Elvis
is everywhere. . . Elvis
is everywhere. . .
I saw Elvis a few weeks ago. I was in my car and the entire experience was made all the more interesting by the fact that "Rock This Town," one of the better-known rockabilly ditties from the 80s (remember? the song by the Stray Cats?), happened to be playing on my radio at that exact moment (although, I would have been a bit more impressed by the workings of fate, coincidence, & such if the song had been Mojo Nixon's "Elvis Is Everywhere," although I guess the background music The Powers That Be provided me with for the moment of life in which I spotted the King was still quite fitting). I had just left Clayton State, the place where I go to acquire my further education (every day sinking me deeper and deeper into the depths of my already approaching-the-depths-of Lake-Baikal dorkiness [translation: I am deeply dorky {I suppose that could have been said with a bit less complexity, but then again the amount of entropy always increasing throughout the universe (which means no one will ever go back in time. I don't care how many spiffy looking cars Doc builds, Micheal J. Fox, you would never have gone back to set up your parents) and well, maybe complex sentence-structure is simply my way of advancing though time. Then again, maybe not}]). In any event, I go to school in Morrow, GA (Yes, I am still technically a student at McIntosh. No, I don't take any classes there. No further questions, your honor), which means I drive home along Jonesboro Road in Clayton County. Anyway, one afternoon I was stopped at a red light right around where one can turn left and get to I-75, and eventually to Atlanta. Seeing as "Rock This Town" is an amazingly catchy tune, I was bouncing around behind the steering wheel, singing in that particularly stupid way one does when one is stuck in traffic, alone in the car, and for some ungodly reason forgetting the fact that glass is transparent, which combined with the fact that my windows are made of glass, made me look especially idiotic when I glanced over at the driver in the car to my left. I looked forward again. I noticed that the light was definitely still red, and a few seconds later my brain managed to complete percolating the picture of the car next to me, and more specifically, its occupant (although, the car itself was pretty spiffy-it was a white Cadillac with the seats covered in what seemed to be a sort of pseudo-fur), which caused my attention to snap quickly back towards the left. Elvis appeared to be quite amused by the look on my face. He was a mid-career Elvis, a bit on the heavy side, but not yet at the point where the weight had begun to have a negative impact on his overall appearance. Now, when I say Elvis, I don't just mean a guy who kinda could resemble the King. I mean completely decked out and all with the whole ensemble: shiny, white suit with the high collar and sequins, hair pomped to a truly regal height, and oh yeah, the sunglasses, too. Situations like this are fairly rare in the course of one's life, and are never expected. All the really neat bits of life are the ones that hit a person at deceptively mundane points, like when one is stuck in a traffic jam, or at work, or outside in the front yard about to mow the lawn. And so on. I did the only thing I could do in such a situation. I waved. The light had changed. Keeping his right hand on the wheel, Elvis raised his left hand in a return wave, and followed the flow of traffic, which led his white Cadillac left towards I-75 and my stickered black Ford Tempo straight down the busy street lined with pawn shops and used car dealerships.