The Opening Act

I was thirty-eight years old and standing in a parking lot behind the Continental Club at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, which meant I'd already made at least three bad decisions that day.

The first was answering Vanessa's call. My booking agent only phoned when she had gigs nobody else would take, and I had a Pavlovian dread response to her name on my screen. The second was saying yes to a festival slot opening for a band called The Westerlies, who I knew for a fact had requested specifically that I not be on the bill. Vanessa had told me this like it was a selling point. "They think you're too old-school," she'd said. "Which means you'll make them look current by comparison."

The third bad decision was getting out of bed, but that one was harder to avoid.

The heat coming off the asphalt made the air shimmer. June in Austin: ninety-six degrees and climbing, humidity thick enough to drink. My truck didn't have working air conditioning, which I told myself built character. Mostly it built sweat stains. I pulled my guitar case from the passenger seat and tried to remember the last time I'd played a festival that wasn't specifically marketed as "heritage acts" or "throwback country." Five years, maybe six. Long enough that the muscle memory of soundcheck optimism had atrophied into something closer to resignation.