Page 2 of Country Heat

I stand in front of the mic and they get even louder. I hope those rain clouds in the distance come this way and drench them all. Now that would be a show.

I clear my throat into the mic and they holler like chimps.

“Hello, Tennessee,” I say. More screaming. “I’m Cash Edwards and this isBroken Rancher.”

The drummer, Mike or Mark or whatever the fuck the new guy’s name is, starts playing and a tsunami of screams from the ocean of idiots comes surging at us.

I grin, wondering what would happen if instead of singing I start railing into them. Telling themexactlywhat I think of them. These fans are a curse. They’ve ruined my life. I can’t even get a pack of cigarettes without getting mobbed by a dozenrecording phones shoved into my face. I’m a fucking prisoner. My life is a joke.

I got no one. I got nothing. Yeah, I have cars and houses and far too many fucking watches for someone with only two wrists. Why are people always giving me watches? I can’t even go into a business meeting without coming out with a goddamn new shiny gold watch. I don’t even wear watches.

These fucking people… They’re all looking up at me with wide eyes and big smiles. Most of them want to be me. They’d change places with me if they could. What they don’t know is that I would change places with them in a second. Even that weirdo with the pink hair and white sunglasses on.

See, they get to go home with their friends and be with their families while I get to go to another lonely hotel room all by myself. Unable even to get ice for my drink because a bunch of annoying fans are waiting in the hall to snap a picture of me.

They get to have a normal life. I getthis. People screaming at me. Shoving phones in my face. They don’t know a thing about me and they don’t care. They wouldn’t be cheering if they knew the real me. They’d be leaving for the parking lot.

I spent my career singing songs about broken hearts and lost loves, but I haven’t had either. I’ve never had any of the feelings I sing about. It’s all bullshit. It’s all fake. It’s all pandering to the crowd so they’ll open their wallets. I’m a con artist who sings about love, but all I have is apathy. All I have is numbness.

My part comes and I start singing out of habit. I’m not even paying attention to the bullshit words. I’m just going through the motions. Phoning in another lackluster performance.

“She took my heart in the county fair,

Crushed it to pieces like she didn’t care.”

The crowd is dancing and singing along. It’s a huge party but it feels like I’m the only one who wasn’t invited.

I keep singing as I scan the crowd. A girl lifts up her shirt and shows me her tits. Like I give a fuck. I’ve seen so many tits at so many shows that they’re as exciting to me as seeing a seagull in a parking lot. Put your shirt down, lady. I don’t fucking care.

“Feelings coming in like an avalanche,

I’m falling to pieces on my daddy’s ranch.”

They all cheer when I hit the chorus.

I’m not even paying attention. I just want to get through this so I can lay in bed at the hotel, open a bottle of Jack, and binge-watch some shitty show on Netflix until I pass out.

The song finishes with a pounding of the drums and the crowd erupts.

Ah fuck, what’s the next song?

I pull out the cue card from my back pocket and… oh, mother fucker! Of all the shit songs in my shit catalog,Busted and Bruisedmust be my most hated.

I wrote this in my early twenties back when the creativity was flowing like a river, instead of the dried-up dusty desert it is now. I wrote it in twenty minutes. It came to me fully formed like a dream while I was mowing my mom’s lawn. I ran into the garage before I lost it and scribbled it onto an instruction manual for my dad’s chainsaw. He was so pissed.

Once I got it recorded and put it out into the world, it was the number one country hit for thirty-six weeks straight.

I’m forty-two and I now realize that it was no dream that came to me that day. It was a fucking nightmare. A curse. That song was what made me blow up and my horrible life has never been the same since.

“Anyone here ever feel busted and bruised up?”

The crowd ignites in a fit of moronic cheering.

I sigh as the bass guitar starts.

One more time for the idiots…

Fucking hell…

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