Neon Angel

  Chapter 8

  Mom’s News

  When Mom finally returned from Indonesia, I was bubbling over with news for her. In the weeks since I joined the Runaways, things had been happening pretty quickly. Kim had been organizing warm-up gigs for us. We started playing shows at house parties, full of other teenage kids, setting up in the living room or even on the roof in one instance. Kim had us dress in matching T-shirts with the Runaways logo on them—a cherry, inspired by “Cherry Bomb.” These shows were chaotic, exciting, and messy. The kids in the audience reacted to us in such a crazy, hysterical manner that it seemed like they might tear the place apart. One of these gigs ended up being stopped by the police because the kids were getting so rowdy.

  I soon learned that Kim Fowley, as well as being a weirdo with the dress sense of an escaped mental patient on acid, was also a master of hype and media manipulation: word of mouth on the Run-aways had been spreading far and wide, and we hadn’t even signed the deal with Mercury yet. The idea of a group of teenage girls playing real rock and roll was causing serious waves in the L.A. music scene.

  So when Mom finally walked in the door, I was on her immediately, bombarding her with news about the record deal, the shows, and the press interviews. My mom nervously shot Wolfgang a look and then crushed my enthusiasm as quickly as the time my dad hit me with the news that he was moving to Texas.

  “Well . . . that’s great, honey,” she said. “That’s really great. But Wolfgang and I have some wonderful news for you, too . . .”

  One day later, and Mom’s “wonderful news” was really starting to sink in. As a steady rain splashed against the window, I began seething more steadily with resentment. My mom was marrying Wolfgang, and moving to fucking Indonesia.

  It is difficult to describe how this made me feel. To say that the wind had been taken out of my sails would be a huge understatement. When Mom arrived home, I was on top of the world—brimming over with the feeling that I was a part of something important. At fifteen years old, I was the lead singer in a band that was about to sign with a major record label. I had found my calling; I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was becoming fast friends with the girls in the band, and already there was a real sense of family among us. The Runaways were going to take over the world; we had no doubt about it.

  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?
br />   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.

  In the end, though, my mother won. Just like in the old days, Mom got her way and Dad agreed to return, brimming with anger and resentment, to resume his life with Aunt Evie, Grandma, and us. With Dad home, Mom d
ecided that she would rent out the house. But later, Wolfgang insisted that she sell it. When we discovered this latest twist, I was furious. Wolfgang had already taken away our mother and our brother, and now he was taking our home away, too. Didn’t he have a heart?

  So Marie and I found ourselves sharing a small bedroom in Aunt Evie’s tiny, crowded house. When we moved in, Aunt Evie told us, “This is your home now. This will always be your home base.” Although it was amazing to have our father back in our lives, and the house was filled with familial love, there were still big adjustments.

  Already, Mom’s distrust of me was mounting. First, I had decided to stay in California rather than live with her. The idea that the Runaways were more important to me than my own mother was a pill she couldn’t swallow. In a way, I felt that she would be relieved when she finally left. Our arguments over the past few months had started to turn physical. I was a hurt, angry teenager and my mom was probably glad to be getting away from it all.

  Then Kim Fowley showed up at the door after rehearsal one day. I had made the mistake of telling him what was going on. He started shouting and screaming at my startled mother that I had a legally binding contract with Mercury Records and that I couldn’t move to Indonesia even if I wanted to.

  We had signed the contracts a few days earlier. Because we were all so young, our parents or guardians had to come in and sign for us. With everything that was going on at home, I decided that my sister Sandie would be the best person to come with me. Sandie, who had a little more experience than the other girls’ parents when it came to contracts, looked over the paperwork and was about to object. I made a face at her, mouthing “Shut up!” She pulled me aside and told me that the contract put Kim in charge of all of the money, and that was not a good idea, as she thought that Kim was a real snake. I told her to to leave it alone.“If you ruin this for me, I’ll never forgive you! Just sign the paper, and don’t make waves! I’ll never get an opportunity like this again!”