Ballads of Suburbia

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  I read the entire notebook cover to cover on the plane. No, I didn’t write in it first. I broke that rule because I’d realized it had only hurt everyone. If these were true ballads, they were meant to be sung. Maybe if I had heard Liam’s or Maya’s sad, truthful songs earlier, I could have helped them. Maybe we could have helped each other.

  Liam’s ballad ultimately did help me when I ran into Adrian at Stacey’s. I thought about Liam, finally sober and ready to start his first semester of college. It would destroy him if I put one toe down the old path. I couldn’t let him down again like I had when we were younger.

  My slightly drunk, zigzagging journey through Oak Park with Stacey made me crave the good old days, but I didn’t let myself forget that in the aftermath of those “good times” I’d lost two of my friends forever and almost lost my brother.

  When I saw Adrian in Stacey’s living room looking like he’d stepped straight out of 1995 with the long, tawny curls, the worn-in leather jacket, and tattooed skin scented like the air off Lake Michigan, my old feelings for him came rushing back. But Adrian and I smoked cigarettes and talked until dawn on Stacey’s back porch, and that was as far as it went.

  I showed him the notebook, too, and told him I read it.

  “And you didn’t write in it first? You broke the rules. I should keep it.” He gave me one of his sly grins. “I’ve still got all the pages with the newspaper articles in a box in storage somewhere.”

  “Those aren’t our stories, though. I got the better pages. Besides, I’m gonna write in it. If it’s not too cold on New Year’s, I’m going to go to Scoville and start writing.”

  Adrian took the notebook, flipping carefully through it with his cigarette-free hand. “You’re going to spend New Year’s at Scoville?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yeah.”

  “The dawn of the new millennium, when Y2K hits and all the power goes out and the world falls into chaos, you’re going to be at Scoville Park.”

  I hugged myself, shivering in the cold, and smiled. “Seems fitting, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Adrian grinned flirtatiously, his eyebrows arching over dangerous, dancing brown eyes. “But wouldn’t you rather go to a party with me?”

  “No.”

  “Show at the Fireside? The city’s shutting it down soon. You might not get another chance.”

  “They’ve been saying that since we were in high school.”

  Adrian’s smile grew widest of all when he said, “A hot night in my bed?”

  “I thought you didn’t have a bed because you just got out of jail.”

  He whistled long and low. “You really know how to reject a guy, don’t you?” He tugged the collar of his coat down and pushed his long hair off his neck, indicating the ink on the left side of it. “You always liked my tattoos. Check out the latest?”

  “If you’re trying to get me to come close enough so you can kiss me, it’s not going to work. And you shouldn’t have gotten tattooed there. You’ll never get a job.”

  Adrian shrugged. “The dude who tattooed me when I was sixteen told me that if I got that tattoo I’d be in and out of jail for the rest of my life and so far he’s been right. Let him be.”

  I frowned. “You’re better than that.”

  “Whatever, Ms. Straight-and-Narrow with her lip ring. I bet you have tattoos.”

  “I can take the lip ring out and none of my tattoos are in visible places. And no, that is not an invitation for you to see them,” I added quickly because he’d already opened his mouth.

  “I really fucked up when I lost you.” Adrian grew somber, fingering a page in the notebook written in Quentin’s handwriting. “And when I lost Quentin.” He tapped his neck tattoo, fighting tears. “That’s what I got here. Q for Quentin. Got it on the fourth anniversary of the day he died.”

  I breathed through my teeth, suppressing a sob. “I have an M with angel wings around it on my back. For Maya. My first tattoo. Got it a year after she died.”

  Adrian shut the notebook and stared at the cover for a minute. When he looked up at me his eyes were damp. “I haven’t been to visit Quentin in too long. You wanna go with me? We can go see Maya, too.”

  That was the hardest invitation to turn down. I shook my head back and forth several times before I got the words out. “I’m going to do that while I’m here, but I’m sorry, I can’t do it with you.”

  I was crying freely now, and so was Adrian. “Okay, I get that. I’m glad you and your brother got out, you know.”

  “I wish you would,” I choked.

  “Maybe. I’ll call you if I do.”

  I knew that, as hard as I hoped, unlike Liam, he would never call. I recognized my own old cravings in his eyes. He couldn’t deal with this. He needed a line, a pill, a needle, whatever it was he did now.

  Adrian extended the notebook with a shaky hand, but before he let me take it, he asked, “You aren’t gonna write on New Year’s because you think the story you have to tell is what happened on New Year’s five years ago, right?”

  “You mean Christian?” It was the first time that name escaped my lips in ages.

  Adrian inclined his head in a sharp nod.

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t know what I’m gonna write about yet.”

  “Good.” Adrian relinquished the book. “’Cause that’s not your whole story. Not even close.”

  “I know.”

  Adrian rose to leave. He squeezed my hand as he passed, but didn’t try to kiss me or hug me. He didn’t even say good-bye. As his foot hit the first step, he turned and said, “Make it a movie like we planned, okay?”

  I smiled over my shoulder.

  “I’m serious, man. And I don’t care who you get to play me, but you know when the screen goes black, before the closing credits, put that it’s dedicated to Quentin.”

  I heard his voice falter, but his face was shrouded in darkness, so I couldn’t see if he was crying again. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I added, “And Maya.”

  “And Maya,” he echoed.

  As I listened to him walk away, I pulled my knees up and hugged them, pressing the notebook between my thighs and chest. I let the tears fall hard. I let them freeze against my face in the cold. Then I had one more cigarette and I finally went inside.

  I half expected Stacey to be waiting up for me when I tiptoed in at six a.m., but she wasn’t. I packed the notebook away and tried to get comfortable on the couch underneath the blue plaid blanket that had been on Stacey’s bed at her mom’s house for years.

  I couldn’t sleep. The sky had started to lighten, so instead of being completely dark, the room had that sickly gray tinge to it that I associated with the night I OD’d. This brought on a wave of anxiety and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to pretend I was in my bed in California, where it was only four and still dark, but that didn’t help. Only one thing would.

  I crept into the room next to the living room with my backpack. The light in there seemed brighter, safer, more blue than gray. It fell on a twin bed with a Winnie the Pooh blanket and cast an ethereal glow around Lina, highlighting the dark brown ringlets of hair that surrounded her head on her pillow, the tiny hand that hung down from the side of the bed, and her smooth, cherubic cheeks. Even in her sleep, Lina smiled, innocent and carefree as a child should be. I wanted to freeze time, so she could stay that happy forever, never have to face the troubles that her mother and I had.

  Settling on the floor amid her scattered toys, I unzipped my backpack. I kept my gaze trained on Lina, making sure the sound didn’t disturb her, but she proved to be a very heavy sleeper.

  I took out the notebook and stared at it. I had to tell this story. For Lina. Because I couldn’t stop time and she would grow up, but she didn’t have to grow up too fast like Stacey and I did.

  At first I still didn’t know what to tell or how to tell it. There wasn’t just one defining moment that I could sum up in five to ten painstaking handwritten pages like my friends had done. I coul
dn’t just write about the fight I’d had with Christian on New Year’s Eve or my overdose in Scoville Park. There was so much more.

  Skimming my friends’ stories again, I realized that their lives had been bigger than the tales they told, too. Cass was more than a girl who coped with her mom’s mental illness and her brother’s absence by doing acid. Adrian was more than a kid who felt abandoned by both his birth parents and his adoptive parents. And that’s when I saw it: my story was the sum of all these parts.

  I glanced at Lina again, reassuring myself of her deep sleep, and then I quietly ripped pages from the notebook. I removed each person’s story, or ballad, as I dubbed them so long ago, and began to arrange them like puzzle pieces. I didn’t put them in chronological order, but in the order in which they’d influenced my larger story. Next, I tore out blank pages of paper and placed them in between, marking the gaps I’d have to bridge with my memories. Each one could be its own ballad, some short as a punk anthem, some long as an epic song.

  I took a cue from the movies, opening with a topographical view of Oak Park. I smiled as I imagined a camera focusing in on Scoville Park, the only place in my hometown that I would ever think of as home, as my stage to shine on, as mine.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Oak Park is a real place and I did grow up there around the same time as my characters, but the story and all the people in it were born in my imagination.

  Why did I write about a real place? Because I love reading about the Chicago area during different eras and wanted to capture my corner of Chicagoland in the era in which I came of age, the early nineties. The landscape is forever changing: the car spindle in Berwyn is gone, Ambrosia’s has long since closed, the Fireside Bowl doesn’t hold punk shows anymore, and even Scoville Park looks different. But now these places will always exist the way I remember them in this book.

  For the sake of full disclosure, here’s what I have in common with my main character: Kara is a year older than me. We both have hazel eyes, love PJ Harvey, root for the Chicago White Sox, and have a weakness for boys with tattoos. I have a younger brother, but he’s nothing like Liam at all. My parents are divorced, but they divorced when I was older than Kara and they aren’t really like Kara’s parents. I did meet one of my best friends while shoplifting at North Riverside Mall. I’ve also known a few people who dyed their nether regions bizarre colors. But none of my friends were models for any of my characters.

  On a more serious note, there was a real heroin problem in Oak Park when I was a teen. I was not addicted to heroin, but knew people who were. Like Kara, I struggled with selfinjury while in high school and into my twenties. Both of these issues are close to my heart, so I want to provide you with resources in case you or your loved ones are coping with addiction, depression, or selfinjury:

  S.A.F.E. ALTERNATIVES: www.selfinjury.com; 1–800-DONTCUT

  To Write Love on Her Arms: www.twloha.com

  National Hopeline Network: www.hopeline.com; 1–800-SUICIDE

  SAMHSA: findtreatment.samhsa.gov (substance abuse treatment facility locator)

  The Addiction Project: www.hbo.com/addiction/

  BALLADS OF SUBURBIA

  STEPHANIE KUEHNERT

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  “The ballad of suburbia: give me loud to drown out the silence,” Kara says as she bonds with Liam over live music. Silence is a major theme in the novel. Discuss the ways in which Kara and her friends cope with the silence. Why is it necessary for them to drown it out?

  Kara and Maya’s friendship is initially formed because they recognize each other’s punk rock style. Identify some of the other moments where the main characters search for social and cultural markers on the road toward friendship and romantic interests. Do these initial and sometimes superficial connections often lead to lasting relationships? Why or why not?

  Kara, Wes, and Liam move away from the “safety” of suburbia to heal. After Quentin’s death, Kara says the parents are in “suburban witch-hunt mode.” What does this imply about the conventional ideas about the suburbs? What does this say about the significance of appearances? Are appearances more important to the parents, or their children? In what ways?

  Maya, Kara, Christian, and Liam all fantasize about escaping to Florida. Figuratively and literally, in what ways do the characters escape? What are they escaping from?

  Scoville Park becomes everyone’s stomping ground. What does Scoville Park represent? How does the perception of this place evolve from the beginning of the novel to the end?

  In Adrian’s ballad he writes, “The one good thing about coming from no one is there’s no one to answer to.” Does this account for Adrian’s unattached behavior? Is this an excuse?

  Many of the ballads are declarations of pain and quests for answers. Discuss the various characters before and after their ballads. Do you feel more sympathetic to the characters once you know their individual histories? Do you become more involved in who they are? Whose ballad would you have liked to read that wasn’t included?

  The teenage characters spend a lot of energy trying to avoid ending up like their parents. Do you think any of them succeed? Particularly in Maya’s case, does attempting to run away from her mother’s past cause her to run right into history?

  Because much of the story is narrated by Kara and the ballads are first person accounts, the adults rarely seem relevant, and are mostly included as sources of pain. Do you think this portrayal of the parents is fair?

  Compare Wes and Cass’s relationship with Kara and Liam’s. How do they mirror each other? How are they different?

  Quentin’s and Maya’s deaths seem to add to the silence of suburbia. When Kara ODs and asks Liam to hold on to the notebook to protect her friends’ ballads out of fear that the parents might read it, is she protecting her friends or only adding to the silence? Do you think the parents have a right to know? Did Kara make the right decision?

  How is depression portrayed in the novel? How does it affect characters other than those who are directly dealing with it?

  Kara expresses her difficulty making friends, saying “I can’t get past the feeling that I don’t belong.” The mosh pit is portrayed as both a place of violence and camaraderie. What is the significance of the mosh pit in the novel? What other places are similar? How does the mosh pit help Kara get over her crowd insecurities?

  Both Stacey and Kara lose the presence of their fathers, physically and emotionally. Compare and contrast how that affects their own romantic relationships with men. Does one make better choices over the other?

  A CHAT WITH THE AUTHOR

  Q: The opening lines from the Smashing Pumpkins are really powerful. Why did you start there?

  A: Simply because I think it’s a beautiful song about Chicago. When I moved away from Chicago and would go back home to visit, that song would always pop into my head—even though I wasn’t born in Chicago, it’s my home. Some of my memories of growing up in the Chicago area are beautiful, some are painful, but it’s my place. I think that’s how Kara feels, too, and the song just sums those feelings up perfectly.

  Q: Whose ballad is closest to your heart? Whose was most difficult to write? Do you have a favorite?

  A: I don’t know which is closest to my heart; they all are to some degree. None of them directly relate to my life experiences, but I’ve felt the emotions that each character is expressing at some point. Adrian’s ballad is my favorite. I love his voice and it was a nice change of pace for me to write from a male POV. Though I loved writing in Stacey’s voice, too. Maya’s and Christian’s ballads were the most difficult to write. Maya’s ballad is a suicide note. It was very complex. And Christian…he’s an abuser. He lies to himself. His view of the truth is skewed, so how is he going to be honest in his ballad?

  Q: Christian seems to be the “villain” of the novel. Is his name meant to be ironic? Did you include his backstory to make him more human? Are his mother�
��s death and his stepmother’s flight supposed to justify his violence toward women? And why is that coupled with the tenderness he shows his little sister?

  A: Christian’s backstory certainly does not justify or excuse his violent actions. I included his ballad for the same reason I included the others, because I believe, like Adrian does, that an event or series of events can shape who we become. Of course how we were raised comes into play as well and look how Christian’s dad treats women. I don’t think people are just evil or “villains” through and through. Real people are multidimensional and I strive to portray my characters that way. I know firsthand from volunteering with domestic violence survivors and surviving an abusive relationship myself that abusers like Christian are not mean all the time. They often do have a tender side like Christian with his sister. And yes, his name is meant to be ironic.

  Q: Female friendships seem to be central in the novel (Mary and Jessica; Kara, Maya, and Cass; and Kara and Stacey). What are you ultimately saying about them?

  A: Teenage female friendships fascinate me. They are so complicated. They can save a girl’s life or they can destroy her. I’ve experienced each of these types of friendships. I’ve had the backstabbing/mean-girlfriend, the friend who is so dear, but you both have too many trust issues to open up, and the childhood friend from whom you grow apart. Ultimately, I guess I’m hoping that when I write about female friendships, it will help girls to examine their friendships, cherish and build the healthy ones, and escape the unhealthy.

  Q: Did you pull from your own experiences to portray the early stages of Adrian and Kara’s relationship?

  A: Oh, god…Yeah, a little. I definitely had a couple of those we’re-not-really-dating-but-we-kinda-are relationships. And of course I got attached like Kara did.

  Q: How many ballads did you contemplate writing while you were trying to find the right lines for each character? Was it a difficult process? Can you share some lyrics that didn’t make it into the final story?

  A: Actually all the ballads that I planned to write made it into the book. I usually wrote a draft of the ballad before coming up with the lyrics. I’m constantly listening to music so if I heard a line that reminded me of a character, I’d write it down. Some, like Adrian’s and Cass’s, came to me right away, and I knew Liam’s would be from a Johnny Cash song so I just listened to a lot of Johnny Cash. In the first draft, Maya’s lyric was “She looks like a teenage anthem/She looks like she could have been happy in another life” by Everclear, but that song came out after Maya died. I think the Hole lyric suits her much better anyway. That was the toughest part, finding a lyric within the right time period by a band that the character would listen to.