I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  Then he lifted his wee arm and pointed toward the dresser. I turned my head and saw my mother. She looked just like me except she had white-blond hair. She was skinny, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and wore smudged eyeliner around her green eyes, making them look bruised.

  “Louisa?” I sat up quickly, and the woozy feeling I’d had while hallucinating teeny astronauts vanished. Suddenly, I thought my heart was going to pound right through my chest. I rubbed my hands up and down over my sweat-drenched face. I wondered if she was a ghost and seeing her meant that I was dead, too. What she said didn’t help that confusion.

  “Emily, I left so that you wouldn’t follow me,” she admonished. From old pictures of her, I’d expected her to have the too-many-cigarettes, cool-female-rock-star voice. Instead, it was soft, almost ethereal. That was it, I knew I was dead.

  “I didn’t mean to follow you. I didn’t know you were dead. I didn’t want to die,” I babbled helplessly, tears slipping down my cheeks. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “Yes, you do,” she insisted, narrowing her eyes at me.

  “No, I don’t!” I cried, stumbling out of bed toward her, barely able to feel my own feet beneath me.

  She stepped back, out of my reach. “Yes, you do, baby,” she said, the harsh tone disappearing. “What went wrong?”

  “I wasn’t like this when I had my music!” I pouted, hurt that she avoided my touch.

  “Exactly.”

  “When I was playing with my band, I had my shit together. Sort of. I mean, I got too obsessed, but I knew what I wanted.”

  “Exactly,” she whispered again.

  “I was pretty good, Mom. I wish you could have heard me play.”

  “Someday,” she replied, her voice like a teardrop. Then she turned toward the dresser and disappeared into a drawer, dissolving right into it, like a ghost.

  “Mom!” I shouted. “Come back!” I lunged at the dresser and opened the drawer. Of course, nothing was inside except our initials, but I slung it onto the bed. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to hallucinate again, and I didn’t want to die. I drenched my head with cold water in the sink, trying to shock myself sober. Then I collapsed on the bed, unsure of what to do next.

  I knew I had to sleep, but I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. I turned the drawer on its side, leaning it against the headboard of the bed, and placed my pillow on its back wall. That way, lying down, my mother’s initials would be right above my head.

  “I swear on everything that matters to me, if I make it through this night, I will go back to playing music,” I promised my mother’s nail polish and the empty room.

  3.

  I wanna be your Joey Ramone

  Pictures of me on your bedroom door

  Invite you back after the show

  I’m the queen of rock and roll

  —Sleater-Kinney

  “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”

  Call the Doctor

  ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROCK ’N’ ROLL

  Leaving New Orleans, I felt hopeful for the first time in thirteen long, lonely months. I sang along with my copy of She Laughs’ demo, pleased to find that I still remembered every lyric and that even though my voice was rusty, I hadn’t completely lost it. Anxious to get my hands on a guitar again, I didn’t stop driving until the fuel light came on. My stomach growled at the sight of all the junk food in the gas station. It hadn’t done that in a long time due to the appetite-suppressant side effects of the drugs I’d been using, but I’d flushed all my pills after that crazy hallucination back in New Orleans. Of course, legal versions of speed marketed toward truckers sat next to the cash register, so I bought cigarettes and a bunch of snacks to resist the urge. I also impulsively purchased a phone card, deciding I should call Regan to let her know that I was on my way to Chicago and that even though I’d arrive after midnight, I expected her and Tom to be ready to rock.

  I opened a bag of chips and munched on them as I dialed the pay phone, but stopped eating when I heard a series of tones, followed by an automated voice telling me that the number I was trying to reach had been disconnected. I tried it three more times before determining that it had to be a problem with the phone card. I dialed the operator and told her I needed to be connected to Regan Parker in Chicago.

  “We don’t have any listings for that name.”

  A chill rippled through me before I said, “It’s probably under her boyfriend’s name. Tom Fawcett. F-A-W-C-E-T-T.”

  There was an agonizingly long pause before the operator spoke. “Nothing in Chicago, but I do have something in Forest Park.”

  The suburbs? I thought as I scrambled for a pen and scrawled the number on the back of my gas station receipt. She told me she would connect me, but I hung up before the call went through. When had Regan and Tom moved to the suburbs? And why?

  I got back in the car, forgetting my food next to the pay phone. I was oblivious to hunger, to the music that came on when I started the engine, and to which direction I headed in when I got back on the highway. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I’d been gone over a year and time hadn’t frozen when I left.

  Tom and Regan could have settled down, gotten married, even had a kid. What if Regan had given up music to become a soccer mom? What if she and Tom had replaced me and formed a new band?

  I mulled over a million different scenarios and then my thoughts turned to the woman I’d been focused on for so long. I still didn’t know the truth behind why Louisa’d left, but now I had insight into why she hadn’t returned. Maybe after she’d been out on the road for a year or two she’d wanted to, even drove in the direction of home. Then she thought about how I wouldn’t be a helpless infant anymore; I’d be a little person who’d learned to walk and talk without her. She’d barely recognize me and I wouldn’t know her at all. And my father, he could have moved on, gotten remarried for all she knew. She’d probably thought They’re happier without me, exactly as I was thinking about Tom and Regan. So instead of facing the ways the people she loved had inevitably changed, Louisa went on to another city and hurled herself into an empty life.

  I almost followed in her footsteps, but then I heard the click of the tape player as my demo tape stopped and flipped over again. The first song on side two, “Home,” had a chorus that the kids at River’s Edge used to really scream along to: “Displaced in this place, the only home I know is sitting next to you, turning up the stereo.” They shared my sentiments about escaping small-town life with music, though I’m sure they thought the “you” referred to my best friend or boyfriend. But I was talking about my father. And no matter how much time had passed, I knew that home still existed for me.

  I blinked back tears and checked the next highway sign to make sure I was still going north. I drove through Chicago, continuing on toward Wisconsin. But my uncertainty grew as I got closer to Carlisle. I wanted to see my dad, but I couldn’t go back there. I remembered what a loser I’d felt like arriving home the last time, and things had only gotten worse. I’d thrown away my band for this insane quest to find Louisa. My failure was written all over me.

  I stopped halfway between Carlisle and Chicago at a highway oasis suspended like a bridge over I-90. After using the bathroom, I studied myself in the mirror. The black tank top I wore revealed how much weight I’d lost and I could no longer use my hair to conceal my bony shoulders. My hair had hung to the middle of my back since I was three years old. I’d subconsciously mimicked the way my mother’s bleached hair looked in all her photos. I realized this one night and cut my hair to chin length during a coke-fueled rage. Now I kept it in short, messy pigtails. I wore wide-rimmed sunglasses to disguise the circles under my eyes and nothing hid my ragged, chapped lips. I chewed on them all the time when I was high or fighting a craving. And speaking of cravings, my hands twitched uncontrollably.

  I went out to my car and tried to sleep, but my mind spun, questioning what I should do next. At five A.M., I walked to the bank of pay phones inside the oasis and call
ed my dad.

  He answered on the first ring and his hello sounded wide-awake despite the early hour.

  I took a deep breath and softly said, “Dad?”

  “Emily? Where are you?” Urgency made his voice more high-pitched than usual.

  “I’m at that oasis near Rockford. I wanted to come home, but I just can’t face Carlisle. I can’t …” I twisted around and stared at the highway below headed northwest to Wisconsin, and on the other side of the median, southeast to Chicago. I suddenly felt trapped. I didn’t want to be in the Midwest at all.

  My father seemed to sense this and asked desperately, “Honey, will you wait there for me? Please. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  I glanced out at the road again. I didn’t have the strength to keep running. “Yeah, I’ll wait.”

  It took him an hour to get there. I waited on the eastbound side of the highway on top of a picnic table, smoking and watching the sun rise. He parked his truck and hurried over to me. The first thing I said when he got within earshot was, “I don’t think you can smoke inside. This lady gave me a dirty look.”

  He pulled me into his arms. I didn’t resist, hugging him back just as tightly. “Emily,” he breathed. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now,” I mumbled into his T-shirt.

  When we finally let go of each other, he held me at arm’s length and looked me over with worried brown eyes. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he demanded.

  I shrugged, briefly removing my purple sunglasses to brush away tears. “Sometime yesterday.”

  He jerked his head in the direction of the McDonald’s. “Let’s go get something.”

  “Okay, as long as we can come outside to eat. I need to smoke.”

  “Those things will kill you, Emily,” he chided.

  “They’ll kill you, too, Dad,” I retorted with a half-smile, tapping the pack in the pocket of his T-shirt.

  I put away two breakfast sandwiches while sitting across from him on the shady side of a picnic bench. It was quiet but comfortably at ease, the way our meals had always been. I wanted to forget the missing year and act like this was a normal thing to do, meeting for breakfast at six in the morning at a rest stop. But I couldn’t ignore the way he kept sniffling. Tears clung to his long eyelashes and occasionally dribbled down into the creases around his eyes and mouth. His face hadn’t been so lined when I left and his dark hair had grayed at the temples. My absence had aged both of us.

  I said “Dad” at the same time he said “Em,” and we both laughed weakly.

  “Go ahead,” he insisted, taking a long swallow of coffee.

  I decided to answer the question I knew he was dying to ask. “I never found her.”

  “No?” If this news disappointed or upset him, he hid it well, keeping his tone even and his lips in a straight, emotionless line.

  “Not really. I did have this weird drug-induced dream …”

  His forehead wrinkled and distress blossomed in his voice. “What do you mean by that?”

  I waved away his concern and lit a cigarette. “I need to start at the beginning. Did Molly tell you I called her?”

  He nodded.

  “And she told you that Louisa used to write her letters.”

  He nodded again, averting his eyes. He’d probably known about the letters for at least as long as I had, but I didn’t have it in me to be angry at him for that or anything else anymore. Over the past year, I’d come to terms with it. He’d done whatever he’d done because he thought he was protecting me.

  “The last address Molly had was in Boston. It took months, but finally, I met a woman there who knew Louisa.” To protect him, I eliminated the part about the woman being a coked-out stripper. “She said Louisa went to Oakland. So I drove across the country like she’s done god knows how many times. In Oakland, it took a little less time to find someone who knew her, and they said they’d heard her talk about New Orleans.” I sighed, taking a long drag to brace myself for the hardest part of the story.

  I stared at the cars zooming by below, so I wouldn’t have to see my father’s disappointment. “I was pretty messed up. I didn’t realize how much I needed to play music, how it keeps me focused and balanced. I’ve been doing a lot of pills and cocaine.” I heard him inhale sharply through his nose and I rushed to say, “But I promise I’m not going to touch that stuff anymore. I’m done. Cold turkey.” I pinched my cracked lips, tugging at a piece of dead skin. “And it’s because of Louisa.

  “I was staying in this crappy hotel in New Orleans on my birthday. I was rifling through all my things, looking for more coke, and I opened this drawer and found her initials. L.C.B. 4/81. I guess it could be a coincidence, but I—”

  “Just knew,” he finished.

  I scratched at my bare arm. “Yeah. But then I got upset ’cause, 1981? I wasn’t looking for that date, I was looking for 1990, 1991. So I decided I better just go to sleep. I took these pills to get down and reacted really badly. Felt like I couldn’t breathe, had awful hallucinations. I thought I was going to die, but I saw her. Louisa. She spoke to me, made me realize I needed to stop destroying myself and get back to my music.”

  Relief washed across my dad’s face. “So you decided to come home.”

  “Kind of.” I gestured southeast with my cigarette. “I wanted to see Regan in Chicago, but I called and her number was disconnected, and when I found out she’d moved to the suburbs, I just assumed …”

  He furrowed his brow. “What?”

  I gazed through the dark glass doors of the oasis, watching the shadowy figures inside. I maintained a steady tone when I said, “She moved on,” but my eyes grew damp beneath my sunglasses.

  I felt Dad’s hand on mine. “She and Tom moved because they wanted to live someplace cheaper, more low-key. But she wants the band back, she wants you back. She’s never stopped waiting for you, Emily, and neither have I.”

  “Oh.” I turned my head to face him.

  Tears rolled shamelessly down his cheeks. “You know how impossible it is to give up on the person who left you.”

  I nodded. “And now I know how it is to be the person that leaves. You don’t abandon everyone you love unless you’re desperate. Drugs, punk rock, the excitement of seeing a new city—none of that fills the void left by the people you care about. Louisa might have gone off to follow the music, but she did it to try to heal something really ugly inside of herself.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” He reached for his smokes, obviously preparing to answer the questions I’d asked over a year ago.

  I panicked. Maybe I didn’t need to hear this. Maybe I’d never found her because I wasn’t supposed to know. As I watched him light his cigarette, I noticed something and found a way to change the subject. “Dad, what happened to your wedding ring?”

  He rubbed his naked ring finger. “Took it off when you left.” Exhaling smoke in a long stream, he explained, “When I got married, I got married for life. That’s how I was brought up. I know even Prince Charles and Princess Di are getting divorced nowadays, but when I took that vow, I told myself I’d always be there for your mother. Even if it meant waiting twenty goddamn years for her to need me again.” His voice cracked. He closed his eyes momentarily and regrouped. “But once you have a child, you always choose your child. Above everything. I don’t love your mother more than I love you. You deserve to know whatever you need to know.”

  I wadded up my sandwich wrappers, passing the wad from fist to fist, packing it tightly like a snowball. It would have been easiest to tell him that I’d found out all I needed to know and just go back to my old life. But I’d learned too much about myself in the past year. I knew I could only play tough for so long. Maybe I’d manage to be strong for another twenty years. By that time I might have a kid of my own and when I inevitably freaked out about my mother and ran off again, I’d screw them up, too.

  “Okay.” I stared into my father’s dark eyes. “Tell me everything.”

  He patted t
he spot on the bench next to him. “Come sit with me, then.”

  Sitting beside him, my head against his chest and his arm around my shoulders, reminded me of how he’d read to me on the couch when I was younger. When the story ended, I’d grin up at him and say, “Now tell me one about Louisa.” He was the best storyteller, describing every detail so I felt like I was there with them.

  “What you heard from Regan was true,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Eric Lisbon raped your mother.” I shivered uncontrollably despite the humidity in the air around us. My dad pulled me closer and we both brought our cigarettes to our lips. “Eric was a violent guy. He beat her up badly just for talking to me once, but I didn’t find out that he’d done worse until almost two years after he died. The day before Louisa’s eighteenth birthday, I went to River’s Edge to think. I was planning to propose to her and I wanted to come up with the perfect words.”

  My father stroked my hair and brought me into his memory. I could see him pushing the side door open, flooding River’s Edge with violet-hued, evening light. He approached the stage from behind and saw Louisa sitting on the edge of it. Her pale hair illuminated her head like a halo and her shoulders curved so gently they appeared delicate, even beneath her heavy leather jacket.

  Then, every muscle in his body seized when he noticed the gun in her hands. Her hands were in her lap, but the barrel aimed inward, angled toward her face. He started to say her name but froze, terrified of startling her into pulling the trigger.

  Louisa heard his strangled whisper. She turned the gun away from herself and pointed it out into the cavernous room at some memory floating like a mirage in front of her. “This is the gun I killed Eric Lisbon with,” she said robotically.

  My father approached her slowly, shaking his head. She’d been beating herself up since Eric died, but my dad figured it was because people blamed her for breaking Eric’s heart and making him suicidal. “Eric killed himself, Louisa. It’s not your fault.”