Scar Girl (2 page)

The coolest thing about the place was the sunken living room. Maybe that's not the right thing to call it, because it was too tall to be sunken. Maybe I should just call it the cathedral, like Harry does. Floor to ceiling it was eighteen feet. I know that because Johnny liked to tell people that his was the only house that could hold a seventeen-foot Christmas tree and still have room for the star.

Anyway, Harry had been to see Johnny the day before and told me what to expect.

“He's a mess, Chey.” Harry had come straight to my house after seeing him. “He hasn't showered; he's not even getting out of bed.”

“What did he say about me?” I know how lame that sounds. I should've been asking about Johnny, but I was too far gone. My heart hurt so bad I thought it would burst.

“He's been pushing you away”—Harry paused for a second and then made air quotes—“for your own good.”

“My own good?”

“He thinks you deserve to be with someone who isn't . . . who isn't . . .”

“Isn't what?”

Harry looked at the ground and said in a very soft voice, “deformed.” Like I told you, Harry sees his scars as way worse than other people do. He kind of thinks he's the Elephant Man. I didn't know what to say.

Harry told me not to expect miracles. “I've been where Johnny is,” he said. “He has a long, slow road to recovery, and there are going to be lots of ups and downs.”

That phrase
lots of ups and downs
was echoing in my head when I rang Johnny's doorbell the next day. It was a Saturday, so I braced myself for his mother to answer. She hated me, thought I was a bad influence on her little angel. She loved to make little comments about how wrong I was for her son. “We're so proud Johnny got into Syracuse, aren't you? It will give him a chance to carve out a whole new life for himself, don't you think?” Only the last laugh was on her. Johnny's accident stopped him from ever going to Syracuse. I was ringing his doorbell in early August, and there he was—no way he would be leaving Yonkers.

I guess that sounds shitty. I don't mean it like that. I wish he had gotten to go to college. It's just that perfect little families are never perfect and sometimes when they get reminded of that, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world.

I guess that sounds shitty, too, so I should just shut up.

Anyway, I was ready for his mother. I was going to hold my tongue, grit my teeth, and smile. And if she didn't let me in to see him, I would just shove her out of the way.

Only, when the door opened it wasn't Mrs. McKenna, it was Johnny. He was showered, dressed in blue jeans and a Ramones T-shirt that he knew was my favorite, and he was standing with crutches. His right pant leg was tied up to just below his knee, but I hardly noticed that. It had been nearly a month since we'd been together and I was just so happy to see him.

I threw myself at Johnny and had him in a hug so fierce that I almost knocked him over.

“It's good to see you, too, Pick,” he laughed.

Pick
was the nickname Johnny gave me when I first joined the band. He only ever used it in private, one of our secrets. He loved that I played bass with a pick. I guess Dave, the bass player in the band before me, used his fingers. I never really got bass players who use their fingers. A pick makes such a badass sound, you know?

Anyway, Johnny and I went through his kitchen and down into the cathedral. It made me want to cry, watching him work his way down the stairs with his crutches and his missing leg.

Once we were sitting on the couch, he held my hand. The windows were open and there was a hot breeze; I was all clammy, but I think it was mostly from nerves.

“Why wouldn't you see me?” I was barking at him like one of the Dobermans from my neighborhood before he had a chance to say a word. He'd kept me away for so long that I'd convinced myself he hated me.

“It's tough to explain,” he said, and he hung his head. Johnny's body language was all wrong. It was the first sign of how much everything had changed. “Harry really got on my case about it,” he added.

“Harry? Got on
your
case?”

“I know, right? Him coming here was like a giant wake-up call, a giant alarm clock getting me out of bed.”

I smiled, but all I could think was
Didn't you miss me?

“We played music for hours. I didn't want it to end. It's the first time since this”—he motioned to his leg—“that I've really been happy.”

“It's so good to see you, Johnny.” I nuzzled my face into his neck, trying to turn the conversation back to us. Then I took his other hand, looked into his eyes, and kissed him. He seemed almost surprised. Not surprised that I kissed him, but surprised that he would be kissed at all, you know? But only for a minute. Then he kissed me back, and we were right where we left off.

Except . . . well, there was something different. I could feel it. It's like we were the same people, the same couple, but we were no longer
we
, if that makes sense. We were him and her, him and me.

Plus, there was something else. Something I needed to tell him. The other reason I was getting so desperate to see him.

I thought I was . . . well, I wasn't sure. Anyway, even if I had been sure, I couldn't lay that on Johnny. He was broken. I don't mean his leg; I mean Johnny the person. He was the most confident guy I'd ever known, and now he was broken. How could I tell him I thought I was pregnant?

PART TWO,
AUGUST TO OCTOBER 1986

I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.
—Bono

 

Are you religious?

HARBINGER JONES

No.

I was a weird little kid, but I wasn't a bad little kid. I didn't torture animals, and I didn't set fires. I didn't wet the bed and I never tried to play doctor with any little girls. I didn't do anything to warrant the amount of abuse the universe has heaped on me. I refuse to believe this was the work of some sort of God, and if it was, well then, you know, fuck him.

CHEYENNE BELLE

You ever see the movie
Carrie
? My mom makes Carrie's mom look like an atheist.

I'm the oldest, and I was born before my parents were married. I think the guilt of having “conceived in sin” (my mom's words, not mine) is what drove her back to Mother Church. It's why I'm the only one of the Belle girls without a good Catholic name. I mean, think about it: Theresa, Agnes, Mary Elizabeth, Katherine, Patricia, Joan, and Cheyenne. One of these things does not belong with the others, right?

Anyway, I've been through Catholic school, CCD, and every kind of mass you can imagine. You can't turn a corner in my house without some image of Christ scaring the crap out of you. So am I religious? Yeah, but it's not like I had any choice.

RICHIE MCGILL

Yeah, I believe in God.

How else do you explain music?

CHEYENNE BELLE

It was about two weeks after I saw Johnny that I found out I was pregnant for sure. I was already pretty late with my period, though that isn't so strange for me (my cycle isn't anything you'd set your watch by). But it wasn't just that. I don't know how to describe it; I felt different.

I got one of those home pregnancy tests—actually, I got three of them (I would've bought more, but they're crazy expensive)—and the results were all the same: knocked up.

I was freaked out. And I was sick. A lot. I don't know why the hell they call it morning sickness when it comes at any time of the day. Do you know the only surefire cure for nausea? No? I'll tell you. Puking. You can drink all the ginger ale and eat all the saltine crackers you want. You wanna feel better? Woof your cookies.

Anyway, I couldn't tell any of the guys in the band I was pregnant, so I talked to my younger sister Theresa. Or, really, she talked to me.

We were sitting on the beds in our room—Theresa and I shared a room with one of our other sisters, Agnes, but Agnes wasn't there—and I had my head leaned up against the wall, my hair matted against a movie poster of
Ladies and Gentleman, the Fabulous Stains
. It was really hot out, and I felt like I was going to be sick. Theresa took one look at me and knew.

“You're knocked up, aren't you?”

I'm guessing my jaw dropped. “Shit. You can tell?”

“You should go to Planned Parenthood.”

“Planned Parenthood?”

“Yes. Get rid of it, Chey.”

For some reason, I wasn't expecting her to say that, and it made me upset. Which made me feel more sick. I closed my eyes.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why get rid of it?” She sounded like she thought I was crazy for asking.

“Yeah. You tried to keep yours.”

“And look what happened,” she said. “God punished me.”

Theresa had gotten pregnant two summers earlier, when she was fifteen, and lost her baby, at home, in bed. It was pretty messed up. She was, like, seven months, and the baby just started to come out. She tried to hide it, but with all that blood there was no hiding anything.

It had happened in the middle of the night, and somehow all of my sisters except for Agnes managed to sleep through it, even after the ambulance came. My parents, on the other hand, freaked out. My mother stood there in her bathrobe, clutching her rosaries and praying for the soul of the unborn baby. All I could think was
Shouldn't you be praying for Theresa
? My father kept mumbling something about killing “the boy who did this to my little girl.”

The two of them went with Theresa to the hospital, but before they left my mother cornered me and Agnes: “Not one word of this to your sisters, do you understand?” She had fire and brimstone in her eyes.

“What are we supposed to tell them?”

“Tell them Theresa has the flu.” Then she spun on her heel and climbed in the ambulance, still silently mouthing her prayers as she did. To this day I don't think any of my other sisters know.

I guess the conversation about me being pregnant was bringing back some pretty bad memories for Theresa, because she was squeezing the life out of Mr. Giggle Bunny. That's one of her stuffed animals.

My father's only emotional connection to his daughters has been to buy us stuffed animals. Lots and lots of stuffed animals. I have twelve and I'm a lightweight. There are one hundred twenty-six between all seven of us, and every one of them has been named. It's kind of a thing in our family.

“But won't God punish me more if I get rid of it?” I asked.

Most of the time I tried to be cool and scoff at all the Catholic stuff, but twelve years of religious education and a lifetime of being surrounded by religious paintings, statues, and lectures—well, you can take the girl out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the girl, you know? I started to cry.

Theresa rolled her eyes. “Just get it taken care of, Chey.” It wasn't exactly mean, but it wasn't really helpful, either. She put her headphones back on, letting me know that the conversation was over. I guess, on some level, it felt good to get it off my chest, but really, talking to my sister was pretty much useless.

HARBINGER JONES

Once Johnny and I had reconnected, it was like an incredible weight had been lifted. Whatever Johnny's foibles and whatever my foibles, real friendships, I guess, run deep, and our friendship was real. But it wasn't perfect. Nothing ever is.

Even though Johnny wasn't mad at me anymore, I still felt responsible for him getting into the accident. I had driven him away from the band. I had pushed him to leave Georgia and go home to New York. And I was in love with his girlfriend. I may as well have held him down while that car rammed into his leg.

My shrink, Dr. Kenny, and I worked on the guilt, but I'm not sure it helped. The only thing that ever really seems to help me is playing music, so that's what I did.

CHEYENNE BELLE

Believe it or not, I went to confession.

I went to an all-girls Catholic high school where they force students to go to confession once a week. Most of the girls just made stuff up. “Forgive me, Father, for I had impure thoughts about this boy or that boy.” Never “Forgive me, Father, for I went down on this boy
and
that boy,” which was true a lot of the time.

Anyway, I hadn't been since I'd graduated a couple of months before, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to turn.

If you've never gone to confession, it's kind of weird. You sit in this dark little room that's like two phone booths smushed together; there's a wall dividing them down the middle and there's this little hole you talk into. The priest sits on the other side so he can't see you. I guess the idea is that he isn't supposed to know who's giving confession. But don't you think he peeks when people are coming and going? I know I would.

One time, in the tenth grade, I brought a flashlight with me and shone it through the hole so I could get a good look at the priest. He didn't appreciate it.