It's a pretty sweet gig, we've got, me and the boys. I suppose we've played half the joints between here and the Capital Wasteland. They're all the same: crappy lighting and stale smoke, flat beer and cheap whiskey; junkies shooting up in the corners, and bloodstains on the floor. Little tiny stage and shitty sound. But it doesn't matter much; half the crowd's wasted by the time you start and the rest of them are working hard to catch up. If you're lucky, you get paid and you get out alive. So far, we've been lucky.
The Third Rail is different. It's in an old subway station in Goodneighbour, in what used to be the city of Boston in what was once the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back before us and the Chinks blew each other to hell. Nowadays Boston's just like any other dump of a town. Blasted and broken, with the buildings all slumped together like drunks trying to keep each other from falling down, and places so hot you can taste the rads drifting on the air. And garbage. Garbage everywhere. The world's a giant garbage dump nowadays. Maybe there was a time things were different, but if there was, we're all too busy digging through the garbage to think about it.
But Goodneighbour's cleaner than you'd expect. The streets get swept and people actually pick shit up sometimes. That's surprising, because it has a reputation. Crime gangs and drugs. Ghouls and drifters. People got this idea that it's some kind of slum. But I'll tell you - we been to Diamond City, across town, which is just an old baseball stadium that they've fortified and built houses in, and it's not much. The Dugout's a nice enough bar and those two Russkies who run it are no worse than anyone else you meet. But Diamond City has this idea it's something special. We played some kind of outdoor café deal in what they call the Upper Stands, looking down over the rest of the town. People up there, their shit smells so good you could use it as room deodorizer. Funny thing is though, Diamond City ain't no cleaner or prettier than any other shanty town we've ever seen. Sure, they got the Big Green Wall or whatever it is to keep out the bad guys, but we've seen murders on the street and the cops just wandering by minding their own business, which isn't no different from anywhere else. And it's dirty, too. I mean, hell, the whole world's dirty. But Diamond City's got pretensions. Maybe they're so used to the dirt they just don't notice it.
The other thing is, people in Diamond City are walking scared. Always looking over their shoulders thinking the Institute is going to come steal them away, stick a replica or something in their place. It messes them up. We saw a guy kill his own brother because he thought he was some kind of robot. They're crazy there. The place isn't safe.
Now Goodneighbour, that's what I call a safe town. Sure, there's all those ghouls, but they aren't ferals. They're just like people, just fewer facial features on account of the radiation made most of their skin fall off. Maybe it gives them a different way of looking at stuff. But the thing is, you can walk Goodneighbour at night and no one bugs you. Me and Jimmy and the boys, we come out after a hot set at the Rail, likely pissed to the moon, no one bothering us. There's all sorts of right bastards in Goodneighbour. But there's rules there, and people follow the rules. Or they wake up dead.
Old Charlie at the Rail – he's a pre-War robot; used to be some kind of butler or something like that, but now he runs the place for the owner, who just happens to be Mayor of Goodneighbour – he always says you take care of your own, they take care of you. And he takes care of me and the boys. And the reason he takes care of us is because of Magnolia. And the reason we stick around is because of Magnolia.
Magnolia is why people come to a dump like the this. She's like a dream on heels, wrapped in sparkling red and topped with hair so black you expect to see stars in it. She's got that thing, you know? Hell, I suppose every whore in what used to be these Great United States has That Thing, or some piece of it. But Magnolia's got it all. Because when Magnolia sings, the whole world stops to listen. And me and the boys, we're the music that lives behind her. Jimmy on the horn, Father Bob working the skins, Big Apple Sundae on the stand-up bass - and where the hell a supermutant ever learned the bass I will never know - and me pounding the keys on a Steinway so old it probably come over on the Mayflower whatever the hell that means.
Maybe she could make the music without us. But it just wouldn't be the same. So Charlie makes sure we have full bellies and all the cold beer we can drink, and warm beds up at the Rex and a few caps for walking around money. And in return we get to sit up here, night after night, wreathed in cigarette smoke and choked by the fumes of flat beer and cheap whiskey, playing along behind while that voice of hers calls down all the angels from heaven.
It's a pretty sweet gig, alright.