Verses

Waiting on Elvis, 1956

Joyce Carol Oates

This place up in Charlotte called Chuck’s where I used to waitress and who came in one night but Elvis and some of his friends before his concert at the Arena, I was twenty-six married but still waiting tables and we got to joking around like you do, and he was fingering the lace edge of my slip where it showed below my hemline and I hadn’t even seen it and I slapped at him a little saying, You sure are the one aren’t you feeling my face burn but he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in his mouth. Smiled at me and said, Yeah honey I guess I sure am.