Not only were the guys in Mud jerks—the guitar player hit on me all night long—their music sucked. It was like art-house rock meets the Osmond family. I think they were going for kitsch. That doesn’t work. Something is kitsch or it’s not. Like Rocky Horror. When they were making that movie, I don’t think they knew how campy and ridiculous it was. Or maybe they did and they didn’t care. They were just having fun. Mud, on the other hand, was trying too hard, and it wasn’t working.
Before they played, it was our job to “warm up” the crowd. That’s such a stupid phrase. People in nightclubs are plenty warm to begin with, you know?
I was surprised that, when we took the stage, we actually had fans there. I thought being away for so long would’ve been death for the Scar Boys, that we would’ve needed to start all over again, but it wasn’t and we didn’t.
We opened with a couple of our standards—“Girl in the Band” and “Girl Next Door.” Every note of those two songs was exactly what we wanted it to be but better, mostly because the piano made everything sound entirely new.
Just like the last time we were at CB’s, the crowd grabbed on to our music. The small group of fans that started the set with us, the dozen or so kids who were cheering when we took the stage, were slowly joined by the rest of the audience—mostly Mud fans, I guess—so that by the middle of our set, the whole place was jumping.
We closed with “Like Us,” our usual closing number, and we got called back for an encore.
We played “That’s Not My Leg,” with Johnny singing lead.
Just as we were grooving up to the last bar of the final chorus, Johnny took the mic out of its stand and hobbled out from behind the keyboard. In order to play up the name of the band, Johnny wasn’t wearing his prosthetic leg. Instead, he had on a peg leg, like a pirate’s peg leg.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” Richie had asked as Johnny strapped it on before the gig.
“Secondhand shop.”
“You can buy peg legs at secondhand shops?” I asked.
“Trust me,” he said, smiling. “This is going to help us tonight.”
I looked at the other guys. Richie just shrugged. Harry had his head down, his hat pulled low. Something was up, but I had no idea what.
Anyway, like I was saying, Johnny and his peg leg came out from behind the keyboard during our encore of “That’s Not My Leg.” Right when Johnny was getting up, Harry strummed one loud chord and let the sustain mix with the feedback from his amp. It created a sound like a distorted, pissed-off Liberty Bell. As it rang, he lifted his guitar strap over his head and held the guitar by the body, shaking it so the ringing started to oscillate. Johnny, still singing, moved to the middle of the stage and locked eyes with Harry. I had no idea what they were up to, so I kept playing the bass. I glanced back at Richie, but he was too wrapped up in what was going on in front of us to notice me. He kept the frantic beat chugging, and I kept up with him.
Just as we were getting close to the last note of the song, Harry crouched down low. I didn’t understand what was happening, so I wasn’t ready when he swung his guitar at Johnny’s peg leg. Johnny leaped into the air the instant the guitar struck wood, and the leg went sailing into the crowd. Johnny stuck the landing on his one good foot, both arms held high over his head like a gymnast. I shrieked but somehow managed to keep it together long enough to end the song on time with Richie.
The audience went batshit crazy. It’s what it must’ve been like to see Pete Townshend smash his first guitar.
HARBINGER JONES
“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” I asked.
We were in the cathedral, Johnny’s living room.
“Just try it. I promise, it won’t hurt me.” Johnny could barely contain his excitement. I hadn’t seen him this animated since his accident. He’d been coming around slowly, but this was a new level of engagement.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, trying to make sure I understood what he was asking. “You want me to swing my guitar at your prosthetic leg, and swing it hard enough to knock it over.”
“Yes.”
“John, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Of course you can.”
“Okay, let’s come at this from a different angle. Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I wrote a new song, and it’s the best way—it’s the only way—to end it.”
That’s when Johnny played “That’s Not My Leg” for the first time. Of course, I loved it from the second I heard it. It was the perfect anthem for a band of disfigured, disabled kids called the Scar Boys.
Now I understood what he was asking. I still didn’t like it, but I understood it.
“Let’s practice it a few times without the music,” he said. “Just to see how it goes.”
“Isn’t that thing strapped to you somehow? Won’t it break the straps?” I paused as I thought about it. “And, hey, wait, won’t it break my guitar?”
I’m not proud that I cared more about the guitar than I cared about Johnny’s leg, but, you know, it was my guitar.
“I haven’t fully figured out the straps thing yet, so for now I’ll leave it loose. My stump will just be resting on it. If we time it right, if I jump at just the right instant, the guitar should sail through the leg, no problem.”