The smell of stale beer and desperation was Jenny's natural habitat, but tonight, the "The Broken String" tavern felt particularly claustrophobic.
"I'm not saying the keyboard is broken, Sal," Jenny shouted over the feedback of a speaker that sounded like it was coughing up a lung. She was currently balanced on a milk crate, trying to duct-tape a microphone stand that had lost the will to live. "I'm saying it's possessed. It played a B-flat when I clearly touched a D. That's not jazz; that's an exorcism."
Sal, the owner whose skin had the texture of a deep-fried basketball, didn't look up from the glass he was half-heartedly wiping. "It's vintage, Jen. People pay extra for 'unpredictable.'"
"It's not vintage, it's a fire hazard," Jenny muttered, jumping down with a grace that was immediately ruined when her combat boot caught on a cable. She did a frantic, flapping dance to stay upright, narrowly avoiding a face-plant into the drum kit. "And if I die by electrocution tonight, I'm haunting your tax returns."
She checked her watch. 7:14 PM. She had exactly four hours to finish this set, collect her meager "per diem" (which was mostly change and a sandwich voucher), and get to the hospital before the "Hard-Ass Nurses Union" locked the doors for the night.
Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. A text from her dad.
Dad: The nurse looks like a bulldog. I think she's smuggling my pudding. Bring the guitar. The acoustics in Room 402 are surprisingly decent if you ignore the heart monitor.
Jenny felt that familiar, sharp tug in her chest—the one she usually buried under three layers of sarcasm. She typed back with one hand while trying to tune a guitar string that was fighting her.
Jenny: If she steals your pudding, tell her my lawyer is a literal shark. I'm coming after the set. I've got a new bridge that's going to make you weep. Or at least ask for earplugs.
The door to the tavern swung open, letting in a gust of city smog and a group of rowdy tourists. Jenny took a deep breath, adjusted her leather jacket—the one her dad had worn back when he played the circuit in the 90s—and stepped into the spotlight. Or rather, the single flickering bulb that Sal called a spotlight.
"Alright, you beautiful disasters!" she yelled into the mic. The feedback shrieked. She didn't flinch. "I'm Jenny, this is a guitar, and if we're all very lucky, we'll get through the next forty minutes without the ceiling collapsing. One, two... three!"
She slammed into a riff that was way too big for a room this small. She played like she was at the Aethelgard Festival—the legendary, "untouchable" stage that haunted her dreams. She closed her eyes and for a second, the smell of cheap beer turned into the smell of a hundred thousand fans and summer rain.
But then, midway through the second verse, a guy in the front row spilled a pitcher of neon-blue margarita directly onto her pedalboard.
Spark. Pop. Silence.
Jenny stared at the dead equipment. She looked at the horrified guy. Then she looked at the ceiling.
"See, Sal?" she screamed toward the bar. "Possessed!"
She didn't cry. She didn't have time to cry. Instead, she grabbed her acoustic, hopped off the stage, and stood right on the sticky floor in the middle of the crowd.
"Unplugged it is!" she announced, her voice booming with a manic sort of cheer. "This one's called 'Everything Is Fine And Other Lies We Tell Our Landlords.'"
As she belted out the lyrics, her mind was already three steps ahead. The festival deadline was in three weeks. The entry fee was astronomical. The gatekeepers were gods. And she was currently playing for a man wearing a "I Heart Farting" t-shirt.
She needed a miracle. Or, more accurately, she needed to find the man who manufactured them.