People always have a favorite restaurant or night spot they want all their friends to try. There’s a guy at work–Joe–he’s got an Elvis impersonator. Joe has followed Jay Elvis from one unfash-ionable north-side tavern to another. A couple of years ago, when Joe lost track of Jay, he wrote to the Sun-Times’s Action Time. Joe breathed a lot easier when the paper reported where Jay was performing.
The tavern has a couple windows, but they’re covered with white poster board on which the words “Jay Elvis Show” have been crayoned in a shaky hand. We can’t see beyond the signs, but we can tell right away that something’s going on. The street is quiet except for the faint sound of music coming from within, and there’s a kind of hush as if the whole building is holding its breath.
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“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog…” the guy wails, and a woman trots forward to tuck money between the eagle and his chest. She’s part of a large group of giddy bachelorettes who take up almost half the room.
Tonight we’re in for a special treat. Carmen’s husband, Mike, is going to impersonate Jay. He’s jumpsuited up to match his hero, right down to an oversized studded belt. Only Mike is a short, paunchy guy with a misshapen Beatles wig. In his white costume and too-black hair, he looks like a nuclear-power-plant employee with a good workmen’s-comp case on his hands. Mike Elvis can’t carry a tune, but he doesn’t seem to know it. He spits out “You don’t have to say you love me,” and just when it becomes painful, Jay makes it a duet.
The set includes an unprecedented tribute to Roselle, who’ll be leaving the show for a while. She weeps silently onto her sound system while Jay soberly sings, “And I Love You So” without kissing anyone.
