Bright Lights & Glass Houses

It's a hot, dry night. The kind of night which makes your clothes stick to your body, dampness creeping up your spine as you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. There's not a breeze around. No respite from the burning darkness.

  The stars are shining. The only unnatural light is the bulb flickering on the porch of the small gas-station nearly a mile away. The land is perfectly flat and I can see for miles in any direction. Even in this darkness, the moon glows and gives me a view of the desert. Sand, dust, a long lonely road which rarely plays host to travelers.

  Only two kinds of people come this way.

  The chair is hard against my back, the old wood still as firm as the day it was shaped. It creaks slightly as I shift my weight and then silence.

  My hands rest in my lap as I close my eyes and listen to the words of a man who knows he is going to die.

  Fifty two minutes and four seconds later, it's over. He's told me everything he needed to say.

  As usual the words make little sense to me. They move me, but they're not aimed at me. They never were. They were for him, and him alone.

  I stand up and the chair legs scrape along the decking slightly, disturbing the peace. My hands are cold but the heat remains. In the distance a cloud of flies is hovering over something. Maybe a dead coyote. Maybe more.

  I turn and enter the house.

  She lies sleeping in the twin bed. Her breasts rise and fall under the thin sheet, her mouth open slightly in a smile. Her hand is resting beside her head on the pillow, curled into a half-fist. Softly I walk over to her and place my hand in hers. She murmurs something in her sleep, something that makes her smile more. Her hand grips mine and I tense, wondering if she will wake. She does not.

  So young. So pure. Just married, living out in the middle of nowhere with the hopes of starting a family someday, content with a simple existence.

  I almost feel regret.

  I tell her I love her and leave the room.

  Into the kitchen, standing by the window.

  There is a small, fenced-off yard. Near the end of the yard is a shed in which sits a dormant generator. No sense in firing it up in the night-time.

  Beside the shed it sits. The motorcycle, skeletal and ruined.

  Best not to think about it.

  I have to walk past it to get to the shed. I try not to look.

  I don't look.

  I can't hear any more. It's too hot.

  The inside of the shed is almost entirely black. Tiny pinpricks of moonlight shine through gaps in the wooden walls, but they do not light the way. I reach into my pocket and take out my gas lighter. Its meager flame is enough to help me find what I want.

  Outside, and unexpectedly the wind rises in electrical crescendo. Clouds of sand are kicked up from the desert floor, the grains dancing a crazy pirouette then settling back down. The breeze is not refreshing. It's suffocating. I cover my mouth and go back into the house. There is nothing else out here for me.

  I tread carefully through the kitchen, careful to avoid the creaking floorboard near the sink.

  Back into the bedroom. She's moved now. One hand is resting by her side, the other lightly touching her cheek. There's no trace of a smile on her lips now. Only pure, blissful peace.

  It makes what I'm about to do easier.

  I'm clutching my prize from the shed tightly in my hand. My palm is slick with sweat. Heat or nervousness? The former. It weighs me down.

  The guitar is heavy. It feels unfamiliar to me. It's been too long.

  Gently I place it on the end of the bed, holding my breath in case the shift in weight stirs my wife. It does not.

  I kneel beside the bed and reach under blindly. Somehow my hands connect with what I'm looking for. A case. I pull it out from under the bed as silently as I can.

  Then, with case and guitar in hand I go back outside onto the porch.

  He's waiting for me. The man in black.

  We do not say a word to each other. I set the case on the chair and unfasten the clasps, rusted with age.

  The contents look new, as they always do. I remove them one by one. The shoes. The shirt. The glasses. I catch a faint smell of days past, the smell of sweat and young enthusiasm. On the wind I hear the whisper of crowds cheering, idealistic youths calling my name. Of the first chord being drawn from a guitar, the first beat being struck on the drum. The crackle of the microphone.

  Every ending is a beginning.

  I stand before the man in black. The uniform is on. The mask is pulled down over my eyes once again.

  He nods to me again and leads me to the dark limousine sitting a few feet away from the house. I did not hear it arrive. He holds the door open for me and I sink into the air-conditioned interior of the car, handing him my guitar as I do.

  He places it in the trunk, carefully.

  The man in black gets into the front of the limo, into the driver's seat.

  He turns to look at me, a wry smile on his face?

  "Where to, sir?"

  "I think you know," I tell him.

  He knows. He always knows.

  The car starts with a low hum. Clouds of dust are kicked up as we begin to drive off, heading away from the house onto that lonely road. I do not look back. I never do.

  "Driver faster." I tell the man in black. "Drive faster than the Devil."

  He looks into the rear-view mirror with amusement.

  "But sir," the man in black says, "the Devil's riding with us."

  I nod and smile. It's the usual exchange.

  We're going to see the bright lights tonight. We're going to make you feel like you belong tonight. Tonight, we will change lives. Like a rush of blood to the head, like a shock to the heart, rock and roll will never die.

  Will the mask ever slip for you? Can you look beyond the smile, the happiness? Can you taste the subtlety?

  One of these days, I tell myself, I'll stop. One of these days, I tell myself, I'll retire to that house in the desert, with my beautiful woman, grow old and die in the dust, forgotten and complacent and happy. But not today.

  And deep down I know I'll die out here, on the road, on stage, in a hotel room. We all do, one way or another. We never get out. We can't get out, it's not how we are. We wouldn't want it any other way, any of us. Not me, not them, and especially not him.

  I miss you, old man. You goddamn son-of-a-bitch. I miss you. I miss you all.

  XV - Acronyms