Inside Graceland: Elvis' Maid Remembers (11 page)

Opening the front door, I let the two medical technicians into the foyer and showed them the steps they needed to climb.

One of the paramedics asked where upstairs they needed to go. I said, “Put the stretcher over your heads, go up the stairs and make a sharp turn to the right, then go through the doorway and listen for the commotion in the front part of the house.” And that’s what they did. (In a twist of irony, I was to later learn that one of the two paramedics that showed up that day and drove Elvis to the hospital was the same one who would later drive Vernon to the hospital, and then transport Dodger’s body after she died.)

I waited downstairs for what seemed like an eternity. I did not want to intrude on what was going on upstairs, and, besides, I had already seen more than I wanted to see. I knew that if they needed me, for any reason, they would call me.

Elvis was my boss, but he was much more than that. He was also like a brother to me, as well as a good friend, and the thought of losing him was almost more than I could bear.

At the same time, however, I am proud as I look back on that day that I was able to keep my head and do what needed to be done. By this point I had the sinking feeling that all of us had done everything we could for Elvis. The rest was in God’s hands.

Along with everyone in the house that day, however, I still clung desperately to the hope that everything was going to be all right. After all, Elvis had been sick many times before and had come through it ok.

After fifteen minutes or so had passed I heard a commotion as they brought Elvis’ body down on the stretcher. Because of his weight, and the small room with which to maneuver at the top of the stairs, this was no easy task.

Standing in the foyer as they brought him down, I noticed that he was wearing a blue pajama top, which was unbuttoned, and they had covered him up to his chest with a thin blue sheet. When I got a glimpse of his face I wanted to turn away.

Strangely, on the one hand, he looked sort of like he was sleeping. On the other hand, however, his face was blue and very distorted looking, and not a single muscle in his body was moving, and he did not appear to be breathing. As I look back on it, I think I knew then in my heart that he was gone.

Words cannot describe the pain I felt in my soul that very moment. It was like every bit of life that had been in Graceland up to that time was sucked right out of the mansion, only to be replaced with a cold reality that nothing would ever be the same in that great house again.

As they carried Elvis out to the waiting ambulance, which was parked facing south, towards the meditation garden, the race to the hospital began. Al and Joe jumped into the back of the ambulance, along with one of the paramedics. The other paramedic climbed in behind the wheel. The others all ran to find cars so they could follow the ambulance to the hospital.

Just as the ambulance was about to pull away, Dr. Nichopoulos, Elvis’ personal doctor, arrived and jumped into the back of the ambulance with the others. They closed the door and the ambulance sped off down the winding driveway, went through the gates, turned right, and headed to the hospital. The only sound that could be heard in the front of the mansion was the wailing siren as it raced to Baptist Memorial Hospital, with the world’s most famous superstar inside. And my heartbeat, racing wildly.

Vernon did not seem to have the strength, or the will, to accompany his son to the hospital. I think that he, like the rest of us, was slowly giving up all hope that he would see his son alive again.

Sometime after we had all gone back inside the house, Ginger was walking down the stairs, crying. When we saw her coming down, she was completely dressed and had her make-up on. Vernon and I were both at the bottom of the stairs and Vernon asked her what had happened.

Ginger told us that she had fallen asleep early, but Elvis was very restless and had gotten up to go into the bathroom to read. When she woke up several hours later (Tuesday afternoon) Elvis was not in the bed. She said she called out for him and, not getting a response, got up and walked toward the bathroom. Looking at the opening at the bottom of the bathroom door, Ginger said she saw that the light was on, and decided that Elvis was still in there reading.

She said she knocked on the door several times and, still not getting a response, opened the door leading into the bathroom. It was then that she saw Elvis, lying on the bathroom floor. She said that was when she ran into the bedroom and called me on the intercom phone.

I looked at her and asked, “Ginger, why did it take you so long to check on him?”

Still crying, she sobbed, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I was sleeping and couldn’t wake up!”

Vernon and Ginger were not on the best of terms. I think Vernon saw her as someone who didn’t have Elvis’ best interests in mind. Some of the other employees had that same attitude.

Ginger and I had lunch several months after Elvis died, and I came away with a more sympathetic view of her. I think she has been unjustly accused in some ways and somewhat misunderstood in the events of that day. There was probably nothing that she could have done to prevent his death, any more than the rest of us could not have done anything to have saved him. Elvis was a strong personality, and was used to having his way. Ginger was very young at the time. I sometimes have thought she may have been in way over her head in her relationship with him at such a young age.

But, on that day, Vernon was suddenly in charge, and determined.

Later that day, as I was standing, again, at the bottom of the stairs, Vernon was walking by as Ginger was coming down the stairs. I heard Vernon tell Ginger, “You’ll have to leave now. You’re not welcome in this house anymore.”

Now, crying even more, Ginger ran back upstairs, collected her things, and rushed past me and Vernon, left through the back door, and drove off. I watched as she drove out the back, through the side entrance.

Unlike Linda Thompson, who kept her clothes, makeup, etc., at Graceland, Ginger always just brought a small white overnight type bag with her when she came to spend the night. She had never really “moved in” to Graceland like several others had done over the years.

I don’t remember ever washing any of her clothes, although I had washed plenty of other girl’s clothing over the years.

A lot of people have asked me if Elvis had really intended to marry Ginger. I don’t think that he did. I think in the beginning he felt like he could change her into someone who could take care of him, but, as time went on, I think he realized that he could not “mold her” like he wanted to. She was just too young and too independent. He had already mentioned to me a day or so earlier that if she did not go with him on this tour, he was going to find someone else.

He told me, “I have spent over $60,000 on her and she still won’t do what I want her to do.” He had also come to the realization that she was still seeing someone else. He had had her followed on several occasions after she left the mansion, saying she was going home, only to find out that she was going to a nightclub in east Memphis. I, personally, had called her house, at Elvis’s request, several times after she would leave Graceland telling Elvis she was going home, only to be told by someone at her house hours later that she wasn’t there. I think he had reached the end of his rope with her. Even so, I felt sorry for her as she was now being told to leave by Vernon, but I think she probably knew it was coming.

So, when she left Graceland that day, she took all of her things, already packed, in that small white bag.

Though Vernon had asked her to leave that day, she was allowed back at Graceland two days later for the funeral service, to a lot of people’s surprise.

After the ambulance took Elvis away, Aunt Delta, Vernon, Patsy, and some of the others congregated in Dodger’s bedroom, where they cried, and tried to comfort each other, as best they could.

Dodger never left her bedroom to go upstairs during all the commotion. She was told by Patsy and Aunt Delta what had happened, and that Elvis was not breathing when he was taken away.

As frail as she was, I don’t know if she could have even made it up the stairs. Instead, she stayed, sitting in her rocking chair, in a state of grief, hanging on every new report that was brought in to her by the others.

Aunt Delta probably held up better than the other family members. She also realized that certain things needed to be done immediately, still in the protective mode of always trying to protect Elvis.

Almost as soon as Elvis was taken from Graceland she grabbed me by the arm and said, “Let’s go. We’ve got to go upstairs and get rid of some things before the investigators get here!”

I didn’t quite know what she meant, but I followed her up to Elvis’ bathroom. She then explained that we needed to get rid of any medications, needles, and such, just in case Elvis died and the police showed up to investigate his death. She said it would not look good for any of those things to be found in or around his bathroom or bedroom.

I didn’t think anything about it being illegal, I was just doing as I was told to do by Aunt Delta. I was still trying to grasp what had just happened, not really allowing myself to even think that Elvis could be dead. It was just too inconceivable for me to even think such a thought. I think, in the state of mind and fear that I was experiencing, she could have asked me to do just about anything and I would have at least attempted to do it, out of the sense of shock that I was feeling at that time.

I grabbed a trash can from Elvis’ bathroom. We always had plastic bags in the trash cans, so I took out the plastic bag and started picking up all the containers, pill bottles, aspirin and even a few syringes from all around the bathroom and placed them in the plastic bag. We scoured both the bathroom and the bedroom, trying to make sure, in all the haste, that the counters, drawers, and cabinets were completely empty and clean. My heart was racing, as was evidently the case with Aunt Delta as well, as we tried to make sure we got everything.

Apparently we didn’t do the best job in the world. Several needles were later found by the investigators.

I didn’t think to question what we were doing. Instead, I just did what Aunt Delta instructed me to do. “Throw this away, throw that away, grab that, pick that one up, get that one off the counter!”

Next, we changed the sheets on Elvis’ bed, spread the covers, and replaced all the towels in the bathroom. I remember Aunt Delta wanted me to look under Elvis’ bed, but it was so dark under there that I did not want to stick my hand under there, so we just let that go.

Looking back on what we did, I know that Aunt Delta was trying to protect Elvis. All of what I picked up had prescription labels attached, so I know they were all legal drugs. Whether Elvis should have been taking so many different prescriptions is probably another matter altogether. But, then again, Elvis was Elvis, and it was not our job, nor was it possible, for us to protect him from himself.

After we came back downstairs, Aunt Delta took the two plastic bags we had just filled, and deposited them in the main trash container in the back yard. I later learned that someone who had been upstairs in the bathroom with Elvis as they were trying to revive him had also picked up a number of needles and pill bottles and had later buried them under a tree in the back yard.

As I was trying to catch my breath, I suddenly realized that I had not seen Lisa through all of this. She was just a young girl, and my thoughts began focusing on how she was handling everything that was going on! I put my feelings of anguish aside and decided that I needed to make sure she was ok.

After looking around downstairs and not seeing her, I went back upstairs. It turned out she was still in her bedroom, with the door closed. She had a cousin and another friend in there with her.

I knocked on her door and heard her crying softly inside her room. I can still remember begging her, “Lisa, please come out baby. I need to talk to you!”

From the other side of the locked door I heard her frightened little voice saying, “No, I don’t want to come out. It’s my daddy, isn’t it?”

Taking the honest approach, and truly not knowing any other way to handle the situation, I replied, “Yes, baby, it is. But I can’t tell you anything right now. You need to come downstairs with me.”

Finally, after several minutes, the door opened and she ran, sobbing, into my arms. I held her for a few minutes and we then walked, with my arm around her little shoulder, through the hallway, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.

I felt it would be better for her to be around people like her grandmother, Aunt Delta and Vernon, until we could find out what was going on. She did cheer up somewhat being around them, and eventually went outside and rode around the grounds on her golfcart.

After what seemed like forever, Dr. Nick, along with the two paramedics, came back to Graceland to break the news that everyone suspected was coming. The two paramedics, I found out later, had accompanied the doctor back to Graceland out of fear that they may be needed to attend to Vernon when he heard the sad news that his son was dead.

As Dr. Nick went into Dodger’s bedroom, I escorted the paramedics into the dining room, where they sat at the dining room table. We gave them glasses of lemonade to drink as they waited on Dr. Nick.

Dr. Nick walked into Dodger’s room, where the family was gathered, and announced that Elvis had been pronounced dead at the hospital. He said several times that he was sorry, but that Elvis had died. I guess he was trying to break the news as gently as he could, attempting, in some small way, perhaps, to soften the blow of Elvis’ death.