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"Jerry. Are you ready to assume the position?" Elvis asks, sly sneer on his face. He looks jubilant. Bouncy. Happy.
"I'm ready, E."
"Alright, here we go."
As you'd done together on many nights like this one, you step closer to each other until your hips are nearly lined up. Right foot forward, left foot back, in the start of a lunge. The outer edges of your knees and calves touching. Your back to the stage, and Elvis at a slight diagonal to your right, facing you. The lights are down.
The low bass note to the Odyssey intro begins, and you can feel its vibrato buzzing through you. Elvis is holding his right arm bent at the elbow, fingers outstretched, palm open. You mirror the gesture. Your hands clasp together, fingers gripping firmly around each other. Your skin dry and warm. He looks you straight in the eye, his glance unmoving, serious. You look into his eyes in a gesture of reciprocation. You try to match his fierce look of determination, of forced sternness masking nervous excitement.
The first three notes of the stage intro chime, each one ascending in pitch. Without breaking eye contact, you each stretch your left leg farther behind you, dropping down into a full lunge. Your right knee bends at a 90-degree angle, just as you've practiced. You press your legs into each other, using the force of each other's weight to keep your balance. Your forearms squeeze together, touching all the way from where you join at the elbows up to your tightly cupped palms. This is your moment.
You take deep breaths in anticipation of the mental and physical exercise ahead of you. You've come so far to be here. You've overcome countless challenges, fought your way through the hard and unforgiving outside world, to wind up here, backstage, with Elvis. Although there are people all around you buzzing with excitement - some taking it in quietly, some joking casually in small groups, some muttering urgently into walkie-talkies - they don't matter now. They might as well not even exist. Right now this is just about you and him, and those strong physical points where your bodies make contact, and the sharp-as-daggers looks flashing between your unblinking sets of eyes.
The brass section jumps in full-force with the first DA-DUM sound, which explodes and echoes across the stage. You can hear members of the audience gasp as the curtain begins to open. Elvis tightens his grip on your hand in time with the music, squeezing, pumping you up. It's go time.
Tutt thunders in on the drums, bringing goosebumps to your upper arms and along the base of your neck. You picture him sitting at his kit on the stage behind you, arms pounding up and down to the beat, his hair thrashing wildly as he brings down one stick and then another. You squeeze Elvis's hand back as you pull your forearm toward your body, and you feel his muscles tighten as they do the same. Your intense gazes bore into each other as you gradually increase the force of your pushing and pulling. You brace the outer edges of your front legs against each other and lean in as your arms pull out. You feel strong; stable. You're careful to pay attention to each other's strength and force, and to match each other closely as the power building inside you intensifies.
The opening three notes ring out again. Strong, clear, unrushed. You can smell Elvis's freshly applied cologne - Brut, the same one you'd started to use sometimes while you were in high school after you found out that it was his preferred brand. Not that you were trying to be like him, or to be him, per se. But you thought that if it worked for him, it could work for you, too. You can feel a small bit of sweat starting to form where your fingers touch, though your grip remains strong and tight. You each lean in closer, and you can see a small smile trying to force its way onto his lips, but he's determined to stay strong and focused. Your muscles begin to wake up and you feel the first inklings of exertion that will soon lead to a satisfying burn.
The brass section explodes again for the second DA-DUM, this one more intense than the first. Heavenly choir voices chime in to join it. Matching the onset of the sound, Elvis suddenly curls his lips out and bares his teeth at you. You feel his arm muscles tense as he does, while a low karate growl rolls past his clenched jaw. He's trying to see if he can catch you off-guard, send you out of balance, but you're privy to the score. You've played this game with him before. You brace yourself more strongly, pulling back at him with equal intensity while you contort your face into what you feel is probably the same expression. You growl back, suppressing the urge to laugh, and see that Elvis is doing the same. His grip relaxes for a fraction of a second while he regains his composure, and then it's back full strength as he closes his lips back into the stern expression he had on before. Tutt creeps in again with the drum beat while the curtain continues receding toward the wings.
The burning in your thigh becomes more intense now, so you dart your eyes around in search of something to help you focus on your endurance. You try to think of something other than the burning. Your gaze falls to your joined hands, and you follow them down the wrist until you note the colors of your respective sleeves. Elvis's sleeve is bright white, flared, stiff and starkly light against his tanned skin. A shadow hangs down onto his wrist where the fabric gapes open, and as you follow it up to his shoulder you take note of the glimmering jewels and geometric patterns that increase in density and extravagance as they approach his broad shoulders and chest. Your own outfit is considerably less showy, a loose satiny button-down shirt with an open V at the chest, tucked neatly into a pair of black dress slacks. The rings on his fingers bore into your skin as he clenches your palm in his, and you clench back with all your might against them. More sweat starts to gather at the junction where your fingers join, and the harder you clench, it seems, the slipperier it gets. But you keep your grips firm; neither one of you will be the one to back down.
The three notes return again. Each time they repeat they seem to last longer, dragging on, accentuating the burn in your thigh and now in your core. Elvis and you are both holding your breath unintentionally, trying with all your might to stay focused and strong. Your arms are shaking. Your legs are shaking. The heat that's risen to your neck and shoulders turns cold as a small film of sweat begins to bead and evaporate. You can smell the deodorant in your armpits wafting up through your shirt as the heat inside you builds. You look back at Elvis; he looks at you. You feel evenly matched with him, and you feel lucky to be there. Eye for eye, hand for hand, pound for pound, you love this man with all your heart. And you can feel his love for you, too. It's you he kept calling to help him, even when you went away. It's you he asked to join him on the weekends, flying you back and forth from LA to Palm Springs, Memphis, and now Las Vegas, not because you worked for him but because you were friends. Because you loved and respected each other, and you liked each other's company, and when it came down to it you could just talk, that's all you needed, man, just to talk and laugh and be close to this guy that you knew you loved and adored.
Then comes the third DA-DUM. The angelic voices crash around it, lifting it up, extending it into a beautiful crescendo while the orchestra floats the melody up, up, into the ether. The sound makes you feel a sensation of sweetness, like swinging in a sunny rocker on a warm summer day. You both inhale sharply, then exhale in unison, remembering at last what it feels like to breathe. Elvis's smile starts creeping back on his face, and watching him you can't do anything to contain your own smile from spreading. You're trying not to laugh, because that would only make you feel shakier. This is the final countdown; the final moment of power and strength.
You push and pull with all your might, but despite the shaking in your limbs you both stay strong as a rock. Squeezing his hot and sweaty hand with your own, your forearms pressing together tightly, you're so close to him that you feel a connection surely no one else could have. He is your friend, your brother. His rings dig into the skin of your fingers, but you can barely register the pain. In that moment with your arms tugging across each other, your legs pressing together, the strength of your body matched perfectly with his, the barest hint of a question forms.
You look into his eyes, their cool blue watching you back now with an equal softness. His hair is so perfectly combed back and shaped, just the way he likes it. Heat radiates from your chest all the way down your arm and into your hand, and you're sure he is experiencing the same sensation. Is the heat you feel from him, this connection, is it - could it be - something more than brotherly love?
You don't feel the pain of the burn anymore; you don't register the shaking in your leg. You're entirely focused on him now, the look of appreciation in his eyes, and wonder briefly if you were meant to be together. Maybe that's why despite your traveling, despite leaving the group, despite the angst and anguish and the feelings that sometimes can happen, maybe that's why he kept coming back to you, and you kept coming back to him when he called. The thought tugged at your stomach and up into your chest. Was there something in the way your legs rubbed together, the way your fingers gripped each other, that felt even better than it should? Better than, perhaps, you thought was possible?
The orchestra and the voices rise up to the finale, and Tutt begins to tittle in lightly as the final grand notes ascend. Elvis's smile widens to fill his perfect movie-star face, and he's looking at you with an expression of pure, unfiltered love. It's been your moment, the two of you, but now it's his moment, and you're the last person he'll see or touch before he walks onto that stage. The curtain finishes opening and though your back is to it, obscuring your view, you can feel the whoosh of the air as the heavy fabric glides by you and comes to a wavering stop.
The concerto finishes and Tutt wastes no time in jumping right into his pounding rock-'n'-roll beat, jungle drums booming and cymbals crashing. You both know what this sound means - you made it. It's time. Elvis gives your hand one final, brotherly squeeze before he lets go and hops out of his lunge, his left foot swinging and coming down in front of his right. He doesn't look back. He takes the stage with the pride and virility of an escaped beast as the guitar powers through his opening vamp, horns close behind, audience screaming so loud they're surely liable to go deaf. He smiles at the audience, waving, pacing the front of the stage, while you turn and look on from the wings.
He doesn't look back at you, but you know. You can feel it. His love for you that is more than emotional, more than physical, more than familial, but something that rises above all three. You know because that's the same love that pours out of you, and you hope he can feel it, too. You can still feel the phantom shake in your leg where you were pressing against him, the lingering ache of the points where his rings nearly crushed your fingers. The burning fire in your core that may not be only due to the physical challenge you just endured. You wipe his sweat off your hand and onto your trouser leg. The energy was there. The energy he walked onto that stage with was part his, and part yours, and you feel your own sense of pride in knowing that you helped him make it; you helped get him there.
This is going to be a great show. Just like the two shows last night, just like the ones the night before, just like the ones tomorrow. You'll be there for him every time. Waiting for his strong grip, his knowing smile, his friendly gaze. His laughter. You'll be there to pump him up, to talk him down, to be his friend whenever he needs you. You know the love is there. The power is there. You can feel it.