Ballads of Suburbia Read online

  PRAISE FOR STEPHANIE KUEHNERT’S EDGY AND EMOTIONAL DEBUT, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE A Chicago Tribune “Hot Summer Read”

  “Kuehnert’s smart gal, punk-rock narrator is irresistible, and her harrowing sexual initiations, tragic family predicament, and struggle to stay close to her best friend and secure respect as a rock musician will enthrall.”

  —Booklist

  “As a fictive artifact of an aggressive, didactic genre in which shades of gray are often obliterated by black and white beats of rage, Kuehnert emerges as a true subversive—retaining her cred while expanding the form.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Car won’t start? Don’t call AAA. Just grab a copy of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, hook it up to a pair of jumper cables, connect the other end to the car battery—and stand back. The power surge emanating from Kuehnert’s first novel will be more than enough to get the engine going.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “A manifesto for defiant high school girls, as well as a refresher course for the goddesses they turn into.”

  —Venus Zine

  “Allusive, real, and honest…. It makes no difference if you’re a punk-rock chick or a glam princess, I would recommend this book.”

  —Elle Girl

  “Raw and gritty.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Kuehnert’s language is slick. The punk references bite with genuine angst and hunger, and Emily’s tough, sardonic attitude, as revealed through chunky, poetic language, is feverishly tempting.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A rich muscular story.”

  -BUST Magazine

  “This book could be any real band’s Behind the Music…. Solid writing.”

  —Racket Magazine

  “A powerful story…. I could almost believe that Emily was a real musician, not a character created by the author. I was sad to come to the last page, wanting the story of Emily to go on forever.”

  —TeensReadToo.com

  “Unputdownable…. Kuehnert is an unbelievably talented writer. Her debut is a smart, touching, intense and emotional novel that readers will absolutely love.”

  —Teen Book Review

  “Heartbreaking, hilarious, touching, exciting, upsetting, elating and exhilarating. I loved this book fifteen pages in, and that feeling continued to grow the more I read. In fact, the end was one of the best endings I’ve read in a very long time. It was a perfect close.”

  —Plenty of Paper Reviews

  “I promise you won’t regret picking up this unforgettable novel. I definitely look forward to more amazing novels from Stephanie Kuehnert.”

  —The Book Muncher

  “A wonderfully written and evocative story of a mother and daughter parted by circumstance and joined by music. I heartily recommend it.”

  —Irvine Welsh, internationally bestselling author of Trainspotting

  “Teeth. Punk. Combat boots. Attitude. Feminism. Family. Girls with guitars. Relationships that jack you up. Sharp things of the not-good kind. Friendships. Love…. It’s all here; it’s all pure and real. I loved it.”

  —Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange

  “Kuehnert’s love of music is apparent on every page in this powerful and moving story. Her fresh voice makes this novel stand out in the genre, and she writes as authentically about coming of age as she does punk rock.”

  —Charles R. Cross, New York Times bestselling author of Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

  “Stephanie Kuehnert has written a sucker-punch of a novel, raw and surprising and visceral, and like the best novelists who write about music, she’ll convince you that a soul can indeed be saved by rock and roll.”

  —John McNally, author of America’s Report Card

  “Intense, raw and real…. Emily, a gutsy, passionate, and vulnerable girl, knows exactly what she wants and strides straight into the gritty darkness after it, risking all and pulling no punches…. A fierce and wild ride.”

  —Laura Wiess, author of How It Ends

  “Stephanie Kuehnert writes with dramatic flair and all the right beats…. A debut like an unforgettable song, you’ll want to read I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone again and again.”

  —Kelly Parra, author of Invisible Touch

  Don’t miss Stephanie Kuehnert’s first stunning coming-of-age tale

  I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE

  Now available from MTV Books

  Pocket Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Stephanie Kuehnert

  MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 866–248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kuehnert, Stephanie

  Ballads of suburbia Stephanie Kuehnert.-1st MTV BooksPocket Books trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: An aspiring film writer tells about her troubled teen years in the Chicago suburbs when she and her friends tried to escape the pain of their lives through rock music and drugs.

  [1. Emotional problems—Fiction. 2. Drug abuse—Fiction. 3. Rock music—Fiction. 4. Punk culture—Fiction. 5. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.K94873Bal 2009

  [Fic]—dc22 2009008658

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2685-1

  ISBN-10: 1-4391-2685-2

  Visit us on the Web:

  http://www.SimonandSchuster.com

  For my best friend, Katie, who helped me

  through my own high school experience.

  In loving memory of Marcel Fremont, who helped

  us all survive high school and become better,

  wiser people. We miss you so much.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to:

  Everyone at MTV Books, especially Jen Heddle, the best damn editor on the planet, for pushing me to do my best. Also to Erica Feldon, publicist extraordinaire, and to Jane Elias, copyedit queen. I can’t send you guys enough cupcakes to repay you.

  Caren Johnson Estesen, darling agent.

  Sheryl Johnston, for all the guidance, both professional and personal.

  Scott, sweet husband-to-be, who talked me off the ledge numerous times while I was writing this and just generally makes me happy.

  Vanessa Barneveld, Katie Corboy, Jenny Seay, and Aaron Golding, the best critique partners a writer could ask for.

  Jenny Hassler, goddess of the interwebs, and Elise Coleman, mistress of graphic design.

  The Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department. Special shout-out to Joe Meno, who taught class with Johnny Cash songs one day, inspiring the concept behind this book.

  My family, including my future in-laws.

  BFF Katie and all my amazing friends. Polly and Thea, I’m especially glad we’ve reconnected.

  Ever
yone at the Beacon Pub-bartending is my favorite job besides writing.

  My street team; you guys seriously rock.

  All the authors who have offered wisdom, especially those I’ve had the privilege to read with, and all the incredible folks at bookstores, libraries, taverns, record stores, and schools who have graciously hosted me.

  Special thanks to Alexa Young, my partner-in-crime for Rock ‘n’ Read. Also to Irvine Welsh and Joe Shanahan for making my rock-star fantasies come true by inviting me to read onstage at the Metro.

  And of course, the biggest thanks of all go to my wonderful readers. Read on.

  “If you made a book of what really happened, it’d be a really upsetting book.”

  —Angela Chase on My So-Called Life

  Contents

  EPILOGUE THE BALLAD OF A HOMECOMING

  VERSE AUGUST 1992-JUNE 1994 [FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEARS]

  1.

  2.

  The Ballad of Kid’s Kid: Stacey O’Connor

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  The Ballad of a Hallucinating Guardian Angel: Cassandra Channing

  11.

  12.

  13.

  CHORUS JUNE-SEPTEMBER 1994 [SUMMER BEFORE JUNIOR YEAR]

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  The Ballad of a Throwaway: Adrian Matthews

  5.

  6.

  7.

  VERSE OCTOBER 1994-JANUARY 1995 [FIRST SEMESTER OF JUNIOR YEAR]

  1.

  2.

  3

  4.

  5.

  6.

  The Ballad of a Hopeless Romantic: Christian Garrickson

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  CHORUS JANUARY-JUNE 1995 [SECOND SEMESTER OF JUNIOR YEAR]

  1.

  2.

  3

  The Ballad of Fallen idols: Liam McNaughton

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  The Ballad of a Redhead: Maya Danner

  GUITAR SOLO AUGUST 1995 [SUMMER BEFORE SENIOR YEAR]

  1.

  EPILOGUE (PART 2) THE BALLAD OF THE STORY COLLECTION

  EPILOGUE

  THE BALLAD OF A HOMECOMING

  “And the embers never fade in your city by the lake The place where you were born.”

  —The Smashing Pumpkins

  December 1999

  SIRENS AND LIGHTS WELCOMED ME BACK TO the suburbs of Chicago. It seemed fitting considering they’d also heralded my exit. And it couldn’t have happened anywhere else: only a Berwyn cop would pull Stacey over for rolling a stop sign and cash in on her total lack of insurance, but not notice the underlying stench of pot smoke on us. It clung to Stacey’s auburn ponytail, my freshly dyed black hair, and the clothing beneath both of our winter coats. I’ll never know how he missed it. A rare stroke of good luck? The karma I was owed for agreeing to come home in the first place?

  I’d been gone for over four years. Around the holidays Stacey always tried to guilt me into visiting. She’d remind me that my mom missed me or point out that there was no chance for a white Christmas in Los Angeles. She knew I never intended to set foot in the Chicago area again after everything that had happened at the end of junior year, but the girl wouldn’t give it up. Finally, she resorted to playing dirty, name-dropping her daughter: “Lina wants you to be there for her fourth birthday. She wants to know why she’s never met Mama’s best friend.”

  It was an underhanded tactic, but it worked.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier,” Stacey congratulated herself.

  “Because using your kid to get what you want is low even for you,” I joked.

  “No, it’s not!” Stacey laughed a hoarse, smoker’s laugh. She gestured to the car seat in the back, bragging, “Do you know how many times I’ve used that thing to get out of a ticket?”

  On cue, the whoop of a siren behind us.

  “Shit!” Stacey slapped the steering wheel hard with the heel of her hand. “Don’t the goddamn Berwyn cops have anything else to do?”

  I gazed at the flashing red and blue behind us. I couldn’t take my eyes off the colors, remembering how they looked reflected in my friend Cass’s wide brown eyes the night I came to surrounded by paramedics in Scoville Park.

  I’d said “Adrian,” and when Cass heard me over the commotion, her jaw clenched.

  “He left you here to die and saved his own ass.”

  “Good,” I cackled. “Good for him.”

  The tears streaking down Cass’s full cheeks turned to rainbows in the red and blue light. I closed my eyes, silently begging the heroin to drag me all the way under.

  That was one of my last memories of home.

  Stacey eased the car to the side of the road and turned down the radio. Old reflexes kicking in, I lit a cigarette in what I felt certain would be a failed attempt to cover the pot stink.

  Stacey’s litany of excuses began the moment she rolled down her window and smiled flirtatiously at the frowning officer. “I was at Midway picking her up—my best friend who I haven’t seen in over four years—and my husband paged me. Our daughter’s sick.” She indicated the empty car seat.

  Great, I thought, tuning out her diatribe, I’m in town for an hour and I’m already in trouble. I did not want to spend my first night back at the Berwyn police station. Why had I agreed to Stacey’s suggestion of taking “the long route” from the airport? I’d known it was code for stopping by her mother’s basement apartment and getting stoned. Stacey’s mom, Beth, had been smoking us up since freshman year of high school. Apparently Stacey had forgotten that I didn’t indulge in those activities anymore.

  Sure enough, Beth had answered the door with a bong in her hand, screeching, “Kara-leeeena! Kara-leeeena! You’re finally home!” Both she and Stacey called me that even though I wasn’t a Carolyn or a Caroline, just Kara. In naming her daughter Lina, Stacey had effectively named her after me.

  The last time I’d been at Beth’s was a mild June evening the summer after junior year. That was when Stacey told me she was pregnant and planned to keep the baby. She’d be moving out of her mom’s house into prematurely married life. I worried about her, but I had serious problems of my own. Like heroin addiction. After I left Stacey’s that night, I OD’d in Scoville Park.

  My parents and I collectively decided that it would be best for me to live with my dad in Wisconsin until I finished high school. I hadn’t come back for Christmas or birthdays or Stacey’s wedding or Lina’s birth. I stayed in Madison and held my breath that my poor grades from junior year wouldn’t keep me out of USC’s film program. After high school graduation, I went straight to L.A. and hadn’t touched down on midwestern soil since.

  Beth’s house was still the same. After she gave me a long, bone-crushing hug, we followed her through the kitchen—the sink filled with dirty dishes as usual—down the short hallway—the floor strewn with clothes and junk mail—to the living room. Beth swept pillows and blankets off a futon mattress on the floor in the middle of the room. We plopped down and Beth handed me the bong.

  When I declined, passing it to Stacey, Beth offered me a glass of wine. “You still drink at least, don’t you? We should toast to your homecoming!”

  “I don’t drink much, actually,” I replied, adding, “but we’re celebrating, right?” before Beth’s grin could turn into a pout.

  “Exactly!” Beth enthusiastically poured nearly half a bottle of wine into a large plastic cup. “Sorry I don’t have proper glasses, but the wine’s good. My boyfriend works at Whole Foods. He got it there.”

  The wine was good and I drank it a little faster than I should have, but I wasn’t used to being around Beth and Stacey without a buzz.

&nbs
p; Beth, in particular, could be intense. She played with her hennaed curls and asked incessant questions about “la-la land.” What famous people had I seen? Had I really given up writing screenplays to work on movie soundtracks? Was there money in that? Didn’t I know I was supposed to be writing a big blockbuster so I could move her, Stacey, and Lina out to my mansion in the hills? Beth breathed only when she inhaled pot and hardly gave me time to respond to one question before throwing another at me.

  And this had gone on until Stacey declared, “We gotta get home before Jason gets pissed.” She grabbed her coat and I followed, waving to Beth.

  “Now we can finally talk,” Stacey said, swinging her long legs into the car.

  Back in grade school, Stacey and I had plenty of time to talk. It was just the two of us and we’d spend all afternoon chattering about silly kid stuff. Things changed when we reached high school. Stacey discovered boys and weed, so she was always busy and soon I was, too. We made small talk when we crossed paths at parties, but that was about it. We started to have more meaningful phone conversations after I moved away, but they often got cut short by Lina or Jason. So, Stacey learned to talk rapid-fire like her mother and mostly I just listened.

  In the car, Stacey launched into the tale of her latest argument with Jason as she wove through Berwyn, past the greasy spoons that lit up Ogden, and then down the quieter East Avenue, peppered with brick bungalows and tall apartment buildings. Stacey’s fights with Jason were generally minor—considering the odds against their teenage marriage of convenience and Stacey’s feisty nature, they were doing quite well—but Stacey liked to dramatize things. Since both of us were absorbed in her tale, neither of us noticed her poor driving.

  Then, of course, that stupid cop pulled us over.