When I returned to the line with Tina and Kay, the mood of the crowd had changed. People in line were angry at others because the queue line was not moving. There were gaps were people had moved but others had not followed them. The people that did not move were at the end of a place in the queue that was near where they perform the ceremony. People were trying to take charge by yelling at the people that would not move but it made no difference. I don’t know if they didn’t understand how the line was supposed to work or if they had been told something by the workers who didn’t know how it worked either. The gap was left open long enough that people in our line decided to move over and fill the gap. We joined them. We were now closer to where we would normally start. But lines had been crossed. The ropes defining the lines were down in some places. People that weren’t angry before where angry now. The chaos and confusion grew. It was a typical hot August night in Memphis. Another first for Elvis Week was a man removing his shirt to cool off.
We had made it to our spot in the line, the ceremony was minutes away and we had no candles. Most of the people around us didn’t have candles. Most years, you could pick them up at the Guest Services area but we were told they would give them to us at the vigil. We found out later that we needed to go to the front of the line to get candles. The crowd was so thick now that it was impossible to get to where they were giving the candles. We would have to wait until after the service. Pricilla opened the event. Later, Lisa Marie arrived with her children and made some comments. She also spent about 20 minutes at the entrance holding the torch where people were lighting their candles. During this time, we noticed that even though people were going up to the meditation gardens, the queue line was not moving at all. After about an hour, one of the workers came up and told us that we were in the wrong place. That we needed to move to the back of the line. This made no sense to us. We were wondering what line we needed to be in. We had gone exactly where we were told when we arrived. I had gotten discouraged. Our line had not moved and I had no idea where we needed to be. I had visions of us standing in the same place a 5 AM the next morning. When the guy came up and told us that we were in the wrong place, I decided that no one was in charge or knew what was going on. There could be no mutiny because there was no one to take charge from. I stepped out of line not knowing where to go or what to do. I was ready to give up. Tina was determined that this was the place we needed to be and told the worker we had done what we were told. He backed off, I rejoined the line and soon the line was moving.
The line was moving slow and the crowd around us changed. There was no single file line going up to the grave site. There were mobs of people. Attitudes had changed. The sounds of different languages were replaced by sounds of motorized scooters and wheelchairs. They were manned by Americans with bad attitudes that were running over the feet of the few Germans left in the line. We were in fear for our lives as these infirmed hoodlums and their nasty caretakers ran roughshod over cowering women and children. This was no longer a time for fun and games, it was survival time. Our bodies were in pain. We aren’t as young as the first time we came to this event. This requires preparation and training that we didn’t do. The mood had gotten so nasty, that when a lady tripped and fell at the grave site, no one jumped to her aid. She laid there until one of the paid staff could get to her. The rest of us were afraid she would pull us down with her. And no one would help. Instead of helping, we were trying to figure out how to push the lady in the scooter in front of us out of the way. She had a virtual suitcase full of scarves, books, flags and flowers to lay at the grave. It was less of a memorial service and more of a magic act. Where was she keeping all this stuff?
The trip back down to the street was quicker. But it seemed like at least 50% of the crowd on their way up were in wheelchairs. Elvis’ fan base is not well. Many of the people in this line won’t be here next year. They will either be dead, not well enough to make the return trip or be mad enough about the changes that they will stay at home. They had better change this thing into a straight up amusement park while they can still afford to do it.
The walk back to the car has become a traditional time to encounter religious fanatics passing out tracts and telling me I’m going to hell for whatever reason. The security measures kept these people away but I noticed some protest signs on the temporary fence just past the guards. I thought they might have been from the Black Lives Matter protesters. They were actually from Elvis fans. They said, “Do Not Exploit E.P.”, “E.P.E.: Profiting over Elvis’s Dead Body”, “Candlelight vigil: Started by Fans, Stolen by EPE!” and “Elvis Presley Exploitation”. While the Elvis channel on XM Radio promoted a rosy picture of the events, articles in Billboard the next morning told about the fans upset by charging for the vigil. These are tough times in Elvisland. Fans are angry at the company and scared of each other. They are no longer a tight-knit community helping each other but competitors trying to be first in line. Graceland is no longer their beloved shrine but a pale imitation of a scaled down amusement park. A “Six Flags over Elvis” with no rides, little amusement and long lines that lead to nowhere. Several years before I went to my first Elvis Week, I wrote an outline of a story comparing a trip to Graceland to a decent into the levels of hell that Dante describes in “The Inferno”. This year’s trip might be the perfect year to complete that connection.
