An Excerpt: Edge of Glory

Just a little something  I've been working on. This is the beginning development of a future novel.

Edge of Glory

She had been wandering the lonely streets for too long, past night clubs flashing neon lights and the pink rays that stretched from windows in tall buildings. Dance music blasted, bass shaking the walls and everyone within them.

There was a certain glory to people that hung around this side of town; girls in skimpy skirts and leather, guys in their leather jackets, pretty cars and some roaring around on Harley Davidson's. Society's outcasts slouched against old brick walls covered in graffiti from local troublemakers that routinely shot up the area. The broken windows in abandoned buildings told the stories.

Lucki used to tear up those streets; her six string on her back and nowhere else to go but find another bar or street corner to play on. Busking had been her way of life for years; always searching for the next edge of glory, believing with all her restless vagabond heart that one song would get her somewhere one day.

She wandered past the club, blending in with the rest of the drunk and rowdy crowd; jeans ripped at her knees and leather jacket jingling with chains. Under the leather was her old black t-shirt with a motorcycle and silver cursive writing: Edge of Glory. Her curly black hair fell past her shoulders, shaking as she walked along and adjusting her guitar on her shoulder. She was a rebel among college kids who only acted like rule-breakers.

No one would recognize her from that scene. She had wandered so far from her old stomping grounds that everything had changed by the time she found her way back to those streets. She stood on the corner in the October cold where her life, her music journey had begun. Behind her was Glitz, the club where college crazies and partiers crammed into every weekend. Down the block from her was another club installed into an old dirty building, where the smell of marijuana drifted out into the street. Across the street was the old jazz lounge. She knew that about four or five blocks away, Game On, the sports bar with a music lounge in the back garage for open jams, would have been hopping with a hockey game on. All walks of life inhabited downtown on Saturday nights.

Lucki smiled a little, that autumn wind chilling her to the bone but she barely felt the cold. Hanging on to her guitar, she turned around and wandered past Glitz, slipping by the drunken freaks filing out the doors and into cabs. Lucki shook her head with a small laugh to herself.

Of all the places she had been to in her time away, Lucki knew there wasn't a place quite like this. The underground music scene was enviable to other places in the country. She knew a few bands and solo artists who made it to the big time after years of hitting up the open jams and playing what shows they could; just a fellow starving artist trying to get by on a dream and some coins in their worn out pockets.

She ventured further into downtown, where a few prostitutes walked the dark streets and a few groups of men hung around outside the closed stores and shops. Lucki minded her own business as she walked, knowing just where she wanted to go as the rain began to sprinkle down on her face. Those dark eyes were intent on the bar ahead of her. It was where her journey and started and somehow where it always ended up again.

Slowing down as she approached the doors, a wide smile came across her face, her adventurous eyes lighting up. She loved this place.

The TVs inside flickered with action from that night's hockey games. Lucki took little notice in who was playing. Rather, she had her eyes set on the door in the back behind the end of the bar. She let out a small breath when she got to the door. The first step into the hidden garage was like taking another step home. To her right was the bar, and to her left were all the tables where people sat watching whichever artist happened to be on stage.

And she recognized the musician on stage right away, at the same moment his eyes looked up to catch sight of her. His hair was still long the way she remembered it; dirty blond and longer than hers. His hazel eyes glanced at her and he almost stopped in the middle of his song, but held his composure. A few people looked up and saw Lucki, though she tried to be inconspicuous. But there was no being discreet in that town.

"Lucki! Oh my  gosh!! When did you get back into town?" she heard another girl squeal. Before Lucki could set her guitar down, a pair of arms were thrown around her joyfully.

"Damn, Maggie, I missed you too," Lucki laughed as the brunette girl hugged her.

"Did you just get back here tonight?"  Maggie asked excitedly.

"Just pulled into town about a half hour ago," Lucki replied, setting her guitar case down and leaning against the bar. Looking around, she spotted a few other local musicians she knew, all awaiting their turn to go on stage.

"Are you going to go up and jam?" Maggie asked. The man on stage was strumming through a slow ballad, which caught Lucki's attention and she didn't hear Maggie's question. Maggie caught on to what Lucki was looking at.

"Johnny just got back to town about a month ago," she told Lucki.

"Ah, I was wondering…" Lucki replied as he finished his song. Quickly she took her eyes off him.

"Lucki, Lucki! Girl, where have you been?" someone else called out. Lucki turned around to find a few guys from her regular crowd approaching her.

"Hey boys, long time no see," she said happily, watching out of the corner of her eye as Johnny left the stage and vanished somewhere into the crowd.

"We're just going out for a smoke, you coming?" one of the guys asked.

"Let me go put my guitar down and sign up to play, I'll meet you guys out there," Lucki replied. She carried her guitar in its case over near the stage, where she set it down with the others awaiting their moment to shine before the small crowd in the bar.

"Lucki," she heard a familiar, deep voice behind her. She would have known it anywhere.

"Johnny," she said as she turned around to face those gentle hazel eyes.

"When did you get back into town?" he asked, leaning against the wall beside her. His muscular chest was obvious under his tight black t-shirt. He wore a black leather jacket and black jeans.

"Just tonight," Lucki replied, trying to avoid being distracted by him.

"It's great to see you. You look good. Let me buy you a drink," he said.

"Sure, man. I'm just going to put my guitar down," Lucki told him with a small shrug. She could feel his intense eyes on her back as she took her guitar over to the area by the stage where musicians assembled their instruments. She saw a few familiar faces in the crowd and waved to those who greeted her as she went back to where Johnny was standing at the bar.

"So where the hell have you been, Lucki?" he asked after ordering drinks.

"Everywhere," Lucki said as he handed her a glass of rum and Pepsi.

"Figures. You never stick around this town long," Johnny remarked. Lucki grinned.

"The world is a big place, Johnny. Many people are born and they die in this town, and have lived here for that entire dash in between. There's more out there," she replied.

"But you always end up back here," Johnny pointed out. Lucki shrugged.

"Something about this place…home town, you know?" she said, feeling content in the familiar scene that she had always rocked as her own. There was something about her home town that had always drawn her back again, something about the late night jams and the strange little city with its quirky pulse that always kept her going back again.  She didn't know what drew her back there from every escapade she took out into the big old world and all its changes, but she knew that at the end of every journey and with every step towards the edge of glory, something in that road always led her home again.

Copyright 2011 Lavinia Thompson