ELVIS AND CIMORELLI

"And who are you, Elvis?"

THE NEXT DAY - 1968

"Jingle, jingles..." sang the Colonel, as he played with a diorama. "Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa claus. Right down Santa Claus Lane. Vixen and Blitzen and all the reindeer, pulling on the rein!"

The Colonel cleared his throat and started to speak.

"Elvis Presley's wonderful world of Christmas. Brought to you by the Singer Sewing Machine company, to every television set in America. It only takes three days to tape and there's no audience."

As the Colonel kept speaking, Elvis was holding Lisa Marie in his arms, before walking over to his wife and handing their baby to her.

"Violence breeds violence, repression breeds retaliation," said the President, on the TV.

"...Christmas sweater..." continued Parker. "Made on the new Singer, home knitting apparatus."

"Memphis is burning," frowned Priscilla.

"And to fear his brother. When you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs..."

"...Dreaming of a white Christmas, because, oh, it's definitely going to snow!"

"Christmas special..." said Elvis, as he walked over to his promoter. "Is this the best we can do, Colonel?"

"Well, we took the Hollywood phonies for every nickel they had and now, it is time for us to pack up our tents and move on to even greener pastures. We've seen 'Elvis the rebel,' we've seen 'Elvis the movie star.' Now, we will see 'Elvis the family entertainer.'"

"And appliance salesman?" asked Jerry, sarcastically, as he looked up from his newspaper.

"What did you say?" asked Elvis, before he walked over to his best friend. "Listen, Jerry... I don't need you to question me about how I support my family and every other person here! You understand me?! If you don't like it, you can go back to Memphis."

Jerry nodded and Elvis went into his and Priscilla's trailer.

"Laugh it up, rats!" he remarked, as he slammed the trailer door.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that night, Elvis was still in the bus watching the MLK memorial service on TV, with the radio playing in the background. Just then, Priscilla walked into the bus and stood in front of her husband.

"Satnin?" she asked, worriedly.

"Hi," he smiled back, weakly.

"And now, here's Elvis!" said the DJ, on the radio.

Elvis reached over and turned it off, not wanting to hear himself sing in that moment. All he wanted to listen to was the sound of Mahalia Jackson singing, in remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr..

"Can I watch the memorial with you?" asked Priscilla.

"Yeah, Baby," nodded Elvis, gently pulling his wife onto his lap. "I'm so tired of playing Elvis Presley... Too many people rely on me."

Priscilla let out a sigh of sympathy, before speaking up.

"I love you..." she whispered in her husband's ear. "...And your daughter loves you... and your father loves you... and your friends love you... and the Lord loves you... We don't care about the money or anything else. We just want you to be happy... you're only really happy when you sing the music you love."