Scar Girl (The Scar Boys #2)(54)

“Please, let’s just go, okay?”

Harry saw where I was looking and nodded. He and Richie each took one of my arms, and we left.

When we stepped outside, the night air was cool. It was still March, and spring hadn’t really sprung. It was cloudy, and the air was heavy. Johnny’s brother, Russell, was leaning against a post, a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other.

Russell had the same curly locks as Johnny, though brown, not blond, and he kept them cut short. He also had the same eyes. They were hard to look at that night.

“Hey, guys,” he said, his voice soft. Johnny loved Russell and looked up to him, and Russell loved Johnny back. He was six years older and lived in New York City with his girlfriend. He came to a lot of our gigs, and we got to know him a little bit. We all thought he was pretty cool.

We mumbled hellos and told him how sorry we were, and he told us the same.

Then he held out the book in his hand. It was the little black book Johnny had been writing in for the past few months. The book none of us were allowed to go near, the book none of us, as far as I knew, had ever seen the inside of.

“Here,” he said. “My parents gave this to me.”

“We can’t take this,” Harry said.

“I’m not giving it to you,” Russell offered with a halfhearted smile, “but I am loaning it to you.”

“Loaning it to us?” I asked.

“Don’t you guys know what’s in here?”

We all shook our heads. Russell fanned the pages so we could see.

“Lyrics. Lots and lots of lyrics. Sometimes with chords written out and sometimes not.” I was blown away. “I figure this can be Johnny’s final gift to the Scar Boys.”

Hearing Russell mention the band was like a slap in the face. I figured that the Scar Boys died with Johnny and didn’t give it another thought, you know?

But here was Johnny’s brother, telling us something different. I mean, the band was the only thing left holding us together. But how could we go on without Johnny? Wouldn’t it be like getting married two days after your husband died?

Like he could read our minds, Russell said, “I think it’s what Johnny would’ve wanted. When you get to the last song in the book, you’ll see what I mean.”

He handed the book to Harry, hugged each of us in turn, stubbed out his cigarette, and went back inside.

“Diner?” Harry asked, holding up the book.

“Yeah,” Richie said, and we piled into Harry’s car.





HARBINGER JONES


We probably shouldn’t have, but because of what Russell said, we skipped straight to the last page of Johnny’s lyrics journal, or at least the last page that had anything written on it. And there it was. The song that would, nine months later, become the Scar Boys’ first single:

Everybody said he was such a nice boy,

Always did everything right,

So no one could understand

When the police found Johnny hanging in

the attic that night.


Suzy picked up the newspaper that day.

Headline said, “Local Boy Dies.”

She knew her Johnny was gone.

So she took a razor blade and slit

out her own eyes.


Johnny’s dead,

Johnny’s dead.

Did you see what the newspaper said?

It said, Johnny’s dead.


Everyone went to his wake,

Saw him lying there with his guitar.

They all said he tried too hard

To be a rock-and-roll star.


Johnny’s dead,

Johnny’s dead.

His mother’s confined to a bed

Because Johnny’s dead.


Now all the parents in the neighborhood

Are acting like they really care,

Just so their little Johnnies

Won’t go leaping off the kitchen chair.


Johnny’s dead,

Johnny’s dead.

Did you see what the newspaper said?

It said, Johnny’s dead.



Johnny, that crazy, controlling son of a bitch, had written his own funeral dirge. I read once that Winston Churchill had planned his own funeral—the route the procession was to take through the streets of London, who would speak and who would not, the whole damn thing orchestrated to the last detail from the grave. Johnny’s song reminded me of that.

The chords he had written over the words were mostly minor chords, and knowing Johnny, I think he intended us to play it slow, plodding. It took us about five seconds to reject that idea and to give it, to give Johnny, the edge and attitude that both he and the song deserved.





RICHIE MCGILL


It was a fucked-up time when Johnny died. That was the only time I really thought the band was over. I figured we were just cursed.

But Johnny saved us. I mean, he saved the band.

Shit, I don’t know. He saved us, and he saved the band.

The first thing we did after leaving the diner the night of Johnny’s wake was fire Jeff. Harry did it. He called the guy’s answering machine from a pay phone and said it pure and simple: “Jeff, it’s Harry from the Scar Boys. You’re fired.”

The dude tried calling us, showing up at Harry’s house, coming to gigs, but we always just chased him away. Turns out he really did have some A & R guys at that Irving Plaza gig, and it led to a record deal. Once we started to get successful, Jeff sued us, the freaking wanker. The case is still going on.