Rockstar

The amp hummed as the roadies finished hooking up the sound system for tonight’s show. They were cutting it close. It was only twenty minutes till. I plopped on a stool provided by the venue and continued obsessively tuning my bass guitar. I spied Ben out the corner of my eye, he was practicing some riffs lightly on his drums while checking his Instagram. A lone neon green electric guitar sat center stage, stealing the limelight. I had to stop looking at it.

“Any idea if Chris will grace us with his presence?” Mac, the manager of the bar tapped his foot impatiently. “People are already lined up outside.”

“Don’t worry about it Mac.” I chuckled to ease the tension. “Chris always pulls through.”

Mac shrugged. My assurances seemed good enough for him. He threw a dirty rag over his shoulder and headed back to the bar.

Though I wasn’t so sure he would show. Chris’s behavior had been getting out of hand recently. It started with the drinking, then the women, and now drugs. We made it on the radio once and he was acting like he was bigger than John Lennon. We had our fair share of fights over it.

“Aye Ben!” I shouted at our near deaf drummer.

“Mmmph?”He grunted in acknowledgement.

“Can you call Chris again? He won’t answer if it’s me. We only have-” I eyed my watch face. “Jesus! We only have 7 minutes till showtime!”

Ben nodded his head solemnly and fished his phone from his skinny jeans.

Suddenly the doors burst open. The sound of ambient chatter and the smell of sweat filled the room immediately. I threw my hands up in exasperation. We still had 7 minutes!

“Sorry guys! They were getting unruly out there! I had to let ’em in!” Mac called from somewhere in the sea of flowing faces.

My heart pounded like the intro to an AC/DC song. Chris was out of time. I looked down at the instrument I had meticulously tuned for the past hour, and then at Chris’s green guitar. It’s glossy coat glared from the spotlights shining down on it. I realized what I had to do, and it terrified me.

I handed the bass off to a roadie off stage and approached the guitar. The moment I assumed the spotlight, my anxiety magnified. I could feel the wandering eyes of the crowd fix on me. I slung the green beauty over my chest and fidgeted with the frets. I looked back at Ben nervously.

He cracked a half smile and slowly raised his drumsticks above his head.

As he clacked them together, I let out a shuddering exhale and counted down.

One–Two–Three–Four

The Bottle

“I’m a fucking loser. A failure.”

Those were the last words out of my mouth while I still drew breath laying in that dark, decrepit alleyway. I was a farmer by trade- used to be a farmer. I hated every moment of it. I took to the bottle a few years ago, threw everything away. I just drove away and left everything in the rearview mirror on a frosty Monday night. I had fantasized about it for decades, and was surprised at how easy it was to walk away from it all.

My wife and kids struggled to run the farm without me. They called in every favor they had but it wasn’t enough. The bank took the farm. My family was forced out onto the street to beg for their next meal.

Me? I wasn’t doing much better. My car broke down in Gardenwood. A shithole of a town in the backwoods of Colorado. I did some hard time for armed robbery. I was in and out of prison for much of the remainder of my life. I did what I had to. Three square meals a day beats starving to death in the cold.

I died with a bottle in my hand right outside Ridgeway’s Bar & Grill. Snow blanketed my body as I laid lifelessly on my side. It took two days for the authorities to find my body.

That wasn’t the end of my suffering. I never bought into all that shit about a life after death. And I am proof it doesn’t exist. I’m not alive, I just. Am. I can feel the difference.

This morning I looked into the mirror and instead of hating what I saw, I just stared blankly. I stared into an endless void searching for any bit of self-loathing, any emotion really. I just wanted to feel again. I wanted to feel shitty. I deserve to feel shitty. I thought I would suffer but death isn’t justice, it just is. It’s the absence of suffering. The absence of everything.

I wake up in the bathroom of Ridgeway’ Bar & Grill everyday to the sound of the owner locking up for the night. I’m not sure if I am trapped here, I’ve never tried to escape. All this time to think back on my life. To think about what I’ve done. And what could have been. But I don’t care. That’s the worst part. I can’t feel anything and it is slowly eroding away at my humanity.

It’s been seven days, but it feels like centuries. I am beginning to think that hell does exist and I am it’s sole occupant.

Being left alone with my thoughts. It’s not justice by any means. It’s just cruel.