Elvis Voodoo

Elvis is alive. No kidding. The real deal. I visit him almost every night. And not the fat Elvis, either. The late fifties, viciously handsome, still got my chops Elvis.

My life fell apart fifteen years ago. It fell apart because I got the consumption. Whiskey consumption. My narrow minded ex-wife did not appreciate the fact that I felt our food budget covered the purchase of whiskey. Her patience was stretched thin when I started serving her Hamburger Helper (bacon cheeseburger is particularly delicious) instead of spaghetti alla carbonara.

After endless arguments (most of which I don’t remember) over a couple of years she kicked me out. And cut me loose.  I still loved her and regretted my selfish, insensitive, destruction of our marriage, but hungered to severely rearrange my existence, so I fled to New Orleans.

It was the right choice. New Orleans felt like home. The music, the cuisine, the culture, the people, the bars. Darkness emanates from my soul, and my essence is strangely twisted. As I gradually settled in to my own New Orleans rhythm I naturally gravitated to the seamier aspects of Big Easy living. Especially voodoo.

It wasn’t easy slipping into that very closed, very guarded community but I was determined. Voodoo fascinated me. I love the concept of revenge but could never muster up the courage to really hurt anybody. Not in any meaningful way. Voodoo seemed like the perfect weapon, the right tool for the job.

Patrons of the seediest bars in town slowly got used to seeing me hunched over a rocks glass filled to the brim with whiskey. Crown Royal. It isn’t the most expensive whiskey on the block but it ain’t cheap either. I spent money and tipped well. The bartenders liked me. It’s always good to have the bartender on your side.

Drinking whiskey, talking to myself and cursing my wife. For a while the barflies would only look over at me in amusement, talk about me, sometimes make comments. Lost souls were not unique around these parts. When the band was on break I would crank up The Allman Brothers on the jukebox.  A much revered Southern band. This helped to break the ice. Eventually the more inquisitive began to approach me; drinks were bought round after round and conversation became lively. Humorless laughter spiced the atmosphere, the kind of laughter laughed by those who know the truth.  I knew that I had been accepted. Drinkers and the wicked recognize their own intuitively.

We spent a lot of time together and I became close to those who were the darkest. A sense of menace preceded them into any room, heightened with an air of supreme self –confidence, softened with an amused perspective. These were my kind of people.

 I was witnessing voodoo rituals and meeting with dedicated practitioners in the very darkest hours of the morning before I really realized what was happening.  Then I saw it in their eyes; they had looked into my soul and liked what they saw.

Quietly and respectfully I witnessed, learned and finally began to practice voodoo, with restraint; I was in no hurry. This is not a discipline to be taken lightly. If you are going to do it you have to do it right or the consequences can be devastating.

The fact that I was new to the scene gave me a unique perspective, allowing me to put together combinations and alter rituals in ways that made sense to me. Gris-gris is a combination of physical objects like Voodoo dolls, gris-gris bags and love potions, and verbal invocations that spark the magical properties of voodoo.  Juju can be the elements of a living thing used to make magic; it can also be a type of ghost or soul. I embraced these concepts and learned to respect their potential.

I experimented endlessly with this dangerous magic, toying with peoples’ lives, torturing and destroying them as an exercise to increase my powers. To me they were nothing more than stepping stones, they should have been grateful to contribute to the expansion of my knowledge. One night, exhausted and whiskey soaked, I stumbled upon a powerful adaption of gris-gris and juju magic that caught me off guard.  I created a ritual that gave me the power to raise the dead.

This blew my mind. So much so that I backed off for a couple of days, trying to figure out how best to make use of this talent.

Then it hit me. My wife worshipped Elvis. I would raise Elvis from the dead and win my wife back.

It took about a week, one obsessively intense week, and on the seventh night of the seventh day Elvis stood before me in my tiny, barely furnished apartment. He was not impressed with his new digs but he was impressed to be resurrected. I was speechless to be looking at this legend in person, up close, standing three feet in front of me.  Looking so cool. Looking so damn good. Turns out I didn’t need to say anything. Being dead, he was quite aware of what I had been up to and what my plans were. His smile was sarcastic but his manners were impeccable. Southern gentleman all the way.

We became close friends.

My wife and I had stayed in contact over the years, mainly because she felt sorry for me and because my love for her had never died. Pity allowed me to lure her to New Orleans for a visit.

At Elvis’s insistence I had rented a more spacious apartment; he can be quite convincing. After all, the man was used to living in a mansion; the least I could do was to give him his own bedroom. We moved to Frenchmen Street, steps away from the French Quarter and walking distance from Bourbon Street.    It was a romantic location filled with nightlife and locals and so much music your ears could party around the clock with the right stamina.

The night my wife showed up, the apartment was decked out in romance; delicate candles, sensuous music, exquisite aromas. She kissed me carefully and the dinner conversation was casual.

Until dessert.  I told her I had prepared something special and that’s when Elvis stepped out of his bedroom. At first she laughed nervously and asked what the hell I was up to. But there was something in her eyes. She kept saying he was one hell of an Elvis impersonator until I asked him to sing.

She fainted.

When she woke up I explained the whole story to her. This was something that would normally repulse her but apparently because it was Elvis she was able to overlook certain grisly details. This should have been a warning beacon to me but I was too full of myself to feel anything but boastful pride over how my plan was coming together so smoothly.

In a couple of days we were one cool, although admittedly unusual, family and she was more in love with me than she had ever been. She was animated, alive, energetic and happy.

Then things took a turn.

I still spent a lot of time with my New Orleans friends. In bars, jazz joints, fabulous hole in the wall restaurants. I dug the life and indulged in it freely. Elvis had to stay behind for obvious reasons but he was used to being quarantined and it didn’t bother him. Too much.  My wife partied with me and we laughed a lot. Until she started making excuses. She felt sorry for Elvis, didn’t think it was right to leave a man of his celebrity alone so often.

I began to go out alone.

An awkwardness crept into the apartment whenever the three of us were together. Sometimes when I crawled in late, my wife would look frazzled, hair a little mussed, and Elvis seemed on edge.  I refused to let my imagination poison my thoughts even though my wife had become distant.

One night they confronted me, Elvis being the Southern gentleman that he is. Told me they were in love.

I was furious and raged out of the apartment to my favorite haunt. As I marinated my brain I realized how naïve I had been. It was Elvis for Christ sake, what else did I expect to happen?

But I wasn’t going to take this lying down. What was required was a plan to humiliate them both.  I could have sent Elvis back to his oversized coffin but that was too easy. It took a couple of three finger whiskeys, but when the plan came together in my mind I knew I was on the right track.

I crawled back home and slept the sleep of the dead.

It was tense the following morning when the three of us came face to face. Got even more tense when I told Elvis that he was about to begin a new career. As an Elvis impersonator.

He was furious; he was too proud to sink to that level but finally realized that I held all the cards.

Now my nights out are so much more enjoyable. As I stagger from bar to bar I always make a stop at whatever dive Elvis is performing in. It is sweet revenge to see my wife’s tears as she watches him suffer and sweat on stage with a no talent garage band.  Sweeter revenge watching him pathetically trying to convince people that he is the real Elvis, in his drunken and weaker moments. They look at him with pity in their eyes and buy him another drink.

Yeah, Elvis is a drinker now. He thought Colonel Parker was hell on earth. Colonel Parker was nothing compared to me.

Banana flavored liqueur with creamy peanut butter blended in. Not a very manly drink but Elvis always had his own style.