The Scar Boys

by Len Vlahos

  My mom was in the house crying. I knew this because when I went in to say good-bye, she lost it. She wrapped me in a bear hug and didn’t want to let go.

  “I know your father is upset,” she told me, “and you shouldn’t have lied to us. But Harry?”

  “Yeah Mom?”

  “I’m so incredibly proud of you.”

  That’s when the waterworks started, from both of us. I hugged her again, and she shooed me away. I composed myself and went back outside.

  Cheyenne was walking out with her bass, and that was it. We were packed and ready to go.

  “We’re all set, I guess,” I said to my dad. “See you in a month.” His stern gaze stopped us all in our tracks.

  “Remember,” he said very seriously and very suddenly, “think with the head on your shoulders.” We must’ve seemed confused because he added, “Not you, Cheyenne.” Then he shoved a small wad of bills into my hand, and disappeared into the house. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away.

  It was probably the most personal and tender moment my father and I ever shared, and I clung to it the way a dying man clings to a priest’s robes. The advice and the money were proof that his love was unconditional—twisted and weird proof, but proof just the same. And like the Grinch, my heart, at least the way it felt about my dad, grew a size or two that day.

  Then my father was gone and the gears in my brain lurched back to the Scar Boys. We piled into Dino, certain we were ready for whatever the world was going to throw at us.

  Richie was driving the first shift with me in the passenger seat. Johnny and Cheyenne were in the back, their knees, elbows, and shoulders touching. Chey was affectionate like that—a light touch on the bicep, a passing squeeze of a shoulder muscle, even the occasional peck on the cheek was par for the course. When I was the lucky recipient, which wasn’t often, it was the highlight of my day. I would lie awake at night remembering her touch, no matter how insignificant, and dream about the next time it would happen. Strike that. I would dream bigger dreams, dreams of Chey and me together, of going to movies, going to dinner, holding hands, kissing. I knew it was a fantasy, but as long as she gave those small, physical cues, there was hope. And hope is a dangerous thing. But in the weeks leading up to the tour she’d stopped all signs of affection with everyone except for Johnny.

  I pretended not to notice.

  I turned the radio on as we drove down my parents’ street into an uncertain future. One of the only AM music stations left on the dial was playing “Join Together” by the Who. I took it as an omen that big things were in store for the Scar Boys.

  STREETS OF BALTIMORE

  (written by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard, and performed by Gram Parsons)

  “You were awesome, dude,” Richie said to me. It was fourteen hours after we’d left Yonkers and we were sitting in an all-night diner in Baltimore, congratulating each other on what we thought was a great first gig on the tour. “I don’t know how you got the feedback coming out of your amp to screech like that, but man, I could feel it in my sneakers.”

  I just smiled. It was a great gig. There weren’t a whole lot of people there, but that didn’t matter.

  The four of us were sharing two plates of French fries in brown gravy; something we had never tried before, but that the waitress had assured us was a Maryland delicacy. It was good, but because we thought it was exotic and cool, we were convinced it was incredibly, unbelievably, maniacally good. That was the feeling we all had that night.

  The gig had been in the back of a bar in the Pimlico section of the city, close to the racetrack, and closer still to check-cashing, gold-buying, and liquor-selling storefronts, all of them covered with steel shutters at this hour.

  We were one of three bands on the bill, and other than the manager of the first band and the girlfriend of the drummer in the second band, the only people in the bar seemed to be neighborhood regulars. They sat on their stools with their baseball caps pulled low; they gave off a vibe of being pissed off. Either the owner of the bar was lousy at promoting gigs, was trying live music for the very first time, or there was somewhere a whole lot better to be in Baltimore that night.

  We were the first band to take the stage, and no one seemed to care. The neighborhood regulars sipped their drinks and didn’t do much else. But as we played deeper into our set, we saw their attention shift from the TV suspended above the bar to us. Before long toes were tapping, heads were bopping, and faces were smiling. When we finished, we got a nice round of applause. There was no encore, but the mood in the room was unmistakably good.

  “You know,” Cheyenne offered as she scooped up a gelatinous glob of gravy, “a night like tonight is the reason I joined this band in the first place.”

  “Not me,” Richie said, tongue firmly in cheek. “I’m in it for the chicks.” Johnny and I laughed.

  “All I’ve ever wanted,” Chey continued, ignoring us, “is to play music that would make people feel good. We did that tonight.” We were all quiet for a moment.

  It’s funny. I’d never really thought of it that way before. I’d only ever thought about how playing music made me feel. But Chey was right. The real magic comes from the audience. Music, it turns out, is more about giving than receiving. Who knew?

  “I’ve always wondered,” Johnny asked Chey, “why did you want to play the bass?”

  “I didn’t.” She didn’t offer more. That’s how Chey was. An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, covered by a blanket or whatever the hell that phrase is.

  “Then why do you?” Johnny persisted.

  “Because I can’t play the trumpet.” We all looked at her sideways, which is pretty much what Chey wanted, and she laughed. “I started playing the trumpet in the fifth grade. All the other girls chose the flute or clarinet, but I didn’t want to be like the other girls. I wanted to be one of the boys, so I took up the trumpet.” Again, Chey stopped, like we were supposed to know the rest of the story. Like we’d all read her biography.

  “And?” Johnny asked.

  “Braces.”

  “Braces?” Richie asked.

  “My teeth were crooked. I got braces. I had to give up the trumpet.”

  “Okay,” Johnny said, “but why the bass? Why not the piano, or guitar?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Chey was annoyed that Johnny had finally gotten to the heart of the matter, had pierced her protective shell of misdirection and confusion, and he let it drop. This was classic Cheyenne. Anytime the conversation turned to her, she would run you in circles, and just when you thought you were getting somewhere, she would leave you scratching your head harder than when you started. It drove us all nuts, and made us all like her even more.

  “How about you, Harry, what’s in all of this for you?” Cheyenne asked, waving her hand at the four of us.

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d joined the band because Johnny had wanted to start a band. He was my first, and at the time, only friend and I would have joined the circus if he’d thought it was a good idea. But now that I was here, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I’d stumbled onto my one true love, music, as an accident of circumstance.

  “I don’t know,” I finally answered. “I guess I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  Johnny snorted. “For me, it’s always been about the music,” he said with a little too much force. I didn’t believe him. It sounded like the kind of thing Johnny would say so people would think he was smart, or wise, or sincere. But I was in too good of a mood for Johnny being Johnny to spoil it.

  When I look back now, sitting in that diner was the last really happy memory I had of that tour and everything that came after.

  BREAKDOWN

  (written by Tom Petty, and performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)

  The swollen Virginia sun was beating down on the van, and the air conditioner—a truly fine piece of machinery designed by the brilliant engineers of the glorious Ford Motor Company—barely kept the inside temperature under eighty de
grees. It was our third day on the road, and we were on our way to a radio interview at the University of Richmond. Richie was driving, with me in the passenger seat. Johnny and Cheyenne were in the back, she with her legs draped across his lap. I’d continued my self-delusion that each new sign of affection between the two of them was platonic and that we were really one big happy family. It was getting harder and harder to believe my own lie, but I was determined.

  A brittle SNAP! came from under the van.

  Richie grabbed hold of the wheel and muscled us over to the curb.

  “Dammit! Cotter pin!” he exclaimed. He hit the hazard lights and leapt out the door. I looked back at Johnny who shrugged his shoulders. We all climbed out.

  We were stopped on a narrow two-way street with no room for parking. Cars were able to move around us, but had to slow down enough that we were causing a traffic jam. Richie had the cargo doors open and was rooting around in his drum gear.

  “What the hell’s going on? What’s a cotter pin?” Johnny demanded.

  “The clutch,” Richie answered, not looking up from what he was doing. I saw a bit of his father in him, tolerating the need for conversation, but focusing his attention on the work his hands must do. “When I stepped on the clutch to change gears, it went straight to the floor, lost all its tension. That noise you heard?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was the cotter pin—a little piece that connects the clutch to the gears—breaking off.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” Johnny demanded.

  “Dude,” Richie answered, still rooting around in his gear, “when you have a mechanic for a dad, you just know.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We fix it.” Richie turned around, holding a coat hanger in one hand and a pair of needle-nose pliers in the other. “Never be without one of these,” he smiled, waving the hanger in our faces. He reminded me of Ford Prefect extolling the virtue of always carrying a towel, seconds before the Earth was destroyed. (I’m just going to assume, FAP, that you’re cool enough to know about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)

  Without another word, Richie dropped to his knees and rolled under Dino, his legs swinging out into traffic as he reached into the engine. The three of us were left to wave cars around.

  As is true every summer afternoon south of the Mason-Dixon, the stifling heat and humidity were nature’s bit of foreshadowing. In those few minutes between the snapping of the cotter pin and Richie’s disappearance beneath the van, roiling clouds crept in and blotted out the sun.

  The first few raindrops coincided with the first flash of still far-off lightning. I silently counted—one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, Nine—and then the unfurling of low, rumbling thunder. Almost two miles away.

  I caught Cheyenne looking at me when she heard the thunder and I could see she was worried. Chey knew my history, and knew that I made a point of staying away from bad weather. When I met her gaze she reached for me. Her hand was tiny and soft, the fingertips, like mine, were calloused from playing the bass. But on Cheyenne even the calluses were smooth and gentle. Her hands were the antithesis of Mr. Mac’s. His oversized first baseman’s mitts were tools to make and unmake the world. Cheyenne’s were slender silk gloves made to stroke, caress, and save it.

  On some level I understood this was a maternal act. I was one of her family, one of her cubs, and she was protecting me without knowing why. But I was also an eighteen-year-old boy, a lonely eighteen-year-old boy with untested hormones, and even though I hadn’t admitted it to myself, I’d been in love with this girl since the moment she walked into my parents’ basement.

  Maybe my pupils dilated, or my mouth twitched, or the muscles in my forearm tensed, because Chey gave my hand a gentle squeeze and let go. “It’s okay if you want to wait in the van,” she said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  There were six “Mississippis” between the next bolt of lightning and the next boom of thunder, this one a little less rumble and a little more crackle. The sky, stained a dirty but glowing green, had given itself completely to the encroaching storm. The electricity in the air made the hairs on my arm stand on end and I felt myself losing what little control I had. The panic started to overwhelm me. But it wasn’t panic about thunder and lightning, at least it didn’t play out that way. That’s the thing about panic attacks. They’re never what they seem. Most of the time you don’t know why you’re freaking out. I suppose if you did, you wouldn’t be having a panic attack.

  I robotically waved cars by and started to wonder what the hell I was doing there, standing on the side of a road in Virginia, in the pouring rain, our piece of crap van giving in to its piece of crap nature, tortured by the unrequited love of a girl never more than five feet away but who may as well have been on Easter Island, waiting for a gig in a town where no one knew or cared who we were, chasing some idiotic dream I had no business chasing. I should’ve been home. I should’ve been getting ready to go to college. I should’ve had a job at Caldor’s or McDonald’s or the movie theater. I should’ve been going on dates. I should’ve been doing what all the other kids my age were doing.

  A flash of lightning. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three—the thunder starting with that staticky sizzle that said I’m here Harry, and I’m coming for you, setting up the cannon blast. BOOM! I flattened myself against the van and shut my eyes.

  But I wasn’t all those other kids. I was different. I was a freak. I couldn’t work in Caldor’s or McDonald’s or the movie theater. I couldn’t go on dates. I was never going to get the girl. Or the job, or the money, or anything else. College was just going to be high school all over again with me the misfit. The misfit, not fitting, standing apart, alone, outside. Outside. A searing white light penetrated my eyelids, eyelids that were shut so tight that light shouldn’t have made it through the skin and muscle to my optic nerve, shouldn’t have been able to travel the length of that nerve to the neurons in my brain, the brain that was screaming for me to get the fuck out of there.

  One Missi—the explosion. A tree branch down the street shattering and falling to the ground. I didn’t see it, I heard it. I could hear that it was a dogwood tree, I could feel it catching fire. The rain was pouring down my face. Not a cleansing rain, a damning rain.

  Hands. Cheyenne’s small delicate hands. More hands. Rougher, masculine. Pulling me, guiding me. My Converse high-tops soaked through, my socks soaked through, my skin soaked through, my bones wet. I allowed myself to be led, but didn’t open my eyes until those hands were helping me through the side door of the van. I crawled onto the bench in the back and balled myself up like a fetus. Cheyenne and Johnny climbed in next to me.

  “I’m all right,” I managed to mutter. “Sorry.” I listed Beatle albums, with songs, in chronological order, to calm myself down. I began with Introducing the Beatles: “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Misery,” “Anna,” “Chains …”

  Richie climbed in the front seat. He was drenched from head to toe, his face so smudged with grease and oil that he looked like something out of Apocalypse Now. He started the van, carefully depressed the clutch, and pulled the shift on the column into gear.

  “Fucking A!” he screamed, as the gears engaged and we rolled on down the road.

  WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES

  (written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, and performed by the Doobie Brothers)

  No one stopped us as we sprinted through the student union on the University of Richmond campus, racing to get to WDCE in time for our interview. I can only imagine what we looked like, with our drenched clothing, Richie’s blackened cheeks, and my own face, sideshow that it was. I’m surprised no one called the cops.

  When we found the station, the actual studio was too small for the whole band, so Johnny and Cheyenne did the interview while Richie and I waited outside. This arrangement was never discussed. It just happened. Thi
s was Johnny after all. He was the front man. He was the voice. He was the leader. But this was also Johnny the tourist, the Potsie, Mr. Future College Boy, and it pissed me off.

  It’s not like I wanted to do the interview. Hell no. I’d sooner have walked naked down a busy street. I just wished we’d talked about it first.

  The three of them had tried to console me on the ride over to the campus, filling the van with one platitude after another. “It’s only natural, Harry, someone who’s been through what you’ve been through can’t help but have that reaction.” (Johnny) “We’re a family, Harry. We all love you. You have nothing to be embarrassed about with us.” (Cheyenne) “Don’t sweat it, dude. Lightning never strikes the same place twice.” (Richie)

  Richie and I sat in the reception area, listening to the broadcast through speakers suspended from the ceiling. I traced a circle on my palm, feeling the outline of where Cheyenne’s hand had touched mine during the storm. That only made things worse.

  DJ: So why “The Scar Boys”?

  Johnny: Our guitarist picked the name. He was struck by lightning as a kid, and it left him with a few scars.

  DJ: Struck by lightning, really?

  Johnny: It’s the truth.

  DJ: Don’t you think that brings you bad luck?

  Johnny: Just the opposite. Like Richie, our drummer, always says, no one ever gets struck by lightning twice.

  Cheyenne: Though I suppose he could get electrocuted onstage.

  I listened as the three of them—Johnny, Cheyenne, and the DJ—clucked insincere, staged chuckles, laughter without feeling, laugh-track laughter. And I convinced myself right then and there that I was and had always been nothing more than the Scar Boys’ gimmick. I was a prop.

  The radio interview managed to get a handful of people out to the club that night, which was a handful more than the first gig on the tour. They were with us by the third song, on their feet and dancing. I let the music revive me and felt my emotional funk fade. The alder wood of my guitar vibrated against my stomach. It was the same sensation as feeling a cat purr and it calmed me down. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the groove.