty morn in a shotgun sharecropper shack that my daddy, Vernon, his brother, Vester, and their father, Jesse, built. Them rickety remains is still holding there own on the grounds of Old Saltillo Park, and is used by the caretaker as a tool shed. My momma, Gladys, had her a difficult pregnancy, because she was undernourished and generally all the time in poor health. Her feet swelled up on her something terrible, and she hadda wear rags instead of shoes; she was sickly and all the time having spells; everyone in the family worried over her, but they couldn’t do much to help her out.
Daddy and Momma had’em a June wedding back in ‘33. Like most folks, they met at church and began attending socials together. She had her a job in the Tupelo Garment Center and was actually a few years older than my daddy—something that Momma tried real hard to keep secret. He worked in the fields and took odd jobs to get them by from day to day. He was a good carpenter, but he didn’t want no steady employment and only took what work fell into his lap, so’s he’d have time to enjoy his life some . . . when things got tough they hadda lean on neighbors and rely on family to get’em through and it costed them a lotta respect.
They was young, my daddy was 17 and Momma was 21 when they ran off to Pontotoc County to get hitched, real spur of the moment like, the day after my daddy’s birthday. Not even two years later they was in no position to add a hungry little mouth to their life, but Momma really wanted to have her a lotta babies right off, so that was the end of it . . . I learned early on that Momma had the final say on everything in our lives or there was hell to pay. If times wasn’t already hard enough for them, it looked to everyone that she was fixin’ to have her twins. My daddy prayed with all his heart that the Lord didn’t give him two needy babies to look after, but the way that his prayer got answered broke his heart and left him with guilt all the days of his life.
I was the first-born and named for my daddy’s old man, who had kicked him outta the house at 16, so’s he wouldn’t have to support him no more. He was a mean old cuss that got drunk and beat his wife and children when he was feeling cross. My daddy hoped that naming me after the old buzzard would make’em closer—it didn’t. As everyone suspected Momma was having twins and, right after me, my little brother, Elvis, was born. (Elvis was my daddy’s middle name.) It was a common practice to rhyme the names of twins, so I was Jesse Garon and my brother was Elvis Aron. The Aaron part—which they misspelled—was in honor of our good family friend Aaron Kennedy, and Momma just made up Garon to go along with Aron. He was smaller and fairer than I was—he had him golden locks like my daddy did and I had my Momma’s jet-black hair. Her people had’em some Cherokee Indian blood mixed in with some Jew—another big family secret—to go with my daddy’s Scots-Irish and French Norman blood. Even though we was twins, there was one mighty big difference between us; I was alive and he was dead . . . the cord got wrapped around his throat and the poor little fella never had him a fighting chance at life. Momma nearly hemorrhaged to death during the delivery and the mid-wife, Edna Robinson, sent my daddy off to fetch Doc Hunt. Fearing for our safety he had us rushed to the charity ward at Tupelo Hospital, where me, and Momma spent us three weeks getting tended to by doctors, while the family and the preacher said prayers over us.
Although baby Elvis got placed in a blanket and buried in an unmarked grave over by the Burroughs plot the next morning, he’s been at my side, in my mind, and often on my back most every day of my life. He was an imaginary playmate for me when I was a child—at times a friend and at other times an enemy. He’s present somewhere inside of me always and it seems that we can speak to each other in someway—no matter how creepy that sounds, I know it to be the truth.
Growing up, Momma used to wear me out with his memory. Whenever I strayed from the course, she’d tell me that I was an ingrate for not living my life as a tribute to him. He was the perfect child, without sin, living as a cherished angel in the kingdom with Almighty God hisself, and I was a kid that skipped school to go fishing and got into my share of fights. My daddy felt deep grief over the loss of his little boy too. Of all the prayers that he sent skyward, this was the one that God chose to fulfill. I guess you could say that he had him a crisis of faith . . . as much as a Southern Baptist can . . . But in our house, Momma’s emotions was always on center stage and it didn’t leave much room for no one else to express what they was feeling. I guess because of being so stifled at home, I grew up living in a secret world of my own where I focused on my feelings and dreams.
All our kin lived right around us. Momma’s people was mainly Smiths and Mansells—Momma was a Smith. They was sharecroppers and common laborers that’d lived in the sticks outside of Tupelo for generations, before moving into town to find them work when the factories opened. Grandpa Smith had got worked into the ground at an early age, after a lifetime of hard luck in the fields. He married his first cousin, (something that couldn’t get kept secret) a woman five years older than him, named Octavia Luvenia Mansell, but everyone called her, “Doll.” They had’em four daughters in a row, Lillian, Levalle, Rhetha, and Momma—5 if’in you count Effie, who died as an infant baby. For a family needing strong backs to work the land, it was a tragedy to be blessed with so many daughters. In fact it’d take over a dozen years for Grandma Doll to birth a boy, Travis. A coupla years after that, she had her another boy, Tracy, but by then it was too late and their fate was sealed. To make it worser on’em, she was still dropping babies into her mid-forties, and had her a daughter, Clettes, and finally one more son, John.
The large family lived from day to day, going from handout to handout, moving from claim to claim, and pretty much scraping along by the skin of their teeth. Grandma Doll took to her bed with her first pregnancy and was still there nine babies later. She had her the TB and needed perpetual care that was never enough. After Grandpa Smith dropped dead one day the children got scattered amongst the relatives, and the adolescents were left to fend for theirselves, when they was all kicked offa the land that they was working. Momma tried to take care of her siblings and her mother as best she could by doing side work as a seamstress after working all day at the garment factory, but it weren’t enough to go around and around.
Momma had developed her begging skills as a child and no matter how much it hurt her pride it didn’t keep her from being strong enough to endure the shame and ridicule it brought her to get what was needed to get her family by. She was a big girl that loved to dance and sing and was considered to be buck-wild by her elders. She couldn’t read or write very much; she was always working in the fields and around the house all her life, so there weren’t much time for no fancy schooling. Her little brother, Tracy, was deaf and was looked upon as the village idiot in a land where there was a lotta dumbbells. He couldn’t talk too much and you couldn’t make out much of what he was trying to say unless you was used to him, but he was my favorite uncle. If’in you asked anybody that knowed him, they’d tell you for sure that he could walk a country mile on his hands . . that old boy was all the time walking on his hands until he was an old man.
Even though Momma was always broke or next to it, she was all the time spending what little money she had on useless things and treats. She was openhanded and gave it away as much as she spent it on herself, so times was even tougher than they hadda be, because she was a spendthrift that couldn’t put away a plug nickel for a rainy day.
My daddy’s folks was Presleys. Along with his brother Vester, he had him four sisters Delta Mae, Nasval— that everyone called, “Nash”—Lorene, and Gladys—who got dubbed “Little Gladys.” Another common courting practice was for people dating to play matchmaker for their siblings, so Uncle Vester ended up married to Momma’s sister, my Aunt Clettes, which later gave me a double first cousin, Patsy. Perfectly respectable . . .
The “Above the Highway” Presleys had’em a bad reputation for a century in those parts; they was womanizers, bigamists, moonshiners, bastards, and drunks; we even had us a Civil War deserter on our record. My great grandma, Rosella, had her ten kids and no husband, so she gave’em all her last name—Presley . . . you can just bet that she was the talk of the town. Grandpa Jesse had no idea who his father was, because his own mother didn’t know. I never could figure why they was all wanting to stay in a place where they weren’t never welcome, even by their other relatives.
Grandpa Jesse married Minnie Mae Hood, a woman eight whole years older than him from over in Fulton. They lived next door to us when I was a baby. I guess the onliest thing that Presley men had going for them was that they was a handsome brood . . . a trait that was fortunately passed along to me. He was a hard drinking carouser that managed to always wear nice clothes, by keeping money back for hisself, while taking away from his family. About everyone agreed that he was the handsomest fella in any of the surrounding counties.
Young couples is always filled with dreams and they believe in each other and the world. Momma and Daddy loved each other once very much, from what I hear tell. She was the one that really courted him. They’d go off roller-skating at the rink and get together after church for picnics then make their way off to the woods for some fooling around. After they was hitched, they stayed with Momma’s kin on Berry Street and that’s where they made me and Elvis . . . For a time it looked like they was gonna do all right. Momma had her a pretty good job and my daddy got him a cotton patch of land to work over on Old Saltillo Road; that’s where they built the house where I was born and Elvis died.
My daddy was working the land for Orville Bean, a big time bossman in town who was tightfisted and coldhearted—the way most of them rich folks is. But working from “Can’t see till can’t see,” got old quick and before they got barely moved in they was in financial trouble, because my daddy wasn’t getting the job done. Momma kept working at the factory all she could while she was pregnant, pushing a big steam iron all day, while standing on her swollen feet, but they hadda get government assistance and church donations to keep a roof over their heads and eat, once she took to her bed to have her babies.
A day in the South is 24 hours long, like it is everywhere else, but, because of the never-ending backbreaking work, it seems much longer. You’ve gotta have you a lotta grit to live your life laboring out in them cotton fields, and I guess my daddy didn’t have much of that. Knowing that no matter how much he did it wouldn’t be no more than enough just to get by, he didn’t do all that he could to support us. Even though it made life tougher, I didn’t hold it against him. I cared enough about him not to wanna see him live his life killing hisself working like some damn mule. He was struggling not to lose his spirit and he’d just go get off by hisself to sorta duck out on life’s drudgeries. From the time I was a little bitty guy, he’d take me along with him and we’d spend our days lost in the woods, hiding out; we’d hunt squirrel, talk about everything and do anything we wanted—them was great times.
When we got home, Momma would be waiting for us with that angry look she’d have on her face all the time. I never figured out that if’in he weren’t taking care of business she hadda do it and that was what made her so dang mean. They’d fight all the time and she’d say some right terrible things about him, but he’d take it without a word . . . it was the price he hadda pay for going his own way . . I never showed my anger towards Momma, because I weren’t no match for her hot temper. She’d throw frying pans and tin cans at my daddy and raise such a ruckus that the neighbors would have to restrain her and take her for a walk around the block to cool off. I’d comfort my daddy and I could see that it’d hurt her because I took his side. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make things right between me and Momma, and pretty early on I guess I quit trying; when she’d get on me, I’d hang my head, grind my teeth and take it like my daddy did . . then I’d go out and raise unholy hell . . .
In our world, you hadda toil just to have you the simplest of creature comforts. Water came from a well and had to be fetched, and firewood needed chopping for heat and hadda be stacked. Even though the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, hisself, come to Tupelo to get the town wired for electricity, we couldn’t afford to get it hooked up, so kerosene lamps lit the way. People still rode around on horses and on buckboards; mules and oxen got used like trucks. Sure there was cars and plows around, but not for everyone. There was outhouses about 100 feet from the house, which is a long ways to go when you’ve gotta go, especially in bad weather. It was even a chore to fill the tub up and bathe. You was never warm enough, fed enough or clean enough. Even though it was better than a third of the way into the 20th Century, life there was more like the 19th Century, both in attitude and technology.
It was the middle of The Great Depression, and if’in times was tough everywhere, they was unbearable in the South; it was a land where pestilence wiped whole families out and rickets was as common as the cold—kids still got Polio. When I was about a year old the worst tornado that ever hit the country roared through Tupelo and about blew us offa the face of the earth. In a town of less than 4,000 folks, over 250 people was killed and over 300 more got injured—some for life . . 50 of 70 blocks was tore apart . . . Our little cracker box house came through it okay, because the tornado bounced offa the church across the street and went the other way. Momma always told me that it was some kinda good omen that meant our life was gonna be charmed . . . it didn’t take long for her silly notion to get dispelled . . .
I was barely 3, but I remember the day clearly. I was playing marbles in the front yard with my cousin, Harold—Aunt Rhetha’s boy who was older than me and would look out for me when I was a little fella. In the middle of the day the sheriff come rolling up to our house. My daddy walked out onto the porch to greet him and, without so much as a “Howdy do,” he handcuffed him and put him in back of the squad car. Momma cried and hollered something fierce, but this time it didn’t change nothing . . . in a moment the police car disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust and my daddy was gone.
It seems that my daddy raised up this hog to sell, and Orville Bean gave him a check for it that was less than they agreed to, so my daddy got mad and fixed the amount. It was only ten extra bucks, but Mean Orville Bean didn’t care none and used his pull with them authorities to ruin my daddy, destroy his name, and gimme one more goddamned cross to bear as a child . . . as bad as things had been for us, they was only gonna get worser for the next year-and-a-half, while my daddy spent time on a Mississippi chain gang.
Momma and I was like a coupla ping pong balls in the wind, the way we was bouncing allover town from kin to kin like charity cases trying to keep a roof over our heads—and not drive each other up the walls. I guess you could say that our relationship got cemented for life during that time, because it never did get no better between us.