A True Story About Johnny Cash
Bowen Astrop




In 1961, when I was 17 and thought I was the shit, before two tours in Nam, events at My Lai, shrapnel so savage it rotted away my leg, and a lifetime of torments with childlike faces that grew me up and tossed me an ugly divorce, three bouts of addiction, a lousy suicide attempt, and long periods in-and-out of sleazy shelters and the VA, all made worse by the death of my boy and the end of everything I loved, Johnny Cash came to a party I threw, drank half a bottle of my best Tennessee whiskey, did some drugs, fucked my girl, got into fight with my best friend, played guitar, sang Smiling Bill McCall, threw down six shots of tequila, and fired off his gun in a room full of revelers, making it, by far, the best night of my miserable, fucking life. In the annals of his, I’m guessing it barely even blipped.

About the author:
Bowen Astrop is a figment of his own mismanaged imagination. While his mind is rumored to inhabit space in Atlanta, GA, his heart can often be found on the road or in the clouds. If you should see him, pretend you don’t. We don’t want him thinking he’s real.