Ballads of Suburbia

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  I smoked two cigarettes while Stacey turned on the charm. But the worried-mother routine failed to impress.

  “Do you have proof of insurance?” the cop asked, dark eyes unwavering.

  “No…” Stacey replied meekly.

  He went off to his car to do his cop thing. Stacey was so irritated, she didn’t even talk. We chain-smoked in silence for ten minutes until he came back. She fished for compassion once more. “I don’t know how we’re going to afford this and my daughter’s prescriptions. We don’t have health insurance either, you know.”

  The cop shrugged unsympathetically.

  Stacey repressed her rage until he slammed his car door. “Jason is going to be so pissed!” she moaned, staring at the five-hundred-dollar ticket for driving uninsured.

  “At least he didn’t smell the pot. We totally reek.” I rolled down my window to toss out my cigarette butt. A cold wind grazed my cheeks. I shivered but enjoyed the novelty of it, since I hadn’t experienced real winter for years.

  “True.” Stacey wrinkled her nose and asked, “Do you have some gum?” As if that would make her smell any less like a stoner.

  I fumbled through the pockets of my hoodie and offered her my last piece. After she took it, she stared at me, her aqua eyes burning into mine.

  “What?” I self-consciously smoothed my short hair and tongued my lip ring to make sure it wasn’t turned some weird way. My eyes darted from her finely plucked eyebrows to the freckled bridge of her nose and down to the familiar crescent-shaped scar indented on her chin—from a bike accident when she was six, a year before we met.

  She shook her head soberly. “I fucking missed you.”

  I smiled. “I missed you, too.”

  Then she changed the topic again. That was Stacey; her thoughts moved at warp speed. “Soundtracks? What exactly is it that you do again?”

  “I’m interning with a music supervisor who works for Warner Brothers. It’s nothing glamorous. I don’t hang out with rock stars. I just do the grunt work, but that’s what most internships are, after all.”

  She studied me quizzically. “And you like this?”

  I nodded. I liked it better than my writing internship. I’d worked fourteen-hour days assisting the writers of a TV medical drama. The intensity of the job had almost led to a nervous breakdown.

  “And now you want to be a music supervisor even though you’ve been going to school for screenwriting?”

  I shrugged.

  Concern flooded Stacey’s eyes. “Why aren’t you writing?” she implored. “You loved writing. You wrote screenplays in high school all the time.”

  I worked on one screenplay junior year. With Adrian. And I talked about it once with Stacey at a party; her memory was a steel trap. Sure, I’d fallen in love with screenwriting that year, which had spawned the idea to go to USC, but it wasn’t like I’d been aspiring to it for years. “I’ve always loved music, though. Besides, I realized I don’t have any stories to tell.”

  Stacey’s facial expression changed paths like a hurricane. “You?” She choked back laughter, holding her gut. “You don’t have any stories? Growing up here? Hanging out with the people you hung out with?”

  “I don’t have any stories.” I clenched my jaw hard and watched the cop pull out from behind us. He turned right onto Fourteenth Street without signaling.

  Stacey got back on the road. “Okay, fine. Here’s a song for your soundtrack, then.” She flashed me a grin and reached for the volume knob, turning up “Back in Black” by AC/DC. She rolled another stop sign and we both laughed.

  We cruised across Roosevelt Road into our hometown, Oak Park. Stacey meandered this way and that toward her apartment, narrating the changes that had occurred in the past few years. There weren’t many. Remodeled Walgreen. Condo conversion. Condo conversion. Condo conversion. We passed houses we’d gone to parties in—both the innocent kind with birthday cake and parentally supervised games, and the kind where parents were nowhere in sight and I left blasted with my underwear on inside out. We reminisced about getting high on that playground or making out with what’s-his-name in front of that 7-Eleven.

  These were all memories that felt good. Stacey swerved away from the ones that wouldn’t, like my ex-boyfriend Christian’s house and Scoville Park. If I looked in the direction of those places, she distracted me with “Remember when we were eight…”

  Before the last chorus of “Back in Black” ended, Stacey punched buttons on the radio in search of another good song to keep the buzz going. She practically blew out the speakers when she found Social Distortion. Our gazes collided as we shouted, “High school seemed like such a blur…”

  Yeah, “Story of My Life,” Stacey knew it was my type of song. It’s the ballads I like best, and I’m not talking about the clichéd ones where a diva hits her highest note or a rock band tones it down a couple of notches for the ladies. I mean a true ballad. Dictionary definition: a song that tells a story in short stanzas and simple words, with repetition, refrain, etc. My definition: the punk rocker or the country crooner telling the story of his life in three minutes, reminding us of the numerous ways to screw up.

  As we zigzagged around Oak Park to Social D, memories of the wild times seduced me. I wanted to spend the whole week stoned. I wanted to call old boyfriends. I wanted to go to a punk show at the Fireside to meet new boys. I wanted to ride in Adrian’s car, him taking the curves of Lake Shore Drive way too fast. I wanted to drink coffee at Punk Rock Denny’s until dawn. I wanted to snort a line in Scoville Park as the sun rose.

  It would be so easy to be the person I used to be. My life was like a song. L.A., working my ass off to do well in college and be a “healthy person,” just a verse, and the chorus was coming up again, the part where I fucked up the same way I always did.

  The spell was broken when Stacey screeched to a stop behind her apartment building, the radio cutting out abruptly as she killed the engine.

  “I can’t stay,” I reminded myself curtly.

  “What?” Stacey’s brow knit in confusion. Apparently I said that aloud.

  “I mean, after New Year’s. I’m going back to school, back to L.A.”

  “I know that.” She shook her head, shooting me a “you’re insane” look before popping the trunk and getting out to grab my bags.

  The heady combination of a little wine and a lot of nostalgia had me feeling dazed, so I stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water while Stacey dragged my suitcase into the living room. I heard her greet Jason, but before “Hi” made it all the way out of her mouth, she asked sharply, “What the hell is he still doing here? I told you he needed to leave before we got back.”

  Jason drawled “Staaaaace” like a stoned hippie surfer. “He just got out of jail yesterday. He’s got nowhere to go. Six months in County for some coke that wasn’t even his, give the guy a break.”

  I knew who he was before his voice rumbled. “I just wanted to say hi to Kara.”

  Adrian. I hadn’t seen him since we did heroin beneath the metal stage they used for summer concerts in Scoville Park. Then, we lay entwined on the hilltop, nodding in and out. At one point, I noticed that the sky looked sickly gray. Our skin looked gray. The grass looked gray. I ran my fingers through the dying gray grass, wondering if that was what Adrian’s hair would be like when he was old. I crawled back toward the stage, puking and crying because I knew that neither of us would grow old. Especially me, I was going to die right then and there. I screamed for Adrian’s help and got no response.

  I guess he’d nodded out and when he came to, he found me. He’d slapped my face, trying to bring me around, and when I didn’t wake, he ran to the pay phone to call Cass. Apparently her suggestion of calling 911 conjured images of the cops he’d been avoiding, so he dropped the phone and ran. Cass and Stacey hated him for it, but honestly, I hadn’t expected anything more from him, even though that night, strung out and groping on the grass, he’d told me he loved me for the first time.

  “Ka
ra doesn’t want to see you. Get out of my house!” Stacey snapped.

  I didn’t want to see him. I did, but I didn’t. I shouldn’t. I wanted to see Lina, though. I crept warily down the hallway toward the living room and caught my first glimpse of her: sprawled out across Jason, her head in the crook of his arm, little feet dangling over his knees, right hand loosely gripping an empty sippy cup. Lina looked nothing like Jason, with his ginger hair and green eyes. Instead, she had blackish brown curls, a pale face that would freckle in the sunlight, and heavily fringed blue eyes—a miniature clone of Stacey and Beth.

  I wandered into the living room, needing to be closer to her. I knelt by Jason’s legs and carefully took the cup from Lina’s hand, stroking her silky skin. I couldn’t believe I’d been so selfish and stayed away from her so long just because I was afraid to confront my past.

  “Kara,” Adrian whispered.

  I stared at the sleeping baby a moment longer to steel myself before I faced him.

  He was a relic of the early nineties, of our crazy youth: same leather jacket, same strong shoulders, same thick waves of tawny hair stretching to the middle of his back, same sharp jawline covered with the same stubble, same searching brown eyes.

  When his gaze locked on mine, I mentally chanted my mantra of I can’t stay, and then I let him embrace me. His scent had always reminded me of a muskier version of the air off Lake Michigan, and as soon as it reached my nostrils, it shattered the icy indifference that I’d tried to force myself to feel about him. As I melted into his familiar arms, I could no longer deny it: I’d missed him and I’d missed home and I’d gone too long without facing all of my bad memories and old ghosts.

  Suddenly, I envisioned my high school best friend, Maya, standing behind Adrian. Her red hair glistened (although it wasn’t red the last time I saw her, that’s the way it remains in my memory) and her gray eyes had an ethereal glow to them. Right hip cocked, hand firmly clamped to it, she made that mischievous I-told-you-so face like she did when citing her grandmother’s clichés.

  She told me, “Kara, it’s like my grandma always said, ‘You’re gonna have to face the music.’”

  VERSE

  AUGUST 1992-JUNE 1994

  [FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEARS]

  “When I got the music, I gotta place to go.”

  —Rancid

  1.

  THE SUMMER BEFORE I ENTERED SECOND grade and my brother Liam started kindergarten, Dad got the promotion he’d been after for two years and my parents had enough money to move us from the South Side of Chicago to its suburb, Oak Park.

  When I say “suburb,” you might envision subdivisions that center on a strip mall or a man-made lake and “ticky-tacky box houses,” as Maya’s grandmother would call them. You know, where the only thing that varies from one house to the next is the color of the paint job. But Oak Park is not one of those suburbs.

  Separated from the West Side of Chicago by an imaginary line down the middle of Austin Boulevard, Oak Park still looks like part of the city. The houses were built in the same era and are of the same style. The east-west streets have the same names. You can catch the “L” in Oak Park and be downtown in fifteen minutes.

  The big difference is the feel: more of a small-town vibe, less of the hustle and bustle. My parents talked up Oak Park like it was a fairy-tale kingdom. Middle-class but diverse. An excellent number of parks, trees, “good” schools, and libraries per capita. Chic, independently run shops populating the main streets and the pedestrian mall in the center of town. Houses of the Frank Lloyd Wright ilk sprawling like midwestern miniplantations across two or three normal-size lots on the north side. Classic Victorian “painted ladies” speckling the entire town. My parents couldn’t dream of owning those houses, but our four-bedroom had an enclosed sun porch at the front, a deck out back, and a living room with a real working fireplace. It was a huge step up from the bottom half of the two-flat we occupied in the city.

  My parents claimed suburbia was safer than Chicago, but I certainly didn’t find it kinder and gentler. On my first day of school, I was approached by Maggie Young during recess. Maggie had a face like JonBenét Ramsey’s, but with big brown eyes and perfect ringlets of chestnut hair framing her features. She was always trailed by an entourage of five or six girls. Two of them were her best friends; the rest acted as servants in hopes of winning her favor.

  When they came up to me, I smiled, mistakenly thinking I would be welcomed to join them on the playground. Instead, I was given a bizarre test of my coolness. Maggie asked if my jacket had a YKK zipper. When I checked and responded that it didn’t, she scoffed, “Does your family shop at Kmart or something? I bet those aren’t even real Keds.”

  Her minions giggled like chirping birds. I stared down at my dirty white sneakers, both ashamed and confused. I hardly had a clue what she was talking about. We were seven, for Christ’s sake, and fashion hadn’t been a big deal at my old school. But my faux pas meant my automatic exclusion from the upper echelons of second grade.

  Later that afternoon, when it came time to pick partners for a science project, every girl I sought out with my gaze refused to meet it except for Stacey O’Connor. She came running over, gushing, “Wanna be my partner?” Her bright blue eyes danced. “I already have an idea for the project.”

  Later we would use two empty two-liter bottles, some green food coloring, and a little plastic device Stacey’d seen on some PBS show to demonstrate the workings of a tornado.

  Since Stacey already had the project figured out and discussing her plan took five minutes of the thirty the teacher allotted, Stacey launched into getting-to-know-you talk. “Where did you move from?” she asked, smiling so wide her freckled cheeks dimpled.

  “The city,” I boasted, having already decided Chicago was superior to Oak Park. It had taller buildings, the lakefront, and far friendlier kids.

  “I lived on the South Side until I was four,” Stacey told me. “My dad still lives there.” She seemed equally as proud of her Chicago roots, but then she frowned, becoming defensive. “My mom and dad aren’t married and never were. If you’re gonna be mean about it…” She glared in the direction of Maggie Young.

  I shook my head so vigorously that auburn strands of hair slapped me across the face. “I’m not gonna be mean to you! You’re the first kid who’s been nice to me.”

  With that out of the way, we moved on to our favorite cartoon (ThunderCats), color (blue), and food (peanut butter), marveling that we shared all of these common interests along with our non-Oak Park origin and ethnicity (Irish).

  Stacey also said, “Wow, you have cool eyes. Are they orange in the middle?”

  “They’re hazel. Mostly green and brown, but they change colors sometimes.”

  “Oooh, like a mood ring!”

  I nodded, beaming. Her words melted the feeling of insecurity that had been lodged in my gut since Maggie mocked my clothes.

  Maybe if I’d begged my mom for a new wardrobe and a perm, I could’ve joined Maggie Young’s elite crowd of Keds-sneakered, Gap-cardigan-wearing, boy-crazy girls with perfectly coiffed bangs. But once I aligned myself with Stacey, I was branded uncool for life and I didn’t care. Stacey was a genuinely nice person; I was relieved to have a real friend, and so was she.

  Stacey’s low position on the social totem pole at school-just above the girl who smelled like pee and tried to blame it on her cats-stemmed from her undesirable family situation. She lived in a tiny apartment, not the prime locale for elaborate sleepovers, and all the other parents looked down on her mom. Beth had Stacey at sixteen and Stacey’s dad had been thirty. Beth had scrimped and saved to move Stacey to the “burbs for that mythic “better life.” After that, Stacey rarely saw her dad.

  Two years into our friendship, in fourth grade, I went with Stacey to visit him. We waited anxiously in the backseat while Beth went in to talk to him first. Five minutes later, Beth stormed out, red-cheeked, and started the car again, announcing, “He can’t pay child
support, he can’t see his kid.”

  On the drive back to Oak Park, I stared out my window, feeling sick to my stomach for Stacey, who chewed on the ends of her dark hair, trying not to cry. Beth played the radio as loud as it could go, Led Zeppelin making the windows rattle, Stacey and I learning to find solace in a blaring rock song.

  My friendship with Stacey was never supposed to change. It was supposed to stay frozen in time like the photograph on the mantel in my living room: me and Stacey, ten years old, eyes bright, our forefingers pulling our mouths into goofy, jack-o’lantern grins. It would be okay if our hair and clothes changed with the times, but we were supposed to be standing side by side with wacky smiles on our faces until the day we died.

  A week after eighth grade graduation, Beth broke the news that she and Stacey were moving to the neighboring town-and different school district—of Berwyn.

  She tried to butter us up first, ordering pizza for dinner. We ate in front of the TV as usual, but after The Real World ended, Beth turned it off.

  “We need to talk about something.” Beth took a deep breath before blurting, “We’re moving in August when the lease is up. I can’t afford Oak Park rent anymore.”

  Stacey and I both sobbed and begged and pleaded, but it had no effect on Beth. She scowled, one hand on her hip, the other palm outstretched, sliding back and forth between us. “You girls wanna get jobs? Wanna see if I can get you dishwashing positions at the restaurant?” She jerked her hand away. “Didn’t think so.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself and cried harder. Stacey screeched until she was blue in the face, calling Beth things she’d never dared, like “motherfucking bitch.”

  Finally, Beth roared, “Get to your room before I ground your ass for the entire summer!”

  Stacey grabbed my hand and yanked me down the hall. She slammed her door and blasted a Black Sabbath album. Beth shouted at her to play it louder. Stacey changed the music to Nine Inch Nails, but Beth said she could turn that up, too.

  After fifty similar arguments, Stacey didn’t want to talk about it anymore. But I kept scheming to keep us from being separated. I even tried to convince my parents that we should move to Berwyn, too.