She watched her husband drink his beer in the amphitheater as the loud music washed over them. So joyous in the moment. What a shame.

“I am so fucking psyched for this concert.” He leaned forward as if listening intently. “Wow, sounds really different.” 

“He’s sounded different for like twenty years.” She studied him.

“I mean compared to the records I own.”

“Those albums were done forty years ago, some even fifty.”

“Maybe so.” He scratched his head. “‘Album’ is a weird word. Sort of like ‘stipend,’ or ‘dumbwaiter’ or ‘feckless.’”

“We may as well be speaking Latin, or any dead language.”

“This is so cool.” He peered at the stage through their binoculars. “But why do the band members have spotlights on them while he’s standing at center stage in darkness?”

“He’s a man of constant shadow.”

“Glad tonight’s concert was on my list. I just don’t remember it being on there.”

“It definitely was.” She smiled with authority. This would be a tough evening.

“I wanted to see him, but he doesn’t seem happy to be here.”

“He’s actually quite chipper tonight.” She turned. “He hasn’t spit once.”

“Patti Smith spits in concert. I think it means she’s really into it.” He paused. “If she sprayed you, would you ever wash your face again?”

“I’d leave the concert right then and there. But that’s just me.”

“So these shows really go on for two or three hours?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

“Yup. You get your one hundred fifteen dollars’ worth of time with a legend.”

“And it’s all new or unrecognizable material?”

“No one ever accused him of being an entertainer.” She squeezed his hand. How could she reassure him? “There’s a good chance he’ll play one big famous song.” 

That response made his face brighten. “So then the crowd stands up and we sing along together?”

“No. On the way home, one of us will say, ‘I think the last song might have been his biggest hit.’”

“Oh, great.” He gazed around. 

She noticed some audience members sat rapt with attention, others slumped on the brink of dozing off, while a few couples resembled younger versions of them—perhaps attending for the same reason.

“What else is on my list? The Star Wars movies?”

“You completed that entry last year.” She rubbed his shoulder. “You saw them all.”

“Really? Even the bad ones?”

“You insisted.”

He nodded, face showing an ancient weariness. “I didn’t realize until afterwards that I only enjoyed the first three.”

“Listen.” She slapped his knee. “This song has a hook.” Try to cheer him up.

“Amazing. He stopped writing hooks decades ago.” 

Around them the audience bustled with enthusiasm, the joy of vague recognition.

“How do you think he destroyed his voice?”

“Cigarettes, booze, coke, divorce,” she replied. 

“Divorce?” He turned toward her. “You mean an ex-wife got half his voice in the settlement?” When she didn’t laugh, he continued. “Hook or no hook, I still don’t recognize the damn song.”

“That’s not really the idea of this.” She watched his jaw tightening, remembered he spoke of a dull pain in his back teeth. A gum infection?

“It’s just a task to complete then.”

“Exactly.”

“Wait, something’s happening.”

“He’s moving from guitar to piano,” she said with excitement. “That signals the end of his lazy mid-tempo songs and the beginning of the slow ballads segment.”

“Can’t even see his face. Why does he wear that big absurd hat?”

“He’s over seventy-five. Maybe his hair’s gone, or he doesn’t like what he has, or he never washes it.”

“I like to wear hats sometimes.”

“They’re generally very flattering on older men.” She squeezed his arm.

“I’m only fifty-seven…”

She didn’t reply.

“In the future we’ll wear helmets and thick, padded environment suits so we don’t feel things anymore.”

She sniffed. “I’m on medication that achieves that effect right now.”

“I think I started my list too young,” he said. “Shouldn’t we do them as close to death as possible?”

“By that time, most items on your list will be gone or dead.”

“You mean like seeing The Ramones at CBGB or eating at Carnegie Deli in Manhattan?”

“Yes.” She watched him tapping a foot along with the listless dirge but soon gave up. “Fuck, what’s next on my list?”

“Let’s not discuss that,” she said. “We’re here to endure…I mean, enjoy the concert.”

“But I’m not. No one is. He certainly isn’t. Does he ever talk between songs?”

“Uh, that would be extremely unusual. He lets the music speak for him.”

“Yeah, there’s the problem. I tried concentrating but then felt a headache coming on.”

“Hey,” she said, feeling cautious enthusiasm. “This song was famous. Either the one about changing, or his later one about giving up and changing back.”

“I own fifteen of his CDs and don’t have a clue.” He exhaled loudly. “Jesus, two and a half hours of this. Why didn’t I see Springsteen instead?”

“You already went to Springsteen twenty years ago. That would defeat the whole point of your bucket list.”

He grimaced. “Is he singing about Florida?”

“I think someplace near Jamaica,” she replied. “Wow, is that yodeling?”

“It sounds like falsetto gargling.” He sipped at their paper cup of flat twelve-dollar beer. “I’m astounded he can do that, that he even wants to.”

“At least the band is great, and the horn section drowns most everything out.”

“What’s next on my list?”

She felt sad. “This was the last thing.”

“So I’ll add more.”

“It was at the very bottom of the page, squeezed in with tiny handwriting.”

“Then I’ll make a Word doc list on my laptop. It could go on and on.”

“No, that’s not a physical bucket list.” She grew annoyed for an instant. “Do you write your shopping lists on a computer?”

“Okay, big picture, what does it mean?”

“After this show, you’ll have done everything you wanted to do before kicking the bucket.”

“But I’m too young to tap or even nudge the bucket, much less—”

“Once you’re done you’re done.” She side-hugged him as if a dejected child. “I thought it was stupid to put this concert last, but it was your list not mine.”

“So now I just wait around to…?”

She sighed. “Other people put climbing Mount Everest during a storm, or skydiving without a parachute, or swimming off the coast of Australia in shark-infested waters as their final entry.”

“Great.” His breathing became labored.

The night before, he’d mentioned odd pains lancing his guts to her. How many sunsets did he have left? She studied his face. “Don’t worry. When the time comes, I’ll make sure Uncle Clarence doesn’t give a racist speech or mention the ex-president. No Catholic bullshit either.”

Onstage, the rock legend sang a plodding ballad about the Hundred Years’ War. The song seemed to have countless verses and no chorus; if a melody existed, it had been ingeniously disguised.

“Is he gasping or wheezing?”

“Both, I think. Do you want to leave early?” She checked the time on her phone again. “Could be another hour left.” Her butt cheeks ached from the cement seats in the amphitheater. 

His back had bowed and his expression showed suffering. “No, I’m good. Really.” He looked withered, dehydrated. A husk of a human.

End of the list. Final entry, she thought. Too bad. She needed to plan for after he was gone. Greg in Accounting seemed nice enough. They had rapport, traded witty banter. Just turned fifty and he hadn’t even begun his bucket list. Smart man.

She felt sentimental watching her partner age and shrink into himself. For a moment, she hoped the meandering, tuneless song enveloping them would stretch on forever.

*This story is featured in Max Talley’s When The Night Breathes Electric collection, available via www.bordabooks.com.