I drove until it got dangerous for me to be driving, and pulled into a Super 8 somewhere along the Maryland/Pennsylvania border. Only smoking rooms were available. I parked two feet from my door, its wooden frame split straight to the ground, the chain lock on the inside dangling from exposed screws. I peeled off my wet stage clothes, draped them over my guitar cases, and dreamed about people sitting in the room, smoking and watching me while I slept.

I woke up early and carried my guitars out to the van. The sky was gray. A thin, unshaven man in his 40s leaned against a nearby pickup truck, smoking. I nodded his direction and popped the back door open. He looked at the guitars, then at me and growled, “You in a rock band?”

I looked around. “Uh, yeah.”

He flicked his cigarette and walked around the back of his pickup. I thought, this is a strange way to die. I’d pictured something sexier.

He came back around the bed of his truck and walked straight at me. I inhaled. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card, glossy and exploding with fluorescent blues, yellows and reds that radiated from its center, like Spin Art. He flicked the card between his fingers and held it out to me.

“I do laser light shows,” he said.

“Really,” I responded.

He looked around the lot. “I’m not from here.”

I followed his eyes. “Me, either.”

He continued. “I’m just down here helping some guys fiberglass a pool. I don’t know how. They’re showing me.”

One of the ground level doors creaked open and two men stumbled out, one supporting the other who had lost the use of his left leg.

“We went out last night,” the grizzled man continued. “There’s a bar down the road. Lots of heads on the walls. I think he hurt himself dancing.”

I thought, that man doesn’t look like he hurt himself dancing. He looks like he’s been beaten repeatedly with a baseball bat.

“That can hurt.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It might be his disc. We’re gonna have to get him to a hospital.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a great idea.” The injured man whimpered while being pushed into the passenger seat of the pickup.

“There’s no good breakfast in this town,” the laser light show guy informed me, lighting another cigarette. “You’d be better off if you went down the road a bit.”

I nodded. “I think I’ll do that.” The pickup started.

“I do all kinds of laser shows. I can travel. Think about it.”

I looked back down at the multicolored card. “I will do that.” I placed my guitars in the back of the truck, feeling him stare at me until the pickup rolled between us.

- Mike Errico