I’m fixing to Go Up to the Rebel Cafe

I’m fixing to go up to the Rebel Cafe. That’s where everybody went on Friday nights after the football game.

My thumb ached from where I had broken it last year, and I had a skinned up elbow and knee that burned after my shower. We had lost the game, the coach was mad with me for being late for practice earlier in the week and I had only gotten to play about half the game. That’s probably why we lost.

But the sting of defeat was gradually fading as I thought about seeing her up at the Rebel. I knew she would be there, the question was, would I be able to get close to her.

It was getting late when I got there because I didn’t have a car and had to walk. I could see the lights from within and hear the buzz of the crowd as the gravel of the parking lot crunched under my feet. Looking through the plate glass window, I spotted her right away, and just as I had dreaded, she was surrounded by guys who had cars and money to spend.

I lingered on the outside looking in for a while, knowing if I went inside I would never get near her without making a fool of myself.

Besides I didn’t have quite enough money for a hamburger and I would just have to climb out the bathroom window if I had one.
That’s when I faded back into the shadows and decided I would just go on home and play me some Elvis. The first Elvis song I ever heard was Don’t Be Cruel, and it moved me because the lyrics of it perfectly described my situation at that particular time in my life.

Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true. That line was the perfect message in 1961. It was about this girl I was infatuated with. But she paid no heed to it and was cruel to me every day. She hung out with football stars, flirted with college guys and always dashed away with the in-crowd while I faded away on the fringe.

Baby, if I made you mad for something I might have said. It couldn’t have been that because every time I mustered up the courage to speak to her my saliva turned to super glue and bonded my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

I don’t want no other love, baby it’s just you I’m thinking of. She had to have known that was true since I was always hanging around her locker in the hallway attempting to convey that message through mental telepathy. I guess telepathy just wasn’t her thing. It was probably because her pony tail was slinging around in the air and messing up the mental images I kept sending her.

Why should we be apart, I really love you baby, cross my heart. I never got around to telling her that, but I thought she could see it in my eyes. Evidently she couldn’t see any better than she could read minds because she would just sling her pony tail and walk right by me like I was invisible. My name should have been cellophane because she looked right through me.

If you can’t come around, at least please telephone. She never did in spite of all those little notes I slipped through the little slots on the door of her locker. Perhaps it was because I never signed them.

You know I can be found sitting home all alone. And I could, but she never came looking. But I had Elvis to keep me company. I played that little forty-five record so many times until it got so thin you could almost read the lyrics on it.

I’ll bet that pony tail had gone into slow motion by now, turned from gold to silver, and morphed into a different do. She’s probably reminiscing right now while she’s flipping through her CD’s looking for that special Elvis song that reminds her of me.
I found mine, so in honor of our lost love, I’m fixing to play me some Elvis.