by Len Vlahos
Johnny kept falling off. Or the board would slide out from under his feet. Or it would flip up in the air and nail him in the crotch. (I laughed pretty hard when that happened.) But he kept at it. I tried to give him pointers, and at first he listened, but then he tuned me out. His face was getting redder and redder, and his muscles were getting all stiff, which is the worst thing for skateboarding.
Finally, after he’d fallen, like, twenty times, I knew I needed to pull the plug.
“John, I’m freezing my fucking ass off out here. Can we try this again in the spring?”
His face was a blank wall. He looked at me from the ground and just nodded. I went to help him up, but he batted my hand away.
I took him home, and that was that.
CHEYENNE BELLE
The experience of losing the baby—I can say those words now, but I couldn’t back then—tore me up inside, both physically and mentally. I felt like someone had taken a razor blade and made tiny cuts all over my heart and all over my gut. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it except for my sisters, and because of all the shit Theresa had said to me, I couldn’t really even talk to them.
Every time I thought of the baby, of what he would have looked like (in my mind it was a boy), of how much I would’ve loved him, every time I wondered if the baby suffered when he died, I would start to unravel. I was like a cassette where the tape pulls loose, and the more you pull on it, the harder it gets to put back together.
Not sure of where else to turn, two days after the miscarriage and a week before we jammed again, I found myself back in the confessional.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Confess your sins to me, my child.” I recognized the voice right away. This was the same priest I’d talked to last time.
“I gave confession a few weeks ago, Father, and told you about a friend of mine, who had gotten pregnant.”
There was a long pause before he answered. “I remember, my child. What did your friend decide to do?”
“She decided to keep the baby, Father.” It was somehow easier talking about this like it had happened to someone else. It put distance between me and the reality of what I was going through.
“That’s good, that’s good.” I could hear the relief in his voice.
“And then she had a miscarriage. In her sixteenth week of pregnancy.”
There was absolute silence on the other side of the little booth, not even breathing. That, more than anything, pissed me off.
“Really, Father? Nothing? No words of calming wisdom? No explanation for why, when this girl followed your advice, God swooped in and killed the baby in her uterus?” I used the word uterus on purpose, thinking it would make him uncomfortable.
“It is not for us to understand the ways of the Lor—”
I cut him off. “Is that really the best you’ve got? That ‘whole-mystery-of-the-Lord’ shit?” I don’t think I’d ever cursed at, in front of, or even near a priest before, but I was too far gone to care. I think I might have been crying or screaming or both. “If this God of yours is so merciful and loving, why would he kill this girl’s baby? Was it some kind of holy abortion? How do you explain this? Tell me!”
Again, he was quiet for a long moment before he whispered more than spoke, “I can’t. It’s a tragedy.”
That jolted me back to the moment. I was bracing for more of the “God is mysterious” mumbo jumbo, and I hadn’t expected him to say anything so honest. I lost it for real. I started crying and couldn’t stop. Everything hurt so bad.
After a few minutes of me sitting there, blubbering, the door to the confessional opened, making me jump. And there he was, a short, fat priest with a ring of sandy-colored hair around his bald head. He was crying, too. He took my hand, led me out of the booth, and hugged me.
It was a long hug, and it was filled with sympathy and love. For a minute it even made me feel better. I think that priest violated every church rule to break down the wall of anonymity that was supposed to be between us, and I loved him for it.
I pulled myself together, backed away, and ran out of the church.
As surprising and tender as that moment was, and as good as crying and being hugged made me feel, it didn’t fix me. And that’s the problem with religion. A quick fix never works.
HARBINGER JONES
Chey’s flu lasted a whole week. It was the longest we’d gone without rehearsing since we all reconnected after Georgia. It was also the longest we’d gone without seeing each other.
Something wasn’t right about Cheyenne. She was, and I can’t believe I’m going to use this word, boring. Cheyenne’s always been an enthusiastic person—or wait, maybe that’s not the right word, maybe passionate is better, passionate with an edge. When we got back to rehearsal, Cheyenne was morose. I chalked it up to a remnant of her being sick.
RICHIE MCGILL
Soon as I saw Chey at that rehearsal, I knew she wasn’t pregnant anymore. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. She looked a little sad or something and like maybe she was a little stoned. I figured she’d had an abortion. That’s what most girls our age would’ve done.
I caught her eye when she was walking in, and she gave me this little nod, like, “Yeah, it’s done, and I’m all right.” I let it go, but I kind of kept an eye on her during the rehearsal. She was quiet but okay, so I didn’t push it.
HARBINGER JONES
“Feeling better?” I asked Chey as she plugged into her amp.
“Yeah, and sorry again about your car.”
“What happened to your car?” Johnny looked at the two of us, confused. That took me by surprise. It was like Johnny and Cheyenne hadn’t seen each other or even talked since the day I’d played “Pleasant Sounds” in Johnny’s room, more than a week earlier. If that was true, it was unprecedented.
I was deep into writing my essay at that point and had detached myself from the rest of the world. I probably needed to be a better friend to Johnny, but I don’t think I knew how. He hadn’t been himself since the accident, but he’d settled into a predictable kind of pattern. He was quieter, maybe a bit depressed, but still even-keeled and in control. That first rehearsal back after Chey’s flu bug, he looked like he was going to cry. It was noticeable enough that I asked him to come outside with me while I had a cigarette.
“You okay?”
“Me? Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know. You just don’t seem yourself.”
“I think I’m just tired is all,” he answered. I couldn’t tell if he was hiding something or if he was really just tired. “Hey,” he added, “did you talk to Chey during this past week?”
“No, why, didn’t you?”
“She called to tell me she had the flu, but that was it.” My suspicions were confirmed.
“I think she was pretty sick,” I offered. “She puked all over my car.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure that’s it. How about you?”
“Huh?”
“Everything okay with you?”
“I think so,” I said. “Why?”
“I know you, Harry. You’re not all here today. And as far as jamming is concerned, you’re always all here.”
Nothing was a done deal yet. I was still in the middle of writing my college application opus and was still wavering about what to do with my life. But for the first time, when I looked into my future, instead of seeing Johnny, Chey, and Richie, I was seeing a dorm room where I could hang my Ramones poster, a quad where I could sit quietly and play an acoustic guitar under a tree, and a girl who would want to be with me just to be with me.
I know, it’s stupid.
It was too soon to share all that with anyone else, so I decided that the status quo would be best.
“No,” I told Johnny. “I’m all here, just like always.”
“Good,” he said. “Because right now this band is the world to me.” There was a note of urgency and sincerity, or maybe it was desperation, that underlined every word.
> We went back inside to pick up the rehearsal again.
“Harry,” Johnny said, “let’s do that new song you played for us last week.”
He meant “Pleasant Sounds.” It made me feel awkward as hell, but what was I supposed to do? Johnny had been working on the keyboard part—a gentle line to counterbalance and punctuate the guitar riff—which, when added to the mix, made the song much more interesting.
When we were running through it for the third time and while I was playing the chorus, which has a couple of major seventh chords, Johnny stopped us and looked at Chey.
“That bass line isn’t working.”
“Sorry?”
“The bass line,” he repeated, a note of exasperation in his voice, “isn’t working. The notes are clashing with the chords Harry’s playing. You should be landing on the root note.”
Chey, who never liked being told what to do and who seemed out of sorts to begin with, folded her arms and rested them on her bass. “And now you’re an expert on bass guitars?”
“No,” Johnny snapped. “I’m an expert on what sounds good and on the crap that doesn’t.”
Whoa. While this was definitely a flash of the old Johnny, even the old Johnny would never have told Cheyenne she sounded like crap.
“Sorry,” he said, and hung his head. I could see the tension in his jaw. “But do me a favor and try it with a simpler line that focuses on the root notes.”
Chey was clearly pissed, but she nodded, said, “Fine,” and tried it Johnny’s way.
Of course, he was right. The tweak in the bass made the song a thousand times better. But that wasn’t the point.
Something was going on with Johnny, and it wasn’t good.
“Pleasant Sounds” turned out to be one of our best songs. It was quintessential Scar Boys. But at what cost?
“I talked to Carol at CB’s,” Johnny said matter-of-factly when we took our next break, “and they can fit us in the second Friday or second Saturday in December.”
“Better make it the Saturday,” Chey said.
We all looked at her, waiting for more.
“I got a job.” She waited for us to react, but honestly, I think we were too stunned. “I’m working Friday nights from now on.”
The times, they were a-changin’.
CHEYENNE BELLE
I think I was the first one of the Scar Boys to ever do an honest day’s work. But I was motivated. I felt like I had to take control of the few things that were actually in my control, you know? And paying Theresa and Agnes back became a priority. It was also something for me to focus on other than all the horrible stuff I was feeling.
Both girls were home when I was getting ready to go to the mall to look for a job, both of them watching my every move as I got dressed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Theresa asked.
It was only a few days after the D & C, and besides what I was feeling emotionally, I was still hurting physically, so I’d taken my meds. The painkillers the doctor had given me—Vicodin—were making everything numb, not just my belly. My feet felt numb, my arms felt numb, my tongue felt numb. Best of all, my brain felt numb. I’d taken one half an hour before I’d started trying on clothes, and I was feeling pretty good.
“I’m going out to look for work,” I answered Theresa, my voice something between tired and singsongy, “to pay you guys back. I want to look the part.” I was tossing each piece of clothing I owned onto a pile on my bed. Nothing seemed right.
I like to think that my style is my utter lack of style. Most days, I throw on whatever pair of shorts or pants happens to be lying around, and grab whichever T-shirt—washed or not—is within arm’s reach. The only time I ever bother to think about my appearance is at gigs. And even then, my approach to fashion is casual with a capital C.
For a job, I figured it was different.
Problem was, I didn’t own any interview clothes. I mean, I had some old Easter outfits that might still fit, but I didn’t think that a frilly white dress with white tights and Mary Janes were going to score me a gig at Sam Goody’s.
Luckily, Agnes is petite, too, and she came to the rescue. Sort of.
“Try these.”
“Really?”
It was a magenta skirt and a cream-colored blouse, with a turquoise blazer that had massive shoulder pads. “Yes, really.”
I tried them on. “I look like Jo from Facts of Life.”
“Better that than looking like a scary punk rock girl.”
“I am a scary punk rock girl.”
“One, you’re not scary, and two, the stores in the mall don’t hire scary punk rock girls.”
“Not even the record store?”
“It’s the mall, Cheyenne.”
“What do you think?” I asked Theresa. She had been quiet, and even though I don’t think she knew any more about this stuff than I did, I figured a second opinion wouldn’t hurt.
“I think Mrs. Garrett is going to love it.”
Agnes laughed and I groaned. I don’t know why I bothered.
Anyway, I didn’t see any other options. I put on the most sensible pair of shoes I owned (the Easter dress Mary Janes), took my bag, checked to make sure I had a pen—someone once told me to always have a pen when you’re applying for jobs—and left.
The Cross County Shopping Center isn’t really a mall in the way a mall is a mall. For one thing, it’s outdoors. There’s no enclosed building, no food court, none of the things more modern malls—like the Galleria in White Plains—have. It’s just a few intersecting walkways lined with scrubby trees and tacky stores.
It was late afternoon, so all of the high school girls were out shopping. I swear to God, not one of them was taller than five feet, but with their shoes each one was closer to six, especially when you factored in the tower of hair. At least the weather had turned colder, so they were wearing jackets and I didn’t have to look at their belly buttons. Between May first and September thirtieth, not one girl in Yonkers ever wore a shirt that covered her belly button. It’s like it was a local law or something. I think it was true on Long Island and in New Jersey, too. I don’t know why, but belly buttons kind of freak me out. They’re weird, you know?
Anyway, my first stop was Sam Goody’s. I’d been buying records there for years, so I recognized a lot of the sales staff. Most of them listened to different kinds of music than me—they were more of an arena rock crowd, Journey, Kansas, Starship—but they were usually nice.
I had seen the guy behind the counter a bunch of times. He was tall and thin, with pale skin and hair so blond it was almost white. He looked like a Q-tip.
“Hi,” I said.
“Can I help you?”
“I was wondering if you’re hiring?”
“Oh, sweetie,” the Q-tip said, almost laughing. “This place isn’t for you.”
“Huh?”
Then, I swear to God, the guy looked me up and down from my head to my toes, taking in the whole package. I felt naked.
And do you know what he said?
“Facts of Life doesn’t really fit in around here.”
I could’ve killed Agnes.
“Try the bookstore,” the Q-tip told me.
So I did.
HARBINGER JONES
Cheyenne’s announcement at rehearsal that she had a job caught us off guard. I was too stunned to speak, and Johnny just looked dejected. Wait, strike that. He looked rejected. Like Chey getting a job without his knowledge was a personal affront. Only Richie spoke.
“Fucking A, short stuff. What’re you gonna be doing?”
She explained that she was going to be working at the bookstore in Cross County Shopping Center.
I knew that store well.
When I was younger and going through the long and tortured recovery from the lightning strike, books became some of my best friends.
I remember this one day, I was sitting in the science-fiction section reading a Robert Heinlein book, when all of a sudden there was a big
commotion coming from the other side of the stacks. I must’ve been twelve and had convinced my mom it was okay to leave me there while she went shopping at Gimbels.
The bookstore was usually a quiet place, library quiet, so the noise was startling. My first reaction was to shrink and hide, to make myself disappear. The more raucous something was, the more I wanted to avoid being seen. Commotions almost never ended well for me.
But this was a happy noise; I ignored my inner voice and peered around the corner.
A man in priest’s clothes stood in the center of a small entourage as the store manager—a guy named Guy—was setting up a table for a book signing. I’d only ever seen a signing here once before, and almost no one came. Already, seven or eight people were on line for this priest.
Only, he wasn’t a priest. He was some kind of radio disc jockey who had written an autobiography and was dressing as a priest as a kind of gimmick. I must’ve stepped all the way out of the science-fiction section without realizing it, because the disc jockey looked straight at me and we locked eyes. For a minute I didn’t know which way this was going to go.
“I’d hate to see the other guy,” he said. Then his gang—and to me, they’d gone from being an entourage to a gang—turned and looked at me. Their audible gasps were drowned out by their laughter at their boss’s incredible wit. I turned on my heel and went back to the books, none of which seemed to want to judge me. I’d been through enough episodes like that in my life to let it wash over me. I picked up the Heinlein book—I think it was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress—and started reading again.
A few minutes later, as more and more fans arrived for the signing and the noise from the other side of the bookcases grew, a woman, one of the DJ’s gang, poked her head around the corner and found me.
“Hey, kid,” she said. I looked up, waiting for the punch line. “He didn’t mean anything by it. That kind of humor is just part of his act.”
That kind of humor? I wanted to ask her why people thought it was funny to cut someone else down. Why they thought it was okay to put someone in a situation where they had to defend themselves when there was no possible way of actually doing so. Why cruelty was so fucking hilarious.
