The Scar Boys

Cheyenne

From the moment Cheyenne joined the Scar Boys, things changed. Our rehearsals, our gigs, our music became infused with a new kind of energy. 

Maybe it was the sexual tension of having a girl in what had been an all-boys band, maybe it was hit-you-in-the-face rock and roll, or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it worked.

We thought we had gotten good with Dave in the band, and at some level, we had. We really had. But when Chey came along, it was like a whole new world opened up to us musically.

She was the missing piece of our Chemical equation. Everything seemed to go right when she was around. I broke fewer guitar strings, Richie broke fewer sticks, and Johnny hit notes beyond his range. 

We all settled into a groove and a confidence that worked like an amplifier. Not only did we get better, we got ten time better.

This new energy had a profound effect on me. For the first time since Johnny and I started the band, I took off my hat, sunglasses, and denim jacket off, and I turned around to face the world. 

Yeah, sure, it was only a rehearsal with no one but the four of us there, but for me, it was a huge step. Or rather, it would've been a huge step if not for Johnny. 

"Harry, what are you doing?"

The question was like a blow to my solar plexus. I practically doubled over in pain when Johnny asked it. 

Richie and Cheyenne stopped what they were doing to watch the exchange.

"What?" I answered. It wasn't really a question. It was more of an annoyed bark.

"Your disguise. You're taking it off?"

It didn't dawn on me at the time, but disguise was a carefully chosen word. It had the same effect on me that Darth Vader's "I find your lack of faith disturbing" had on Star wars Expandable Guy Number Two. (In case, FAP, you're not well acquainted with the Star wars canon--and shame on you if you're not!--Darth Vader uses his mind to choke Expandable Guy Number Two while uttering that phrase. It's awesome.)

"I dunno," I mumbled to my feet.

"Huh." That's all he had to say. Huh. Embedded in that word was everything between us. IT said that I didn't get to make a decision like that on my own.

That there were to be no changes without the Johnny McKenna seal of approval. You have to understand that while Johnny didn't actually tell me what to do or not to do, everyone in the room knew exactly what his Huh meant.

I started to put the sunglasses and hat back on when Cheyenne cut in. She was looking straight at Johnny, but she spoke to me.

"Harry, you should leave them off. You have a beautiful face."

Johnny just shrugged and turned away. When he did, Chey turned to me. I was a deer caught in the headlights. I was a mounted, stuffed, decapitated deer caught in the god damn headlights.

"You should do what makes you comfortable, Harry. Don't listen to him."

If Richie or I had tried to defy Johnny like that, the result would have been and hour-long lecture of whatever the topic of the day was, on why we were wrong, and why he was right. 

Things didn't work like that with Cheyenne. No one, and I mean no one---not even Johnny McKenna---tangled with that girl.

The oldest of seven sisters, Cheyenne grew up in a Catholic household that was part Carrie, and part Caddyshack. Her mother went to church several times a week, mostly to pray for her father. 

He wasn't dead, he just smelled that way. The man's system has absorbed enough alcohol over the years to synthesize formaldehyde. Chey's dad didn't seem to know or care. He would just sit in his favorite chair, watch television game shows, and drink cheap brandy.

The influence of the Church at home was felt in the preponderance of crucifixes, Virgin Mary statues, and house rules--no boys, no make-up, no boys, no short skirts, no boys, no jewelry, and oh, yeah, no boys.

But with her mom's devotion to Christ being a full-time vacation, and her father's devotion to Christian brothers being a full time vacation, Chey and her sisters discovered early on that house rules were meant to be broken.

For all the bluster religious people have about God and family, the Belle girls were raising themselves. They may as well have been orphans.

About a year after I met Cheyenne, her sister--fifteen years old--delivered a stillborn baby in her bed at home because no one knew she was pregnant. Don't ask me how a teenage girl can hide a nearly full-term pregnancy.

Chey said that her sister was overweight to begin with, and that she wore a steady diet of peasant blouses, but I still had trouble believing it.

Which was another thing about Cheyenne. You never quite knew when she was telling the truth. It's not that she was a liar, just that she liked to stretch the facts to make a better story.

When she told me that she stole her first bass guitar from the local music store, I took her at her word. I found out later that the bass was a rental that Cheyenne returned only after the store started legal proceedings for late payments.

As she stood staring at me--my sunglasses and hat still in my hands---the only thing I could think of was Did she just say I have a beautiful face? (Maybe Chey took liberties with the truth sometimes, but I never questioned her sincerity.)

I was about to put my costume on the floor, but then I caught Johnny eye.

As smitten as I was with Cheyenne Johnny still trumped everyone else. If he thought it was a bad idea, it was a bad idea. I put the "disguise" back on.

Cheyenne offered me a smile tinged with melancholy, and nothing else in my life has ever made me feel like more of a failure.

I wanted to kill Johnny. Looking back, this was probably the beginning of the end for the Scar Boys, but I didn't know that at the time.

I launched into our next song, with perhaps a bit more intensity on the downstroke of my pickhand. I let my wrist take out some aggression on the strings, punishing them for the long list of things that were wrong with the world.