A Valentine for Elvis

The prompt: Elvis still gets 100 valentines each year. Tell about one of the people who sent one.

I styled this story as if it were an interview for Esquire magazine.

One of the candid photos of Elvis that adorns Alyssa Allison's research room.

Alyssa Allison wasn't even born when Elvis Presley purportedly died.  She's thirty-six years old, from a generation for whom Elvis is merely a legend.

I say purportedly because Alyssa is one of that small cadre of conspiracists that believe Elvis is still alive.  He's living in hiding--Alyssa favors Argentina as his most likely place of refuge--and is now 82 years old.

But he can't be alive forever, I point out as I sit down to talk with Alyssa in her spacious kitchen in suburban Ohio. At some point, he has to die right? Even if he didn't die on his toilet in Graceland in 1977, whose to say he hasn't died of old age already?

Alyssa brushes this suggestion aside. "No, I'd know. . .it's not his time. Not yet."  She doesn't explain how she'll know it's his time, other than to reiterate that it's her destiny to save him.  He can't die until then, I guess.

"But, even if he responds to your valentine and you save him, I  mean he's old. He's like 46 years older than you.  Doesn't that bother you?"

She blushes and looks down at her coffee.  She is blonde, with gray eyes and a runners physique. "I don't think it will.  I don't love him for the reasons most people do."

  But for this Elvis obsession she seems absolutely normal. She makes good money working as an attorney for a law firm in downtown Columbus. She's an avid runner--she just finished her third marathon this past spring--and maintains a blog on the subject.  She's also a single mother.  Her son is ten.  She and his father split up after a few years.  She admits that Elvis was the cause.

"At first he thought he wouldn't have trouble competing with a dead rock and roll star, and I guess I was going through a period of discouragement.  I wanted to try to be normal, I guess.  I wanted children.  But inside, I knew that whenever Elvis finally responded to my valentines, I would divorce Jason immediately."

Jason eventually realized that he was losing to a ghost and called it quits.  Their divorce is more or less amicable and their son splits his time evenly between his parents.  Alyssa feels some guilt that her mother, who lives with her, seems to spend more time with her son than she does.  She works long hours at her firm--by all accounts she is an outstanding lawyer with a knack for digging deep into the details for a case--and many hours online scouring the web for signs of life, signs that Elvis lives.

I ask her about the valentines and she responds be offering to show me her research room. It's a bedroom on the ground floor, converted into a command center in a hunt for Elvis that's been going on for close to twenty years now.  The room is plastered with posters of Elvis, but a closer examination reveals that none of the photos are of him performing or professional publicity stills.  All the photos are candid shots--Elvis backstage,  Elvis relaxing at Graceland, Elvis with his mother, Elvis in the army.

"I don't like the pictures of him on stage and I really don't care for the movie posters, album covers and the publicity pictures.  They're not the real him," Alyssa declares with a startling certainty,  "That's what most people don't get. The guy the women screamed for , the sex symbol, all of that was image.  People fell for the image.  I love the man.  That's what I need him to understand."

"What makes you so certain that you alone really know and understand Elvis the man as opposed to Elvis the rock star? " I ask

"Simple.  Research.  I don't watch his movies.  I don't even really listen to his music that much.  Home movies, yes.  Even certain interviews.  And reading.  A lot of reading.  I've read everything that's ever been written about him."

"And?"

"And what the research reveals is that Elvis was alone. He was surrounded by sycophants, by people who wanted something from him.  After his mother died, there really was no one around him that truly loved him for him.  And part of it was his fault. He got rid of people pretty quick if they pissed him off or crossed him in any way.  People understood that you'd get knocked off the gravy train  if you tried to tell him no.  You asked me earlier if it bothers me that he's quite elderly now.  The answer is that I never loved him as performer, as a sex object, as a celebrity.  I love him the way you would love a girl you met in high school, who was unremarkable to everyone else, but to you she was everything. To me he's just a regular guy that I happen to have a connection with."

This seems like a bit of a stretch to me.  Does she really expect me to believe that she views Elvis Presely as just a "regular guy?"  Come on.

Alyssa seems to sense my skepticism but is undisturbed by it.

"You don't believe me," she asserts.  "It's okay. Most people don't.  But that's okay.  They don't have to.  It's our relationship. What other people think about it is not an issue."

How can a woman saying such crazy things seem so normal I wonder.  I ask her to tell me about the valentines.

"Well, every year around the first of February I'll start crafting the valentine for this year.  My goal is to create something that will catch his eye, for starters, and then the message  is crucial.  I need to make sure he's able to understand that I understand--that I'm not like everyone else he's had to deal with."

"Where do you send the valentine?"

"Well, I'll usually send three copies.  One to Graceland of course. It's the obvious choice, of course. Maybe too obvious.  So I also send one to the American Embassy in Argentina, which he would likely check in with from time to time.  Under an assumed name of course.  I also send one to the DEA. You know President Nixon made him an agent right?"

"Well,  yeah, not quite.  I think he just got him a badge."

"That's what the public was told of course. Whatever the case, as member of the agency they would likely have an idea of how to get information to him.  One of the prevailing theories is that he moved in to full time undercover work in Central and South America beginning in 1977.  A lot of the big take downs of drug kingpins down there have Elvis written all over it."

"So what do these valentines say?  How are you making your case to him?"

"Well, I prefer to keep that between me and him, but I can say that they're not typical Valentines messages "Be mine" and all that.  My goal is to let him know that I see the real him, that I will be for him what no one else could or would be--honest, not trying to get anything out of him, even willing to take his rejection rather than compromise my commitment to his best interest. And I also try to reveal my own reality--I don't try to sell him on a glamorized image of myself either.  For example, if I include a photo, I'm not going to be wearing make up or anything like that."

"You send pictures of yourself?"

She blushes again.  "I think it's important that he see me, just like I see him."

I find my interview is raising more questions than it answers about Alyssa and her odd quest.  I decide to ask one more.

"So, why did you agree to this interview?"

"Simple, really. If none of the valentines I've sent have gotten through, maybe he'll see this article.  It's been documented that he reads Esquire, and if he reads this then he'll finally know."

"So what would you want to say to Elvis Presley if he were to read this article?"  I ask

Alyssa looks directly at me and answers without hesitation, as if she's been preparing for this moment for a long time.

"I'm not gonna pull any punches with you.  I'm going to tell you the truth.  I don't want your money.  There's nothing you can buy me with.  Honestly there are times when you can be a real jerk and when you are I will call you on it. My commitment is to you, Elvis Aaron Presley, the person.  Not the star, not the symbol.  I am what you have always wanted and needed.  Let's make the rest of this life count, together."

Definitely not your typical valentine, I have to admit. But compelling in it's own strange way.  If I were Elvis I might bite.  And while I know this is the ravings of an attractive, and other wise normal lunatic, I can't help hoping that somehow she's right, that Elvis is out there.  And that he finally gets his valentine.