The bus lurches into the station, waking me up before I can remember where the hell I am.

But as soon as my eyes are open, I remember where I am. Oh, it all becomes crystal clear. The old blue cloth seats with forty years’ worth of cups of coffee spilled on them, the black tar old stale gum spots on the floor. The smell. That fucking smell. I’m on a bus, alright. But it’s not the tour bus like the one I’ve been on for the past six months.

It’s...

Ocean City, New Jersey. Thank you for riding. Everybody off.

You just woke up a sleeping man and you can’t be a little bit more polite than that shit? That’s not a very nice good-morning greeting. I don’t even get a tap on the ass and a cup of coffee, I just get an everybody off. What happened to personal service?

But I guess that’s all I deserve. It’s not the morning anyway, and someone being woken up at night doesn’t deserve a gentle hello, I guess.

I scrub my face with an open palm, all stubble and sweat, and grab the hot metal bar above my row of seats where the carry-on luggage is stashed. I must have gotten the last bus out of Philly, because there’s no one else in my row. Only a few other people on the bus, rubbing their eyes and yawning as they stretch their arms over their heads and clench their fists, rolling their necks and letting the audible pops of joints against joints play through the air.

They’re bus people. But I guess I am one now, too.

I swing out of my seat and into the empty aisle, grabbing my backpack from the metal grating up above. Leaning across the seats, I grab my guitar case, hitch everything securely onto my shoulders, and steady myself to leave the bus.

I just came off a six-month stint as the hired muscle for a local band from my hometown that was somehow able to swing a major label record deal, book eight months of shows across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions at mid-level venues, have a young actor from a hit TV show from the early 2000s post about them on Instagram, and basically become overnight sensations.

That’s the short story. The long story is that it takes years to become an overnight success.

The longer story is that even though they’d booked eight months of shows, the tour was cut short, after just six months, because a few members of the band were unable to keep their money out of their noses long enough to reliably show up for shows on more than two consecutive nights. I guess they thought they’d be able to party all night, sleep all day, and be able to actually do their damn jobs. And they were right, for a while. Until they weren’t.

As for me? I’m reliable. I’m as reliable as all hell. Drugs? Don’t need them. Booze? Yeah, maybe I partake a little bit more than I should, but it doesn’t interfere with my ability to do my job like a professional.

And women? Well, there was one, a long time ago.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been women. I can’t hang my hat on something that never was. But it’s not like there’s a chance a woman I meet on the road will be able to tear my heart away from the girl who doesn’t know she’s possessed my soul since before I can even fucking remember.

I step off the bus and onto the steaming hot asphalt of the parking lot in the bus depot. It’s hot - and I mean hot tonight, the kind of heat that you can’t even measure with just mercury in a glass tube. It’s a biblical level of hot out here.

And this is just the way I like it.

So the tour was cut short. Not a big deal. I have some connections out here, a few friends who work security for the casinos and strip clubs on the beach and in the surrounding exurbs, and one of them was able to hook me up with this gig at the last minute.

So after six months on the road as security-slash-roadie for a band that crashed hard and burned bright and disbanded somewhere outside of Philly two months shy of their farewell show scheduled for New York City sometime in the fall, I’m here, in this strange, glorious little town off the boardwalk in the Garden State.

And I couldn’t be fucking happier.

Because Cassie is here. She doesn’t know I’m in town, but I know exactly where she is.

Cassie Blake. Cassandra Blake was her real name, but I always called her Cassie.

Cassie Blake, far smarter than her years, far more intelligent than any of the other kids at school. Cassie Blake, with the long, blonde hair.

Cassie Blake. I never noticed her as anything more than a friend - until I started thinking about her as something more. When she was 18 and I was 20. When she went to the prom with some other guy. And it was all because I didn’t have the courage back then to tell her how I felt. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know what was right. I didn’t want to jeopardize my friendship with her brother.

Cassie Blake, who went to college far, far away while her brother Mark and I stayed behind and took classes at the community college. I ultimately dropped out and enrolled in a trade school to become a bricklayer - seemed crazy for someone with my credentials, grades and test scores. I’d originally wanted to become an architect, but I realized I wanted to build something with my hands instead of with my brain. I’ve always like the music of liquid concrete slapping against a big, fat red brick better than the groan and drone of artificial cold air pumped into a cubicle farm. I thought that if I kept my head down, I could make it my career without settling for the sedentary lifestyle of someone who looks at four walls every day.

I was always a good student, but I never liked school. I was always a smart kid - or that’s what I was told - but I never wanted to learn what they were teaching in the books. I wanted to get out and put my hands in the mud and feel it in my fingers and see how much life I could squeeze out and smell and taste and experience.

Cassie wanted that too, and that’s why she left our small town. That’s also why I left, but it lead us on two very different paths.

But now they’ve converged. And I couldn’t be more fucking excited to see her.

I know where she’s staying, too - all the beauty queens are staying at the same hotel.

Imagine that. Little Cassie Blake, prom queen, grew up to be a real life beauty queen. Can’t say I’m even a little bit surprised.

I start through the parking lot. The ground is so hot beneath me that I can nearly feel my boots melting into the hot black tar.

The parking lot is filled with busses just like the one I just got off. It’s like a funhouse mirror maze of commuter and tour busses. I finally spot an opening that seems to lead where I’m going. I squeeze through it and find myself standing behind the big wooden boardwalk, overlooking the sand, the sea and the sky.

And after six months on the road, I finally feel like I’m home - almost. This place will serve as my temporary home for the next week while I provide the muscle for the pretty princesses and queens looking to woo the judges and take home a nice, big fat prize of the title, the crown, and bragging rights. Not that they’d actually brag. That would be uncouth.

But I really feel like I’ve come home because I’m going to see Cassie. As I make my way up the rickety old shitty steps to the boardwalk and feel the thick, heavy air breathe against my skin and inside my lungs, I consider going to the concierge in the hotel to find out her room number. But the sky is black and I can tell it’s late without even looking at the time, so I won’t bother Cassie tonight; I know she’ll be pissed if I interrupt her beauty sleep, not that she needs it.

I’ll wait until tomorrow to see Cassie. There’s gonna be plenty more tomorrows after the next one, just like there’s a lifetime full of yesterdays behind us.

I take my lighter out of my pocket and flick it, starting a tiny fire that sparks brightly in the dark night. Just down the pier I see the final big bright bulbs of the rides in the little amusement park flicker out one by one, and I steady my guitar and bag on my shoulders, and take off for the hotel through the hot summer air.