Long Live the King(s)

The day we met Saul Vivas completely changed my life. He was the ultimate performer.

We had just moved in across the street, in a rural neighborhood in Pennsylvania. There weren't many kids around our age. We were dying to play with the herd of boys kitty-corner from us, but Mother said that their dad 'drank a lot of beer', so we weren't allowed to associate with them. Bummer.

But right across the street there was a little kid named Saul...or, Sauly, as his mother called him. Sauly's dad worked for Marx toys. You should've seen our eyes popping out of our heads the first time we saw their garage with the door open. Both bays were full of toys to ride on. Big Wheels and Green Machines and scooters of every kind. Wagons and cars with their own batteries that went all on their own, and that round thing with the swirlies on the handles, where the handles are actually wheels, too, with handles on them...and when you sit on it, it's impossible to steer, but still totally fun...

We thought we were dreaming.

And Sauly's dad said that we could come over and play with his son any old time. Oh, and we were willing. Because playing with Sauly meant playing with all of Sauly's cool toys. His dad was very wise; he knew Sauly would never be lonely with that sort of a deal set up.

Sauly was only four when we met him, but he was a great little kid. We were older, eight and seven, but it didn't matter. He was pretty savvy, and we all got along well. His mother, Netty, had the most interesting hair. It was red-ish....sometimes more on the pink-ish side, and she piled it into a high beehive-style. I was perplexed by it. I liked to watch it. It didn't move. Ever.

The novelty of the toys wore off, but we continued to play with Sauly. He was great at hide and go seek, and loved a good game of Cops n' Robbers. He could yell, too. When he was the cop, and he caught you, you knew it. Many a time I was scared halfway out of my wits when he'd holler, "GOTCHA, YOU BAD GUY!"

Our interests shifted to that of the theatrical. Sauly was welcomed in the drama circles, too, because of his uncanny impersonation of Elvis. His mother was a huge Elvis fan; she had every last one of his records. On rare occasion, we'd be invited into their home to listen to the Elvis records. We'd never even heard of him, up to that point. Why, you ask? Because my mother did not care for the King. Not only that, she even went so far as to write a poem about him while she was in high school. It went something like this...."There once was a man named Elvis. He liked to wiggle his pelvis...."

Whether or not this is an original phrase on her part, there's no telling. That was the poem she claimed to have written. Unbeknownst to her, her teacher was an Elvis adorer, and she recieved an 'F' for a grade...first one she'd ever gotten. So the whole Elvis idea had left a negative impression on her psyche, I suppose. Hence the fact that we had no prior knowledge of him. Add this to my mother's general disdain for rock and roll in general, and, well...you get the idea.

We absorbed the Elvis records. We were learning every song, and went home to sing them loudly around the house. Mother's 'No Elvis' plan thusly...backfired. But Sauly was the best. (It didn't hurt that he was a boy, plus he had Elvis's coloring, too). He could sing, move, and look the most like the King.

We began to have elaborate talent shows in our basement. The whole neighborhood was invited at times. On certain evenings, we drew quite a crowd, seated on our couches and folding chairs down there. Other kids in the neighborhood got involved, too. We did silly little skits and what-not, but the main event was always Sauly and his Elvis songs. I think that's what drew the people in. He was just plain good. Imagine watching a four-year-old perfectly imitate a rock and roll legend. It was really something.

Since we didn't have any rock music around our house, we had to go with what we did have. We played Andy Williams records (my mother adored him!) and sang along. Not extremely hip, but what could we do. We tried. The audience always clapped politely; so we were happy. We didn't know that we were sort of nerds. My husband still teases me about the big crush I once had on Andy Williams. Hey, he looked good on the cover of the album!....AND he seemed like a really nice guy. So there.

We played with Sauly for years. No longer did we need the lure of the Marx toys, nice as they were. Sauly became like kin to us. We were always happy when our chores were done and Mother granted us permission to go across the street to see what Sauly was up to.

The day that Elvis died was a sad day around the Vivas home. I hadn't realized it at the time, but Sauly's mother was literally in love with Elvis Presley. She had fantasized about leaving her husband and becoming his next wife, and had made that clear to her husband, who had loved her dearly and stayed with her, despite her loving another man.

We didn't see any of the Vivas family for days. There were black pieces of material hung on all of their windows. It was kind of creepy. They mourned for almost a week. I wondered what Sauly was doing, stuck in their house like that. I wondered if he was okay. He emerged several days later, still a fairly cheerful kid that was fun to play with, but he toned down the Elvis impersonations quite a bit. He rarely did them after the King's death.

When we moved in the summer of 1978, our little acting troupe was disbanded. But we were great once. The best.

I wonder at times about where Sauly is now, and how he's doing. I hope that every now and then, even if he no longer has the curly black hair, or the hips for it....that he gives it all a shake, and does those moves that only the King....and Pauly...could do so well.

Long live the King(s).