Neon Angel by Cherie Currie
Mostly he did the talking . . . about the music business, about unscrupulous managers and money-grabbing record labels. How hard the industry is. I was distracted, looking out of the window, watching the city fly by and hoping that he didn’t live too far away.
Before long we turned north onto Doheny and pulled up at his apartment in West Hollywood. Inside, it was nice, although it seemed pretty small for a big star like him. It looked like a showroom apartment; it was pretty bare and there was not much in the way of furniture: just a pristine-looking couch, a coffee table, and a few posters on the wall. There were several guitars sitting around on stands, others were just lying on the floor. “This is it . . .” he said, waving a hand around the place. “Home sweet home. You want a drink?”
“Sure. You got rum and Coke?”
“Of course . . .”
He went into the kitchen to get the drinks, and I sat on the couch. I felt nervous. I was in a complete stranger’s house, and I had no way of leaving. Ugh, how in the hell did I get myself into this situation?
He brought the drinks over and sat next to me. He was close—too close. It felt totally surreal to be sitting in this apartment next to this guy whose face had been staring out at me from the cover of teen magazines for the past year. Maybe if I were twelve years old, I would have thought that this was the coolest thing ever, but tonight it just felt weird.
“I, uh, I just got out of a long relationship,” he told me. “It was pretty rough. I haven’t been with anyone for a while.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I . . . I like you, Cherie. I like you a whole lot.”
He waited for a response. I took a big gulp of my drink and said, “Oh, well . . . thanks. That’s nice of you to say . . .”
“Come on.” He suddenly jumped to his feet. “Let me show you the rest of the apartment!”
He took my hand and led me straight into the bedroom. I had to suppress a laugh. The bedroom walls were covered in posters of . . . himself. They were a mix of live concert shots and those sexy, soft-focus shots that made twelve-year-olds all across America go weak at the knees. There were also several gold disks on the wall. One of the album covers was familiar—a full-face shot, which I recognized as the album that I had in my own collection. My eyes traveled down from the walls and came to rest on the bed. It was perfectly made, and he had these pristine white satin sheets on them. Oh God, I thought with a smile, how gay! What kind of man has white satin sheets on his bed? I was suddenly filled with the urge to laugh hysterically, but I forced it down. He was still holding my hand. Without a word, he led me to the bed.
He took my drink and placed the glass on the nightstand. “I really like you, Cherie,” he whispered as he laid me down and pressed his lips against mine. His hands were all over me . . . they glided up under my T-shirt, as he started kissing my body.
I said, “You know, uh . . . Kim is going to be here soon . . .”
I could feel his hot mouth against my skin, and I lost my train of thought. I heard him unzipping my pants, and then I stopped him.
“Wait . . .”
The pop singer shot me a big grin. “I know . . . You’re waving your red flag, aren’t you?”
I looked at him, my face a mixture of confusion and shock. “Uh—what?” I stammered.
“The red flag. It’s your time of the month, right?” He winked at me, and shot that teenybopper smile one more time. “Don’t worry. Kim told me. It doesn’t bother me . . . really.”
With that, he got back to it, sliding my pants down. What a betrayal!! I imagined Kim and this guy back at the Starwood laughing at the fact that I was on my period, right before Kim sold me off like some kind of low-rent Hollywood pimp. It was embarrassing, and more than anything in the world I wanted to just go home. I decided to get this over with as soon as possible.
Minutes later, he was finished. He was like a jackrabbit, his face right in mine, twisted up with exertion, and before I knew it, he gave a little groan and his body went limp. Then he rolled off of me onto his back, panting like a thirsty dog.
We lay there for a while, not saying a thing. All I could think was “Please God, don’t let him ask if it was good for me.”
Right on cue, he said, “So . . . uh, was that okay for you, sweet-heart?”
Goddammit.
“Sure,” I said, “it was . . . fine. Really.”
“Cool. You’re a nice chick, Cherie, I mean that.” He reached out and touched my face lightly. “Well, good night, luv.”
With that, he turned over and switched the light off. I was grateful for the darkness, at least.
I lay there awake, all night. I listened to his steady breathing as he slept. I could feel the wetness of my blood spreading out on the white satin sheets, but I was afraid to move or do anything about it. I didn’t want to wake him up and have to make small talk. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I lifted the sheets and peeked down. What I saw sent a shudder of horror through my entire body. There was blood everywhere. On him. On me. And all over those fucking white satin sheets! It looked like someone had butchered a rabbit down there. More than anything in the world, I wished I were back at home. I wished I were anywhere but there. I spent the longest night of my life lying in those bloody sheets, waiting for the dawn. Of course, Kim had lied about picking me up in a “couple of hours.” I realized that the whole thing was a setup by Kim, and I cursed myself for being too meek to stop it.
I slowly crawled out of bed and tiptoed over to the bathroom. I had to get cleaned up. I closed the door silently and flicked on the light. The bathroom was pristine and bright. I didn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I was too mortified. I needed towels. I needed to get the blood off of me.
I started looking around, and noticed: all of his towels were fucking white. Didn’t this motherfucker own ANYTHING that wasn’t white?
I looked under the sink and found a dark washcloth that had obviously been used, but I didn’t care anymore. That washcloth was the most welcome sight I had seen all night. I cleaned up, and wrung the blood out of the washcloth and put my clothes on. I tiptoed out to the living room. I sat there in the dark, not making a sound. I didn’t sleep all night. Some part of me still believed that Kim might show up to take me home, but he never did. As the sun started to rise, I decided I would call a cab and get the fuck out before this guy woke up. The last thing I wanted to do was face him after last night. Then there were several loud knocks at the door. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Shit! I ran over to the front door, and through the peephole I could see that bastard Kim standing there. In the background I could see a cab waiting. I unbolted the door and opened it a fraction.
“Wait there!” I whispered, closing the door again. It was too late, though; I could hear the pop singer now, moving around in the bedroom. Where the fuck was my purse?
He came out of the bedroom, wearing a pair of tight white underpants. He still had my blood all over him. I couldn’t even look at him.
“Don’t worry about it, luv,” he said in that stupid accent of his. “It’s okay. It’ll all come out in the wash. The cleaning lady comes later today.”
He walked over to the door and opened it. Kim just stood there, grinning nastily. I grabbed my purse and stormed out past the pair of them without even saying good-bye. As I headed over to the cab, I could hear them talking . . . laughing.
I was sitting in the cab, fighting tears, when Kim returned a few minutes later. He jumped in next to me and sneered. “So did you have FUN?”
I didn’t answer. In fact, I didn’t say another word for the entire cab ride back to my house. All I could think of was how lousy I felt.
Last night I’d discovered what it felt like to be a rock star.
This morning I knew what it felt like to be a whore.
Chapter 11
Touring
After the Starwood show, a national tour was thrown together, and before we even knew what was happening, we were in a motor home at midnight, heading toward Cleve
As I looked out of the windows of the RV as we crossed the Mojave Desert, all I could see was the strange outline of alien-looking cacti, a shadowy, strange landscape that made me feel homesick. This was the first time I had ever been so far away from my home, from my family, and I felt as anxious and scared as I ever had.
“We’re almost there!” the driver announced for the third or fourth time that evening. He tended to say a lot, even if nobody responded. He was pretty talkative because of all of the blow and speed he did to keep awake on the road: we would blaze through state after state, town after town, his eyeballs almost vibrating in his skull from the effects of all the uppers. It was a scary feeling to realize that your life was in the hands of this cranked out lunatic, so it was best not to dwell on that thought.
I thought about what Dad and Marie might be doing right now. After Mom left, it felt like a vast black crater had opened up inside of me. I wanted to spend more time with them, to try to fill the hole, but there was no time for that: the album was hitting the stores and Kim insisted that we go out on the road immediately to capitalize on it. At first, Lita tried to make me feel better. She was very kind and understanding about the whole situation. It was a moment between us that I would always be grateful for: for a while, she almost seemed human.
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, I’m homesick, too. But goddammit, when I come home I want to BE somebody.” She said it in a way that affected me deeply, and in a flash, I felt better. I still thank her to this day for that.
I looked around the large motor home as we tore through the grim night. Could the Runaways fill the emptiness I felt inside? At the beginning I’d hardly known these girls; my initial impression of Joan was that she was tough on the outside, but had a real vulnerability about her when you got to know her. Almost from the moment that I joined the Runaways, there had been a special bond between us. People had started calling us “Salt and Pepper,” not just because of our contrasting hair colors, but because we always seemed to be together. With Joan, I found a friendship much more intense, and much more profound, than any I had known up until that point in my life. We were kids: Joan was only one year older than me, and more than with anyone else in the band, I clung to her, and she to me.
When I think back on Joan and our relationship, I can still feel a distant quaking inside. Our friendship was a godsend to me. It ran deep, and at times she was the only one that kept me sane. Joan was perceptive. Almost like she could read my mind. God, how I needed that kind of connection. Especially when I felt so disconnected. I believed in her, and the dream that had driven her this far. I felt safe when I stayed close to her, like I’d be swept up in the safety net of her steadfast vision of what we were all here to do. Sometimes we’d look at each other and I’d get that tingling in my stomach. Her smile was warm and her fun-loving attitude made me forget just how strange and bizarre this new and crazy world really was. She was my anchor. How do I explain about a person that was my best friend, someone I would confide in like a sister, someone who to me became a strong, sexual attraction? Well, it’s easy. Just like how easy it was to be that way with her. I can leave it by saying that I had moments with a friend that quake me to this day. And they were some of the most satisfying moments of my young life.
Sandy was the muscle of the group; she was the rock, strong and passionate, always smiling and joking. Sandy got along with everyone and was never afraid to show her emotions. She could be tough, like the time she threw me over a car to stop my arguing with Kim, but then she’d always feel terrible after getting in your face. She was no-nonsense, with a heart of gold, and if you couldn’t deal with that, then you couldn’t deal with Sandy.
Jackie was the quiet one, at least at the beginning. She was the bookworm, and the brains. In fact, Jackie was fine until she opened her mouth. Unfortunately she always had something to say, and the way in which she said it was usually annoying. She had a real know-it-all attitude but this was coupled with a massive insecure streak. This combination drove all of us nuts, and Lita was constantly threatening to beat her up.
It would turn out that threats of violence weren’t that unusual for Lita—pissed-off, tough, temperamental Lita. One of the first conversations I had with her after joining the band revolved around a fight she had gotten into with two Mexican gang chicks outside of a mall. She had taken them both on, and beaten the crap out of them. When she was walking away, one of the girls unhooked her belt and whipped Lita around the back of the head with it. The belt had wrapped around Lita’s skull, and the buckle broke her nose. Instead of letting the girls see that they had hurt her, Lita kept walking as if nothing had happened. She calmly got into her car and drove herself to the hospital. One thing I knew about Lita Ford was that she most definitely wasn’t all talk. I could only hope that I remained on her good side for as long as possible. Could these girls really be a family to me?
The only thing I knew for sure was that Kim was no father figure. He had put Scott Anderson in charge of us, which was a little like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop. Scott was one part road manager and one part Dr. Feelgood. When he wasn’t looking over the tour schedule and trying to figure out a way to shave off a few hours or bucks traveling from city to city, he was in charge of the entertainment: cutting out lines of blow, handing out downers like they were candy, sending the road crew out to buy us liquor since we were all underage. Plus, Scott was flirting with me like crazy when the other girls weren’t looking. Sometimes I’d suspect that he was flirting with the other girls, too. He was a big nerd, and he always carried around this stupid briefcase, which we all knew was just his attempt to try to look like a real manager. At the same time, Scott was only seven years older than us, so we could relate to him more than the other adults who surrounded us. None of us thought he had much of a clue about what he was doing, but next to an insane freak like Kim Fowley, he couldn’t help but seem likable.
Kim was doing exactly the opposite of what he promised when I’d shown up at Mercury Records with Sandie to sign the deal. For a start, I was supposed to have a tutor on the road so I could keep up with my schoolwork. Maybe this had been promised to the others, though I knew that Joan had already passed her equivalency exam with flying colors. But when Kim was speaking to my big sister, Sandie, you’d have thought that life on the road with the Runaways would be like some kind of well-supervised school trip. In reality, it was more Hollywood Babylon than Hollywood High.
The tutor was never mentioned again. Unless Scott or one of the roadies was going to surprise me by pulling out some high school textbooks, there was no evidence of an attempt to keep any of us up-to-date with our education. At least, not the kind of education that you get in school!
“The Runaways” was not just a name to Kim Fowley. It was a concept. He wanted us all to act out. He wanted bad girls. Our families had signed us away to him, dazzled by promises of world tours, of fame and fortune, and now Kim was furiously making sure that we lived up to our bad-girl image. As the tour wound on, I’d begin wonder if it wasn’t for the best that my mom was away in Indonesia.
As we got closer to Cleveland and the empty feeling continued to preoccupy me, Joan noticed the look on my face and turned away from the portable TV to come over and speak
I started to laugh.
“I mean—you must have been excited about this, too, right? I know it’s a dream come true for me . . .”
And just like that, Joan had taken me out of my negative thoughts and I was smiling again. I looked at her and thought, “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know if I could take this.” Though I didn’t say it, I think she sensed how I felt.
“Look,” Joan said. “I hate being away from home, too. And being stuck in this bus is as boring as hell. But the concerts are gonna be worth it! And it’s only for a month . . .”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Not if Kim has his way!”
Kim was always hustling to get us more shows. His attitude was that we should be playing every city, town, and rest stop in the nation. His latest news was that we were going to be opening up for a San Francisco band called the Tubes, who just had a radio hit with a song called “White Punks on Dope.” I knew that if it were left up to Kim, this tour wouldn’t end until it was time to record our second album. The novelty factor was really helping him find us places to play. Venues were booking us without ever hearing our music: the idea of five tough teenage girls playing balls-out rock music was something totally unheard of. All of the press out of California talked about the crazed reaction we got from our audiences. As much as I wanted the Runaways to succeed, I couldn’t help but feel more and more anxious as this thing started to snowball.
After I had gotten over my homesickness, there was the pressure. At first nobody had any expectations—the tour was an exciting novelty. But as it went on, we were expected to be stars—act like stars, perform like stars, all of the time. It was easy in the beginning when I could just pretend to be David Bowie, and fronting the band was basically an extension of dressing up and miming along to my favorite records in my bedroom mirror: if I screwed up, it didn’t matter because it was all make-believe. Now it was for real, and when I stepped out onstage, everybody was watching: especially Kim. And just like in the studio, Kim did not tolerate screwups. If I flubbed a note, he’d scream, and yell, and tell me that I was a useless piece of dog shit. All of that coupled with the fact that I barely knew the girls in the band and I still felt kind of awkward around them . . . it was difficult. The idea of fronting a rock band seemed so easy, so much fun, but in reality it was very difficult. The pressure was scary, and the workload was already intense.