One day he received a phone call from a man in South Carolina. "Are you going to be there?" he asked. He was coming to town and wanted a shine. Last week a man left his shoes with Elvis and went to the hotel restaurant in his socks.

"I pretty much have a goal to brighten up Salt Lake City with their shoes, one pair at a time," Elvis likes to say.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he came to Salt Lake City as a teenager to visit a cousin. He never left. His father was an alcoholic; his mother was a fan of Elvis, which is how Elvis Mendez got his name. With the move to Salt Lake City, he escaped the rough street life and a home in a high-rise apartment.

"A lot of my friends are doing time now, or they're dead," he says.

He held a variety of jobs in Salt Lake City — he washed dishes, stuffed cushions in a sofa factory, worked in the press room of the Salt Lake Tribune. When a friend left his shoeshine business, Elvis took his place and settled into an accidental career.

The 47-year-old Elvis has done well enough to support his wife, Susan, who has been unable to work for several years because of diabetes. They married on Valentine's Day 23 years ago and have one grown son, named Elvis, and one grandson, also named Elvis. She still likes to send him flowers at his work. He refuses to work weekends so he can be with her.

The rest of the week he has Salt Lake City's footwear in hand, although not as much as he used to. "He's really struggling (because of the move)," says Evans. "I'm sure if some of his old clients knew where he was, they'd be back."

Now they know.

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Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please e-mail drob@desnews.com.