Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway (38 page)

 

The biggest test was going back to the Sugar Shack. In the days since I had been a regular at the club, the scene had changed. A lot of the innocence had gone. It had gotten much darker. Once upon a time the drug of choice at the Sugar Shack was pot, maybe quaaludes. Now it was cocaine. Coke was everywhere, and there was a new decadence in the air fueled by the regulars’ rampant coke use: in the darkened corners there was stuff going on that shocked even me. Drug use and sex were going on everywhere you looked.

 

Keeping away from temptation was tough. On one of my first trips back to the Sugar Shack, a friend offered me a toot of what he said was cocaine. The temptation was too much, and I accepted. Immediately after snorting it, I knew that this stuff wasn’t coke: I started hallucinating. In the dark of the club, the faces around me took on a sinister, frightening look. The music itself started to distort and come at me in waves, disorienting me and hurting my ears. I panicked, and ran out of the club and down the street. As I ran past a storm drain, I could hear haunting voices calling my name from the darkness below.

 

I ran into a liquor store, gasping for air, convinced that I was losing my mind. I could hear a weird noise rising up from my feet. Looking down, I could see the carpet rising and falling . . . It was breathing! The carpet was breathing!

 

From nowhere, a voice asked if they could help me find something. I spun around with a yell of surprise and found myself staring into the strange, distorted face of the clerk. He took one look into my eyes, which were gleaming with chemically induced madness, and he stammered, “Oh—oh no . . . I doubt I can help you!”

 

I discovered later that what I had snorted was not cocaine, but a drug called angel dust, or PCP, an animal tranquilizer that had come onto the scene. After that incident, I was very careful about accepting anything from that particular friend.

 

There were many different social circles at the Shack—some gay, some straight, and some mixed—but they all had their own drugs, and their taboo lifestyles were incomprehensible to an outsider. So to keep on the straight and narrow, I had to be careful to avoid certain groups. I stuck with my old friends, the other “old faces” who just wanted to dance and have a good time. I spent my time hanging out under the glittering lights of the dance floor, or out in the parking lot, where I could talk to my friends away from the ecstatic roar of the disco and new wave that had replaced glam rock as the music of choice for the Sugar Shack’s regulars.

 

On this particular night, I was out there in the lot surrounded by ten or so friends and my favorite security guard, Jackson. We were talking about the old days, and it was hard to believe that it had been only four years since I had caused shock waves at my school by cutting my hair into a shag and pretending to be Bowie. It was surreal to think of just how wild my life had become when compared to my old friends.

 

“The old days” of junior high, and life in the Valley, seemed like it happened in some other place, some other time. Everything had changed; the music, the drugs, the scene was different. Ziggy Stardust was long gone, and in his place was the David Bowie of Heroes—more funky than fantastic. Punk had lived up to its nihilistic promise when Sid Vicious had supposedly stabbed his girlfriend to death, and then OD’d on heroin. Disco had moved from the clubs onto the Billboard charts. Nobody knew what the eighties had in store for us, but there was no doubting the sense that this vast, unstoppable party was building toward some kind of messy end. My personal circumstances had changed. There was a painful twinge when I thought about it, a sense that things would never be the same. Things could never feel that innocent, so alive with possibilities again.

 

The conversation swept me up, and the time passed by easily. People drifted away, and soon there were only five of us. My friends were talking about their upcoming high school graduation, and I was silent. When I was a kid, I used to dream about my high school graduation. What my dress would be like, who my date would be. Now that I had dropped out of school, I knew that I would never have a graduation. Even with all of the incredible things I had experienced with the Runaways, the thought really left me lost. It made me realize just how different my life had turned out from what I had once expected.

 

As more people drifted away, the conversation and the laughter continued. Somebody asked me about Joan Jett, and I told them funny stories about life on the road.

 

“Man, you guys should have never broke up,” one friend who had her own band in those days told me. “You were my favorite band. I dunno, you guys really made it feel like anything was possible, you know?”

 

I’d heard this a lot over the years. We may not have had number-one hits, but it really did feel like the Runaways inspired a hell of a lot of people to form their own bands, to make their own music. Whenever I heard this, I didn’t talk too much about the dark side of life in the band. I didn’t want to shatter people’s illusions.

 

I looked down at my watch. It was just before eleven. My friend Andy had joined us. We had become very close over the years. I’d even had a Japan tour jacket made for him with his name on it. Andy was one of those rare people in my life who I could always count on. He was always there for me if I needed a ride or even help detouring some crazed groupie. He was such a good guy, so sweet and honest.

 

“You need a ride home?” he asked.

 

I gave him a hug. “No thanks. Marie is picking me up. She’ll be here any minute now.”

 

“Okay, sweetie . . . Just grab me before you leave to say good-bye.” Andy kissed me on the cheek and then headed back into the club.

 

The club was still rocking. There were still quite a few people hanging out around the parking lot, sitting on the hoods of their cars, talking, laughing, and making out. Jackson, the security guard, was telling a story about having to beat someone up for hitting a girl at another club. I could hear the heavy bass and drums of some disco track reverberating out of the club and fading into the night air. I checked my watch again. Suddenly, someone called my name.

 

I looked over and there was a green limousine pulled up behind me. A guy with long, wavy blond hair was sticking his head out with a huge smile on his face. “Hey, Cherie!” he called again.

 

I leaned forward, trying to get a better look at him. The face wasn’t familiar, but I figured that I must know him from somewhere. He looked like an aging surfer; he was tall and decent-looking. I had probably been introduced to every regular at the Sugar Shack at one time or another, and had plenty of those weird awkward conversations where they remembered me but I couldn’t recall their names. I’d been introduced to everybody at Runaways’ shows, or any other of the zillion places I’d played or hung out in. This guy looked a little older than the usual Sugar Shack shackers—maybe in his late twenties. Although the Shack was an under-twenty-one club, there were ways to get in if you were determined enough. Just look at Kim Fowley or Rodney Bingenheimer.

 

“Long time no see!” The guy laughed. “You remember me, don’t you? I’m James! James Lloyd White! How’ve you been?”

 

“Pretty good,” I said, playing along. The limo suggested that maybe he was someone from Mercury Records, or someone who played in a band that the Runaways gigged with. He gestured for me to come over to his window. I shook my head and pointed to the ground in front of me, suggesting that he come to me. He smiled and shrugged and held his hands up as if to say, “I got a car here!” Then he gestured again for me to come to the window. I did, and as he drew the window down, I got a closer look at his face. His features were harder than they had seemed from a distance. Chiseled. But when he smiled, it was disarming, and canceled out some of the toughness I could detect in him.

 

“You dig my new car?” he asked, patting the driver’s door affectionately. “Pretty neat, huh?”

 

“Yeah!” I said. “It’s real nice. Where’s your chauffeur?”

 

“Ah . . .” James said, affecting some false modesty. “I gave him the night off. I’m a pretty thoughtful boss, you know?”

 

I laughed at this. Standing right next to the limo, I still really couldn’t recall how I knew this guy. Maybe he was one of Moose’s friends. That would explain why I didn’t remember him. Whenever I’d be hanging out with Moose and those guys upstairs, there’d be a lot of drugs around. That must have been it.

 

“Man,” he said, shaking his head with disbelief, “it’s been such a long time!”

 

The way he said it . . . he was so sincere, I couldn’t help but believe him. My mind was whirring desperately, trying to pull his name out of some dusty corner of my memory. I nodded and smiled at him politely, and he said, “You want a ride somewhere?”

 

Although this guy didn’t seem like a creep, I knew better than to accept. “No thanks.”

 

When I said that, he pouted a little. “Too bad. I was looking forward to showing off all of these neat features to you. Man, this limo is something else, you have to check it out.”

 

“Yeah, well,” I said, glancing around, looking for Marie’s car, “maybe next time.”

 

“You still partying?” he asked me.

 

I was about to say no when I stopped myself. James noticed the hesitation and added, “It’s just that, uh, I was on my way to a party some friends of mine are throwing. My friend, he’s in the, uh . . . the importation business. He just got some really top-notch shit in. Peruvian flake, the best on the market.”

 

I didn’t answer him. The fact that he did drugs actually made me trust him a little more. It also confirmed my initial suspicion that he was one of Moose’s friends, someone I had spent a night snorting blow with while we hung out in the upstairs office. If he was a friend of Moose’s, then I knew he had to be on the level. This allowed me to lower my defenses a little. So yes, the idea of going to a party to do some high-quality cocaine was tempting, but . . . no. I had made a promise to myself. I was trying to get straightened out.

 

“I can’t,” I told him. “You know, my sister’s on her way to pick me up. Thanks, though . . .”

 

James nodded over to Jackson. “Can’t you leave a message for her with the bouncer? I can write the address down for you. She’s totally welcome to come, it’s gonna be a wild one . . . It’s in the Hollywood Hills, a really nice pad.”

 

“No. Thanks, James, but I really can’t . . .”

 

“All right,” he said with a shrug. I was about to say good-bye and head back to the club when he called over to me once more. “Hey, you want to jump in while I pull around to park? It’s got all kinds of gadgets. This thing is like a spaceship or something. I got heated leather seats in here! Come on, I want to show you . . .”

 

I looked around. There were still enough people in the parking lot that I felt safe. Jackson was only feet away, still holding the other kids spellbound with his crazy stories, and there were plenty of people hanging around who I felt had my back. Anyway, this guy was almost certainly one of Moose’s friends. I shrugged, and said, “Okay, why not?”

 

I walked over to the passenger side and slid into the seat, closing the door behind me.

 

“Lemme just pull in over here before someone rear-ends me,” he said. Then James started roaming around for a parking space. As the car began to move, he started showing off all of the controls on the dashboard. He sounded like a kid boasting about his new bike. “You gotta hear this cassette player,” he was saying. “It sounds, like, incredible!”

 

“You missed a parking space,” I said as he cruised right past a gap in the cars.

 

“That’s too small!” He laughed. “This baby needs a big space.”

 

James was looking at me now. He wasn’t paying attention to finding a parking space at all. He was just staring at me, and I started to feel uncomfortable. He shook his head and said, “I really missed you, Cherie . . .”

 

“You missed another one,” I said as a second space passed by.

 

“I’ll catch the next one,” he said in a monotone. But as he said this, I felt the car accelerating, not slowing down. I saw him reach down to the left, and with a heavy clunk, all of the doors locked simultaneously. He passed a whole row of parking spaces while I looked on in horror. Suddenly we had pulled out onto the street and I was gripped by fear, realizing just how dangerous a position I was in. James Lloyd White, whoever the hell he was, didn’t say anything to me as he picked up speed. I tried to calm myself. I focused entirely on trying to make this guy pull over so I could get out of the car. Maybe this was all some kind of sick joke. Maybe he just really wanted a date for this party of his. Once I’d made it out of the car, I would rip him a new one. For now, though, I needed to concentrate on getting the hell out of there.

 

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know what you want with me, but—” CRACK! The slap came out of nowhere. It caught me hard and knocked the words right out of my mouth. My head snapped around violently, and the sound was shockingly loud, but then replaced by a steady ringing in my ears.

 

“Shut up,” he said quietly. His voice had changed. It had dropped down to something predatory and threatening. I felt the tears coming, but I made an effort to choke them back. My cheek stung where he had hit me, but I forced myself to keep it together. I felt my stomach knotting up, and I knew that more than anything I had to keep cool and find a way out of this.