On the Run by M Zeigler (short story to read TXT) 📖

On the run

Tragedy in the big leagues

Perspective of Barrette Green

“Goodnight, Texas!” I shout out to the fifty thousand fans screaming my name, each and every one currently reminding me of why I chose this life style. After fist punching the air above my head, and showing my excitement, I reach back taking firm hold of my guitar, it’s a somewhat simple piece of band equipment; blood red backdrop with black flames patterning out the rebel flag.

The fans go wild when I turn in a circle one time to gain momentum, they all know what is coming, and then with a mighty last swing the guitar flies from my hands way out into the audience where a young woman about twenty or so catches it perfectly with cat like reflexes. When she realizes that she is the one of fifty thousand fans able to catch the guitar she begins screaming loud enough that I can hear her above everyone else in the audience. A deep throated chuckle is all I leave behind me as I exit stage left, alert and proud that I was able to pass through another concert without a hitch.

“Barrette!” I hear my manager, Marcus, exclaim. The old timer sounds incredibly excited; more so than we all normally are after such a successful concert. My deep green eyes search the thirty or more gathered stage hands until I find Marcus’s graying hair. His shale grey eyes are beaming back at me, showing a fair amount of eagerness to tell me something important. He’s tugging at his silver colored tie when I finally spot him standing over by some boxes of stage equipment.

“What’s goin’ on man?” I ask with my Georgian souther accent while walking towards him with a bit more pep in my step, I feel a lot more energetic tonight than I normally do after a two hour concert. This comes as a shock to a lot of people because other stars, like Josh Alden, tell me how exhausting concerts are. They continuously say that all you wanna do is leave the stage and sleep. Not me, I have worked far too hard to get where I am, and after a perfectly executed concert such as this, I am filled with even more energy and more fire in my soul than smoky the bear has seen in his entire existence!

“We’re celebrating tonight you jumped straight to number one as soon as Over Again hit the radio! That just put you in the nomination line for The Country Fire Awards!” Marcus shouts matching my own enthusiasm which triples when he breaks the good news to me. The Country Fire Awards are best explains as the big leage awards for country stars. You are oficially sombody when you are nominated, you've made your name when you win.

“Rockin’, ya’ll huddle up!” I exclaim to the many people in the room that have helped me make it to where I am right now. Each one has their own significant placement in the band, there’s the managers, the record label guys, the assistants, the editors; honestly there are way more people behind the music than you realize.

Once the entire team has gathered around me I smile big knowing that they will be as excited as Marcus and I are when I break the news to them.

“Over Again just sent us straight to the top! Chelsea, I promised you a certain item if you helped make that happen. Here you go darlin.” I say reaching for my wallet, from the wallet I take and hand her a set of tickets to a legendary rock concert, the band is the Hotel Wreckers. Their calling it quits permanently after performing for the last thirty some years. Poor Chelsea was raised around that bands music, the band was a huge part of her life, and so after the news broke she began balling her eyes out, and has been crying on and off for several months.

Chelsea is my assistant; she handles things like making withdrawals from my bank for me, she hands out pay checks, plus a multitude of other things. She’s really been a huge help in calling all radio stations trying to get them to play Over Again. She’s also called every one of the country, and rock TV stations to get them to play the Lyrical video of the song since we haven’t done the official video yet.

“Oh my goodness, Barrette! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Chelsea shrieks as her blonde curly hair bounces around with her little jump for joy dance she’s doing, her bright green eyes are shimmering with excitement as she takes a second look at the tickets and hugs them to her chest.

“Marcus, that vacation time you put in for? It’s yours, everyone else; you’re getting a bonus when ya’ll get closer to your vacation weeks.” I announce pointing in general to everyone in the group so they do not feel forgotten. With everyone else taken care of I yank Chelsea in for a hug, Marcus is next, one by one I give a personal thanks to each of the band members before they dismiss themselves back to work tearing down the stage so we can move on into Baltimore, Nebraska. We’re playing a big stadium there in four days; the place is already filled to capacity.

Deciding I’m not needed in the building anymore I head off towards the exit via a narrow door way that goes down a completely enclosed, tempered glass hallway. Tonight being no exception to the rules of stardom; there are screaming fans of every age and size that thankfully, cannot get to me. The fans are the exact reason why the hallway goes into a secured; and security patrolled tour bus parking lot where mine and several other tour busses are parked at any given time.

Half way down the hallway I briefly pause to check out the fans and just revel in the fact that all of them are screaming my name. Not so very long ago I was just a small town man trying to get by, and not doing a very good job of it. Most of the time I spent either raising hell or in county jail, which lucky for me was just down the street from home so my mother would typically get off of work and come down to see what I had done while she was working.

Just as I’m about to continue walking to my tour bus I take note of a particularly quiet child; she’s no older than six and is standing in the corner between the fence and the end of the hall on the right but squished down in the corner by her mother’s legs. Both mother and daughter make no crazy motions like the other fans are and they are also not screaming like the others.

Before I even realize what I am doing I’m at the end of the hallway and pulling the pen off the door that hangs beside the security guards check board. Realizing I could potentially cause a riot; and not really caring, I quickly take hold of the clip board and slip through the door turning directly to my right and kneel down beside the little girl whose face is still pressed against the glass wall of the hallway trying to peer inside.

“Hey kiddo, what’s your name?” I ask just barely loud enough so that only her and her mother can hear me. I watch the little girls eyes light up and her mouth open wide with surprise at seeing me standing right next to her.

“My name is Leah Marie.” She replies in an adorable voice, her left hand nervously reaches up to mess with her brown wavy hair. Leah’s brown eyes which are the same color as her hair, look back up at me with a quiet excitement that only a child can have.

“Well, Leah, are you a fan?” I ask her, she smiles wide giving a partially toothless grin. “I sure am, I love all your party songs, especially Whiskey drinking days!” Leah exclaims. Part of me wants to bust up laughing that such a young girl said that, but honestly it comes with the territory. Her mother is clearly a true blue down home country girl, it’s how us southern folk are raised, well a good percentage of us anyways.

“Alright, Miss. Leah Marie, this is for you. Don’t lose it now.” I say jotting down a few sweet words to the adorable child; I simply write For Leah, a darling little fan yours truly Barrette Green.

In a New York minute I have the paper rolled up and slid through the chain link fence; Leah takes hold of it with her eyes wide as saucers.

“Wow thank you.” She gasps after she has the paper safely in her hands, she spends a long time gaping at the paper not really sure what to do with it. I offer Leah a high five through the fence which she excitedly returns and then I bid her goodnight before nodding to her mother with an appreciative grin. Her mother gives me a swooning face I’ve seen too many times to count since my face became well known. Giving no more thought to the generous encounter with the two fans I’m off towards my tour bus again, eager at this point to maybe jot down some new lyrics on a song or perhaps inhale the food that Chelsea has ordered for me about a half hour ago.

Eventually my tour bus comes into sight but I realize quickly that something about the bus isn’t quite right, there are no lights on inside which is not normal, Chelsea always leaves the lights on. Next to the lights being off the door is ajar and there’s a note taped to the handle. I glance around to check if there are any security guards nearby but there are none. Meaning, I’m going to have to handle this one on my own, not that I mind, I’m always armed and dangerous.

A quick glint of moon light on metal exposes the old 38. Police special that was handed down through my family. The most recent history anyone has on the gun comes from my great granddad on my mother’s side of the family. My great grandfather was fatally shot down in Texas and the gun was stolen by his fiancé at the time who ended up being arrested later on for a robbery and the gun was eventually returned to my grandfather by an unkown person. My grandfather refused to take it back, he told the woman to take the pistol and hand it down to her kids, and keep it passing on down the line. Sadly, this mysterious woman was also killed and the police brought the gun back, the cop that dropped it off said something about it being used in the Clyde Barrow gang.

With the weapon now firmly in hand I open the door to the Tour bus, I hear nothing and see nothing within the dark depths of the rig. Taking a few careful steps inside to turn on some lights I realize that the breaker must have flipped off and coincidentally Chelsea mustn’t have closed the door right. Additionally, there isn’t a single item out of place which, if you think about it, it would be entirely pointless for someone to break into the bus and not take anything.

Just to be on the safe side I continue checking the guest beds which all turn up no results of criminal entry, same with the guest bathroom, my room, and my bathroom. Every place is void of any tampering or any questionable persons.

Upon relaxing over being truly alone for the night I safe my gun and double back through the bus turning on a few more lights as I go. In the kitchen I easily locate my dinner, Chinese delivery! I can’t complain because