We were just about ready for the show. All the gear was set up and sounding good. Just a quick run through a few songs to make final adjustments and we'd be ready to grab some food and wait for show time. He must have heard us from across campus - we were not really a quite band. Our fault for leaving that door open, but he came walking right in. "Hey, you guys rock!", he said "Know any Rush??". "Uh...well...", our guitar player stuttered. "That's a cool guitar!, can I play it for a minute?", said the stranger. We were too nice to be rock stars.
Ten minutes later, I was faking my way through the drum parts of "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer". I'll admit, it was sort of fun. After all, I wasa teenager of the eighties and it wasevery drummer's fantasy to be Neil Peart. At some point, we told him that we had to lock up and invited him to the show later that night. I think his name was Chris.
A few weeks later, I was in the used CD shop browsing, when I saw him walk into the store. "Hey, man. What's up?", he said. I guess he'd remembered me also. He finds a used Rush CD and starts telling me all about it. "Again with the Rush...", I thought. He proceeded to drag me to his smelly car to give me a album by album Rush demo. "I have to get out of here, quick", I thought. "Man, I have to run... we're playing again Saturday, see you there?", I said and jumped out of his car. "See ya, Chris.", he yelled out his window as he drove away. My name is not Chris.
I ran into Rush Guy a few more times, around town and every time he called me Chris. I just didn't feel like correcting him. It was sort of fun pretending to be someone else, anyway. I just went with it and laughed with my friends after he was gone. What was even funnier, was the fact that hisname WAS Chris. He'd say, "Bye, Chris." - I'd reply, "Yeah, see ya,...Chris.". Did this guy live in a world where everyone was named Chris and only listened to Rush??
About 7 years pass, and I am sitting in Cafe CoCo (in a completely different city) with a date. Her name is actually Chris. I look up and see this same guy looking around and standing in line. I watched him for a bit. Strange, he's not moving up to order, he's just pretending to be at the end of the line for almost ten minutes?? I'm sure it's him. I tell my date the story of Rush Guy. She snickers and yells out, "Chris!". As his head snaps toward us, we hide behind our magazines... we're mean.