Nameless Star

“Fifteen minutes until show time sir”
The state manager’s assistant was warning him for the fifth time. He is getting too old.
“I’m getting too old” he said to himself.
He wonders how those big bands, those Rolling Stones, those ___, how do they do this shit year after year? He was almost 40. He should have taken better care of himself. But he never did, he never had to. They always took care of him. Better yet, she always took care of him.
He didn’t start out this way. The life dragged him down. The more his star rose, the more his morals and soul sank.
But they had left him. They left him to this life. It’s not his fault, they just went away. They left him to find their love in the bottom of shot glasses, in needles, in girl that hung out backstage. It was their entire fault.
Twenty years ago, his band was all that mattered. They were young and free, that first summer was the best. They were on top of the world. How could he know after that summer it would all be over?
His drummer, the one who always kept him in good spirits, even let him crash on his couch when his mom kicked him out, that guy abandoned him and had the nerve to go to college. He always thought they would be educated in the hard knock school of rock. But no. he went away. No he is head of a social work department
Then there was his bass player. He always helped write the songs. He kept it fun and light. He would write and produce them sure, but he didn’t have the magic to sing the. And what did he do? Multimillion dollar music producer who had the audacity to tell him he would not produce and of his music because he was high risk
Ok just because he didn’t come to a couple of sessions because he was al little too high from a party the night before. Nobody is perfect!
The lead guitarist was the biggest betrayal. He created the band, helped write the songs too, found and paid for the instruments he even taught him how to sing. He kept them away from drugs, said it would mess up his vocals, his skin and his life. What kind of lead singer would he be if all that was jacked up?
So instead he put down his guitar and turned to politics. He would rather bust drug rings and fight for the little guy than play all those years with him.
Finally there was her. She wasn’t a groupie or a roadie. Sure she manned the merch table at a few shows. But she was much more. You could count on her to be there at the last minute when no one else would. She tuned instruments, sang back up, did public relations even. She was a sister to him. He had caught the longing look in her eyes a couple times and just ignored it. He just couldn’t see her that way.
After she left it was all downhill. She met a man, got married, had a couple kids, she is even the vice president of some company.
So he bounced from girl to girl to get only little pieces of what she gave.
After they all left him and moved on, he fell in with a sleazy manager who promised to make him a house hold name. Well he did. The band went from bar to bar paying 80’s covers boozing and drugging it up from town to town. The industry called him the next Sid Vicious with half the talent.
The guys the manager picked for his band could care less about him. They didn’t bond or share. They just pose for the camera and bring him more girls and drugs. No one cared about his health. The would find him shooting up and take the needle out of his arm just long enough to stick it in themselves. They passed women along with the same feeling.
They visited him he was told. One day about 10 years ago. They had heard he was in a town where they could all meet up. They wasted two hours yelling and screaming and he was too doped up to notice or care. But really, they were wrong for leaving him like that. They should have taken him away from it all.
Wasn’t that their job he wondered?
But it was their entire fault. He never did anything wrong.
But they yelled and screamed and left and went back to their little lives. And he went back to his big dreams.
He looked in the mirror and whipped at the eyeliner one more time. It was too dark, too think and too much. Another night and another bar.
He goes on the tiny stage with a heavy heart. But the truth was his heart was a little heavier than usual, as well as his chest and his left arm.
Not here, not now he thought. How could it all catch up to him now?
He’s too old for this shit.