The Roxy Letters

by Mary Pauline Lowry

I was already in a funk last night that it was summer solstice and I had not gathered with an interesting coven of female friends to celebrate the longest day of the year with a series of elaborate rites.

the “new Austin” tech assholes are making billions as I write.)

The next song was a Kiss cover—played all light and hipster-y like a Death Cab for Cutie number or something—which made me worry everyone in the band was way up their own asses.

Holed up in a corner reading a book in an effort to find the intellectual stimulation my public school education lacked, while simultaneously trying to deny the existence of my physical body, which would soon betray me utterly by going through puberty and growing cumbersome boobs and an ass I perceived as oversized?

When I arrived at Deep Eddy, Willie Nelson was playing on the jukebox as usual, his voice soothing, every word he crooned a reminder to everyone in the bar that we are not alone in this world—we all have Willie to guide us.