A soul mate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various places and times over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique compliment, but because by being with that unique individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves. – Edgar Cayce
IT WAS A wretched fucking day and my mood matched. It all started the moment I opened my eyes and found three naked girls in my bed. Contrary to every college kid’s wet dream, it was not a great way to start the day. I hated waking up with people I didn’t know. Factor in three people I didn’t know being in my bed, having a monster hangover, not remembering what fucking city I was in─and I was starving, and you get the general idea of why I wasn’t in a great mood.
Did I mention my dick felt like it had gone twenty rounds with a bull? Well, it fucking did, and it hurt like a bitch. I’d counted seven used condoms on the floor, but I knew I hadn’t come. Story of my fucking life—I didn’t come with groupies or with people I didn’t know well. I hadn’t fucked the same girl two nights in a row in years, so coming wasn’t happening. As a rule, I survived by making myself come after the girls left, but clearly I hadn’t taken care of business the night before, and my dick wound up paying the price, hence the discomfort.
Because I’m not a complete cocksucker, it took for-fucking-ever to clear the girls from my suite. They were up for a repeat performance, but I damn sure wasn’t. My nuts were throbbing too much to even consider trying to use my dick. It took so long to get them gone that I never got to grab anything to eat before I left the hotel. This meant my head was fucking pounding, my stomach was growling and my temper was flaring.
Think my day got better once the chicks were gone?
No such luck. My limo driver was an annoying prick who talked about himself the entire way to the stadium. By the time we got there, I knew all about his happy ending at the local massage parlor and about the time he had his genital warts frozen off. I’d tried to close the divider, but the day being what it was, the fucking thing was broken. While the driver was busy babbling, he got us lost. This led to me being fifteen minutes late to the stadium so I was in the mood to punch the fuck out of something or someone.
Even in my bad mood, I felt like shit for being late. I went in fully prepared to apologize. I didn’t have to bother because our bassist wasn’t there, and since no one knew where he was, my tardiness was overlooked. Our tour management tried to keep the three of us who were there calm by having an assistant go pick up food. The cheesesteak I was handed indicated we were in Philly. A quick mental calculation told me there were three months left of the tour. As miserable as I was, it seemed like it would stretch out for an eternity. I wanted to be fucking home, not waking up each morning playing a game I liked to call, “Where in the world am I today?” It was like Where’s Waldo, just hungover in hotel rooms.
Our bass player still hadn’t shown by the time we finished eating, which meant everyone was in a bad mood. Sound check was a bust, but luckily we had a dressing room filled with booze. Our tour rider stipulated a fully stocked bar at all of our shows, and the one in Philly didn’t disappoint. With some hair of the dog, I was back to functioning somewhat normally in no time at all. Unfortunately, I got a little too drunk, which is why I was in no fuckin’ mood to perform. It didn’t help the entire band was pissed at our bass player, Tyson. We were all drunk as fuck, but Ty was on something a hell of a lot stronger than alcohol.
The roar of the crowd, as the lights went down in the stadium, no longer motivated me the way it used to, which pissed me off, too. Why the fuck didn’t I feel excitement anymore? I was living what was supposed to be the dream life—and it was killing us all. Not one of us was healthy, and we sure as shit weren’t happy—and it showed. We argued about fucking everything, something we’d never done before. I didn’t know where we’d gone wrong, but I was sick of it. I either needed to get the fuck out entirely or break out on my own, yet the thought of going solo made me sick. We’d made a pact—friends for life, brotherhood before business—but the brotherhood was being lost. At some point I knew I was going to need to make a decision one way or the other.
As the lead singer, I felt it was my job to keep my band on track. I wasn’t dumb—I knew I sure as fuck wasn’t leading by example. We were off the fucking rails both as a group and as individuals. Even knowing what the problems were, I couldn’t do shit about it. I wasn’t the man I wanted to be, full stop. Life was only getting shorter and I wasn’t happy. The last time I remembered being excited about what we were doing was before the band got sucked into the machine and became a commodity, instead of a musical act.
I took the stage in a rage. I was mad at the world, mad at our management, mad at my band. Most of all, I was mad at myself for letting it all get so far out of control. When I grabbed the mic, I sang aggressively and gave the appearance of rocking, but I was faking it. I was in no mood, so I gave myself a pass to fuck off.
Everything changed about four minutes in when I looked down into the front row and locked onto a pair of beautiful chocolate brown eyes. I felt something then, a zap to the heart and a kick in the ass all at once. The girl was crazy fucking gorgeous, but it was more than just her looks. She was singing along and smiling enthusiastically, which made me feel like shit. She was there to rock, and I was giving her bullshit. I wasn’t even sure I’d been singing all the words right.
Something about her, I can’t even explain what, had me sick to my stomach thinking about letting her down. She deserved better than whatever pathetic version of myself I’d become. Once upon a time, I’d genuinely cared about the fans and the experience. I’d throw my all into every performance, and when I’d leave the stage, I was proud. Over the last few years, all I’d cared about was drinking, fucking, and meeting deadlines.
Staring into those eyes, though, I decided to pull my shit together and gave two and a half hours of a performance that was easily my best in years. I sang almost exclusively to her, the connection between us something I’d never experienced before. The more I watched her, the more certain I was that she wasn’t of age. Over and over my conscience yelled too young in my head, and while I knew it to be true, I just wanted to fucking enjoy feeling something good for the first time in forever. It was just one show and it wasn’t like I was going to bring her backstage to fuck, I assured myself.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get any older during the show. When it was over, it was over, and reality took center stage, again. Our guitarist, Cole, ribbed the fuck out of me as we left the stage after the encore, asking if I was going to give “jailbait” a backstage pass. I wasn’t that big of an asshole, and I shook my head in the negative. “Fuck off, dick. It wasn’t some big thing.”
Cole laughed as he punched my arm. “Dude, you should have seen yourself. I think the girl was your fucking Priscilla.”
I glared at him as I shook my head in confusion. “Dude, what the hell do you even mean? What the fuck is a Priscilla?”
He looked at me like I was some kind of a moron. “You really need to get your rock ‘n’ roll knowledge beefed up—you should know this without asking. It’s like fuckin’ music folklore. If we’re ever on Celebrity Jeopardy and we lose because you don’t know something this obvious, I’m going to beat your ass. I’m talking about Priscilla Presley, fuckwad. You totally went all Elvis over a teenage girl.”
I ground my teeth together as I glared at him. Once he explained, I remembered the basic story. It was true—Elvis had lost his nuts over a fourteen-year-old girl. Cole’s comparison embarrassed me. Anxious to get away, I gave him the finger.
“Fuck Elvis and fuck you,” I said dismissively.
“Ooh, grumpy,” he laughed. “I’ve never seen you look at someone that way. Something about her got to you and you know it. Too bad you’d need a permission slip to take her anywhere, Old Man.”
I guessed she was somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, but my brain said eighteen was probably a real fuckin’ stretch. Since Cole was agreeing she was young, I knew I was out of line for even looking. It was humiliating to have gotten so turned on by a teenager.
I extended my middle finger and stomped away without another word. When I got back to the dressing room, I grabbed a bottle and started drinking.
I woke up the next afternoon feeling like shit, with only hazy memories of the night before. Everything after getting dropped off at the stadium was a blur.
My head was pounding so hard, I considered going out to the stocked bar and getting a bottle but something stopped me. I couldn’t remember why, but I’d known, down to my bones I needed to do better, to be better. I hadn’t always been like a drunken robotic human dildo. I wanted to be worthy. Worthy of what, I couldn’t say.
My band was happy to fill me in once I snapped out and demanded to know why everyone was calling me Elvis. Nothing they said sparked my memory. I could just barely remember eyes the color of melting chocolate. No matter how much ribbing the band did, nothing other than the eye color came back to me.
The name Elvis stuck around for a while—until everything in the band inevitably blew sky high and life imploded. In the aftermath, the Philly incident and the nickname that came after faded into oblivion entirely.