I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  Louisa’s eyes drifted in the direction of the 101. It was time to go. She shouldn’t have stayed so long. She shouldn’t have come to L.A. with Colette and Nadia. She should have shut her door on Colette the very first time she’d shown up. You were supposed to go it alone, so you wouldn’t ruin any more lives, Louisa reprimanded herself.

  “Lou,” Colette called over her shoulder, clinging to Nadia’s hand as the stretcher wheeled forward. “Are you coming in the ambulance or following us to the hospital?”

  Louisa shook her head. “I’m not going. It’s not my place.”

  Colette’s brow furrowed, but she was too focused on her daughter to question Louisa. “We’ll see you back at the house?”

  “Yeah,” Louisa replied, but she honestly wasn’t sure if she would still be there.

  When she arrived at the apartment, Louisa carefully cleaned the living room. She picked up the coffee table, wiped the white dust off the floor, and stacked the magazines—the Spins and Rolling Stones that she and Colette bought and the Vogues that Nadia pored over. God, Nadia was such an L.A. girl. Hopefully Colette would be able to get her out before it was too late. Then again, maybe L.A. would be safe for them once Louisa left, taking her bad vibes with her.

  Louisa wandered into her bedroom and began to pack her things, but the panicked feeling she’d had before Nadia had been revived still seemed lodged in her chest. There was something she needed to do.

  She went to the kitchen and picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” Molly answered sleepily.

  “Molly?”

  “Louisa?” Molly practically shouted. Then her tone dropped to a low whisper; Luke was probably beside her in bed. “Where are you?”

  “I want to know about my daughter. I want to know about … Emily.” Louisa’s voice was scratched with tears.

  “Okay.” Louisa could hear Molly swallowing back shock. It had been nine years since Louisa had so much as sent a letter to her best friend, and Louisa had never mentioned Emily by name, even in writing. “What do you want to know?”

  “Just tell me if she’s okay,” Louisa said.

  “She’s fine. She and Regan are living together outside of Chicago. They’ve got a band, and they’re actually pretty good. If you want her address …”

  “No, I just wanted to know that she was alive.”

  “She’s fine, but she’d love to see you. She—” Louisa hung up. She imagined that Molly would sit in bed repeating “Louisa?” despite the sound of the dial tone. She tried not to think about the way Molly would cry when she finally had to hang up the phone and accept that Louisa was gone all over again. Louisa had a hard time not crying herself as she returned to her room and continued packing.

  THE ART OF BAD ENDINGS

  There are so many horror stories about touring. Someone in the audience throws a bottle at the bass player, resulting in a concussion. The drummer gets drunk one night and punches a wall, breaking three fingers. The singer/guitarist passes out onstage and management blames it on “dehydration” or “nervous exhaustion,” denying rumors of drug addiction. Sleep-deprived bandmates brawl backstage. Everyone quits at least once.

  Yeah, the idea of touring freaked me out for a lot of reasons. Would it remind me of running after Louisa? Would that on top of a grueling schedule cause me to lose it and start using again? Would Regan and Tom’s sharing a bus or hotel room with me strain their relationship and drive Regan to drink again?

  Because of these concerns, we decided to take touring as slowly as we had everything else. We started the week after our first album came out, but only scheduled fifteen dates. Regan and Tom hadn’t been outside of the Midwest, and when I’d traveled my focus had been on Louisa, so we took the time to do touristy things like visit the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. and the Space Needle in Seattle. We weren’t a hard-partying band, so we got enough rest to truly enjoy playing legendary clubs like CBGBs and the Whisky. Touring didn’t feel like work. Seeing kids all over the country who pushed to the front of the stage and sang along to every song was a dream come true.

  We were asked to add more dates and didn’t want to turn down the smaller cities because we identified with those audiences most. Then a phone call from our booking agent came: “They really want you in London. And how about Paris?” No way in hell we could say no. Ultimately, we ended up touring across the United States, Canada, and Europe for almost a year before heading to L.A. to record our new album.

  It wasn’t easy all the time. The bus stank and so did we more often than not. Regan got food poisoning in Texas. Tom twisted his ankle while carrying equipment in Denver. I sang with a sore throat for a week and got so sick in Toronto, I almost had my dad fly out to bring me home to Chicago.

  I called my dad a lot because spending so much time with a couple made me lonely, but I didn’t want to fall into a pathetic pattern of one-night stands. That’s also why I couldn’t help but take some pleasure from Johnny’s little notes.

  His band was on tour as well, opening for more famous labelmates. They played the same venues we headlined a couple of days before we got there, and Johnny started writing messages to me on the walls backstage. His first, at the Rave in Milwaukee, read simply, “All apologies, Emily Black.” In San Francisco, he wrote, “Emily Black = Rock Goddess.”

  By Europe, things were more flirtatious. In Berlin, Regan came out of a doorless bathroom stall and found me writing on a cracked mirror so covered with stickers and handwritten logos that only a few inches in the center were clear for a last-minute check of hair and makeup. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

  I’d finished adding a swirl to the last s of She Laughs with my purple Sharpie, but she tapped the message a few inches above. “Johnny Threat Hearts Emily Black.”

  Horror-struck, she asked, “You aren’t sleeping with him again, are you?”

  I just laughed. “When, Regan? I’ve been with you guys every night. Have you seen me rush ahead to the next city to meet up with him?”

  “No.” She narrowed her hazel eyes suspiciously. “But this is creepy. Stalker creepy. We need to make it stop.”

  I brushed her off, playfully messing up her artfully disheveled plum hair. “Regan, it’s harmless. It’s not getting to me, so don’t worry about it.”

  “This is going to end badly,” she warned.

  Of course, she was right. And I’d lied; Johnny’s words were getting to me. They made me smirk, made me tingle, and—worst of all—sometimes I felt like my head was in the clouds. But, goddammit, I planned to keep control of the situation. I had my dignity, my self-respect, and power over my sexual desires. At least I did when Johnny was more than fifty miles away from me and notes were his only form of communication. I knew that if I ran into him in person, the chemistry would kick in. And not the kind of chemistry that brings about cures for diseases and solutions to the energy crisis, but the kind that explodes and leaves most everyone in the vicinity dead or deformed, and the survivors shaking their heads, going, “I wish I’d seen that coming.”

  I should’ve seen it coming, but I’m going to blame the hypnotic glitter of L.A., the excitement of recording in a real, professional studio, and large quantities of alcohol. Especially the latter.

  We arrived in Los Angeles in July 1998 with more than an album’s worth of songs written for our major-label debut. The first two days, we worked from noon until midnight, pounding out material with serious vigor. But on our third afternoon in the studio, I received a phone call that led to a series of horrible decisions.

  Even though I hadn’t actually spoken with Johnny since he’d crashed my record release party a year earlier, I immediately recognized his smug “Emily, I finally got ahold of you.”

  Keeping my eyes on the control room, where Regan was occupied, I hissed, “How did you get this number? Why the hell are you calling me?”

  Johnny replied, smooth and cocky as ever, “You know how it is, when labels are interested in you, they’ll do just about anything you
ask. It wasn’t hard to find out where you were recording.”

  Regan had hit the nail on the head. This was creepy. Stalker creepy. Johnny had to be dealt with.

  My first bad decision was to try to do it on my own. When Johnny invited me to his show at the Roxy that night, I accepted and snuck out of the studio before anyone could question me.

  Bad decision number two: stopping a little ways down Sunset Strip for a few too many drinks to steel my nerves. I planned a speech that began, “Seriously, Johnny, things are over between us. I don’t want to hear your apologies because nothing can make up for what you did to me.” But by the time I got to the club, I was so sloshed that I could barely tell the door guy, “I’m on the lisssshhhht.”

  When I stumbled backstage, I found Johnny drunk as well. He was nervous about all the industry people in attendance, not to mention his harshest critic, me. Instead of berating him, I found myself sharing a bottle of Jack with him, giving the old pep talk we used to give to psych each other up back in the day. It was easier than telling him off, and wasted as I was, I preferred the easy route. Wasted as I was, Johnny seemed like the nice, normal guy from the beginning of our relationship.

  While he performed, I stood at the side of the stage, swilling whiskey like it was water, and ogling his messy, dishwater-blond hair, the perfect cheekbones, the familiar muscled arms covered in inky spiderwebs, stars, and brightly colored hula girls. He performed the drunkest, sloppiest, most beautiful show I’d ever seen him play, and immediately afterward I pulled him and our bottle of Jack into a closet-size dressing room. Or maybe it was a bathroom. I couldn’t really tell at that point, the lighting being rather dim and my vision rather blurry. Johnny stripped off my T-shirt and pushed me against a wall. I peeled off his shirt, a half-smile on my face as my eyes darted down to those seductive, washboard abs, where my name was inscribed in Old English–style letters.

  Wait. I stared at the black lettering. That hadn’t been there before. When did Johnny get that tattoo? My stomach lurched and I tasted vomit in the back of my throat. He’s stalker creepy, you idiot! I scolded myself as my hands flew away from his belt buckle and grasped the walls for balance. Everything spun and I began to hyperventilate. How did this happen? I’m not supposed to be one of those stupid, gullible, idiot girls who fall for the evil guy again and again. I’d never hated myself more.

  “Emily, what’s wrong?” Johnny asked, slightly out of breath, his lips working their way down my neck, fingers fumbling at the clasp on my bra.

  I shoved him off of me. “I can’t do this. I won’t do this. We’re not getting back together, Johnny.”

  Shock replaced his eager expression. “Emily …”

  I groped for the doorknob at the same time his bassist, Seth, started banging on the door. “Johnny, there’s a label guy out here who wants to talk to us!”

  I fell out of the claustrophobic room into half of Johnny’s band. Mike, one of my label’s A&R guys, stood behind them. “You didn’t see me here. We’re not together,” I slurred. “I’m not part of any rock ’n’ roll couple. The girl always gets screwed.”

  “Emily!” Mike called after me, confused. I waved him off, grabbing someone’s hoodie from the couch and zipping it over my bra as I ran outside. I hoped the cabdriver that I hailed wouldn’t notice my lack of shoes.

  Upon my arrival at the swanky, corporate apartment complex where Reprise had put up my band while we recorded, I went directly for Regan and Tom’s apartment instead of my own. When Tom answered the door in a T-shirt and pajama pants, I whimpered, “I know you guys are having a nice, quiet evening together, and I hate to interrupt, but I need Regan.” I rubbed snot on the stolen-from-a-stranger hoodie.

  Regan’s violet-streaked head peeked up over the back of the couch. She quickly slid a remote and a bowl of popcorn onto the coffee table and rushed over to me. “Em, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh,” I hiccupped, clinging to the door frame for support. “You’re watching a movie together. You guys are like a real couple. You’re like … Oh shit!” I pushed past her, running through the living room and just managing to slide the door to the balcony open before I retched.

  When I finally finished and turned to apologize, Regan’s lips were puckered in a combination of distress and disgust. Tom couldn’t help snickering. “That was pretty punk rock, Em.”

  Regan smacked him in the arm. “Emily, why are you so drunk?” she asked with concern as I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. “And why are you wearing a hoodie for Johnny’s band?”

  “I am?” I glanced down at my chest to find My Gorgeous Letdown’s logo scrawled across it. “Oh god, I am!” I promptly unzipped the thing and dropped it on the vomit puddle, making Tom laugh even harder.

  He ducked out of Regan’s reach. “I’m sorry, but that’s so appropriate.”

  “Get her a T-shirt, Tom!” Regan snapped, on the verge of losing her patience. She growled at me, “Tell me you’re not seeing Johnny. Tell me you’re not that stupid.”

  I staggered forward, hugging her as I blubbered, “I am that stupid. I am! I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could take care of myself.” As she led me inside, I blurted out the whole story. How I secretly felt complimented by the messages Johnny had been writing and part of me wanted to forgive him because they made me miss the good times we’d had. How that part of me must have taken over after I’d gotten the phone call from him and proceeded to get wasted before his show. How if it hadn’t been for that tattoo freaking me out, I probably would have slept with him. “And then you would have hated me,” I finished, putting on the T-shirt that Tom had brought me before excusing himself from the apartment.

  Regan stroked my head affectionately. “I wouldn’t have hated you. I just would have lost some respect for you.”

  “I’ve already lost respect for me.” I sniffled. “And I need a cigarette.”

  We smoked silently for a moment before Regan smirked. “So, how big is the tattoo?”

  “The letters are, like, an inch tall,” I said soberly, trying not to laugh.

  “Damn, he better get a record contract so he can afford the laser removal!”

  “Well, I think Mike Nowell’s going to take care of that.”

  Regan choked on her exhalation. “They’re going to be on our label? Are you sure Johnny wasn’t lying …”

  “I saw Mike. Did I leave that part out?”

  “Yes.”

  The memory of Mike seeing me with Johnny rekindled all of my concerns. “I told Mike not to tell anyone Johnny and I were together.” But as I said that, I realized Mike wasn’t the real problem. Things had gotten almost lighthearted with Regan joking about the tattoo, but it wasn’t funny. Johnny’s obsession was clear. I started crying again. “It doesn’t matter what Mike says or thinks, though, because Johnny’s not going away. When I ran out, I heard him say, ‘We’ll talk later, Emily.’ We’ll talk later,” I mimicked. “Dammit!” I slapped my thighs. “He’s not gonna leave me alone and he’s gonna tell everyone we’re together and he’ll probably say he wrote all of my songs. I just want to make a good record. And for our music to be taken seriously. I don’t want to be tabloid fodder!”

  “Shh.” Regan pulled me toward her. Her hands worked in small, comforting circles on my back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll use Mike to our advantage. Have him tell Johnny not to talk about you, that it could be damaging to his own career. That’s what matters most to Johnny, after all. Maybe he can get that tattoo fixed to say ‘Ego.’”

  I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even try. I was on that drunken roller-coaster ride: I’d gone from horny to freaked to puking my guts out to tears, and now to full-on self-pity mode. “Maybe I should just be with Johnny. Maybe that’s what I deserve. Maybe he’s the best I can do. Girls like me, we don’t get fairy-tale endings.”

  Regan wasn’t about to let me wallow. “Emily, shut up! This isn’t you. You broke a guy’s nose for calling you a groupie, for Christ’s sake. Don’t lower yourself to taking b
ack psychotic ex-boyfriends.”

  Her version of motivation didn’t work; it just put me on the fast track to angry drunk. “Maybe I’m not lowering myself!” I spat. “Maybe I’m not the slut with the redemptive arc like you. Maybe I still wanna get drunk and screw wannabe rock gods. Maybe that’s just me.”

  “Oh yeah, ’cause that’s fun, right?” Regan rolled her eyes.

  I looked hatefully at the evidence of her happiness. “More fun than eating popcorn and watching movies. This”—I pointed to the table—“was not why we wanted to be rock stars. Do you and Tom even have sex anymore?” I asked caustically. In my state, I didn’t even know why I lashed out at Regan, but she did.

  “Have you ever actually been in love, Emily?” She crossed her arms, wearing what I read as a self-satisfied, know-it-all expression.

  I thought of the night Johnny held the knife to my side, when I knew what we had wasn’t real love. “No, Regan. I haven’t. I’m not capable.” I rose and kicked the table, sending the popcorn flying. Of course, I still had bare feet, so as soon as the pain registered, I fell back onto the couch, bawling my eyes out. “Who cares? Love worked out really great for my parents, Regan!”

  Her anger evaporated. “Jesus, Emily, I’m sorry I said that,” she consoled, hugging me again. “Really sorry. Things are going to work out for you.”

  I sucked back tears and put my head down in her lap. “I just wish the Johnny thing was over. I wish it had never happened.”

  Regan untangled my hair with her fingers. “We’ll get rid of him and we’ll find you a good guy. Seriously, Em, things are gonna get better. We’re going to make an amazing record, and by this time next year, we’ll be on the cover of Rolling Stone.”

  The album came out a couple weeks before Christmas and we had a low-key release party in Chicago at a dive bar down the block from Regan and Tom’s, just friends, family, and some people from our label. We ceremoniously put the new CD in the jukebox and Lucy punched in the numbers for the first single, informing us, “It’s getting a lot of play on KROQ in L.A.” Ever the cautious businesswoman, she added, “They always try to break new punk bands. It doesn’t mean the song will catch on nationwide. Your first record did extremely well for an indie, but don’t get disappointed if you don’t have instant success. Just keep touring like you have been and you’ll sell through, if not with this album, with the next one.”