Elvis Has Left the Building — and Is Living In My Computer

by  Janelle Meraz Hooper

Elvis is still alive. I know it. I have proof. And I don’t mean the kind of proof where some guy who’s had too much beer stops at a local filling station and sees Elvis filling up his Eldorado with regular gas. What a joke. Everyone knows that Elvis uses super.

And I don’t mean like that guy outside of the basketball arena waving a sign that says, “Elvis parks here.” Everyone knows that Elvis is way too cool for basketball.

No, I’m talking about tangible down-to-earth evidence that the King of Rock n’ Roll is alive and well — and living in my computer.

Yep. That’s what I said. Right here in my computer that I call Ole Trigger because he doesn’t have enough guts to boot up all of my fancy equipment on the same day, much less at the same time.

Whenever I want to do anything more complicated than word-processing, I have to load the color printer, print, delete the non-color printer and drivers, and let Ole Trigger rest for a day or so. Then I can load the color scanner, do my scanning, delete the scanner from my hard drive, re-load the non-color printer and its drivers, and let Trigger rest again for a couple of days until it feels up to fetching my emails. Sometimes, if my preacher cousin sends me a long message, Ole Trigger just gets all tuckered out and has to be rebooted. I keep a special pair of cowboy boots next to my PC just for this purpose.

As far as I can tell, Elvis moved into my computer a few days before
the Fourth of July. That’s when I sent a color poster of Elvis to my editor, who’s an Elvis fan, wishing her Happy Fourth! It was a photo that showed Elvis in all his glory: gold metallic suit, slick pompadour hair, and white buck shoes.

Of course he had that special look of his on his face, like he’d just
jammed a guitar pick up his nose and was wondering if he wanted to get it out or just leave it there because it felt good. It was pure, vintage Elvis, and I blew it up full size before I sent it to her via email. I should have known something had gone wrong when she said she never got it. Come to find out: that’s because he never left!

He took up 486 bits or bytes or whatever that stuff is called, but he
was kind of cool, so I didn’t delete him right away like I should have. A
few days later, I began to find strange messages on my computer when I brought up my screen in the morning. Messages like, “Warning! Your memory system is running dangerously low. Norton antivirus system may not be working correctly.” Oh, happy 99! Oh, Melissa!

I went into Trigger’s guts and started deleting everything that wouldn’t make me stop breathing if I didn’t have it. I even deleted-augh!-Elvis,
but the messages kept coming: “Warning, warning! Danger! Danger!”

The next time I used my graphics software, I noticed that Elvis was
still on the menu. I deleted him. He came back. I deleted him again. He came back again. By now, his lips were starting to move, and his suit was beginning to shimmer. I don’t know why he doesn’t leave, except that maybe he’s finally found someplace to hide out where people have to leave him alone — sort of like having Heartbreak Hotel all to himself, maybe.

For myself, I’ve given up and just deleted Norton. I know when I’m
beat. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and hear a lonesome voice in my computer singing, “Ho-oold me close, ho-oold me tight . . . make me thri-illll with dee-lighttt . . . .”

Sure beats anything I ever heard from Norton.

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Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

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