Miles nailed the last note of the set perfectly. His lungs were empty and every emotion in his body had been poured into the microphone and echoed across the venue to hundreds of adoring fans. The lights went out and the crowd continued to roar. The venue smelled like sweat, smoke and stale booze. The front man clipped the mic back to the mic stand and walked back stage, being careful not to trip over cables as he did. He nodded to the venue's staff and fans with backstage tickets as he stepped by. The band has been on tour for 7 months straight. They started by headlining their own tour in support of their latest record at the end of May. They caught Warped Tour for August and September and are now co-headlining another tour. Touring is exhausting. The days blur together and take their toll on every aspect of your life. You don't have a home, relationships are strained, sleep is scarce, time alone is even more scarce. You live and die by per diems, showers when you can get them, and fresh laundry when you're lucky enough to do it. It's not as glamorous as the movies, magazines and MTV make it seem. It's work.
The seasons have changed and the temperature has gone from warm to bone-chattering cold. This show in St. Louis was especially cold. One more show tomorrow night and he could go home for the first time in 7 months. Miles sat down on the grimy couch in the dressing room, warn from years of other wannabe rockstars sitting in it, riding all their hopes and dreams on one show, one stage, and this couch before them both. He leaned over and opened the mini fridge next to it. What he wanted wasn't in the fridge though, he didn't know why he bothered opening it. He looked on the counter in front of the massive, wall sized mirror. There it was. Jameson. He grabbed a plastic cup, dropped a few ice cubes in it, twisted off the cap and poured a drink.
He slouched back on to the couch. He thought about the year so far. It had been rough. He struggled to write the last record, hadn't been home much, and a very dear friend of his had died from cancer. He felt worthless. He had become a professional hazard. He had a voice, a guitar and a half finished college degree. He drank too much. At that thought, he took a swig. He fucked too many girls. Another swig. The whiskey burned his throat. He gritted his teeth and took in a breath and let the whiskey soaked air out. He squandered most of his money on alcohol. He always thought musicians were paid more. Maybe the good ones were. The only time he really felt alive was in front of three hundred fans, hiding behind a mic, screaming out every mistake he made, every insecurity he had, and every memory he wanted to erase.
He kept thinking about how he got here. The things he gave up. What would it be like if he hadn't fucked around so much in college? A desk job? A steady pay check? He always told himself things aren't always greener on the other side. It made him feel better until he thought about it again. He replayed most of his life on that couch, staring into a rapidly emptying Solo cup of Jameson. "God damn, not even glass" he thought as he took another sip. He remembered love, family, music, triumphs, failures and a lot of half completes. He was thankful this was the first show each band member had their own room so he could spend some time alone. Otherwise, the room would currently be filled with several girls looking to party. He would gladly give them what they were looking for. He'd even put on a smile while he did it. It was all hollow. The girls just wanted to be able to say they fucked a rockstar. He'd played that game before. Too many times.
He poured another glass. He was starting to get drunk now. He picked up an acoustic guitar in the dressing room and started playing one of the first songs he ever wrote. He remembered writing it in the basement of his parents' house in Pennsylvania during a break between semesters in college when he was 20. He wrote it about some girl he had fallen fast and hard for. He didn't play the song to remind him of her, although he remembered her vividly. He played it to remind him of simpler times. He played on, going back years and years to familiar places and familiar faces. Each chord melting away a layer of compunction and self-reproach. The only audience in the room were the four pale walls dimly lit from florescent bulbs and various empty beer bottles scattered through out the tiny room. He wasn't singing out loud, but he remembered all the lyrics. The song ended with a line he loved, "Anyone have a spare gun? I've got a bullet." When the song was over, he came spiraling back to his half drunk reality. He set the guitar on the couch cushion next to him.
There was a story behind the line in the song. In one of the first apartments Miles rented in college, while trying to fix a loose plank in the wooden floor in his kitchen, he found a bullet underneath. He kept it, vowing to do something cool with it. It mainly stayed on his kitchen counter when he wasn't showing it off to someone. It was a hit for drunk girls at a party. He wrote the song shortly after he found it. A bullet with no gun, how rock and roll? Weeks later, another floor board became loose. When fixing that one, he uncovered a pistol. A .38 Special from the 1930s. It had a wooden grip, and the gun was black metal. The serial number, 214914, could be seen easily. There was one other unique quality to the gun. On the bottom of the grip someone had carved "The Kiss Off". It still fired, as he discovered a few days later after a professional cleaning and a trip to a gun range. He took it with him on the road. So rock and roll he thought. A mobster's pistol on the road with him. That pistol had inspired quite a few lyrics to Miles. He wouldn't be caught dead writing a song about a revolver called "Russian Roulette," though. Or, even consider using that word in a song that also included the word pistol. It's too cliche.
He stood up from the couch, grabbed the guitar by its neck, and walked to the counter with the Jameson on it. He dropped a few cubes in his cup, twisted the cap and poured another drink. He took a sip, cup in one hand, guitar in the other. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He didn't recognize who he had become in the last five years. There he stood, looking over the rim of the world into the eyes of the blurry, bourbon saturated reality he had crafted for himself. He realized exactly what he was doing. Another whiskey drenched diatribe of self loathing and how depressed he was and how fucked his life is. The truth was, there wasn't a single problem in his life that he hadn't created for himself. He made his life one giant cliche. A depressed wannabe rockstar. He wanted to be something real. To feel something real. Instead, he rocked and fucked his way to his apocolypse. He was Kurt Cobain, but not half as cool.
He picked up a bag from the counter and carried it back to the couch with him. He set the guitar back on the cushion next to him. He took a deep drink and unzipped the bag. Digging around, he found it. He pulled the pistol out of the bag by its grip. It was always heavier than he expected. He pushed in the latch, releasing the cylinder. He gave it a spin. The matte, black metal didn't give off much of a glare. He ran his fingers across the grooves of the serial number. Reaching back in to the bag, he pulled out a single bullet, placed it in the cylinder, gave it another spin, and closed it. He slwoly pulled back the hammer, it cocked with a click. He finished his drink with a long, deep pull followed by silent, airy burp that tasted like Jameson. "Fitting," he thought to himself "I always said I was going to do something cool with this bullet." He placed the barrel of the .38 to his right temple. He clenched his jaw and slowly began to squeeze the trigger. As he squeezed he could faintly hear the crowd, still in the venue.
"Encore, encore, encore!"
He stared at a picture on the counter, next to the bottle of Jameson before gently closing his eyes. He pulled the trigger the rest of the way. The hammer slammed down. The sound was deafening.
How cliche.
