“Johnny,” I asked, turning to him, “what do we do?”
He looked at me, looked at Cheyenne, and shook his head. “We play.”
Richie shrugged and played the opening drum fill to the first song on our set list: tonight, a cover of the Beatles’ “Birthday” with New Year substituted for birthday each time the word came up in the song. It was a short drum fill and ended with all of the instruments crashing in together. And that’s just what Cheyenne did. She crashed in.
She was late with the riff and was playing the wrong key. I tried to shout to her, but her eyes were closed and she was lost in the music, hearing, I guess, what her beer-soaked brain wanted her to hear.
Each song after that was worse than the one that came before.
At the end of the fifth song, Johnny said, “Thanks, and Happy New Year, everyone,” and walked off the stage.
“Pussy!” Cheyenne yelled after him, and she launched into “Girl in the Band.”
I had no idea what to do, and I don’t think Richie did, either. There were really only two choices. Follow Johnny off the stage, or stay and play.
We stayed and played with me singing lead. We got through two more songs, sort of, before it became clear that Cheyenne was done.
There was a smattering of polite applause, with a couple of “You guys suck” chants thrown in for good measure. Luckily, people didn’t need the Scar Boys to feel good that night. Or at least they did a pretty good job of pretending to feel good. I have a theory that everyone secretly hates New Year’s Eve as much as I do, but that no one will admit it. Mandated pleasure is an oxymoron.
We left the stage, and that was that. I was pretty sure it was the end of the Scar Boys.
RICHIE MCGILL
New Year’s Eve was brutal. I mean, fucking brutal.
Cheyenne was, like, ten sheets to the wind, Johnny was being a whiny bitch, and Harry was just Harry. Definitely the worst gig we ever had. I mean, Johnny walked offstage halfway through.
But you know what? I still would’ve rather been playing that God-awful gig than doing just about anything else. That’s how much I love this band.
HARBINGER JONES
It was two weeks before we all saw each other again.
I spent most of that time lying low and trying to put the finishing touches on my essay. The focus of the piece was the Scar Boys and what a life-changing experience that had been, but I didn’t want to end it on the down note of the New Year’s Eve gig. I was up to the part where Johnny lost his leg and didn’t know where to go next.
When the phone rang, I was lying on my bed reading and rereading what I’d written, figuring this must be what people call writer’s block. It was Jeff; he was summoning the entire band to a diner on the west side of New York City the following day. He was brief, he was matter-of-fact, and he hung up.
All thoughts of the essay went temporarily out of my head.
RICHIE MCGILL
I figured the band was toast, so I was surprised when Jeff called me. “Come to such-and-such diner tomorrow,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why not?” he answered. “What have you got to lose?”
Dude had a point, so I went.
HARBINGER JONES
Richie, Johnny, and I drove downtown in silence, only the sound of the Replacements’ Let It Be keeping us company. I’d chosen that record on purpose. The title of the album came from the Beatles record of the same name, the latter an unintended chronicle of the demise of the greatest rock band of all time. Since I was pretty sure I was going to a funeral—not a wake; there’s too much laughing at wakes, and this was not a day for laughing—it seemed fitting. The choice of music was a pretty subtle inside joke that I think was lost on the other guys.
Honestly, I didn’t think Cheyenne would show up, but there she was, sitting in the booth with Jeff when we arrived. She looked awful. She was bundled in a winter coat, her hair was a rat’s nest, and the sunglasses on her face couldn’t hide the bags under her eyes or the sallow look of her cheeks. Johnny and I both slid in the booth next to Jeff, wanting, each for our own reasons, to put distance between us and Cheyenne, as if that hadn’t happened already.
Jeff stayed mostly quiet until after we ordered and our food had arrived. He was polite, making small talk, chitchat. Then, just as I was sinking my teeth into a French fry smothered in brown gravy, a Maryland delicacy that had followed me home from the road, he let loose.
“What the fuck were you little knuckleheads thinking?” Jeff had never talked to us like this before. He was always in sales mode, in teaching mode, in wise-mature-adult mode. Not today.