Summary

The story begins in January of 2016 with the narrator talking about a poet friend, Marcus Ahearn, or Mark, whom the narrator has just learned was arrested one week ago for attempting to disturb Elvis Presley’s grave. The narrator flashes back to when he first met Mark while teaching poetry at Columbia. In the middle of a class, the narrator begins going on a rant about Elvis and how his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was a poisonous presence in Elvis's life and ruined his career. After the rant, the narrator storms out of the classroom and walks into the director's office. He quits and says the writing program is an academic Ponzi scheme and that Mark is the only true poet in the whole class. The director empathizes with him and convinces him to finish out the last three classes of the...