Terry Flannigan, our drummer, had already taken his hit. We scored the bag together an hour ago, scraping together what little cash we had left from the last gig. The rhythm section of a dying rock band, clinging to both our instruments and habit.

“Mark, this is good shit,” Terry called out to me. “I pumped for a good night.”

I had been able to score this gig in Memphis, Tennessee, at this enormous, greasy bar, popular for both rock and blues acts. We had driven over from Nashville earlier in the day. There was another stage in a different room that usually had the more established acts. On this night, there was a blues act going on over there. I knew the blues band well, as I had auditioned for them as lead guitar last year.

We were due onstage in thirty minutes.  I strummed a few chords on a beat-up folk guitar while lyrics swam lazily through my bloodstream.

We hit the stage fashionably late at 8:10. The place reeked of marijuana. We opened with Rock and Roll by Zeppelin, thinking maybe we could fake the energy that seemed to be waning for this band. Bob, our bass player, never seemed to be able to keep up with Terry on drums.  Nick, our keyboard player and part-time vocalist, just wasn’t that good. I had been trying to replace both, but no luck to date. Still, I thought we had done a decent job covering the song.

Nothing.

The crowd stared through us like we were on soundcheck. Dead eyes, folded arms, polite indifference. A few hid behind their beer cups.

I introduced one of my songs, Rock This, which no one but me and Terry had ever really believed in. Terry’s drums thundered in the background. I gave it everything. Power chords. Teeth grit.

Nothing.

By the fourth song, I gave up. We switched to covers, hoping to win them back. Midway through “Old Time Rock and Roll,” a wad of gum nailed me in the shoulder.

Startled, I missed a major chord and snapped a string. The band froze, eyes wide, waiting for me to recover. The booing started.

Then came the cups – half-full, ice clinking. Someone hurled a nacho basket at me. Cheese exploded against my jeans. Someone screamed something about the marital status of my parents at the time of my birth.

They shut us down.  A bouncer herded us offstage like a couple of drunks. I grabbed my guitar, head spinning with shame, rage, and the heroin still humming in my veins.

Backstage, Terry muttered something about “wrong energy.” I didn’t respond. I just stared at my guitar.

I was 26. I’d been famous once… sort of. But in the rearview, it all looked like a high that wore off too fast. Still, I wasn’t ready to quit. Being a successful guitar player on stage in front of thousands of people was something I craved.

I had one year left. I just didn’t know it yet.

We drove back to Nashville in silence. We knew our band, The Bone Shakers, was finished. We just didn’t have the magic. Terry and I would start looking for another band, maybe some backup gigs.

By the time we reached my apartment, I was dead tired. I collapsed on the bed, still in my clothes. I planned to call in sick to the steel service center. They wouldn’t miss me.

I slept until mid-morning, roused only by the craving. I dug into the pockets of yesterday’s jeans and found what was left of the heroin. I shot up, made some coffee, and sat out on the patio bolted to the side of the building. The heat was already rising, ruining my mellow. Nausea crept in.

I went back inside. As I passed the door to the kitchen, I noticed an envelope shoved under it.

Assuming it was another rent warning from my landlord, I headed for the shower.

When I came back out, I grabbed the envelope from the floor and headed to the kitchen to make more coffee. It wasn’t from my landlord after all. The paper was a heavy linen stock, yellowish in tone, with my name written on it in the most immaculate handwriting I’d ever seen. No return address. No postage. No anything.

Inside was a matching card, thick, creamy, the kind a debutante might use for a wedding announcement. But this wasn’t a celebration.

You are expected. Midnight.
The Crossroads Club. Bring the Strat.
Do not be late.

That was it. No return address, no signature. Just that word – expected. It didn’t read like an invitation. It read like a summons.

I frowned and tossed it in the trash. My cravings were starting to kick in anyway, and I had more immediate concerns than cryptic party cards. Besides, where the hell was The Crossroads Club?

I went to grab my van keys. When I came back through the kitchen, the card was on the counter again.

Same spot. Same smug handwriting.

I threw it away again, harder this time, and headed to my dealer’s condo. He chewed me out for showing up at his house instead of the usual parking lot, then took the last of my gig money—already docked thanks to the onstage meltdown. He gave me enough for two days. No more credit.

Back at the apartment, I dropped my keys on the counter—and froze.

There it was again.

Same card. Same message. Sitting right where I’d left it the first time.

I know I threw it out. I remember it hitting the top of a greasy takeout box. I stood there, just staring at it. Then I picked it up and stared some more.

Who the hell kept fishing this thing out of the trash and putting it back on my counter?

I tore through the apartment—closets, bathroom, under the bed. No one. No signs of entry. Just me and that damn card.

I tossed it back on the counter and spent the rest of the day drinking beer and practicing guitar. I didn’t touch the heroin again. Not yet, anyway.

The next morning, still groggy, I poured a cup of coffee and saw the card waiting for me again. Like a house guest with nowhere else to go.

Curious, I went to the library to look up The Crossroads Club. Surprisingly, it was real and right here in Nashville, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the city. The address looked seedy. Fitting, I thought. I jotted it down.

All day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that card. Something about it gnawed at me. It wasn’t just the mystery; it was the tone. That word, expected. Like I had no choice.

Finally, I decided to go. What could it hurt? I had nothing worth stealing but an old Stratocaster and maybe whatever was left of my pride.

I took the bus. It dropped me off in front of a Wendy’s. I ordered a vanilla shake and some fries, then locked myself in the bathroom to shoot up. I perched on the toilet seat, watching the warmth bloom through my body. My head drooped. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes passed before a loud knock rattled the door.

“Sir, this is the manager. Are you alright in there?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Be right out.”

Three men glared at me in line. The manager gave me the stink eye. At the counter, I asked for water. The girl behind the register clearly remembered me. She gave me the water. Barely.

Outside, the air was sticky. It was only 10:30. I had time to kill. The heroin felt stronger than usual, like the world was skipping. Like a record needle hitting dust. My heart beat loudly in my chest. I blamed nerves.

I passed the address twice before I saw it: no sign, no name, just an old, painted vaudeville hand pointing down behind a rusted gate.

I sat on the sidewalk nearby, guarding my Strat. I was nervous. Then I laughed. Most people would avoid me on a night like this.

At 11:45, I tried the gate. Locked. I waited.

At midnight, I heard a click. The gate creaked open. When I stepped through, it locked behind me.

Inside was a courtyard overrun with weeds. A dead crow lay on the cobbled path. At the far end stood a weathered wooden door with a sign that read:
STEP DOWN

I opened it. Stone walls and a spiral staircase greeted me. A torch flickered. A second sign said:
WELCOME TO THE CROSSROADS
Beneath it: another hand pointing down.

I started to descend. My legs were shaky from the heroin. I held tight to the railing and began counting the steps, a habit I’ve had forever.

By step 436, I could hear music and see light. I picked up speed. At the bottom, I entered a seedy bar lit in crimson and shadows.

Above the bar was a gilded sign in the same script as the invitation:
WELCOME TO CLUB 27

Behind the bar were two stunning women in black leather and low-cut peasant blouses. One looked exactly like Amy Winehouse. The other looked like Pam Courson, the girlfriend of Jim Morrison. Very few people knew who Pam was, but I have always been a big fan of the Doors rock band and probably knew too much about them. Pam was a stunner.

In the corner sat a man in a crimson suit, black shirt, red tie. A white beard and ponytail. Black fedora. He was staring at me like he knew my name. He smiled. I looked away.

On stage, a lone man strummed the blues. His voice was a whisper and a wail. He looked just like Robert Johnson.

I sat at the bar and asked for a ginger ale. ‘Amy’ didn’t question it, though I could tell she wanted to. Her eyes said everything.

She returned with my drink. I offered cash.

“You’re our guest tonight, sugar,” she said. “Can’t charge a guest.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Amy Winehouse?”

She gave me a strange look. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

She shook her head, walked away. But as she turned, I swore I heard her whisper—

“You’ll be finding out real soon.”

I turned my back to the bar and looked at the man performing on stage. Not only did he look like Robert Johnson, he sounded a lot like him, too. Johnson is credited with being one of the greatest blues musicians who ever lived. Eric Clapton once called him “the master.” Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil to acquire his gift to play guitar. I had never been overly impressed, maybe because of the inferior recording equipment of his era, or maybe because he only recorded 29 songs. Hell, I’d written more than that.

Just then, a guy in a purple fedora walked past me. Dead ringer for Jimi Hendrix,  my favorite guitarist of all time. I knew Hendrix. This guy was Hendrix.

When he came out of the bathroom, he looped back around the bar. I called out, “Hey Jimi.” He looked back, smiled, and gave a nod.

What the hell was going on?

Hendrix died in 1970. Pam Courson in ’74. Amy Winehouse in 2011. I turned to ask Amy something, but standing there instead was the sharply dressed man in the black fedora.

He extended a hand across the bar. Gold cufflinks glittered.

“Mr. Lindsay,” he said. “Or can I call you Mark?”

“M…Mark, I guess,” I stammered. There was something… off about him. His face looked not just old but ancient, cragged and lined like a weathered canyon. His red eyes bored into me. Every instinct screamed to run.

“People call me Lou,” he said.

I shook his hand. It was warm. Too warm.

“You figure it out yet?”

“Beg your pardon?”

His smile faded. “Come on, kid. The bar wenches. You talked to Amy. You looked at Pam. Amy as in Winehouse. Pam, as in Courson, Jim Morrison’s squeeze. Then you nodded at Hendrix. And you were staring hard at Robert Johnson on stage. They’re all real. And they all belong to the 27 Club. You, sir, are our guest.”

I blinked. “Wow,” was all I could manage.

Lou gestured to a booth in the corner. “Jim Morrison is talking to Brian Jones from the Stones. Next booth over? Kurt Cobain. Alone and sulking, as always.”

I peered across the bar. Janis Joplin sat laughing with Pigpen from the Grateful Dead and Pete Ham from Badfinger.

“And do you know what they all have in common?” Lou asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “They all died at 27.”

He smiled. “That’s right. Welcome to Club 27.”

My pulse quickened. My mouth went dry.

“So,” I asked carefully, “did they all make a deal with you?”

Lou nodded.

And just like that, he was sitting on the stool next to me. I never saw him move.

“Are you offering me the same deal?”

“You bet, Mark,” he said. “Ambition but no traction. A junk habit and empty pockets. I can change all that. Fame, fortune, talent beyond your wildest dreams. Heroin without fear of the cops. Everything you want. All I ask is… sometime after your 27th birthday, your soul is mine.”

“I’ll be dead.”

“Sure. But look around. Is that so bad?”

I looked. Joplin raised a glass. Hendrix was laughing at something Johnson played.

“What do they do down here?”

“Concerts. Music. Legacy. Immortality, in a way. You’ll be remembered. Forever.”

“Can I think about it?”

“You have 24 hours.”

“And if I say no?”

Lou shrugged. “Then you continue your current path. Maybe you OD in a gas station restroom. Or maybe you end up a cautionary tale. Ask Alan Wilson from Canned Heat. Gary Thain from Uriah Heep. They passed on the deal. Didn’t work out well. Your call.”

He stood, brushing invisible lint from his suit. “Think hard, Mark. Or don’t. Either way… We’ll see you soon.”

He tipped his fedora and vanished.

I blinked. ‘What did that mean?’

I was back in my apartment. The Strat lay on my chest. Boots still laced.

Had I passed out? Dreamed it?

The room was quiet, except for that cheap wall clock ticking. It was 11:59. I had to admit, I didn’t have much going for me now.
My dad was gone. My mother was an alcoholic. I had no prospects of marriage, no kids. This offer would give my life some purpose. A legacy. Something I didn’t have now.

The room was still. Just me and the Strat.

Then the power flickered. Once. Twice.

I turned to the counter.

The invitation was there again. Same creamy parchment. Same handwriting. Same message:

You are expected. Midnight.
The Crossroads Club.
Bring the Strat.
Do not be late.

I stared at the clock. It struck midnight.

And someone knocked on the door.