HEBER SPRINGS, AR—In what, sadly, turned out to be the least
surprising suicide in the history of mankind, country singer Mindy McCready,
37, took her own life on the very front porch upon which her boyfriend died last month.
"How do you even begin to process the horror of
that?" asked country music fan Amber Lawson, also 37. "I mean, make
all the 'my life's like a country song' jokes you want, but damn. That's about
the most heartbreaking thing I've heard in a while."
Ms. McCready, who had two very young children, spent much of
her life fighting drug and alcohol addiction while under the unblinking,
unrelenting, uncaring eye of the American public.
"Oh, yeah," avid pop culture and schadenfreude fan
Jared Schultz, 22, said outside a clothing store in the mall that appeared to
be selling several thousand slightly-different versions of the exact same
t-shirt. "I heard she got DUIs, arrested, some boyfriend smacked her
around. Drugs and alcohol, etc."
Ms. McCready, whose debut album sold over two million
copies, was well aware of the need to make changes in her life, even going so
far as to join the cast of the reality show "Celebrity Rehab" in
order to be further exploited by soulless entertainment hacks, and to possibly
get some much needed help.
"Oh, yeah," said Douglas Devonshire, 19. "I
remember her on that show. She was blonde, right?" After taking a moment
to properly flatten the bill of his baseball cap, Douglas
added, "Didn't she sleep with Roger Clemens, too?"
