Would Elvis Gripe About the Noise?

The question is: If Elvis were alive, would he be caught dead at Bonnie’s Elvis Shrine in Baltimore?

The Shrine, which also functions as a bar, features Elvis on white fur, Elvis on black satin, Elvis on cardboard and Elvis on canvas.

There are pictures of Elvis eating a hamburger, Elvis on horseback and Elvis in a shower. There is young Elvis, old Elvis, skinny Elvis and fat Elvis.

My favorite piece of Elvis memorabilia--a bumper sticker--is missing, however:

“Elvis Is Dead, but at Least He’s Not Gaining Any More Weight.”

“I do not know if he’s dead or alive,” Bonnie says. “But if he’s alive, I wish him the best of health.”

There is no irony in her statement, no hint of a joke.

And the obvious sincerity that underlies Bonnie’s Elvis Shrine is what saves it from being vulgar.

But this is not yet another story about people who like Elvis. This is a story of conflict and tension. This is a story of the indomitable triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

In other words, it is the plot of every Elvis movie ever made.

Bonnie’s neighbors, in a gritty working-class section of Baltimore, have been complaining about the noise from the Elvis Shrine for about three years.

“I put soundproofing on the walls, I keep my doors closed even though that means I can’t get any breezes, and I paid a sound man $250 to keep the jukebox at the level the liquor board wants,” Bonnie says. “But the board made me turn off the TV in April, and that’s when business fell off. I don’t think I can make it. I have had a heart attack and two strokes.”

Bonnie also has had six marriages, although they may be unrelated to the state of her health. She even married one man twice.

“He was husband No. 2,” she says. “He just kept pestering me and pestering me, and so I married him again and made him No. 3.” She pauses and takes a sip of coffee. “Didn’t last, though.”

Bonnie is an auburn-haired woman of 60, and later in the day when she turns to me and says, “You know, you look a little like Elvis,” I can see why husband No. 2 kept pestering her.

Getting back to her problems, I ask her why an Elvis Shrine and bar needs a TV to keep in business.

“People want to come in here and watch the numbers,” she says.

Numbers?

“Lottery numbers,” she says. “People don’t want to miss their numbers on TV.”

“And the baseball games and the movies,” says one of Bonnie’s regulars from the end of the bar.

(Because it is only 1:30 in the afternoon, and it is my belief that anyone who is a regular at a bar at 1:30 in the afternoon should seriously re-examine his life rather than be quoted in a newspaper, we will stick solely with Bonnie for the rest of the column.)

I walk over to the juke and put in a quarter.

A favorite? I ask Bonnie.

“Punch 100,” she says.

After a brief pause, the King comes on singing “My Way.”

“Now this is 47 decibels,” Bonnie says, turning up a control behind the bar.

The noise becomes deafening, much too loud for the narrow confines of Bonnie’s.

“It is legal for me to play it this loud,” Bonnie shouts over the music, “but not to have a TV. Does that make sense?”

It does not. So I call the liquor board. I speak to the executive secretary, Aaron Stansbury, an entirely pleasant person who, to his dismay, is very familiar with Bonnie’s Elvis Shrine.

“It has become a feud between neighbors,” he says. “It has become a cat-and-mouse game of complaints and counter-complaints.”

OK, OK, I say, but how about if Bonnie keeps the TV below 47 decibels, the same as the jukebox? Would that be OK?

“The board could probably justify that,” Stansbury says.

So the problem is solved. And another shrine to Elvis is saved.

And someday, a tall dark stranger may enter the bar around dusk. He will not talk to anyone. He will just stand in the corner in his white silk jumpsuit, a silk scarf tied loosely around his neck. And he will look at all the paintings and photos, and he will utter the line that made “Jailhouse Rock” immortal:

“Flippy,” he will say. “Real flippy.”

Then he will smile that half-smile of his and leave as quietly as he came.

And that man will be Elvis Presley.

Or me.