Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [152]
Why did she look so unnaturally bloated, as if she might burst if pricked with a pin? Elvis asked about it, but Gladys didn’t want him to find out how sick she was—said she didn’t know just exactly what her tests had shown. Their bond was so strong that when the wheel bearing went out on his Cadillac that time in Arkansas and caught fire, she bolted upright in her sleep and screamed, “Elvis!” But he was so busy now, so preoccupied with getting things ready for the army, that he wasn’t in tune with her the way he had been. That, too, was a source of grief.
She was losing him. First it was Jessie, and now Elvis. The first weeks of basic training, they wouldn’t even let her come see him. And then they were sending him overseas. To Germany, enemy territory. Elvis had already said he’d take his family with him, but she couldn’t imagine such a thing. She told Lamar, “I can’t see myself away from Sonny Boy that long. But I just can’t go with him.” How would she cope without her baby? How would she live?
The night before his induction, Elvis, Anita, and the gang went to the drive-in movie to see Sing, Boy, Sing, starring Colonel Parker’s onetime protégé Tommy Sands. The picture was an adaptation of a television drama, “The Singing Idol,” loosely based on Elvis’s own story. Everybody got a kick out of it, especially since Nick Adams played Elvis’s buddy, standing in for the whole inner circle. Afterward, the group went to the roller rink one last time and played Crack the Whip, Elvis handing out “happy pills” he got from the dentist to ease everyone’s pain. That night, Alan pulled sleepwalking duty and stayed in his room. But Elvis was too keyed up for sleep, worrying what the next two years would bring, so they just stayed up all night and talked.
At 6:30 A.M. on March 24, 1958, the twenty-three-year-old recruit, modeling black trousers, pink-and-black socks, and a blue striped shirt under a gray-and-white-checked sport coat, reported to the Memphis Draft Board in the M & M Building at 198 S. Main Street. There, he and twelve others would be inducted into the U.S. Army, and Elvis would be assigned army serial number 53 310 761.
With him were his parents, Anita, Lamar, Alan, and Judy Spreckels, who had taken over some of his national fan club duties. His double first cousin, the teenaged Patsy Presley, showed up, along with a smattering of fans and quasiromantic interests, including an attractive blonde named Bonnie Mosby Underwood, the wife of songwriter and future Sun Records engineer Charles Underwood, and the girl some people thought secretly owned Elvis’s heart. He carried a small leather bag containing exactly what the induction notice said to bring—a razor, a toothbrush, a comb, and enough money to last for two weeks. Among the officers there that day was Walter Alden, whose one-year-old daughter, Ginger, would grow up to have her own unique place in Elvis history.
At Kennedy Veterans Hospital, the most famous man in America was reduced to being just another U.S. male, undergoing processing, enduring the rigors of a physical, and weighing in (185 pounds). Photographers caught him with the rest of the recruits, stripped down to his underwear.
Later that afternoon, he raised his right hand before Major Elbert Turner and swore the words that made him a soldier. “Congratulations!” Major Turner told the group. “You are all privates. That’s the way you’ll be addressed from now on.” Private Presley was put in charge of the unit.
As Colonel Parker worked the room, cheerfully handing out balloons stamped KING CREOLE, Elvis hugged and kissed his mother. Her big face was puffy, and her brown eyes swollen with tears. They hung on each other until even Elvis felt self-conscious, and then he kissed Anita. “Little,” he said, “I love you, and I