Rock Star of the Apocalypse - An Afterward: Tales of the New Earth Story - Chapter 5

It’d been about a year after I left that I finally came out with a solo album, Truckerson’s Truckalicious Tunes. Simone was spurring me on to make it on my own, so I’ll give her credit for that. Too bad that she couldn’t do other stuff, like pull songs that were actually good out of her ass. I thought I had put together a pretty good album. I wrote the lyrics, the music, got what I thought were the right session musicians together, everythin’. It all came together, and I hyped that turd like I had a case of constipation. “Oh, damn, this is gonna be great! Aw, it’s just a little piece of shit.” That’s how it turned out. A little piece of shit. Sold maybe 80,000, and I’m bein’ generous when I say that.

Damn, but things went downhill after that. I tried to come up with some new songs, a new sound, anythin’ that would put Dave G.D. Truckerson back on the map. Yeah, it wasn’t workin’ out quite the way I, or more like Simone, had planned. The funds were runnin’ out, and Simone was still spendin’ cash like I was still fuckin’ relevant. Two years after Tunes came out, I was flat broke. Simone was bitchin’ and moanin’ about how we’d “lost our place in the grand scheme of things”. We lost our place? Fuck, man, I was the one out there bustin’ my ass, while she was only shakin’ hers and ridin’ on my fuckin’ coattails. I told her as much, and out the door she went. I think she made it back to Glasgow. Maybe not. I really didn’t, nor do I now, care. So let that be a lesson to ya, kids; a nice ass doesn’t necessarily mean a nice fuckin’ life.

Eventually, I got evicted from my house, and all my stuff was taken for sale. Well, most of my stuff; I saw that shit comin’ a mile away, and hid all of my good guitars n’ things. I can be a pretty clever sumbitch when I wanna be. We were livin’ in Las Vegas at the time, so cheap by-the-week motel rooms were aplenty. I lugged what was left of my shit down to the nearest one and started calculating my next move. God damn if I didn’t have a single idea. I thought about callin’ the guys back, ask forgiveness, shut my fuckin’ mouth, and get back to rockin’. There was just one problem; the band already had a new front man, so that was a big no-go. Back at the bottom, that’s where I was. Not like I didn’t deserve it. My head had gotten too fuckin’ big, and it took something like this to pop it back down to size.

I played with a few bands that I found in the local papers. Everyone thought I was fuckin’ slummin’ it or somethin’. Hey, a dude falls from grace, he gets his money and meals where he can. I can say, though, that I had a lot of fun playin’ with Robo-Brained Steel Grinders, which was a Psychobilly act. Played with them for a few months, before everythin’ went to shit. Y’know, “Book o’ Revelations” and all that.

Yeah, I guess we need to get to this part. The day everythin’ changed. I actually hadn’t noticed it until about 12 hours after shit started going down. I was passed out in my hotel room, as we’d played a late set at a local bar, and then an after hours party. I think it was about four in the afternoon when I got up, grabbed one of my few remaining smokes, slugged down half a beer, realizin’ that I was almost flat fuckin’ broke. As I’m sittin’ there, thinkin’ about how absolutely fucked I am, I start noticin’ things, like the power bein’ out and the smell of smoke. I’m thinkin’ the hotel’s on fire, so I better get the fuck outta Dodge. I swing my door open, and it looked like the city of Las Vegas decided to say, “Fuck it! Everyone party!”.

It was absolutely fuckin’ nuts outside. It was all “rape, pillage, plunder” mode for most of these assholes. Lots of people bein’ animals. There were other people just actin’ all kinds of stupid; sittin’ on the sidewalk cryin’, screamin’ about how God didn’t take ‘em when they’d been so good, people killin’ themselves. Just a fuckin’ horror show out there. I said, “Whoa, fuck this,” and went back inside for a few hours to take all this shit in. I sat there thinkin’ Okay, everythin’s gone all tits-up. Bad. There might be assholes out there that’ll kill the shit outta me. Bad. I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on. Bad. On the other hand, the debt collectors probably ain’t lookin’ for me. Good. I gotta get the fuck outta town. Right.

So I pack up a bag with just the essentials; clothes, toothbrush, whatever money I had left, and my guitar. I waited until it looked like things had calmed down to a dull roar, made my way down to the street and started walkin’. I didn’t know what direction I was even goin’ in, I just knew I didn’t wanna be anywhere near Vegas at the time. I start movin’ up the street, and this dude comes bustin’ out of an alley right at me, with a fuckin’ axe handle in his hands. I was thinkin’ my escape was all over before it even got started, but then things got kinda odd, even for all this other shit goin’ on. Dude started out with all kinda murder on his face, like he was seriously gonna put the fuckin’ hurt on me. But the closer he got, the slower he moved, like he was calmin’ down or somethin’. By the time he reaches me, he’s got a smile on his face. He said, “Hey, you look familiar, dude. Weren’t you in a band or somethin’?” I tell him that I was, and I’m shocked as shit about this whole thing. He goes on with, “Oh, yeah! Waterfront Thieves! Yeah, I remember those guys. You rocked!” I thanked him for that, for some reason, and asked him what the fuck happened.

“Oh, you didn’t hear? The whole world ended today. People just up and vanished. Poof. Gone. So everyone’s losing their shit over it. I think it was a world-wide thing, too, but I’m not sure. Some people are claiming it was the Rapture, like in the Bible. And to make things worse, the power’s gone out all over the place, man. Might even be more than just Vegas. People are goin’ nuts,” is what the guy tells me. I’m like, “No shit?” Then he’s like, “Yeah, so it’s every man for himself. Gotta get what you can, before the police start gettin’ their shit together and bustin’ heads. They’re already doin’ it down on the Strip. I don’t think anyone ordered ‘em to do it, though. They’re just doin’ it.”

Well, scratch headin’ to the Strip. I asked the dude what he’d do if he wanted to get the fuck outta town in a hurry without a car. He tells me to go up Route 15 and head north, and that it’s better that I don’t have a car anyway, ‘cause all the highways are gridlocked with people rushin’ out of town, to who knows where. Considerin’ I was right near Nellis, that worked out perfect. I thanked him, and he began to walk away from me. That’s when he started gettin’ weird again. As he’s walkin’ away, he starts movin’ in the direction of some other guy that looked like he was a fuckin’ deer in headlights. In shock, y’know? Anyway, the further away from me dude gets, the more pissed he got. By the time he was 30 feet from me, he’s screamin’ like a fuckin’ nut about how this is his street, swingin’ the axe handle and beatin’ the livin’ shit outta the other guy, who didn’t even put up a fight. Yep, it was time to go for old Truckerson.