Short Stories

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He was sitting at the bar sipping a cocktail when we walked in. It was our first night at another small club in the middle of nowhere. Barking out flatulent recycled music, from "Buddy Holly to Bon Jovi", our cards read. We were weekend warriors, poets, stuff dreams are made of. We had it made, or so thought the drunken crowds that followed us around. "Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll" was their battle cry, ours was "Play, Get Paid, Load the Truck", then off to work Monday morning. Wondering if anyone would ever discover us in a bowling-alley bar, just west of civilization on a one-lane blacktop in central Illinois.

He had a metal cage around his head, I guess to keep his jaw on. The bullet had smashed up his face pretty bad but not enough to keep the liquor from cascading down his throat. People were talking to him now; maybe that’s why he did it. They would slide by, make gestures of concern, buy him another drink, and then slap him on the back. Fulfilling some sort of dysfunctional duty, all the while keeping their own ghosts at bay. I could not wrap my head around his solution as easily as it seemed for him to wrap his lips around the barrel. But he did have friends now, I guess.

Must have been a slow simmer, a bizarre recipe for popularity; Place barrel into mouth, pull trigger, survive, voila!

I couldn’t help but stare, and the thought of entertaining him all night did not appeal at all to my own dysfunction. Why was he here to see us? We were just a handful of raggedy wannabe’s hanging on to the same cyclical dream that has plagued attention whores for centuries. The elusive chase for fame & fortune. Re-invent the musical wheel; "Bruce Springsteen is outside in his Limo waiting to sneak in the backdoor so he can be wowed by our musical prowess and screaming rendition of Not Fade Away!"
While I croon for a man with his head in a cage, who months ago could find nothing to live for. And now the thought of him sitting in an alcoholic Petri dish with a Frankenstein Hat on, sipping sour mash, seems like something to live for? I wondered if he would mind sharing his Opiates.

He stayed the whole time, a metallic shiny barfly, watching me fantasize that I am the illegitimate son of Steven Tyler. Bandannas flaying wildly, 100 feet of microphone dragging behind me and a handful of flash paper to burst out of my hands, like a cheap magician at a children’s birthday party.

In this sweaty den of musical inspiration and swaying bohemian bodies, architecture was never consulted in anticipation for the arrival of "Garage Band". So of course, the bathroom is right behind the stage, and the only way to get there is to cut through the band, take a quick left and make peace with your bladder.

Late in the evening Ironsides wheeled past us in his metal recliner, sporting his Tim Burton designer headgear. I had completely forgotten him as we prepared to crescendo into an earsplitting rendition of T. Rex’s Bang-A-Gong. I hovered over the foot switch that would soon send fire & smoke billowing up into the ceiling, bringing the drunken mass to its knees and surely launching us into legendary Bar Band status. At the exact moment I stomped the magic button, sending a small mushroom cloud towards the rafters, the Tinman rolled out of the hallway from the bathroom and exploded out of a ball of fire like a Roman Candle spitting white hot wheelchairs. For a brief moment I thought I had finished what he had tried and failed to do.

The crowd went wild for suicide guy, a Phoenix rising from the smoke & ash of misfortune. Life had dealt him a crappy hand, and then mocked him as he botched his grand exit. And with one stomp of my foot, I shot him out of a cannon and made him a part of the band! He was an instant celebrity, with nothing more than a wheelchair, a tin hat, the ability to roll on the downbeat and a face full of flash powder. He was back!
Fate has a twisted sense of humor.
“More drinks”, the crowd yelled.

And the band played on.

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