Jesse Garon

Jesse Garon.

By Darran Anderson

They buried him in a shoebox a stone's throw from the shotgun shack. But some things don't leave so easily. Floating above the Tupelo bed, it coiled its umbilical cord tight round its infant brother, anchored itself to life. And it floated there, listening. And at night when the child slept, it feed and grew, planted seeds, suggestions. And sometimes, without knowing it, he, Elvis Aaron, listened.

The rest is well known. He called himself the Hillbilly Cat, laid down a record as a present for his mama, before long it was white jumpsuits and karate, emptying his rifle into swimming pools filled with light bulbs. All along he was plagued by strange compulsions, incompleteness, a hunger he couldn't satisfy. It was still there in the last days, bedridden and corseted, strung out on uppers and downers, slumped on the tiles of the ensuite bathroom. The face of Jesus on the floor

"That's alright mama, that's alright with me," harks from a busted up old turntable, still singing decades after they checked out, locked together spinning in some black orbit. But he forgives his brother. They're kin after all.