SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS: PART TWO

And then, the next night, ah dreamed; ah dreamed of me and mah boys, of us all in a bar, the guys and mahself, just shooting pool, breathing in the fun, when in walked Lana Turner, and sat with Bobby; in walked Audrey Hepburn, and sat with Sal; Then Natalie came and sat with me. Ah haven't thought of her in a while, and I awoke in a river of tears, no dam.
The next day, well, y'all should know that ah like firing mah gun at the target that hangs on the door of the shed housing our supply of fireworks. Misfire, and ah set off all kinds of explosions. Lisa Marie, well often she'd come a running from the Jungle Room where she'd be watching Sesame Street; Ah'd be sitting on my lawn chair, gun still smoking.
'Don't worry, baby,' Ah'd say. 'A snake crawled out of the tree, but now it's not ging to bother anyone.'
Well, that day Lisa Marie wasn't there. An that day ah misfired big, and the shed kicked and brayed like a mule when ah hit it; the sky lit up like Chritmas, and the boys screamed out encouragin me to put more bullets into that thing, truly make it catch and hold til it burned to the ground. And ah did, and colours tainted the sky wondrously; pinks like the apron my mah would wipe mah face down with, yellows fried with butter, sad as the crushed flies ah used to kill in the yard, and just as bright and consistent, greens jittery and pokery like limericks, spitting all over, reds like poems, blues like one of them particularly fine rains, oranges brandied and warmed, cinnamon sweet, whites as a hot Christmas parcel; And golds silvers and bronzes that reflected mah Olympic wealth across the sky, not just mah value in monetary terms, no sir, but my spiritual essence, mah familial existence, mah child and her mother. Ah was laughing like a parakeet.
'Ah ain't felt this good in a while boys!' ah proclaimed. The vista was truly something to behold.
'Ah ain't seen anything this good since ah saw Audrey Hepburn in the flesh at that shebang we was at!' said Sal, pointing at a particularly pretty ensemble of colour flashing before us
'Ah ain't seen anything this good since ah first had a watery dream about Lana Turner,' said Bobby, jumping n the spot.
At that, ah shivered like a particularly frosty spirit had just walked through mah standing corpse.
Every night after this, ah dreamed about minutae of the following days that would then replay in front of mah eyes like a television movie, only now it was in the shivering realities of mah life, and not in the soggy machinations of mah dream.
Everyday, the numbers came up that ah knew would come up. Ah could have one the lottery draw for every State several times over.

Now all of this ah can scrub out as mere shiny coincidence and as the comic creation of mah tired brains. But no, ah can't, not really. Because far more severe than all this, is the unutterable fact that ah will utter: ah have forseen my death. In this dream form; ah have forseen that they will come for me, and when, and that ah will be crucially naked and unprotected on that day. Ah will be taken in by a devil, not with ruby lips and a promise, but by a gunshot from someone close to mahself; someone in mah inner circle will shoot me down.
And this seems to be something that ah will ponder for some time. It's a needle of truth that stabs mah camel and leaves me stranded in mah wilderness postulatin' and discombobulatin' about it for some time.

Let me tell you of mah dream.

Firstly, ah had the sensation that ah was not mahself; That ah was dreaming that ah was myself. That is how the dreams start; with me thinking that ah am me, Elvis, only in the dream, when of course ah am mahself in living too. It's somethin' ah remember Mr Sinatra said he dreamed all the time: That he was Mr Sinatra. 'I just need a whisky to remind myself when I wake up that I really am that shitkicker,' he'd said, laughing.
Well, in mah dream ah was dreaming of a Gracelands that ah suppose someone outside might expect- it had grand fountains of pink lemonade in the hall, and a room made of entirely rubber in which to throw ourselves; you got to it by sliding from a huge chute that started att he top of a turret in the north-east corner of the building. There was an ice-cream kitchen and a savoury one, with separate staff doing shifts of eight hours consecutive to one another, meaning that every kitchen was staffed at any deep night hour. The beds were twenty metres by twenty metres, and were soft as a boxing ring canvas. It was just how I imagine those who have never visited imagine it to be.
Into that unholy heaven, that sweet Valhalla, that sugary Babylon, came horror; in walked a shadowy gunman, disguised in a black hat, but ah was sure ah knew him, ah was sure he was a member of mah trusted entourage, one of mah righteous inner circle, disguised as Death; he bore with him one of mah larger and shinier magnums, and ah saw it pointing at me, jerking as if excitable, ah knew ah was alone. Ah knew the rest of mah boys were useless to me now; Ah knew they were just limping fidgets in the face of the biggest question that was facing me. Ah could hear them in the other rooms, dispatching the fine fare from the kitchen like it was nuts at a bar or cussed cat-eats. But ah could not shout, for ah was too scared. And anyhow, they were surely in on this whole ruinous plot to put The King in his grave.
Ah heard the shot, ah felt it enter mah soft belly, and ah cursed mahself for not being young and lithe enough to shimmy out of that cursed trajectory. Ah saw the aftermath, mah Pa's tears, Lisa-Marie, poor little girl, she was there, the newspapers, the hubbub, the fuss; Elvis shot dead, August 16th, 1978. Three days time.

That was mah dream. And this mah me a tired and twitchy vow, nervous and with a weak pulse, but aho promise this: Ah will not let it happen like this. No sir.