Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway (15 page)

 

Instead of my having even one day to enjoy our success, all of it was suddenly swept away by Mom and Wolfgang’s news. The rage inside of me was almost unbearable. I wondered if she even cared about my happiness. Did I even matter to her? At fifteen, I already had a degree of independence that most kids my age never know. To have that suddenly snatched away from me, to be reminded that I was nothing more than an accessory to my mother’s plans, really hurt. But more than the rage was the fear. The uncertainty. I mean—what the hell was going to happen to us?

 

Indonesia? Until Mom met Wolfgang, I had no idea that Indonesia even existed. As far as I was concerned, she might as well have come home and announced that she was taking off to start a new life on planet Mars.

 

“So, what should we do?” Marie asked me for the millionth time that morning. Marie, Donnie, and I had all been sitting around the den whispering about my mother’s latest crazy plan. Mom had gone again; she was over at the shop, trying to catch up on all the work she’d missed. I couldn’t even dwell on how that made me feel. Wolfgang, the shop—it was getting hard to see what our place in Mom’s life even was.

 

“How the hell should I know?” I snapped. “Indo-fucking-nesia? Like Texas wasn’t far enough for her, she had to go one better and jump fucking continents?” I scowled, and continued staring at the floor as if I would discover some sort of solution down there.

 

“Well, I’m going,” said Donnie. “I don’t wanna stay here! I want to explore the world! See new things! Live in the jungle! Wolfgang says there’s jungles all over Indosia.”

 

“It’s In-do-nesia, dip-shit,” I said.

 

I couldn’t decide what hurt more. The fact that my mom had announced that she was leaving for Indonesia, and then dropped the biggest decision of my life on my lap at fifteen years old . . . or that she actually said yes to marrying Wolfgang. Words could not describe the loathing I felt for Wolfgang right then. The idea of my mom marrying anyone else but my dad filled me with self-righteous fury. How dare he try to take my dad’s place!

 

“Do you really think that she’ll sell the house?” Marie asked.

 

“Duh! Of course she will! You know Mom—she’s gonna do what’s best for her, and as for what we want . . . Once she’s made up her mind . . . that’s it.”

 

Mom never changed her mind. It was another thing about her that made me mad. I felt like I could break something. Or someone. If we stayed, we would have to move in with Grandma and Aunt Evie. Sandie would continue on in her unwanted “mom” role for a while longer, at least until the house and everything we owned in the world was sold. The idea of all of us being crammed into Aunt Evie’s tiny house was not something I was looking forward to.

 

“Well, I’m going!” Donnie announced again.

 

“Yeah, we heard you!” I sneered. “So why don’t you just shut up and let us talk?”

 

“I’m just saying! I’m not moving in with Grandma and Aunt Evie, so there’ll be more room for you guys! Besides, it’s so boring there . . .”

 

“Oh yeah?” Marie said. “But what if Dad comes back?”

 

Donnie got thoughtful when Marie said this. We spoke to Dad every week, and we were always asking him if he was going to come back, but he never gave us an answer. He would never tell us about what he was planning to do. Aunt Evie had confided in us that his eight-track business wasn’t doing well, and that he was selling Dishmasters instead. Of course, Dad would never tell us that himself, he was way too proud. Grandma had even gone as far as saying that Dad was going to move back from Texas anytime now. A part of me still found it hard to believe, though. Donnie turned away from us and stared at the TV. The Andy Griffith Show was on, with the sound turned down. Donnie kind of reminded me of Opie, because he was such a good-hearted kid. I actually thought it was a brave thing to want to see the world.

 

Donnie had proved to me just a few years ago how brave he really was. When I was in fifth grade, a sixth-grade bully named Danny slapped me in the face for sticking up for a girlfriend of mine that he was picking on. When Donnie saw me crying and I told him what happened, he told me, “Don’t worry, sis, I’ll take care of it.” Then he gave me a hug. Don was only in the third grade then. Later that day, as we were sitting outside in the lunch area, we heard screaming, and here came Danny running like a bat out of hell with my little brother, Don, hot on his heels, hitting him everywhere but the bottoms of his feet. They vanished around the corner while everybody looked on. A few minutes later, a beaten, bruised, and red-faced Danny walked up to me and apologized. “I’m sorry! I’ll never bother you again . . . but please, don’t sic your brother on me anymore . . . please!”

 

Even though we fought like hell, I loved Donnie, and the thought of him moving to another part of the world made me feel sick inside. I never dreamed that I wouldn’t have Donnie around to pick on. I didn’t even want to call him “Dumbo Ears” anymore.

 

“I don’t care,” Donnie said to no one in particular. “Even if Dad does come back, I’m going. I want to live with Mom and Wolfgang—I like Wolfgang. He’s cool, and he’s smart, and he told me that he’ll take me all over the world. Plus . . . he said that he’ll buy me a bike.”

 

I said to Donnie, “It must be easy being a moron,” but there was no malice in it. When you’re his age, the promise of a big house and a brand-new bike is irresistible. He gave me the finger, so I jumped on him and start tickling him, until he got red in the face and screamed, “UNCLE!”

 

It seemed that as soon as things started going my way, something had to come along to ruin it all. Just weeks after joining the Runaways, I was being forced to choose between the band and my own brother and mother. I mean—how was I supposed to do that?

 

Despite the rehearsals every day after school, and on weekends, from two in the afternoon until late in the evening in that stinking little trailer, being the lead singer of a rock band had been an incredible experience so far. The music was powerful, and there was a real electricity when the five of us played together: the small shows that we had played so far had given us a taste of just what a stir the Runaways could create. To give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go live in Indonesia with Mom and Wolfgang was just not going to happen.

 

Kim ran the band like a finely tuned sports team, with him as the maniacal coach barking from the sidelines. “You stupid dogs! You fucking fleas on the ass of a dog! Go to the E minor there, you fucking piece of idiot dog shit! You girls suck! You sound like dog vomit!” But it worked: we all feared Kim Fowley. And the fear worked: if you didn’t want Kim in your face spitting “dog’s asshole!” then you hit all your notes, and you gave each run-through one hundred percent.

 

Finally, after putting up with his well-rehearsed tantrums and rampages, we were able to ink the deal with Mercury and record a debut album “that will alter the face of rock and roll—FOREVER!” as Kim liked to put it.

 

Kim Fowley was a master of hype. He organized photo shoots and magazine interviews. He drilled us about how to act and what to say. He invented wild stories. Even hired kids to picket outside rock concerts, holding signs that read we want the runaways! The people who did the interviews didn’t have a clue what to make of us. Most of the time they were these long-haired, jaded guys who didn’t think for a minute that we played our own instruments. In fact, they’d ask us to outright confess to the “lies,” and demand that we tell them that this whole thing was some kind of scam concocted by Kim Fowley. They’d ask Joan dumb questions like “So, uh, what makes you think you can play the guitar?” Joan got pissed when people said dumb shit like that to her, but in the end we had to laugh. We just thought of them as assholes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this attitude was one that would hound the Runaways for our entire career. Our songs were about sex, heartbreak, partying, and the teenaged rock-and-roll lifestyle . . . all of the things that mattered to us. It’s funny to think how a bunch of teenage girls could drive those journalists so crazy. Kim encouraged us to be even more outrageous. He kept telling us that we were going to be the biggest band in the world, and part of me was beginning to believe him.

 

“Sex sells,” he told us constantly. “But teenage, jailbait sex? It makes a man want to spew in his pants! It’s provocative! Makes the chicks want to grab their crotch. It’s jailbait, dry-humping paradise for these old fucks! And that’s the best kind of sex there is . . .”

 

The Runaways train had left the station and I was on it, plain and simple. As if reading my mind, Donnie said, “There’ll probably be rock bands in In-do-nemia. They’ll probably use coconuts instead of drums, and washboards for guitars.”

 

“Shut up, Donnie!” Marie laughed.

 

I knew that right at that moment Kim Fowley was off making the deal with Mercury Records. “There’s no band like the Runaways in Indonesia,” I said, staring out into space.

 

Don got huffy and told me, “Well, I’m going whether you go or not!”

 

I threw a pillow at him, catching him good on the head.

 

While the walls were crashing down on me with my family, I started to see the girls more as a substitute family. Music, which had always been my drug, was now the only thing I could rely on. And the last thing I needed was to feel sorry for myself. Though my home life sucked, I wasn’t the only one in the band with problems. Those girls had plenty of their own to deal with! In the three weeks I’d known them, I’d learned that Joan’s mom was all alone, working like a dog to keep the family together and put food on the table. Jackie also came from a single-parent household. Sandy and Lita were the lucky ones. Their parents were still together and I was happy for them. “Wolfgang’s house is huge,” Marie said finally. “I mean—you saw the pictures. We’d each get our own room.”

 

I stared at Marie, sick of the whole conversation at that point. “Is that what you want?” I demanded. “Is that all you care about?”

 

Marie shouted at me, “I just want us to stay together! That’s ALL I want! What’s wrong with that?”

 

I looked over at Donnie, who was already in Indonesia in his mind.

 

“I mean as many of us as possible,” Marie said quietly.

 

It was getting close to two o’clock. I was due at rehearsal soon. I imagined how it would feel to walk into rehearsal today and announce that I was leaving the band to move to Indonesia. The girls would all tell me that I’d lost my fucking mind. As for Kim, I don’t know, but I had the impression that as far as he was concerned, one pretty blond fifteen-year-old was as good as another. He’d probably replace me before I was even on the plane.

 

“Marie,” I said, “if I stay and move in with Grandma and Aunt Evie . . . what would you do?”

 

Without even pausing, Marie said, “I’ll do whatever you do, Cherie. We have to stay together.”

 

There was nothing more to say. Pretty soon I heard a couple of long blasts as Stinky signaled with the horn that he was waiting outside. As I walked out the door toward that banged up VW bus, I looked back to the house. Marie was standing at the door, and she waved with a slight smile on her face like she could read my mind. “Indonesia?” she called after me, with a sparkle in her eye.

 

I turned, struck a pose, then yelled. “When pigs fly!”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 

Saying Good-bye

 

 

 

 

The weeks leading up to Mom’s departure for Indonesia were terrible. Really, really terrible. The house was in an uproar, and us kids could only look on as the last strands of our old happy, stable family life were slowly ripped apart. When Marie and I told Mom that we would not be going to Indonesia with her, she said nothing for a while. Her face showed no emotion. She simply said, “If that’s what you want . . .” and walked away, continuing the process of dismantling our family unit.

 

It turned out that Grandma and Aunt Evie were right about Dad coming back. That should have been cause for celebration, but it wasn’t, not really. The reason was Mom. Once Mom realized that Marie and I were not going to go with her, she began calling Dad up and screaming at him. Even though my father was already planning on returning, Mom started demanding that he return immediately. I remembered Dad’s words from three years ago: “You know your mom—she always wants to be the one who wears the pants in the family. And you know I don’t go for that kind of stuff, Kitten.”

 

I started to fear that Dad would decide to stay in Texas, just to spite her. Marie and I would sit silently on the front porch, listening to them argue over the phone. My mother was hysterical. “They’re your CHILDREN! They need you, dammit! Don’t you love them; don’t you care about them?”

 

We’d wince when she said stuff like that. It was like the old days all over again, before they’d separated. My mom was always good at sticking Dad where it really hurt, and then twisting the blade. We could hear him on the other end of the phone raising his voice—which was totally out of character for him. It was an angry, distorted electronic noise, like a wasp was stuck in the receiver. Mom had decided that since Marie and I were going to stay in California, it was our father’s duty to return home right away to look after us.

 

True to my fears, Mom’s interference made things worse. Dad argued. He got angry. The very fact that my mother had suddenly started ordering him to return home had set him firmly against the whole idea. The simple fact was that he didn’t want to deal with Mom. Our mother would relate all of the latest twists and turns to us over the breakfast table, her eyes wet with tears, and the insinuation was not lost on us. He doesn’t want the responsibility of looking after you girls, she was saying. He doesn’t want to come home.