Pistol Whipped for the Reunion Tour

1. Chapter 1

Lose Yourself

Rain

You get one shot, one opportunity, to get everything you ever wanted. So, what happens if you capture it, and it goes to shit?

The answer: you end up in a run-down apartment, over an even more run-down bar in the dodgiest part of downtown Calder. Scrounging for tips every night from people who don’t have their own two dollars to rub together, let alone to give to you.

I’m no stranger to The Neck, or so the locals call it because everyone living here gets squeezed too damn hard.

The opposite, the part of Calder you see on postcards, only exists high up in the hills that surround the city.

It’s also got a nickname. The Head, because up there, they get to see above the clouds.

There, old money and new money mix behind private gates.

It’s even home to the Rothbergs, the family behind the comm-tech giant, Rothus Industries, and rumoured to be one of the country’s wealthiest families.

I’ve lived down in The Neck most of my life, except those few crazy years when I didn’t really live anywhere other than a tour bus, so I know how to spot’em, the junkies using behind the dumpster, the guys who drive their fancy cars down from the hills just to pick up hookers and get a taste of the rough, the kids who have to come to the bar and knock on the back door, asking after their dads who were supposed to be home hours ago.

I sure know how to pick’em too. The thrum of music from the bar comes through the apartment floor, no surprise really, since there are visible holes in the battered hardwood, but it gets even louder when Trey comes in.

As far as boyfriends go, he’s not the worst. He doesn’t do hard drugs or hit me.

But he’s not the best either. He doesn’t love me, which suits me just fine, because I stopped looking for love ten years and one shattered recording contract ago.

“Yo, Rain. Get your ass downstairs! Now!” he screams over the ear-piercing sound of an amp being poorly tuned. Did I mention he’s also my boss?

I hear him mumble the word “useless” before he slams the door.

“Happy birthday to me, I guess,” I rage-whisper to myself.

It’s not like I expected Trey to make a big fuss or anything, but a little acknowledgement would be nice.

A girl doesn’t turn thirty every day. Then again, neither of us can afford to do much celebrating.

Not when the landlord let him know that the rent is going up. Again.

I’m supposed to be downstairs behind the bar already, and I was down there when we opened at five, but after a few hours, I needed a fucking minute to myself. I hate Thursdays. And my birthdays.

It’s open mic night, hence the torturing of perfectly good sound equipment.

Something that will be a fairly regular occurrence between now and midnight, when every single person inside Flynn’s will be either too drunk, too high, or both to actually take the stage.

If I’m lucky, tonight will be one of the nights where no one recognizes me.

I’ll get to tend bar, pass out cheap whiskey, and pour pints without being harassed.

It happens more than you’d think, which is no surprise since I don’t exactly look like Rain Gamble, the glamorous lead singer of The Preaching Pistols anymore.

My signature violet hair is long gone and all those crazy clothes I wore on stage, well, turns out they never belonged to me.

All I’m left with in their place are second-hand jeans and whatever shirts I can find at the thrift shop in my size.

Still, every once in a while, someone new will show up at the bar, and after a few squints in my direction, ask the inevitable questions.

“Hey, do I recognize you from somewhere?” or “Hey, aren’t you that chick from that band?”

Those are the nights that I almost snap, where I almost jump to the other side of the bar so I can join my fellow drunks.

Because in addition to being a washed-up rockstar, I just had to embrace the stereotype by becoming an alcoholic too.

At least I’m a recovering one now. Sober four years.

It was the fight of my fucking life, and still, the itch is there.

Not all the time, like it was in the beginning, but it’s present. Especially on nights like tonight.

I fix my pathetic greying ponytail and head for the stairs.

With each step, the sound of badly played chords gets louder.

The door swings and I step into Flynn’s, where I can confirm that the gentleman on stage, and I use that term veryyyyy loosely, does in fact have no idea how to play guitar.

Nor, as I turn to the bar, am I even sure why Trey said he needed me down here.

Maybe so he could have an audience while he flirts with Resa, the new bartender he just hired.

One of the perks of being the manager is you get to do the hiring, and Trey only hires girls he wants to fuck.

Not that I can complain. It’s how I got the job.

Truthfully, I don’t give a shit if he fucks her either.

So long as he does it out back and not in our apartment.

Oh, and provided he washes his dick afterwards.

A little piece of advice from Grams, given back when I was sixteen and didn’t need it because I was too busy making heart-eyes at Cohen Brady, the boy from the right side of the tracks and hanging out with the Kelly brothers, the boys who, like me, were born and bred on the wrong side.

Now, however, it’s valuable advice. Especially since my so-called boyfriend insists on sticking his dick in any girl that’ll have him.

Hours later, while I’m emptying the trash, I’m proved right when I hear the tell-tale slapping sounds from behind the dumpster.

I don’t look, and they don’t stop. Later, I’ll pretend not to notice that he smells like her when he climbs into bed beside me.

For now, I finish the last of the clean-up alone.

Not that the bar looks any better. It’s still got scratched floors, a pool table in the corner that’s all but stripped of its felt, the furniture is still mismatched, and only half the lights work.

I don’t know who owns this place, but they certainly don’t give a fuck.

As usual, I leave the toilets until last. I’m not surprised by the number of used needles I find.

Calder, or at least The Neck, is widely known to be a hotspot for drugs, crime, violence and every other bad thing parents warn their kids about.

Those people that have parents, anyway. It’s also a place where people are just trying to survive.

The people that society chews up and spits out.

I might be sober now, but I still see myself in every one of the drunks staggering around these streets.

By the time I’m done, I desperately need a shower.

I drag my ass upstairs. With no sign of Trey or Resa.

I hope that means she’s taken him back to her place for the night so I can have the bed to myself.

It’s that bed I head straight for once I’m upstairs.

Not because I’m skipping the shower. That’s non-negotiable, given that I reek of booze.

It’s because there, buried in a hole in the underside of the mattress, is the yellowing envelope where I hide my tips.

“Happy birthday to me,” I whisper for the second time tonight.

This time with a smile as I add the fifty bucks I made tonight to my little nest egg.

Slowly but surely, night by night, drink by drink, I’m saving up in the hope that I won’t have to spend my next birthday in this hellhole, that I won’t grow old in my own personal version of Salem’s Lot.