Seized by a sudden inspiration, I walked over to the piano and leaned over it to open the curtains. Looking outside, I felt an enormous wave of relief wash over me. Dad’s car was parked right there, in the street.
“Dad’s car is out here!” I yelled. “Grandma! Dad’s car is here!”
I saw Grandma snap to attention and come hustling out of the kitchen like a woman half her age. She peered through the window and recognized Dad’s car immediately. “Then where is he?” she wondered aloud.
I took a look in the backyard and the laundry room. There was no sign of Dad. Marie helped, and when we came up empty-handed, she suggested, “Maybe he’s taking a walk?”Grandma shook her head. I didn’t think so either.
“I think I know where he is,” I said. I hoped I was wrong. “Come on, Marie.”
A part of me didn’t want to deal with this at all. I knew I could just slap on some makeup and head off for Joan’s house so we could spend the day talking about anything but our families. But I realized that there was nowhere for me to run, not really. I’d have to deal with this eventually, especially as it became more and more of a regular occurrence.
Marie and I approached the car in the blazing midmorning sunlight. As we got closer, we couldn’t see much: just the seats, the dashboard, and the steering wheel. The car looked deserted. It was an old white Chevy. The same car Dad would take us out to dinner in. To the movies. “You’re going to be movie stars!” Dad would say to us at the drive-in. “Two beautiful girls like you? They’ll be knocking down the doors for you. You’ll see!” He would smile then, and I would look up to my dad and believe him. I would believe every word he said to me as we sat in that car.
We were standing by the car now, peering in at Dad through the glass. He was lying across the front seat, head against the door handle, eyes closed. His body was curled into a ball. His hair was sticking up, and it made him look like a little boy. I hated that. Every so often my dad would look like a little boy, and I couldn’t stand it. Without a single word, Marie opened the door. We stood there, looking down at Daddy, and he didn’t move. All of the pent-up heat inside of the car floated up to us, along with the pungent smell of stale vodka or bourbon. I wondered for a frozen moment if he was still alive.
Shut up, Cherie! Of course he’s alive! He’s just sleeping, is all!
I found myself watching the buttons on his shirt, making sure that they were moving rhythmically with the rise and fall of his breathing. I relaxed a little when I saw that they were.
“Should we wake him up?” Marie asked. “I mean, we can’t just leave him here.”
We stood there for a few minutes, too embarrassed to do anything. Then Grandma appeared at the front door in her robe and slippers and yelled, “Is he there?”
“Yeah,” I answered, looking back to her. Grandma shook her head sadly and went back inside without saying a word. “Come on.”
Marie and I tried to wake him up. It took quite a bit of shaking. When he came to, he blinked up at us, uncomprehending. I saw the misunderstanding flash across his face as his brain struggled to make sense of what was going on. He shook his head, sat up, then produced a comb, seemingly from thin air, and with two swipes across his head looked like my dad once more. His eyes were a little bleary, but the hair was perfect. Only the rough stubble on his cheeks and the smell of alcohol gave him away. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“Well, hello,” he said. He smiled at us. “I . . . I, uh, guess I was a little tired last night, that’s all. Thought I’d stay out here. Guess I must have slept through the night . . .”
As embarrassed as my father felt, I knew that it could be nowhere as intense as the sadness Marie and I felt right then. I was embarrassed for him, I was embarrassed for me . . . all I knew was that this moment had to end as quickly as possible, or I felt like I would explode.
“Were you worried about me?” he asked.
I shook my head quickly. “Why should I be worried?” I said. “You’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
“Why don’t you come in,” Marie suggested. “Grandma has bacon and eggs for you.”
Dad sighed, and looked a little pale. He gripped the wheel and looked straight ahead. Without making eye contact with us, he said, “I’ll be in in a minute, kittens.”
With something approaching relief, Marie and I went back inside without another word.
At the kitchen table I watched Marie eat her cold bacon and eggs. I heard footsteps, and there was Daddy walking in. Marie and I smiled at him. Grandma looked at him briefly but then turned away, busying herself with the dishes. She had been washing the same dish for five minutes now. With perfect timing, Aunt Evie walked into the kitchen unaware that anything untoward had been going on.
“Morning, everyone!” she sang as my dad shuffled out of the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later Dad reappeared. He was ready for breakfast. He was clean-shaven and dressed in fresh clothes. His eyes were bright, and he looked dashing and handsome once more. When he smiled at us, everything that had gone on that morning was suddenly washed away. Grandma didn’t bring up what happened, and Marie and I didn’t either. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend that something is not happening rather than deal with it in the cold light of day. I was learning to be very good at that. Sometimes I felt that there were too many painful things in this world, and if I thought about them all, my heart might break in two.
I excused myself and went to my room. My head was swimming. It’s the pill, I told myself. The pill. It was too much. You need something to calm you down . . . I rummaged around in my purse and found a loose quaalude. I figured that taking it would calm me down; it would smooth out the rough edges of the upper, and help me to forget everything that went on with Daddy. My father is not an alcoholic, I thought as I washed the pill down with a glass of water. He just likes his liquor, is all.
The thought gave me some comfort. People were too quick to pathologize other people. My father was going through a tough time. He had to leave his life in Texas and come back to California so he could look after us. All because Mom decided to leave. He was back to working as a bartender. Of course my dad needed to drink. He needed to unwind. Just like me.
Just like me.
After taking the second pill, I lay down and stared at the ceiling. I took deep, slow breaths until I could feel my heart slowing down. My stomach was nearly empty, so I felt the quaalude start to take effect quickly. There, that’s better. I smiled. Things were fine. Things had always been fine. They would always be fine. I closed my eyes.
Chapter 15
Snapshots of Europe
In Europe, I saw the future of rock music and I didn’t like it. Punk rock was everywhere in the UK, and suddenly our shows were packed with scrawny kids wearing dog collars and leather, with safety pins shoved through their noses, ears, even their cheeks. They had ugly, violently colored, chopped-up hair. They wore spikes, torn T-shirts, and they liked to spit on each other for fun. When we did our show at CBGB, we played with bands that the press was calling “punks”—Television, Talking Heads; we saw the Ramones, who were all dressed in leather jackets and torn-up Keds sneakers, playing loud, catchy songs at a lightning pace in divey underground bars. I didn’t really get the music: it seemed too loud and aggressive for me. I was always a sucker for melody. Joan really dug it, though, and the Ramones themselves seemed like nice guys. Even the crowd at CBGB was better than what I saw in Britain; the New York take on punk was more cerebral, and almost charming compared with its vicious, violent transatlantic incarnation. Over here, the punks had adopted the Runaways as one of their own, which I found puzzling. At first I thought they hated us! When we were onstage, they pelted us with cans and coins. You could feel their sweat drizzle across your face and body as they screamed and shook violently, bashing into one another. This wasn’t an audience, it was a frenzied mob. Sometimes they would even spit at us. After the first show, I was convinced that they hated us.
“Don’t worry,” the promoter assured us in his thick Cockney accent when we dashed from the stage. “It means they like you. It’s a sign of affection!”
After a few more violent, antagonistic shows like that, I started to wonder if the ultimate show of appreciation for these kids wouldn’t be to actually storm the stage and kill the band. The shows became nerve-racking; each night was becoming less about the music and more like some kind of ritualized blood sport.
I was taking Placidyls every day now. Meanwhile, Scott Anderson had brought some cocaine along with him, and was rationing it out “for emergencies.”
On top of everything else, Scott Anderson was being an asshole to me. Toward the end of the first tour, we stopped flirting and actually got together. I’m not really sure how it happened. There was a lot of simmering sexual tension between us and one night he finally asked me out to dinner. After dinner, he drove me to the Holiday Inn in Woodland Hills and got us a room. I was nervous, but excited, too. After we’d checked into a room, I remember he disappeared into the bathroom for a while. When I finally knocked and was told to come in, I found him lying naked in the tub. He was very well endowed. I remember I saw it just . . . floating there, and it scared me a little. I was young and inexperienced, and after we’d had sex, I started getting attached, thinking that I was in love with him.
I just needed someone to hold me, someone who would show me affection, and Scott was there. He knew how vulnerable I was, and played into it totally. I was spending so many nights at his place prior to the European tour that I had practically moved in. My father didn’t like Scott, and would say, “Cherie, you’re sixteen years old. He’s almost thirty. Can you honestly tell me you don’t see what’s wrong with this picture?”
“Scott’s a good guy, Dad.”
“Well, he works for Kim Fowley. He might not be as much of a snake as Fowley is, but he’s a gofer for a snake. And I don’t know what’s worse.”
“I’ll marry Scott one day. Just you see.”
My father would roll his eyes and change the subject. If my dad had been in a better place, I’m sure he would have killed Scott. But Daddy was sick, and distracted. The entire family had been swept up in the chaos of the Runaways, and in a way I thought that my leaving on tour for a while might have been a relief to them.
I meant what I said to my dad. I felt that I was in love with Scott. Now I see I was just desperate for someone to love me. They didn’t have to mean it. The mere words were enough.
But everything changed once we left California. Once the European tour started, Scott began ignoring me. And I didn’t like the way he was talking to the other girls; he had that same smirky, flirtatious manner that he had with me before we got together. He acted like I was invisible, and was always having hushed, overfriendly, giggly conversations with the others. Sometimes, when we’d all be partying backstage, I’d notice him placing his hand on Jackie’s hip, whispering wetly into Lita’s ear. I didn’t want to seem jealous but it was eating me up inside. At the time, I swore that if that motherfucker screwed around with any of my bandmates, it would be over. I found out years later that he’d slept with all of us, with the exception of Jackie.
I spent a lot of time hiding out in the bathroom, crying. I took more and more pills, washing them down with booze. I remember once being so high and so angry at Scott that I practically pulled the guy who delivered the room service into my room in one of the English hotels we were staying in so we could have sex. Joan was out at the time. I grabbed the guy and said, “Will you screw me?” He looked terrified, but I didn’t give him much choice. I dragged him into the bathroom and we had sex right then and there, in total darkness. Then I told him to get out. I was so confused, so high, so homesick, and so hurt by Scott that a kind of temporary insanity had taken hold of me. A few weeks into the tour I was totally miserable.
We were in a black Mercedes-Benz driving past miles and miles of black, featureless highway. Outside, the air was damp and gray, the sickly haze of the streetlights hanging in the fog that was even grimier and thicker than L.A. smog. Thoughts of L.A. made the pain inside of me seem even more intense. Jesus, I was even homesick for the smog.
The limo was beautiful. Plush. Black leather seats, a minibar. Much better than Stinky’s beat-up van. Yes, the Runaways were at least touring in a degree of luxury in those days. But something had changed. There was little talk anymore, no seltzer fights, no jokes. We were simply there to do our jobs.
On the television we were watching Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon concert. The song was “The Great Gig in the Sky.” Nobody was talking. I was staring at the screen with heavy, stoned eyes. The light danced across my impassive face. During the song, a woman’s voice broke out of nowhere and suddenly the entire song soared. This heart-stopping, beautiful wail seemed to be coming from deep inside her soul. I felt Lita reaching out to me, tapping me on the shoulder.
“Whah?” I mumbled.
Lita smiled, and said, “Man, why can’t you sing like that?”
As the Runaways were gaining international success, we even made it to the magazines and the jungles of Indonesia. Don wrote to tell me that at school one afternoon he was in the smoking hut, an octagon building for students to smoke cigarettes and congregate between periods. He and his friends were just hanging out when a fellow classmate entered holding a poster from a rock magazine. It was of me, onstage in my corset. The guy held the poster up high for the entire group to see. “Hey, Don! Is this your sister?!” he said loudly, with a condescending tone.
Don said, “I dunno. Bring it closer.” The guy crossed the room, obnoxiously displaying his prized poster.
“Well, is it?” He sneered. He was really trying to get Don’s goat.
Don said again calmly, “Hmm, I’m not quite sure . . . bring it closer.” While the room hooted and hollered, the guy brought it right up to Don’s face. In a flash Don punched right through the page, hitting the boy square in the nose. His knees buckled as he stood stunned and embarrassed.
Don then took the poster, held it up for all to see. “This is my sister, everybody,” he yelled proudly. “Her name is Cherie Currie and she’s an international rock star!”
I laughed when I read that story, but usually the press caused lots of friction.
In England, they were all over us. The kind of press we were getting was causing problems in the band. I was in the lobby of a hotel somewhere in this gray, cold country flipping through the latest magazine article on us. Ugh, those magazines were so stupid. I finished flipping through the one I was holding and said, “I don’t like the pictures.”
“Oh, sure you don’t!” said Sandy sarcastically. The picture they used, just like in all of the other magazines, was an image in which I was standing front and center. The other girls were in the background. The piece itself was particularly stupid. Rock magazines were the worst! They constantly compared us with each other—not in terms of who was the best songwriter, or most talented musician—but by who looked the hottest. Who was prettier than who. Sandy wasn’t the only one who was resenting all of the attention I got as the lead singer. Everybody was starting to get pissed at me, as if I were somehow responsible for every stupid article written about us.
Lita grabbed the magazine, and sighed. “Surprise, sur-fuckin’-prise,” she said. “It’s the fuckin’ Cherie Currie show again.”
I didn’t even give her the courtesy of a glance, but she kept on anyway.
“You really don’t deserve all of this Cherie. It’s bullshit!”
“Oh, give me a break, Lita. I don’t write the damn things . . .”
“Oh! You don’t write them, that’s right. But you sure as hell make sure that you’re standing at the front pouting whenever a photographer is around. Dammit, this isn’t ‘The Cherie Currie Band,’ in case you didn’t notice! It’s the Runaways . . . and most of us were here before you were.”
“Shut up, Lita!” Sandy said. “We’ve only been here a week and we
’re already fighting. How do you think we’re going to get through two months if you keep this up?”
I didn’t know if I was grateful for Sandy’s interference or not. Lita might have been a bitch, but at least she spoke her mind. The others were content to try to act like we were cool, but they weren’t so great at hiding their true feelings. They just expressed them in other ways. All in all, I had the feeling that this tour was going to be a nightmare.
“I’m telling you, Cherie,” Lita snapped, “you’re getting to be a regular fuckin’ prima donna!”
“Bullshit! No, I’m not!”
“Oh yeah?” She stood up, and started counting off the charges against me on her fingers. “Who demanded that Kim not come on this tour?”
“Oh! So now you want Kim around? You bitched about him as much as I ever did!”
Ignoring me, she went on: “Who pouted and sulked until she got the window seat on the flight over? Who keeps complaining that the songs aren’t in her key?”
“So what? The songs aren’t in my key!”
“Maybe if you had a better vocal range they would be!”
“Lita, man.” Sandy got between Lita and me. “You’re starting to sound just like Kim. Why don’t you just can it for a while?”
Everybody fell silent. Lita stormed off, and sat over in the farthest corner of the lobby, arms folded, back turned to me. The silence quickly turned uncomfortable.
“It’s not my fault!” I said again, in a pleading voice. “Doesn’t anyone believe me?”
No answer. Everyone was looking anywhere but in my direction.
“Joan,” I said, “don’t you believe me?”
Joan didn’t turn to look at me. Without meeting my gaze, she mumbled, “Yeah. Of course I believe you.”
Kent Smythe, our roadie, came over and said, “Okay, ladies. I have your room keys . . .”
Neon Angel Page 18
