A Century Of Elvis
(专辑: Push Barman To Open Old Wounds - 2005)
We were sitting in the
living room on the
sofa, the
wrong way round, looking out the
window. It was quiet, and then in the
car park across the
road we saw Elvis look, there beside the
postman's van, and he was walking round the
postman's van, looking in the
open door. He looked as if he was thinking about getting in, but then the
postman came back, and he swaggered off, walked past the
window and down the
stairs, and then at the
bottom of the
stairs right by the
caretaker's office, he started licking the
pavement. Every night now since we moved in that new house there's this noise outside the
door at just about half seven or eight o' clock every night. And if we go and look outside the
door, Elvis'll be standing there waiting to be let in. And then he wanders into the
living room, maybe sits down on one of the
chairs or even lies down on the
floor. He doesn't say much, he just stays there for an hour or two, watching the
TV. We talk to him a
bit, and then around ten o' clock, he'll go away again, and not come back until the
next night. There's a
lot of lanes and stuff around here, around the
house although it's right in the
middle of the
city it seems quite like the
country, it's dead hidden safe I
suppose, made for night living. There's a
lot of squirrels and birds, and Stuart says he's seen about nine foxes there when he's jumped over the
fence on his way to Prior's Road. Sometimes you can go out walking, and when you've been out for a
wee while even you don't know where you are anymore, so it would be pretty hard for anyone else to find you. I
suppose that's why he spends so much time there, that's why he's come to live there, or maybe it's just the
squirrels. I
read about somewhere that he likes squirrels quite a
lot. There's these two videos that we got for wedding presents called the
e-files e-files one and e-files two about how Elvis is supposed to be still alive. And one time when he came round we were watching one of those, but he didn't say anything he just sat on the
armchair. He was playing with his collar a
bit, and we watched it right through and then when it finished he just got up and walked off into the
mist and didn't say anything. The
first few times he came round I
didn't speak to him at all, I
wasn't really sure what to say. And Karen spoke to him quite a
lot she seemed to know what to do more than I
do. He had quite a
strange manner though, he'd go into your stuff and look through it, then he'd maybe pick something up and play with it for a
wee while, but he'd never make any comment about any of it. Seemed pretty rude to me. I
just watched whatever Karen did, and listened to how she talked to him and then, after a
while I
started to copy that, and tell him a
few things, not really bothered about whether he responded or said anything back or not. I
think the
first time I
spoke to him we were sitting up on the
mezzanine and I
said that I
would tell him about me and wee Karen, and how it was that we'd come to be living there. I
thought he probably liked the
fact that we were living there because he came round so much, so I
thought he might want to know how it was that it came about. We did it all over backwards, I
told him. First of all we got to know each other, and then a
while after that we met, and when we'd known each other for about seven years we decided to have an anniversary, and that went quite well, so after the
anniversary we had a
honeymoon, and that went well too, so after that we decided that we would get married. That's why we're living there now. I
used to think my dad was Elvis, but I
haven't told him that yet. I
haven't told my dad either...