"Stage Banter from Mid-Missouri’s Finest Bruce Springsteen Tribute Band" by John Waddy Bullion

Say Phantom, why don’t you play that twinkly opening lick to “Growin’ Up'' on your Korg CX-3 while I tell the good people here at the A-Go-Go this story. 

All this happened about six years ago. Or maybe ten years ago. Maybe even twenty. Hell, I don’t remember. Might’ve been yesterday, for all I know. I ain’t the type to stick pins into the cushion of time. What matters is, it happened. And because it happened, I get to stand up here on this stage and talk into this microphone—and you get to hang on to every word I’m about to say.

So there we were—me, Phantom, and Miami. We’d just finished playing a field party somewhere off of Poor Farm Road, and we were driving home in my mom’s Oldsmobile Silhouette when all of a sudden we got us a flat tire. We pulled over to the shoulder, popped the trunk and moved all our gear out the back of the van only to discover that we didn’t have a spare. By then, it was pretty dark out there on Poor Farm Road—if you ever been around that way, you know the kind of dark I’m talking about. 

Pitch dark. 

Total dark. 

Can’t-see-the-hand-reaching-for-your-throat-in-the-dark dark. 

And of course, there wasn’t nobody else around for miles. 

No houses, no cars, no streetlights.

Just us, and the trees. 

So we’re staring into these deep, dark woods when all of a sudden we see this light shining off in the distance. And we thought to ourselves, Well, maybe somebody lives back there. We ought to go see if we can ask for some help. 

Off we went, stumbling through the forest, covering ourselves in mud and twigs and God knows what else. Finally, right as we’re about to collapse from exhaustion, we come upon this little clearing. And there in the middle is this old gypsy lady, just sitting by a campfire. 

Now, let me stop right there. You know we’re not supposed to say “gypsy” anymore, right? Oh yeah. I shit you not. Apparently, it’s a racial slur against the Romanian people, or something. The more you know, huh? But beyond that, here’s the real problem with the G-word: it puts a certain picture in your head, and it ain’t a pretty one. Because this lady wasn’t some withered old crone with a wart on her nose and a scarf wrapped around her head. She was a neat, compact little blonde, and well-built too, like a statue. In other words, she looked a lot like Stevie Nicks—she had that same G-word spirit, anyway. And she wasn’t exactly ugly, either. With her tight black jeans and her Stones shirt, she looked like she could’ve been in the crowd at the field party we’d just played. She had one of those faces that you could tell had been very pretty until things started happening to it—things she’d seen, things she’d done, they had all etched themselves across her brow, along her jaw, and around her mouth. She’d spent some time leaning headfirst into some hard-livin’, know what I mean? 

Altogether, it wasn’t a bad way of looking. 

We walked up real slow and careful, but Stevie Nicks must’ve heard us coming, because before we made it all the way to the campfire, she twisted around on her log and said, “You bums got a flat, huh?” 

As you can probably guess, that made us a little nervous. Like, how’d she know we just blew a tire? The road had to be about a mile or two back in the other direction. Plus, the trees were so thick we couldn’t even see the Silhouette no more. We just looked at each other, not sure what to say. 

Finally, we all said: “Yeah.” Just like that—all together, at the same time, like three robots about to blow their circuitry.

This drew a laugh outta Stevie Nicks. I guess we were expecting a witchy-sounding cackle but it was more like a hiss from deep down in her throat, like the sound a lit cigarette might make, hitting the bottom of a wishing well. It made us realize, for the first time, that she maybe might’ve been a wild creature who actually lived in these woods, and not a human being just hanging out there. 

Stevie Nicks got up off her log and took a step toward us. “Who sent you suckers anyway?” she demanded. The fire was throwing crazy shadows across her face, bending all her age lines into crazy zigzags. “What’s wrong, cat got your tongues? Okay, if you ain’t gonna talk, I will. You guys look like a bunch of bums.” 

Well, I don’t have to tell you that comment was a little uncalled for. Anybody could tell we were a budget operation—we didn’t exactly look presentable. We’d just stumbled through a dark, muddy forest, for God’s sake. We could’ve done with a shower and a change of clothes and a good night's rest, is what I’m saying. But that was pretty much the story of our lives back then.

All of a sudden Stevie Nicks picked up this stick that’d been lying next to her on the ground and waved it at Phantom and BAM! Now he was dressed head-to-toe in this flashy red suit. 

She turned to Miami and waved her stick again. BOOM! Now Miami was wearing a shiny white suit. 

Both him and Phantom were looking like a million bucks. 

Then she turns to me. 

Waves her magic stick. 

Nothing happens. 

She waves it again. 

Still nothing. 

She looks down at her stick and shrugs.

“Sometimes it don’t work like it’s supposed to,” she told me. “Guess you’re just stuck being a bum.”

Well, I ain’t about to take that lying down.

So I said, “Hey, Stevie Nicks! You ain’t gettin’ off that easy. C’mon! You owe me one.” 

“Okay,” she said, “but I ain’t no mind-reader. Sometimes people gotta say what they want out loud. Go on, don’t be shy. Just tell ol’ Stevie Nicks and I’ll solve all your problems. You want me to fix your flat tire? You want a new transmission? You want your own Papa John’s franchise? You want to be a doctor, or maybe a lawyer? You want to be Emperor of the United States?” She had started buzzing around me like some kind of drunk hummingbird. “Your minivan’s a goner. How about a new car? A BMW? A Mustang? A big old gas-guzzling Hummer? Just say the word and I’ll wave my stick.”

“Well,” I told her, “to be honest with you…not to pull any punches…” 

I guess I must’ve thought I could speed things along by thinking out loud, but I kept trailing off. 

“What I really had in mind was, uh…I think I would really dig…I think I could, uhh…I think I’d like…” 

I was buying time, waiting for inspiration to strike. Phantom and Miami were standing off to the side in their shiny new suits, rolling their eyes - kinda like they’re doing right now. Pretty soon, even Stevie Nicks got this impatient look on her face, like all of a sudden there was somewhere important she needed to be. But there must’ve been some rule about granting your own wish, because otherwise she would have sprouted wings and flown off, and left me there talking to myself. 

“I think I wanna be…I think I wanna be…I think I wanna be…” 

And then it came to me in a flash. 

“Hey, Stevie Nicks...I WANNA BE A ROCK N’ ROLL STAR!”

Wouldn’t you know that right after I made my wish, that big old forest went silent as a graveyard. The wind died down, and all the leaves and branches got real still. Not a creature was stirring. Even the logs on the fire quit crackling. 

Stevie Nicks took a step toward me and held up a long crooked finger that was white as bone. 

“You sure that’s what you really want, sonny?” she asked me, waving that bent digit of hers in my face. 

I told her, “Lady, we ain’t got all night. Quit wasting both our time and work your magic.”

So Stevie Nicks hoisted her stick up over her head, waved it around a couple times and…

BOOM!

Now here’s the thing: there’s levels to being a rock star. There’s the level where you’re really famous: selling out stadiums, hanging platinum records on the wall, and flying cross-country on a private jet. On that level, everybody knows your name, whether they listen to your product or not. 

Then there’s the level where you’re just kinda famous. And within that level, there’s sub-levels. 

The internationally-kinda-famous sub-level. 

The nationally-kinda-famous sub-level. 

But the sub-level where our little rock combo seems to have found itself is micro- regionally-kinda-famous. 

This is the sub-level where maybe a few dozen people know us from the flyers we staple to telephone poles around town. 

The sub-level where we still gotta hold down day jobs and schedule our jam sessions around childcare and errands and home improvement projects. 

You’re probably thinking this is where I tell you that the moral of this story is if you’re ever stumbling through the woods off of Poor Farm Road and you come across a mysterious woman who looks like Stevie Nicks and she offers to grant your most fervid wish, make sure to be as specific as possible. 

But not every story needs a moral, an epiphany, or hell, even an ending. 

See, my wish came true that night, and it keeps coming true every single day. Look at me. I’m living the dream. So what if I’m not world-renowned? I could call up any dive bar, saloon, or honky tonk between St. Joe and Ste. Genevieve and they’d add our band to their schedule, no questions asked. 

Phantom and Miami back there, they’re family men, with extra mouths they gotta feed, and extra responsibilities that need their attention. They got more important things to worry about than trying to squeeze their dad-bods into shiny suits they outgrew years ago. They pick up gigs when they can, and if they can’t, they always let me know when our three-piece needs to turn into a solo act. 

But me, I got no wife, no kids, and no obligations other than showing up at downbeat time. I ain’t rich, but I’m sure as hell comfortable. A few years back, I moved into a trailer, right off Poor Farm Road. I love it out there—it’s a laid-back, low-rent way of living. And yeah, maybe my house ain’t much to look at, but long as I got a fridge full of cold beer and a closet full of white undershirts and broken-in blue jeans, that’s all I’ll ever need. 

When I get bored, I head to the riverboat out in Boonville. The casino’s set me up with a nice little line of credit, as thanks for our standing engagement on the Bankfull Stage every third Thursday. Last week, I even had me a bit of windfall, so I went out and made a big purchase: I traded in my mom’s old Silhouette for a pre-owned GMC Savana, with forward collision alert, configurable seating, and an 8-cylinder flexible fuel engine. 

But the real jackpot is the one I hit that night in the woods. 

The famous fella, the rock star, keeps on writing songs, and I keep right on singing ’em. Lately, I’ve had a lot of people tell me that I’m even starting to look like him. I get stopped on the street for pictures, autographs. Maybe playing his tunes all these years rearranged my DNA some way or other. 

Do you see a resemblance? 

You think he’d hire me to make appearances at boring celebrity events in his place? You think if I put my mind to it, I could fool his wife, his kids, his band mates? Could I skip straight to stealing his identity? How long do you think it’d take before they brought me to justice? You think that even after I stole millions of bucks from him, he’d still like me enough to write a crime ballad about me?

I want your honest opinion. 

I could pull it off, couldn’t I? 

Go ahead. Squeeze in tight around me. Get in a good, long look at this face. See all the magic tricks the years have played on it. Drink me in. I don’t mind the attention. We’re in just the right light. Don't be shy. Stare into me like I’m a dirty mirror.

John Waddy Bullion’s writing has appeared in the McNeese Review, X-R-A-Y, the Texas Review, Hunger Mountain, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. His debut collection of short stories “This World Will Never Run Out of Strangers” is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press in November 2025. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with his family. Visit him online at johnwaddybullion.com.