Bounty(57)

Mr. T would be disappointed with me.

I looked to the front of the bar where they’d pushed back and scrunched together the tables so they could lay the makeshift stage. And I watched and listened to the band, remembering Granddad telling me the stories of the road. The dive bars. The honkytonks. Playing for cash handed over at the end of the gig, cash barely enough to gas up the car and buy the band an end-of-gig meal at a late-night diner. Sometimes the cash was short so things would get dicey. So as they got bigger, more well-known, which meant more asses in seats and even traveling groupies, they’d actually had to employ a manager who was mostly an enforcer so no one would fuck them over.

Dad had had a little of that. He’d had to pave part of his own way. Prove his salt. Show he had what it took and could give all he had to give.

I hadn’t had that.

I’d had three record labels gagging for it and my choice of producers.

I looked around the bar, seeing folks chair dancing, others off to the sides on their feet just plain dancing.

And I looked around, a funny feeling in my stomach—the bad kind of nostalgia.

But also the kind of feeling I sometimes got around Deke. Having something so close that I wanted so badly. Something that I had a taste of, a piece of. But I’d never taste it fully, have it be mine.

I was feeling all of this thinking I could have killed the road if it had been like this for me.

People out on a Friday night for a good time, a few drinks and that vibe. Just the love of the notes through the amp, the lyrics through the mic, so close to your audience you could see it move over them. Their heads bobbing. Their lips moving. Their bodies swaying. Loud or quiet, the moment of connection lasted as long as the set. And then the next one. In between and after the gig was through, you drank at the bar amongst your people. You weren’t whisked to a dressing room.

You were always right in the thick of it, creating it, building it, that connection. Music, one of the few things that did nothing but make life good, you were it, down to every note for that night in a bar in the middle of nowhere.

The song ended and I stopped bobbing my head, looking to the lead singer as the band didn’t go right into another song.

He started talking.

“No possible way to believe that we’d hit this joint and be in the presence of greatness.”

My scalp started tingling.

Uh-oh.

Lauren and Jim-Billy’s heads turned my way.

Maybe I hadn’t slunk in under radar.

Shit.

“But we are and damn,” the lead went on, “I know you know it’d be more than cool if we could talk the beautiful, the talented, the kickass Justice Lonesome into comin’ up on the stage and joining us in a couple of songs.”

Nope.

Not under radar.

“Shit, crap, shit, crap, shit,” I chanted, doing that trying not to allow my lips to move, staring at the stage where the lead singer was now giving me a broad, in-the-zone rock ‘n’ roll smile.

You could not say no to this.

No one could say no to this without looking like a douche.

Hell, I’d been out with my father on more times than I could count, in a dark corner, thinking we were incognito, just wanting to take in a local band, and he got called out.

He never refused to take the stage.

Not once.

“Shit, crap, shit, crap, shit,” I chanted again.

“What do you say, Justice?” the lead singer prompted, his smile faltering, and I felt but did not look to see folks peering around to find out who he was talking about, spurred to curiosity not only at the man’s words, but at the mention of the name Lonesome.

Or who knew me and were just looking to find me.

“Don’t worry, sister, got my shotgun in the back.” I heard Krys decree and turned my head to see her moving out from behind the back of the bar.

I looked at her, shocked to shit that Jim-Billy had not lied.

She was heading for her shotgun.

“No!” I whispered loudly.

Shit, crap, shit, crap, shit.

Krys scowled at me.

“It’s good,” I decided verbally. “It’s time. It has to come out. It’s a great vibe. Might as well be now. I’ll do it.”

She kept giving me a glare that was also an inspection. “You sure?”

I was not.

“Sure,” I replied.

Krys’s eyes went beyond me to Lauren. “She ain’t sure.”

“Whatever, shut up, I’m going,” I said.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” she snapped.

I could not do this with Krystal now.

So I didn’t.

I looked through Lauren, saw Jim-Billy watching me and felt his hand grab mine and give it a squeeze as I walked past him and heard the stilted clapping that got less and less stilted, stronger and stronger, until there were a couple of hoots and a couple more hollers as I took my first step on stage.