The Day Elvis Almost Died I was riding in the back seat of my parents' red Cutlass on a warm fall day in 1984. My only entertainment was listening to the sucking sound on the back of my thigh. did when I lifted it off the sticky vinyl seat. I remember seeing patchwork fields of rainbow-colored leaves lying on yellow grass, wishing I could gather them into big piles, so I could go through them and scatter them again across the field. I rolled down the dusty window to get a better view of the pastures as the harsh wind blew into my face and through my hair. I stuck my head out the window and opened my mouth so my cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie's when he played the trumpet. Slowly, my cheeks began to deflate and the wind softened as my father braked the car and headed toward the driveway of my grandparents' house, the site of our annual family picnic in May. . My whole family had already arrived when we arrived. All my uncles immediately bombed the car, giggling with my dad about how he was always late so he wouldn't have to help them cook. My dad Joe, with his white afro hair, and my grandmother Lee Lee, who limped like a pirate with his legs erect because one leg was shorter than the other, were sitting on deck chairs and talking about how much I I had grown up. My Uncle Kelly, whose left arm was torn off by his ex-wife during an argument, was walking around complaining that he was going to starve if he didn't eat soon. My aunt Rosie, who always wore a small pair of rose-shaped earrings and kept a wad of chewing tobacco in her mouth, spoke with my mother between spits of runny, brown liquid aimed at her plastic cup. Including my cousins ​​and a few distant relatives, about twenty-five people were there talking, laughing, and mingling. And there I was, all alone in the land of giants with only my cowgirl Barbie to protect me. I felt like a guppy trying to swim upstream with a school of trout. Even though we had only been there for five minutes, finding my father and leaving were my priorities.