by Len Vlahos
But there were undercurrents. There are always undercurrents. No matter what you’re doing in life, there is always something written between the lines. Nothing is ever exactly what it seems.
Take my father.
No, I mean, please, take my father. Ha ha. I’m mostly kidding. I love my dad, but he doesn’t really have much on the ball. Harry calls him the La-Z-Man because he never leaves his La-Z-Boy. There’s a reason the chair manufacturer named it that. My dad just sits there in front of the TV, zoning out.
He’s retired on disability. I’m not even sure what that really means. I just know he gets a check every month for not working. So I guess that’s a kind of work. In some weird way, it’s like he’s getting paid for watching TV all day. And for drinking.
And no, we don’t need to go there. I know my dad is a drunk. My sisters know my dad is a drunk. The neighbors know my dad is a drunk. My friends know my dad is a drunk. The only two people in the entire city who don’t seem to know that my dad is a drunk are my dad and my mom.
Anyway, my dad just sort of gave up on life. He and my mom had all these daughters, and I think he got overwhelmed and packed it in. But here’s the thing: sometimes, when he’s watching television, his attention wanders. His eyes focus on a spot above and behind the TV, like he sees something there. I wonder if he’s seeing his life without the rest of us, without me, my mom, and my sisters. Or maybe he’s seeing what his life would have been like if the rest of us hadn’t come along in the first place.
Undercurrents.
There were undercurrents at our rehearsals, too. At first I thought it was just my pregnancy freaking me out, but after a while I realized it was other stuff, too.
Mostly, it was Johnny and Harry. Johnny, because he was trying to figure out how to live life without his leg—I don’t mean physically, I mean emotionally—and Harry, because had a pretty big crush on me.
Harry said the crush was over. He told me he was happy that we could be friends and happy that the band was back together. But I saw the way he still looked at me. Not like he was undressing me with his eyes or anything pervy, more like he was trying to hold my hand with his eyes. Most days, it broke my heart. Not a lot, just a little. What’s that expression? Death by a thousand cuts? Like that.
Harry had figured out how to tuck his feelings away so they weren’t causing any problems in the band, but the crush was still there, underneath the surface, like a bruise under your skin. I know that must sound conceited, but it’s the truth.
Like, one time, I was walking by and gave Harry a little squeeze on the neck, and I felt his whole body go stiff. Anytime I’d done that in the past, he would sort of just melt into me, like a puppy. But now, now things were different.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” We locked eyes for a minute, and I thought he was going to cry. He wasn’t fine. I knew from that moment on that Harry was off-limits.
All that stuff was in the background, but it was there. There was a lot of baggage, and there were a lot of secrets.
Anyway, we played and played, day after day, grinding out song after song in Harry’s basement. None of us had jobs, and other than Richie going to school every day—he was still a senior in high school—and Johnny going to physical therapy, we focused on the band. It was an endless stream of rehearsals, each one the same as the one before. Even my morning sickness had settled down into something I could manage.
Sooner or later, something had to change. I figured it would be my pregnancy—that was like a bomb with a timer counting down to zero—but Richie pushed a different button first.
“So you ever gonna plug that fucking thing in or what?” he said to Johnny at the end of one rehearsal.
Johnny did, and the Scar Boys were truly reborn.
RICHIE MCGILL
What did I think when Johnny started playing the piano? Shit, I didn’t think about it at all. I just let the groove into my bones, and, man, it felt good.
CHEYENNE BELLE
Before Johnny sat down at the piano, we were guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, like the Who or R.E.M. And we were good. We were really good.
The bass and drums together, the way Richie and I played them, were like a grandfather clock or a heartbeat. They provided a road map for the guitar and vocal. Or maybe they were like a trail map, because more often than not Johnny and Harry would wander off the trail, always finding their way back out of the woods. It was beautiful.
But the piano was something else. Most people think a piano is a string instrument. I mean, it makes sense. Vibrating strings make the notes, right? But it’s not. Little hammers hit those strings to make them vibrate, so a piano is a percussion instrument. Did you know that? Don’t feel bad; most people don’t. The point is, a piano is like the bass, drums, and guitar, all together. It’s a whole band inside one box. So when you add a guitar, bass, and drums on top of a piano, it’s . . . it’s . . . exponential.
Johnny’s private lessons and hours and hours of practice had paid off. Like everything else in his life, being good at playing keyboards just came naturally to him. He added rhythm to the songs we already knew and brought new songs to the band based on some piano riff he’d whipped up. The riffs were always incredibly simple—even Johnny wasn’t going to turn into Billy Joel after just a couple of months—but they always worked.
We were all blown away. Well, Richie and I were blown away. It seemed like Harry already knew.
The first new song Johnny brought to the band, the same day he finally plugged in his keyboard, was called “That’s Not My Leg.” It had an Allman Brothers, chunky groove of mostly G and C chords, and he played the piano more like bongos than anything else, beating on it with his hands, keeping time like a drummer.
As soon as Johnny started to play, Harry added the perfect guitar riff, like he’d heard the song before. I couldn’t be sure at first because Harry was like that. He’s a guitar genius, always playing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. But any doubt I had went away when they started singing the song together.
Hey, Doctor, put away your saw.
I don’t want to see my leg lying on
your operating room floor.
Don’t tell me to count backward from ten.
I don’t want to go to sleep and never
see my leg again.
(Harry) Ten.
Take this mask off my face.
(Harry) Nine.
Get me out of this place.
(Harry) Eight.
I’ve got to hold on.
(Harry) Seven.
Oh, no, I’m gone.
That’s not my leg
Below my knee.
That’s not my leg
Strapped to me.
Doctor!
That’s not my leg.
“Fucking A!” Richie was right. It was really, really good. But I couldn’t get over the fact that they’d written it, had figured it all out, without me. Not only that, but Johnny, who wouldn’t plug that piano in for anyone, had been playing it for Harry.
I know, I was crazy to be jealous of them. Everything in the world was better when Johnny and Harry were getting along. But I couldn’t help feeling like I was on the outside looking in.
“Dudes,” Richie said, “play that again.” And they did. And we did. Richie and I added the backbone, and the first new Scar Boys song in more three months was brought into the world.
“We need to play out,” Richie said.
Harry and Johnny looked at each other, then back at the two of us, and said together: “CBGB’s.”
HARBINGER JONES
This is going to sound counterintuitive, but my favorite place in the world is to be onstage. Part of it is that the guitar and the music act like a shield, protecting me from everything bad. But another part is that I get to step out of my skin and become someone else. Wait, strike that. I get to step out of this costume that’s been forced on me and become who I’m really supposed to be. F
or a little while, I’m not this damaged little turd; I’m a rock star.
I know I’m not actually a rock star, but it’s how I feel, and that’s what’s important.
That we now had a date on the calendar for a gig in what was basically our homeport, was like a tonic for me. I was so excited I could barely contain myself.
I couldn’t freaking wait.
CHEYENNE BELLE
I was maybe twelve weeks pregnant when Johnny called CBGB’s and about sixteen weeks when we actually played the gig.
The last time we’d played CBGB’s was in May, and this was the end of October. We’d started to gain a bit of a following before we left on our tour, so it was easy enough to get a gig. Carol, the booking agent, put us right back onto a Thursday night, a prime spot. She gave us a slot opening for a band from out of town called Chemicals Made of Mud. Mud, as we called them, was touring the US in support of a record they had just put out on Twin/Tone. That was the label that put out the Replacements and Soul Asylum and was something of a Holy Grail to indie bands, so we were ready to be impressed.
We weren’t.
Not only were the guys in Mud jerks—the guitar player hit on me all night long—their music sucked. It was like art-house rock meets the Osmond family. I think they were going for kitsch. That doesn’t work. Something is kitsch or it’s not. Like Rocky Horror. When they were making that movie, I don’t think they knew how campy and ridiculous it was. Or maybe they did and they didn’t care. They were just having fun. Mud, on the other hand, was trying too hard, and it wasn’t working.
Before they played, it was our job to “warm up” the crowd. That’s such a stupid phrase. People in nightclubs are plenty warm to begin with, you know?
I was surprised that, when we took the stage, we actually had fans there. I thought being away for so long would’ve been death for the Scar Boys, that we would’ve needed to start all over again, but it wasn’t and we didn’t.
We opened with a couple of our standards—“Girl in the Band” and “Girl Next Door.” Every note of those two songs was exactly what we wanted it to be but better, mostly because the piano made everything sound entirely new.
Just like the last time we were at CB’s, the crowd grabbed on to our music. The small group of fans that started the set with us, the dozen or so kids who were cheering when we took the stage, were slowly joined by the rest of the audience—mostly Mud fans, I guess—so that by the middle of our set, the whole place was jumping.
We closed with “Like Us,” our usual closing number, and we got called back for an encore.
We played “That’s Not My Leg,” with Johnny singing lead.
Just as we were grooving up to the last bar of the final chorus, Johnny took the mic out of its stand and hobbled out from behind the keyboard. In order to play up the name of the band, Johnny wasn’t wearing his prosthetic leg. Instead, he had on a peg leg, like a pirate’s peg leg.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” Richie had asked as Johnny strapped it on before the gig.
“Secondhand shop.”
“You can buy peg legs at secondhand shops?” I asked.
“Trust me,” he said, smiling. “This is going to help us tonight.”
I looked at the other guys. Richie just shrugged. Harry had his head down, his hat pulled low. Something was up, but I had no idea what.
Anyway, like I was saying, Johnny and his peg leg came out from behind the keyboard during our encore of “That’s Not My Leg.” Right when Johnny was getting up, Harry strummed one loud chord and let the sustain mix with the feedback from his amp. It created a sound like a distorted, pissed-off Liberty Bell. As it rang, he lifted his guitar strap over his head and held the guitar by the body, shaking it so the ringing started to oscillate. Johnny, still singing, moved to the middle of the stage and locked eyes with Harry. I had no idea what they were up to, so I kept playing the bass. I glanced back at Richie, but he was too wrapped up in what was going on in front of us to notice me. He kept the frantic beat chugging, and I kept up with him.
Just as we were getting close to the last note of the song, Harry crouched down low. I didn’t understand what was happening, so I wasn’t ready when he swung his guitar at Johnny’s peg leg. Johnny leaped into the air the instant the guitar struck wood, and the leg went sailing into the crowd. Johnny stuck the landing on his one good foot, both arms held high over his head like a gymnast. I shrieked but somehow managed to keep it together long enough to end the song on time with Richie.
The audience went batshit crazy. It’s what it must’ve been like to see Pete Townshend smash his first guitar.
HARBINGER JONES
“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” I asked.
We were in the cathedral, Johnny’s living room.
“Just try it. I promise, it won’t hurt me.” Johnny could barely contain his excitement. I hadn’t seen him this animated since his accident. He’d been coming around slowly, but this was a new level of engagement.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, trying to make sure I understood what he was asking. “You want me to swing my guitar at your prosthetic leg, and swing it hard enough to knock it over.”
“Yes.”
“John, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Of course you can.”
“Okay, let’s come at this from a different angle. Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I wrote a new song, and it’s the best way—it’s the only way—to end it.”
That’s when Johnny played “That’s Not My Leg” for the first time. Of course, I loved it from the second I heard it. It was the perfect anthem for a band of disfigured, disabled kids called the Scar Boys.
Now I understood what he was asking. I still didn’t like it, but I understood it.
“Let’s practice it a few times without the music,” he said. “Just to see how it goes.”
“Isn’t that thing strapped to you somehow? Won’t it break the straps?” I paused as I thought about it. “And, hey, wait, won’t it break my guitar?”
I’m not proud that I cared more about the guitar than I cared about Johnny’s leg, but, you know, it was my guitar.
“I haven’t fully figured out the straps thing yet, so for now I’ll leave it loose. My stump will just be resting on it. If we time it right, if I jump at just the right instant, the guitar should sail through the leg, no problem.”
“No problem,” I muttered under my breath. But I nodded my assent.
Johnny was smiling like a deranged lunatic as he stood up and made his way out from behind the keyboard into the middle of the room. He took a minute to pull down the neoprene sleeve wrapped around his leg, making sure it was loose. When he was done, he was leaning on it the way someone with two legs might lean their knee on a coffee table.
“Okay, you’re sure about this?”
“Just do it already!”
So I lifted the guitar strap over my head and held my Strat by its neck, like a baseball bat. I crouched low, readying myself to swing.
When I was younger, before I knew Johnny, before I played the guitar, I took a few Tae Kwon Do lessons. My dad thought it was a way I could build confidence. One of the first things they taught me was how to break a board. I’m not kidding; just to get your white belt you actually had to break a piece of wood with your hand. I can still remember standing in the class.
“My name is Harry, and my breaking board is hammer fist, sir!” I yelled. Then I cocked my arm high over my head and brought it down gently once, touching the board and saying, “Concentration.” I recocked the arm and brought it down gently again, this time saying, “Confidence.” The third time, I brought the arm down with all the force my ten-year-old body could muster, screaming, “Ki hap!” It was a kind of Korean power word. No one was more surprised than me when my hand sliced through that board like it was a piece of paper.
It was an incredibly happy moment—one of the happiest of my life—for about ten seconds. That’s w
hen one of the other students in the class said, “It looks like someone did breaking board on his face,” and all the other kids laughed.
The teacher, who I really admired, admonished the other kids, talking to them about respect, but I could still see the look in their eyes. I was going to be the freak in Tae Kwon Do just like I was in school, and I didn’t want that.
I never went back.
I wish I had, though. I really wish I had.
That day in Johnny’s living room, I brought the guitar back, gently moved it forward to the prosthetic leg, and said, “Concentration.” I brought it back and moved it forward again, saying the second part of my incantation: “Confidence.” But when I swung through the third time, the moment of the lethal strike, I pulled up, holding back any real power. I hit Johnny’s leg with all the force of a down pillow. The leg wobbled like a bowling pin but didn’t fall over.
Johnny groaned. “Jesus Christ, Harry. You have to hit it. Are you scared or something?” It was a dickish kind of thing for him to say, but in a way it made me happy; it was a sign that the old Johnny was trying to fight his way back into the world.
“Okay, okay, let’s try again.” This time my third blow was what it needed to be, and his leg went flying across the room, landing on a sofa. Johnny had jumped in the air at just the right instant and managed to land on his good leg, though he had to hold on to a table to keep from losing his balance and falling over.
“Yes!” Johnny was totally pumped at how well the stunt had worked. “That’s it! Let’s do it again!”
I retrieved Johnny’s leg, and we set up to run through it once more. Just as my guitar was sailing through the air and connecting with Johnny’s prosthesis, Mrs. McKenna, Johnny’s mom, turned a corner on the top of the stairs. She shrieked as she watched the leg go flying through the air, this time knocking over a lamp.
“Are you boys insane!”
She spent the next ten minutes screaming at us about the cost of a prosthetic leg, not to mention the lamp, not to mention the damage we could do to Johnny. We were very apologetic and very contrite. She ended with an “I think you’d better go now, Harry.”