Big Dreams

Rickey and Bruce had big dreams. One day they would leave their hometown and be somebody. Ricky wanted to be a rock star. Bruce wanted to be a famous actor. They had the desire and the possibly the talent. They were missing just one thing, a shot.

They never really gave up on the dream. Ricky floated around in a few bands playing guitar and singing. But nothing quite stuck. Right when everything was starting to go right, someone would quit or move on to another project. Ricky’s best shot came one night when his band was playing at the Taproom, a big local venue. One of his friends had uploaded a video to Youtube of one of the band’s shows. A representative from a small label saw it and liked what he heard. He promised to meet them at the show and see how they were live. Ricky could almost taste his victory.

Fate intervened that night. The band got together at the show and were ready to set up. There was just one person missing; Dan their drummer. They frantically tried calling his phone and texting him. No reply. Finally Ricky called Dan’s girlfriend, Scarlett. She hadn’t heard from him either, and said she would go by his house and see what the problem was. Ricky’s stomach sank. He had a bad feeling.

Scarlett phoned Ricky a half hour later in hysterics. Dan was in his bed, not breathing. He was blue. I mirror with several lines of cocaine was by his side. They found out later that Dan had an undiagnosed heart condition. The cocaine overworked his heart.

The band couldn’t perform that night. And they never did again. The label rep offered to give them time to mourn and may hear them with a new drummer. Ricky thanked him, but knew that the band was over. He would spend his time doing some open mic nights by himself, but nothing ever took off again.

Bruce didn’t fair too much better. He actually went off to Hollywood, hoping to be a star. He moved into a crummy yet still expensive studio apartment. Scratching to stay alive and doing waiting jobs, he was still happy to be where he was. All he needed was that one movie, that one show, that one commercial. All he needed was that big break.

Four years later, Bruce had been in a total of two commercials. He had done some extra work in some lackluster movies, but nothing to get noticed. He spent most of his time drinking on the beach, smoking pot and listening to the hippies drumming on Venice Beach as the sun went down.

Broke and out of luck, Bruce came home. He still had that fire, but the jobs just never came. He wanted to be somebody. To be rich and famous, now he was just a regular loser. Just like everyone else.

Bruce and Ricky ended up moving in together in an apartment downtown. Downtown was the artsy spot. Where people wrote poems and sang in coffee houses until late in the evening. They spoke philosophy and politics with the college kids and tried to sound smart. They always talked about how they were going to change the world. Instead they smoked pot and listened to Jeff Buckley.