Hector Mancetti was an odd sort of fellow. He lived mostly to himself, in a big old mansion in a run down part of town. He rarely spoke to anyone. He ordered groceries by fax, once a week. He always repeated the standing order: "the delivery boy is to leave the groceries inside the screen door, on the covered patio." He always left the exact amount owed to the store in one envelope, and a stipend for the delivery person never exceeding five percent of the cost of the groceries, although it was sometimes a penny or two short of the five percent.

Lately, it had been more than the norm for Hector to be a few cents short on the tip. If the current delivery girl ever counted the tip before shoving it in her pocket, she might have noticed the steadily lessening amount.

When he died, the fax's just quit coming to the store, and the store quit delivering. It was almost a year before the chauffeur had the police break into the house and discover the remains. After that, the chauffeur got pissed.

Hector was born lucky. Make that rich. The rich can buy luck. He was so rich that he had no idea how much money he had. As a young man growing up, he didn't have many friends. As the son of rich parents who never had the time for him, he didn't have much chance to develop the necessary social skills to function within society.

Even his education, besides a short time with a human tutor, came from a home computer terminal. As a result, he didn't necessarily live outside society, he lived in spite of it. Being rich afforded him the luxury of not having to deal with people. Everything he needed he ordered either via fax, or through his computer. The world was at his fingertips, and he saw no reason to go see it in person.

Fulfilling his material needs took very little of his time. He filled the rest of his time swimming in the pool on the family's estate, or watching the tube. From the hours spent videoed-out, he developed a deep, undying admiration for movies, especially the old ones.

He fell in love with Jane Fonda as CAT BALLOU and ached with misery when he discovered that she was no longer alive. Following that, he was very careful to avoid developing feelings for female movie stars. He, instead, focused on films he considered manly.

Hector eventually convinced himself that John Wayne had, indeed, won several world wars singlehandedly, and that Errol Flynn and Sir Francis Drake were the same. Steve McQueen and Chuck Norris fascinated him with their direct approach, but he couldn't get up the nerve to apply their techniques in his own life. Somewhere along the way, he discovered Elvis. It didn't matter that Elvis was a little less masculine in his acting than the others.

It didn't matter to Hector that Elvis had died nearly fifty years before. It didn't matter because Elvis was forever to Hector. When he reached his majority and could legally carve his piece of the family pie, he did. He took his considerable chunk of change and moved to Memphis, where he purchased a crumbling old mansion that once was home to the legend.

By the time Hector moved to Memphis, the crowds surrounding Graceland had pretty much deserted the town. Most people remembered The King, but had gotten on with their own lives. It didn't matter to Hector, he was ascending to heaven. He arrived in heaven when he found a veritable treasure trove of keepsakes and souvenirs that could be had. Then he discovered that he could still obtain personal belongings that had actually belonged to Elvis. His rabidity went as far as to cause him to buy the rights to all the films Elvis had ever starred in. The rights included broadcast rights, which he pulled from circulations. One by one, these old films disappeared from late night television. Nobody really noticed, because the old films were only being watched by night owls and insomniacs. They didn't mind because it elevated their choices to reruns of mid to late twentieth century sit-coms.

Hector became impassioned in his adoration of the stars. He surrounded himself with memorabilia from the vinyl/celluloid wonderland. His every waking moment was a sensory overload in fantasy. By the time he was old, he owned every film ever made by Elvis also sole rights to all of his recordings. He even owned the rights to the name. The prices he paid for everything convinced him of the true value of his possessions. It didn't bother him that no one knew that he was the sole owner. He had kept so quiet about his endeavor that no one else knew.

Had they known, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone else to care. The entertainment industry was still very healthy and cranked out endless series of box office blockbusters. The old films and records were never missed, and the old start was eventually forgotten. Besides, ever since the 1990s and 2000s, when rock starts became politically active and then astounded the country with their excesses, people stopped looking up to them as 'stars'. Music was just another job, and anyone could do it as well as the next guy, so rockers were no big deal anymore. No one minded, as there was no more pampering of fickle starts, and Hector didn't care. He didn't care. He didn't know. He was trapped alone in a run down mansion, time-locked in the twentieth century. There he died.

The chauffeur got pissed. Hector had steadfastly refused to give him direct deposit, or, from time to time, a paycheck. It had been at least a year or so since he heard from the old man, and at least that long since he had been paid. In the past, whenever Hector had forgotten to pay him, the chauffeur had taken to 'borrowing' items from the estate and pawning them. It had worked from time to time in the past, and he had kept it up for at least a year. Once he ran out of items that were easily pawned or hard to trace, he went for the police.

Once the final estate was calculated, it was discovered that Hector had spent his entire fortune on the films, records and memorabilia. His bank account was just barely big enough to give him enough money for his monthly bills. The principle part of his estate was taken by the bank for uncollected charges and the remainder was awarded, by the court, to the county for unpaid taxes. By the time the chauffeur had gotten there with his claim of unpaid wages, his share of the take was a pile of old video tapes, audio tapes, and a large collection of worthless junk, all of it related to Elvis Presley.

Hector's miserliness with his possessions kept the old star out the public eye; out of sight, out of mind. They lost track of the old memories. The chauffeur tried selling the rights to the movies. No one was interested. Eventually he even failed at giving the films away. The records? No way. The way Rock 'N' Roll had evolved, Elvis was prehistoric. The chauffeur held an auction. A few people came, but no one bought anything. No one cared to own the gold metallic sports coat, or the army uniform, or the Gibson guitar. Not even the life sized bronze statue of The King, himself. What the chauffeur ended with was a house full of memories that no one remembered, and a vault full of dreams withered away, lost in time, The king had died, long live the king.

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