Chapter 1

“Ouch! Fuck!”

Every place I touched on the side of my head was sore, and my fingers came away with flakes of dried blood. Sitting up damn near caused me to pass out from pain. It hurt when I took a breath. It hurt when I turned my head. Shit, it even hurt when I tried to think.

I looked around me trying to get my bearings. Nothing clicked. All I knew was that I was sitting in some tall weeds with my back leaning against a dumpster. The weeds were wet and I was wet and I was freezing my balls off. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and judging from what I could see of it when I crossed my eyes, it was bigger than it was supposed to be. Bloody evidence of the damage was all down the front of my shirt.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened; I got the shit kicked out of me. Again. And as bad as I felt, I didn’t doubt I was going to feel a hell of a lot worse when my abused liver managed to filter out the rest of the alcohol floating around in my body.

I rolled onto my hands and knees, groaning from the painful effort, and managed to stand by walking my hands up the side of the dumpster until I could reach the rim and pull myself upright. Not a good move. As soon as I stood, the world spun and I puked. Every time I retched, it felt like something inside me tore loose.

When I’d finally managed to gag up every drop of bitter green stuff from my stomach, I looked around and saw a door a few feet away from the dumpster. I was behind a building of some sort with cases of empty beer bottles stacked against the wall. Beer bottles. The fog slowly lifted and I finally figured out where I was. I was behind Sam’s Place. He’d hired me to play a gig.

My legs felt really cold, and when I looked down, I could see why. Apparently, I’d pissed myself! I couldn’t smell it because my nose wasn’t working, but I could see it and I could feel it. Aside from the physical discomfort, it meant I’d reached a new low.

Any effort to remember how I wound up in such a state ended in a blank. The last thing I could recall was being up on the stage and singing old C&W songs for a rowdy crowd, and slugging down the shots and beers the waitress kept bringing me.

Cute girl. What was her name? Mary? Marie? Millie? Yeah, that was it. Millie.

So, what the hell happened?

I squinted against the sun, looking up at the sky and guessed it must be early-morning. I limped toward the door, hoping someone was inside so I could retrieve my stuff. Every step sent jolts of pain through my battered body. Somebody had really done a number on me. I was almost there when the screen door was kicked open, and Sam, the owner, stepped out carrying two cases of empties. He stopped for a moment to look me over, then he shook his head and stepped around me to stack the cases against the wall.

When he turned to go back inside, he said, “Come on in n’ git your gear and your money. Then I want you gone, comprende?” He took a sniff of the air and added, “You stink of piss.”