rock god

A life without dreams isn’t worth living but she has no problems there because she does have dreams. Two of them to be exact. She wants to lose weight, not that she’ll ever be model skinny but thinner than she is now would be nice. The other dream is more a fantasy than a dream. The one thing she has wanted since the first time she heard that sexy, breathy, gravely voice float from the speakers in her friends car. She fell in love with the band the first time she heard that song that became a huge hit a year or two ago. As she looked for their music she found them to be a rather long running band but this song was only their second hit. Now she had to meet him the sinewy, tattooed, rock-god that played guitar and wrote songs. His songs made her feel like she knew him, like she had always known him and always would. They touched her soul, a place where she was still innocent and fairly unharmed by the bitter, cruel world around her.

She hears on her favorite radio station that they are coming to Denver to play a concert in two months and she reacts as expected, ecstatically. She buys tickets the day they go on sale and wonders how she’s going to wait two months with the tickets stuck to her wall but she manages. She fantasizes about meeting him and showing him the lyrics she has written (the lyrics she has never shown anyone not even her best friend). She wants him to tell her that their beautiful and that she should start a band and write all the songs. She sees him as inhuman and god-like and his opinion would mean everything to her. Did she only have two dreams? No, she had more than that she just refused to admit they were more than fantasies. She was scared of wanting so much because if she didn’t get them they would become disappointments. She did want it though. She wanted to start a band with two guys and write the songs, sing lead, and play the bass but she didn’t even know how to play bass.

The two months passed much quicker than she expected and she and her best friend were headed to the outdoor concert in the pouring rain. (For her this only made it better because she loved rain.) Outside of the concert all the local radio stations had booths set up and her favorite was about to start a contest for backstage passes. She pulled her friend into the line hoping, no praying that she would win. The DJ sang two lines of the hit song that made her fall in love with the band and she had to sing the next line. Not only did she know the next line but to her amazement no one in front of her could get it quite right. She won the passes and was told that the DJ was going to go back with them after the concert.

The concert started a few minutes later and she danced and screamed and sang her way through the nearly orgasmic experience. His voice and words carrying across the sea of people as if they were meant only for her. It rained the entire time but she was so delirious from the excitement that she forgot about the rain and looked down to find the newly bought T-shirt soaked completely through. They played all their new songs and a lot of their old songs including that hit that she knew so well. She knew all the words to all the songs. After an encore in which they played her favorite, she and her best friend ran to the stage door where the DJ was supposed to meet them. He arrived a few minutes after them because he got caught up in the flow of people trying to leave. They flashed their passes and went backstage. She felt so insignificant and not worth noticing among the crowd of half-dressed and beautiful groupies. Though she criticized them she really wished that she was one of them and had managed to get backstage on her good looks alone but she wasn’t and she didn’t.

They found the band in a room near the back sitting around with the other band head-lining the tour with them. The DJ walked over and introduced himself as if being a local celebrity made him as cool as the rock-gods sitting before him but the girl and her best friend knew better. They shyly stated their own names when the DJ would not and got hugs from all of the guys. The two girls were invited to sit down as the DJ walked away miffed by the blow off. The best friend began chattering with the bassist about the band and life in general, both being endearing and talkative people they had no problem beginning a conversation. The rest of the band and the other band got up to mingle with the important people and groupies, leaving the girl and her rock-god. They were both to shy to start a conversation as if they were afraid of the other or maybe their own voices. Finally she spoke and said what she felt as if she had been waiting her whole life to say.

“I just love your music. I think you’re an amazing lyricist.”

With the awkward beginning passed they began to talk about his music, her song lyrics, what it’s like to be a rock star, and his tattoos. She confided her dreams to him and he said that the dreams were the best place to start. He told her that her lyrics were wonderful and that she was “definitely something else.” The band had to leave for the next town, so he signed her T-shirt and got the rest of the band to do the same. He walked her to the door and gave her one last warm, intoxicating hug in his sinewy, ornately tattooed arms and a soft kiss on the cheek. Her best friend followed her outside and the danced and jumped and spun in circles on the way to her car.

At home that night she stared at the pictures of him she had plastered to her wall and saw something that she had never seen before. He was not a god or inhuman or unreal. He was very human and she respected and loved him even more than she had before that night.