I know, I know. It doesn’t make any sense. Johnny didn’t know I had carried and lost his baby, our baby. He was in the dark, and that wasn’t his fault. I can’t defend or explain the way I acted. It’s just the way it was, you know?
I was letting myself fall deeper and deeper into this big fat hole I’d been digging, and pretty soon there wasn’t going to be any way to climb back out. Worst of all, I was pushing Johnny further away.
Anyway, he let out a heavy sigh, something he’d been doing more of lately, looked at the ground, and said, “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled, and started to head back inside.
“Wait.” This time, Johnny’s voice was decisive. “Here.” He thrust a small wrapped gift in my hands. He said, “Merry Christmas,” and went back into Harry’s basement.
HARBINGER JONES
I don’t know what they talked about outside, but Johnny came back in first and said he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to clear his head. “I’m going to walk home,” he told us. It was only about a ten-minute walk, but with Johnny’s leg and all, I was surprised.
“You sure you don’t want a ride?” Richie asked.
“No, I really need the fresh air.” He was already walking up the stairs before I could say anything.
Part of me thought the guy really did need to clear his head. But another part wondered if I should go after him, ask him what had happened with Chey, and I almost did.
I could feel the words start to form in my mouth: Johnny, wait. But there was no breath to push them out. I just didn’t have any more air in my lungs for this. It was a sin of omission, and it was an act of either exhaustion or cowardice. I plead guilty to both.
When Chey came back inside a minute later, she was pale like the December sky. I thought she might throw up on me again. Instead, she asked Richie to take her home, and he did.
CHEYENNE BELLE
I waited ’til I was alone in the bathroom at my house before opening the present Johnny had given me. It was a small, gold, engraved pick. It said in tiny type, For Cheyenne, my rhythm and melody, Merry Christmas, Johnny.
I wanted to die.
PART SEVEN,
JANUARY 1987
No one wants to be the one to say the party’s over.
—John Lennon
What do you miss most about home when you’re on the road?
HARBINGER JONES
Really, I don’t miss a lot. I mean, I love my parents and all, but I almost never feel like I want to be back there. I want to be here, playing music. Period.
CHEYENNE BELLE
I miss my sisters.
When I’m gone for a long time and then go back home, it’s like everyone and everything has changed. I mean, I’ll leave and Katherine will be into dolls and cartoons, and I’ll come back and she’s into pop music and makeup. (Bad pop music and too much makeup. I need to get Theresa the hell away from her.) It’s kind of mind-blowing.
RICHIE MCGILL
My dad. He’s all alone since my mom died. I wish I was there for him more. But he’s proud of me, and that means everything.
HARBINGER JONES
For the first time ever, the Scar Boys had a gig on New Year’s Eve.
It turns out that New Year’s Eve gigs are hard to come by. They pay like three times what a normal gig pays, and every band, every accordion player, every novelty act featuring pigeons and balloons and scarves, wants one.
Our gig was thanks to our new manager, Jeff. We’d been clients for maybe three weeks, and already it was paying dividends.
A club in Tribeca, a part of the city we’d never really explored, had a last-minute opening. The guitar player for one of four bands on the bill, Here’s the Beef, had been arrested. The poor guy was going to be welcoming in 1987 from a jail cell. “Possession,” Jeff said. “Let that be a lesson to you.” Jeff loved to say stuff like that: “Let that be a lesson to you.” “I hope you learned something here.” “Give a man a fish and he eats dinner; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” Truth is, after a while that crap wore on my nerves. I think all four of us looked at Jeff as a kind of kung fu master. He was wise. We were idiots. Only half of that turned out to be true.
We were scheduled to go on at 1:00 a.m., which for a New York City New Year’s Eve party is actually pretty good. The only better slot is to be the band onstage at midnight. But it also meant we had a lot of time to sit around and wait.
Johnny and Chey were camped out at the bar, talking quietly, while Richie and I watched the other bands. I decided to take a cigarette break at 11:55, making sure I was outside when midnight came. Johnny and Cheyenne had seemed to reach some kind of truce, and I didn’t really want to watch them ring in the new year with a kiss.
CHEYENNE BELLE
Every time a person thinks she hits bottom, she finds a new flight of stairs leading down. The stairs that New Year’s Eve were especially long.