Brad Foster 2017 ©
“The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
~ Albert Einstein
Poteski once stood between an eternal stretch of deserted county highway and farmlands of a much better town. It’s not there anymore — rotted foundations, buried by an ocean of feral weeds, are all that probably remain.
Poteski’s fifteen minutes of fame came in 1995 when Sullivan Forster — last of the folk troubadours — met his demise after a gig at Big Jim’s Mess Hall.
Like many times before, Sullivan stood in the doorway of his engagement, surveying the crowd. A projection television clamored from the corner of the barroom. A balding fat man masticated his dinner while he stared at the football game on the TV, his smacking lips rivaling the volume. Barflies buzzed among each other at the stained wooden bar top.
Forster’s guitar swung like a slow pendulum by his side. Its case bore the marks of countless years on the road, matched by his aged eyes that he cast to the back room.
The poster board announcing his show peeled at more than one corner, askew on a wobbly stand. Crowded into that room that could barely hold a church pew, people clutched over-priced drinks in their hands.
