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99 Minor Rock Star Confessions This was not high art. This was before bands paid to play clubs; when you could smoke indoors. I teased a six-string, cauterwalled, and lost hearing. Women came: underage drinkers and late thirties women with babysitters watching results of recently-ended marriages. We played songs of death, of love— often the same thing—maybe one about fast cars thrown in. The boys’ heads became broken metronomes as drinks marked hours. They mouthed words to our most-loved songs, hooted on cue for the solos. In that dark field of cobalt smoke traversed the need to connect between each pair of black eyes and mine—the common thing we strangers were there for. Later, sweaty ladies waited for my signature, handshake, posed photo: each one breaking things in me to various degrees. This was back, back when our lungs filtered air until the last floor-mopper went home and only dawn’s dull blade cleared the last smoke. 100 Nights, they leaned forward, lips puckered around a paper cylinder holding dried leaves. I’d stick out a flame in the darkened booth, draw them in. I took my guitars home alone. I made them cry in my smokeless apartment while imagining all those eyes on me. It was the thing I intended to happen. ...

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