Is there anything more exciting than the rush that comes from standing on a stage, guitar strapped over your shoulder, microphone in hand, getting ready to make some suburban MILFs go crazy?

Because that was me. Right now. Danny Kendrick, star of the stage at the Heart-Shaped Box. A prism of clearance-sale lights blazed behind me. This was my domain. I was in complete control.

Being the sole source of entertainment for these poor ladies was a responsibility I took very seriously. Even on a Friday night, there wasn’t much to do in Willistown, unless you were the kind of person who rented out motels by the hour.

This was my time.

After all, someone had to care for them.

One more sip of beer, and it would be time to launch into my kickass rendition of “American Woman,” Lenny Kravitz’s version, of course, complete with my attempt at the obligatory guitar solo.

I try to sneak in a Danny original or two from my short-lived touring days, but nobody wants them. Just the classics. So, it wasn’t my dream gig of being a rockstar, but it was paying work, which is better than most musicians get.

I’d primed the crowd with a few slow jams. Got the seats wet, so to speak. Now let’s make them gush.

The only thing throwing off my game tonight was the fact that the table up front—normally reserved for the Friday-night-soccer-mom-crew and smokin’ hot Trish with the blonde pixie hairdo—had instead been stolen by a brood of bikers who’d been there since four, chugging dark beers like water. The drunker they got, the louder they got. The louder they got, the less attention I received from Trish and her friends at the back.

Though I’d complained to the Box’s owner, Jerry, his only response was to remind me that they were spending more money than I was making.

Thanks, Jerry.

Needless to say, the motor-straddlers hadn’t been impressed with my first cover of “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” by Air Supply. And then they’d soured even more when I followed it up with “Who Will Save Your Soul?” by Jewel. Things got damned near dangerous when I launched into “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt.

I mean, if you don’t think Jewel and Gwen Stefani are hot, do you really even get to call yourself a man of the ’90s?

“Hey, asshole, don’t you know anything harder than these girlie tunes?”

I looked down at the biker who’d spoken. He was a beefy sort of fella, with eyes that could literally watch both doors at once. Reminded me of the kind of guy whose cousin got pregnant in high school and no one knew who the father was, if you catch my drift. He had a jet-black beard and mustache that looked like an overgrown hedge, bugs and all.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I wasn’t particularly thrilled with being heckled, so I decided to do something about it. The confidence I’d gained from the few beers I’d already thrown back helped.

“Wait for it, my man,” I said mid-song. “It’s coming up next.”

“Yeah, better be.” The biker turned to his friends and muttered something that produced uproarious laughter.

My face went hot. To hell with this. I stopped the song, held up my pint of beer that also cost more than I’d make tonight, and toasted everyone in the crowd. “Welcome to Friday night fun, ladies!”

The moms all went wild. They knew me. I was safe. They liked safe. They could come, flirt, get wasted, and tell themselves they “still had it” even though they were all on the downward slope toward Early Bird Specials and AARP memberships.

It wasn’t my old days of playing big clubs and tall stages, but I’d done this enough to know that Girls Night Out was just code for “does alcohol make me forget about the boring-doofus-accountant waiting for me at home?”

I settled my eyes on the jeering biker and leaned forward with a grin. “This next tune is for my new best pal in the whole wide world. Er, what’s your name again?”

The biker scowled. “Kurt.”

“Burt! How ’bout a big round of applause for my pal Burt?”

He tried to correct me, but no one could hear him over the whooping ladies.

“Burt requested I play something ‘harder’,” I said. “Now, Burt, if that’s what you want, it’s possible one of your hairy pals there can help you out. But this isn’t that kind of show.”

I probably shouldn’t have said that, but I was floating on quite the buzz. Besides, even though Kurt clenched his fists, the guys sitting with him howled in laughter, so the joke clearly landed.

What the hell. You only live once, right?

Time to get playing.

I fingerpicked an A chord. I sucked at fingerpicking, but Trish loved it. Wink-wink. The stage monitors squealed, feeding back as I stepped a bit too close to one. I ignored it. I’m a professional. Sharp hisses sounded behind me, and fog filled the stage while a few of the bargain-bin lights whirred.

The first tinny notes spun out of the economical speakers, and I sucked in a breath, then grinned at Kurt. “My love, there’s only you—”

“SONUVABITCH!” Kurt sprang up, his wooden chair rocketing behind him and into the soccer moms’ table.

My adoring fans screamed in half-drunken horror.

I staggered back a few steps as Kurt rushed the stage. “What—you don’t like ‘Endless Love’ either? But it’s Diana Ross!”

That was as far as I got before Kurt’s beefy, hair-laden fist collided with my face in a chorus of sickening crunches.

I soared across the stage. I’d like to say I looked like a trained dancer as my boot slipped and I stumbled off the lip. Usually, I prided myself on my impeccable balance but, you know, beer. Graceful I was not. I slipped or tripped or both. It happened so fast, all I could see were the words blinking on the screen of an arcade machine: An Unexpected Hero.

My head smashed into the video game, cracking the monitor. My poor guitar—a Gibson Songwriter I’d spent a lot of money on—crunched beneath me, and the beer glass someone had carelessly left sitting by the video game’s joystick shattered. Who leaves an almost full beer unattended? It’s sacrilege! Warm, sticky IPA splattered all over and inside of the machine. Bright lines of pain radiated through my skull, then spread all over. This was what I imagined being struck by lightning was like.

The room became a glittering carousel. There was Trish. Bye, Trish! Oh, hey, Kurt. There’s Trish again.

I blinked and something new appeared before my eyes, flickering as electricity continued surging through my veins. A square? A hologram? Was it the arcade cabinet?

I thought I’d felt pain already, but I was wrong. Agony wrenched my insides and then came real pain. Lots and lots of real pain.

And then blackness.