I could hear in his voice that Johnny was kind of out of it. He had good days and bad days, and after the excitement of the CB’s gig, I think he was having a bad day. I didn’t really like to be around Johnny when he was like that—I guess I saw too much of myself in him; it hit too close to home—but I also knew that’s when he needed me the most.
He was sitting on the floor of his bedroom when I got to his house, his back leaning up against his desk. Above his head, on the desk blotter, were three brown vials of prescription medicines. I couldn’t read the labels, but figured they must be painkillers or antibiotics to stave off any infection that might have lingered in his stump. I used to have those little bottles lined up in my room, too.
A coiled wire snaked down from a hi-fi unit to a pair of headphones wrapped around Johnny’s ears. His eyes were closed, and he was otherwise motionless. The album cover for U2’s Wide Awake in America was on the floor.
The record is an EP, just four songs. “Bad,” an eight-minute live opus that pulls you through every emotion you can imagine, was a favorite song of ours. Both Johnny and I felt like Bono was talking to us personally.
I nudged Johnny’s foot with the toe of my sneaker.
“Careful, Harry,” he said without opening his eyes. “I’ve only got one of those left.”
“I know it’s the left, and that ain’t right,” I answered. This had quickly become a favorite joke of ours. I don’t know why. “‘Bad’?” I asked about the music.
“Actually, pretty damn good.” Johnny and I were a regular Smothers Brothers. No, strike that. More like Martin and Lewis. We were still a bit too dysfunctional to be the Smothers Brothers.
“So let’s hear this new song,” he said, tugging the headphones down around his neck.
I was about to take my Strat out of its case, but I realized this would sound much better on an acoustic guitar. Music is like that. You need the right tools to make it perfect. So I grabbed Johnny’s Takamine. It had a sunburst body with a built-in pickup and this trebly sound with a lot of twang. It was bright and clear, like sunshine.
I sat on Johnny’s bed and started picking, and right away I saw him smiling. He recognized the guitar part for what it was: a really good riff. I was just about to launch into the lyrics and melody when my brain hit the pause button. Oh, shit, I thought. I can’t sing this song for Johnny.
CHEYENNE BELLE
After feeling the baby move, I knew I couldn’t put it off anymore, so I got up super early the day after the gig, like eight thirty, took the number twenty bus up Central Avenue, got off at Underhill, and walked the rest of the way to Johnny’s house. The walk is way more than a mile, first up and then down a steep hill. I was tired and not feeling quite right, and by the time I got there, almost two hours after I left home, I was a bit of a wreck.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Theresa had asked from her bed as I was leaving the house. She was still bleary from whatever she’d been doing the night before. Part of me really wanted to have someone with me when I told Johnny, but I knew I needed to do this alone. I told her, “No, thanks.” She nodded, flopped her head back down on the pillow, and was snoring before I left the room.
I didn’t even know if Johnny was home, which, given how I was feeling, I suppose was pretty stupid. I don’t know why I didn’t call first. Maybe I wanted to catch him off guard, or maybe I wanted to see how happy he would be when I showed up at his door. Or maybe I just wasn’t thinking straight.
When I got there my heart sank to my knees; Harry’s car was in the driveway. I felt like I couldn’t catch a break.
Yeah, I should’ve been happy that Johnny and Harry were back to the way they were when I first joined the band. They’d been rebuilding their broken friendship brick by brick since we got back from Athens, and by this time it was stronger than ever. I guess it had to do with Johnny’s accident. Misery really does love company, you know? If I’m being honest, I wonder if my decision to keep the baby was me wanting to find a way to be closer to Johnny than Harry was.
God, it sounds so messed up to say that out loud.
Anyway, Johnny answered the door, and he was happy to see me. Even though he was on crutches without his prosthetic leg, he wrapped me in a big hug and didn’t let go for a long minute. That goofy “I Melt with You” song popped into my head.
“C’mon in, Pick. Harry’s here. We’re working on a new song. You should hear it.”
Harry stood up when we walked into Johnny’s bedroom. He always did that when I came into a room. Always a little too quickly, always with his shoulders and neck a little too stiff.
“Oh, hey, Chey,” he said to me, and then turned to Johnny. “I can get going. We can finish this later.”