Conor Bowman, an Elvis fan since he was a boy, had always vowed to visit Graceland, the singer's home. Now, 30 years after Presley's death, what would the reality be like?
I was 12 when he died. In my blue Farah drainpipes, and with Gola runners instead of suede on my feet, I was the only Teddy boy in Galway in 1977. He was everywhere for months, on television and in every newspaper and magazine I could butcher with my mother's scissors as I foraged for cuttings for my scrapbook.
The King was definitely dead, but he lived on in the most vivid way for me. I had badges, posters, T-shirts, facsimile ticket stubs, even a copy of the Memphis coroner's office report. My bedroom was a shrine. His 40 Greatest Hitswould shake, rattle and roll through the house day and night. I was hooked, and I promised myself that some day I would make it to Graceland.
Last February I turned 42, the age Elvis was when he died, 30 years ago next Thursday. I'd got to 42 without anyone really noticing, of course, but in many ways life had been kinder to me: I was still playing five-a-side soccer most Fridays and keeping the weight down with nary an amphetamine in sight. It was time to realise my dream, to make the trip.
In Nashville, country-music stations crept in and out of range on my hire-car radio, and I managed to work the air conditioning only after about 150km. I gripped the wheel as shiny chrome trucks honked me into realising which lane was for overtaking.
Memphis turned out to be a kip. Well, at least that part of it where Elvis lived. I drove off Interstate 40, through four sets of traffic lights, and there it was, a green sign swaying over a crash: Elvis Presley Boulevard. In the middle of this sprawling wasteland of car-scrappage dealerships and electrical-goods stores, a sign indicated my arrival at the promised land.
Graceland Plaza and visitor-center complex is across the street from the house. Thirty bucks later I was queuing for the shuttle bus. As the line shuffled forwards I saw it, across the busy highway, over the head of an enormous woman from Iowa: Elvis's home. I began to feel what I'd hoped I'd feel after all of those years of waiting.
I was gobsmacked when I stood in front of the four pillars, with the wrought-iron benches and the two lions on sandstone perches, guarding the entrance to my soul. I recalled a famous photograph of Elvis and his father, Vernon, sitting on these steps, comforting each other after the death of Gladys, their mother and wife, in 1958.
People who visit Graceland always say it's smaller than you'd think. I suppose it is. It's an ordinary house compared with the kind of holiday mansions that solicitors build on scenic hills in the west of Ireland, but it's not small, not really. The dining room and living-cum-music room are either side of the entrance hall. Farther back is a bedroom, and behind the dining room is a door into the kitchen.
Okay, so he liked to snack on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He had "health problems" - that particular elephant in the room is avoided in the tour material - but that's not what Graceland is about.
Yes, the "jungle room" is schlocky, with its leopardskin rugs and waterfall, and the TV room, with the three screens in one wall, and yellow-and-black leather cushions, is not to everyone's taste, but that's not what Graceland is about. It's a snapshot from the 1970s of a world decorated in the 1960s, lived in and ruled over by a man whose musical achievements are staggering.
One building houses the trophy room. This includes a corridor lined from floor to ceiling with gold records. Outside, in the 13-acre grounds near the stables, is a racquetball court in which many of his famous jumpsuits are displayed.
Every square centimetre of available wallspace is covered by awards from all over the world. Obscure albums are recognised in multiplatinum, and one glass trophy presented by RCA Records in 1997 marks 400 million records sold outside the US. It is mind-blowing. The entire place is a monument to a brief life lived extraordinarily, and no amount of souvenir shops or tacky impersonators can mask it for a second.
The final part of the tour brings you past the heart-shaped swimming pool and on to the Greek-style colonnades that surround the meditation garden. This was built at Elvis's request in 1965. It incorporates a wall of Mexican bricks and stained-glass windows. In the centre is a small pool with six fountains. And there, on the soft grass, separated from the fans by low railings, are the four graves of Elvis, Vernon, Gladys and Minnie Mae, Elvis's paternal grandmother.
I'd seen his grave a thousand times in photographs. I'd heard all the opinions about the spelling of his middle name, but nothing had prepared me for being less than a metre from the resting place of a man I'd worshipped from the age of about nine. My favourite Elvis song, If I Can Dream, came on the audio set at the moment I stood and looked down at the bronze inscription and the dates that bookended his life.
Suddenly I was crying and not caring if anyone noticed. And in that instant I realised that dreams can come true and that it isn't always a mistake to follow them or to meet, or get as close as you can to, your hero.
I saw a large garland of pink flowers, a lei from Hawaii, laid beside the grave by a just-retired cop who looked after Elvis's security on his many visits to the islands. Two days later, by chance, I met the policeman in a hotel foyer in Nashville. I was only one of millions who had followed that dream. ...
And so my trip to Graceland ended. I walked out on to the avenue in front of the house to wait for the shuttle back to my own life. And, somewhere between the noise of the cars on the highway and the rustle of rhododendrons near the front door, I heard the faintest of sounds: the laughter of grown men racing golf buggies over the lawns or fighting each other with fireworks near the swimming pool, the crunch underfoot of snow on the same avenue on Christmas Eve, and somewhere, beneath it all, the happy sound of my heart.