Scar Girl by Len Vlahos

Author:Len Vlahos
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

CHEYENNE BELLE

We played a nightclub called the Bitter End.

The place had a very different vibe from CBGB’s. Where CB’s was in the Bowery, the Bitter End was in the Village. Where CB’s was a crap hole, the Bitter End was nice. Where CB’s history was all punk—and, yes, I do love punk—the Bitter End had more to it. It made its name as a venue for folk artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, before they were famous. Isn’t that cool?

Anyway, by this time the band was really humming, and our following was growing. This was the first show where we were the headline act on a weekend in New York City. That was a big deal.

We were blown away when more than a hundred people turned out. Something magical was starting to happen with the Scar Boys.

It was also the first time I played a gig drunk.

I felt like I was being chased. Not by a person, but by all the things I’d done wrong and all the secrets I was keeping—my pregnancy and my miscarriage, for sure, but even before that, my kiss with Harry in Georgia, and before that, my whole relationship with Johnny. So many secrets, and I felt like I needed to outrun them all. And like I said, I’m not so good at asking for help. While being high or drunk didn’t really fix things, it made me care less, made my problems seem further away. Farther away? I can never keep those words straight. Grammar kind of sucks.

I didn’t drink a lot—just three beers that a creepy old guy at the bar bought me because I let him hit on me. Even though I was totally skeeved, I didn’t flinch when he put his hand on my ass. I’m not sure what a guy like that is thinking, but whatever it is, it’s messed up.

Given my size and given that I was still a novice with alcohol, those three beers went right to my head. It didn’t help that I drank them fast, back to back to back, mostly so I could get up and get away from the creepy guy. It didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten dinner. And it definitely didn’t help that I downed them right before we went on.

Even with all that, I did pretty good with the bass. The high of music can do a lot to counteract the low of booze. Adrenaline, meet alcohol. It wasn’t my best gig, but it wasn’t a disaster, either.

We closed our set with “That’s Not My Leg.” The girl who caught Johnny’s peg leg leaped on stage and jumped around like she’d won a million bucks, and the whole place was going crazy.

So of course they were all screaming for an encore. Johnny talked us into having “Pleasant Sounds” ready, in case we got called back up, which wasn’t like us. We always ended with something loud and fast, and “Pleasant Sounds” was a ballad. But it worked. Holy shit, did it work.

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