Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway (51 page)

 

I was nervous as I made the drive. A niggling anxiety. It reminded me of that time, ten years ago, when I was auditioning for the Runaways. My hands were cold again; clammy, too. Back then, I was a scared little girl with sweaty hands and sweaty armpits, who thought that the whole world rested on a mean guitar riff and the beat of a bass drum. Today I was nervous for a different reason. This wasn’t an audition. It was much more important than that.

 

As I cruised down the boulevard, I crossed Hayvenhurst Avenue, the street that led to our old house. There on the corner was Gleason’s Wine Store, where Marie and I used to hang out in the days before we’d discovered places like Rodney Bingenheimer’s and the Sugar Shack. Then, two blocks up the road, there was the old house. No doubt that forty-two-thousand-dollar piece of property was now worth close to a million at least. The pool would still be there. Maybe new kids were teaching themselves to do flips off the board. Different families would be starting out there, maybe breaking up and getting divorced, too. Then houses would be sold again, and new lives would start all over again within those walls. I wondered absently if houses had some kind of sentient memory of the pain of all those failing families who’d once lived inside of them.

 

I wondered who was in my old bedroom. What posters would be covering the walls today. Maybe Def Leppard, or Bon Jovi. Or had those posters already come down, to be replaced by next season’s stars? Hell, maybe Bowie was still up there. Through the years, Bowie had always seemed to stay in style. David Bowie, Elton John . . . all of those sounds that had once pumped from the PA of the English Disco were still resonating in this new era.

 

I met a lot of stars during my time in the Runaways. More than I can probably remember. While all of it was going on, I was so loaded on pills, and booze, and coke that I’m sure I have forgotten as many of them as I can remember. But one that I’ll never forget is David Bowie.

 

He came backstage after one of our shows. I remember that my heart just about jumped out of my chest when I heard he was there with Iggy Pop. They were touring together at the time, to promote Iggy’s album, The Idiot. Then I turned and saw him. It was one of the most surreal encounters of my life. He came over to me and shook my hand. Wearing a scarf, sunglasses, and an English cap, he told me that he’d enjoyed the show, in that inimitable British accent of his.

 

I can’t remember a word of what I said to him. I was totally and utterly starstruck. I do remember that he seemed smaller than I’d imagined. Quieter, too. He was shy and distant, as if there were a million important things he was quietly pondering. He looked . . . well, he looked like a man. A musical genius perhaps, but just a man nonetheless. Not the god that I had once believed him to be. After my initial dazed reaction faded away, I remember looking back at him and thinking, There’s David Bowie. Okay . . .

 

I think that this is every rock star’s secret fear. That someone will cut through the wild, bigger-than-life image that the Kim Fowleys of this world paint and just look them right in their face and say, “So what? You’re just a human being. Just like me.” It took me a long time to realize how ridiculous it was to think that a rock star could be anything more than that. That I could be anything more than that.

 

The Runaways had all taken different roads now. Joan Jett, of course, had become the star that we all knew she would be. Lita, too, had gone on to achieve solo success. Sandy was still drumming, although her life would be tragically cut short by lung cancer in 2006. Jackie left the music industry altogether. She was back east in law school, and I’d heard that she wanted to be the mayor of Los Angeles one day. It was a scary thought, because a part of me believed that she might actually do it.

 

Up ahead was the Fireside Inn. Daddy’s favorite restaurant. One of my earliest memories is of being there with Dad, Mom, Donnie, Sandie, and Marie. Marie and I must have only been around three, fighting and squirming around in a booth. I have an image of Donnie sitting in his high chair, trying to figure out how to use a spoon. Now the sign on the restaurant says twains. Farther along again, at the Coldwater Canyon intersection, was the Denny’s where Tommy crashed Daddy’s car while I was unconscious in the passenger seat. The light post we rammed was still there, as solid and sturdy as ever.

 

Up in the hills around Coldwater Canyon were the houses that hung from the mountainside on poles, balancing dangerously on the cliff, like the spinning-plate act in a sideshow. Houses just like Bruce’s. Dangerous homes, where dangerous parties took place every night. Parties where nobody really knew or liked anyone else, but we all pretended like we did. Parties where we talked a lot, but said very little. The years have gone on, and music and fashion have changed, but the spinning-plate homes still do their balancing act up there, and the spinning-plate people still throw parties full of strangers. One thing I knew for certain was that I was glad I wasn’t one of them anymore. There was a time when I used to think you’re either living or dying. Living was doing whatever you wanted. Dying was everything else. I believe that’s true for the practicing alcoholic or addict. Now I live to live, and in these last two years I’d squeezed as much as I could out of life.

 

. . . .

 

I could see Marie in the garage and Tina in there with her. I stopped at the bottom of the driveway and watched Tina—who had just turned two—hopping around madly on one foot. She had just learned how to do it, and was obviously very excited about it. Marie, who was eight months pregnant with her second child, was sculpting. Marie had been sculpting ever since we were children, and she was amazingly good at it. Even though she did it throughout most of our childhood, I had never really taken much notice until recently. In these past two years, I felt like I had really been seeing for the first time.

 

I took a moment to think. Was I really ready for this? Was it too soon? I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself not to worry. I continued up the driveway.

 

As I stepped out of the car, Tina came running toward me, flashing those beautiful blue eyes in excitement. “Aunticherie!” she cried. “Aunticherie!” That’s how she said it, as if it were all one word. She jumped into my arms and hugged me. A happy thought occurred to me just then: Tina had never seen me on drugs. She had never known the old Cherie. I was very grateful for that.

 

“Hey, Cherie!”

 

Marie gave me a hug. The hug was strong and warm. The kind of hug that felt like it had been a long time coming. Two years ago our hugs were as cool and reserved as they could be. But with each passing day of sobriety, they had thawed. Today that gulf between us that I had felt in the hospital was just a painful memory.

 

“Wow, what are you working on?”

 

“My latest creation . . .”

 

In the garage I looked at the sculpture admiringly. It was a statue of an alien, and it was a magnificent, graceful, and whimsical creation. Then Marie took my hand and placed it on her belly. I could feel the soft rippling of her tummy as the baby kicked.

 

“Oh my God.” I laughed. “Any day now!”

 

“Maybe he’ll be born on Tina’s birthday,” Marie mused. “Wouldn’t that be a trip?”

 

Tina was hopping around us on one foot, impatiently.

 

Marie glanced at the name tag on my jacket. I had come straight over from work, and hadn’t had time to get changed. “Wow, Cherie . . . look at you!” She laughed. “You’re a full-fledged drug counselor now. How does it feel working with those kids?”

 

“I like it.” I smiled. “I like it a lot.”

 

I had been working at Coldwater Canyon Hospital for over a year. I began as a tech, and then took a course to qualify as a counselor for drug-addicted adolescents. The work was intense, and could be emotionally draining, but ultimately it was very rewarding. It amazed me how in the end our stories almost all seemed the same, no matter what the background, the drug of choice, or other mitigating circumstances.

 

Unable to take it any longer, Tina blurted out, “Aunticherie! What about the pony rides?”

 

I knelt down and picked her up. I nuzzled the soft skin of her neck. “That’s right!” I laughed. “We can’t keep the ponies waiting!”

 

I turned back to Marie, with Tina in my arms. I could see the mild lines of worry forming on her forehead, but they quickly vanished in a smile. Today was the first day that Marie was letting me take Tina out unaccompanied. The first day that she would trust me to take her daughter for the whole day. For me, it was the most wonderful occasion I could imagine. It meant that finally my sister trusted me again. She trusted me enough to leave her daughter in my hands. I felt that today, the ghost of the old Cherie had finally been laid to rest.

 

After I carefully strapped my giggling niece into the child seat, Marie leaned in through the open window and kissed me. “I hope you guys have a great time,” she said. “Enjoy your day together.”

 

Thanks, Marie. We will . . .”

 

“I know Tina is safe with you,” Marie whispered, looking at me with eyes that radiated pride. I started to cry a little at that.

 

Tina noticed my tears in the rearview mirror and quietly asked, “Are you sad, Aunticherie?”

 

I shook my head and smiled at her. “No, baby,” I said. “I’m the happiest I have ever been.”

 

Marie stepped back as I pulled out of the driveway and headed slowly, carefully, down the hill. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror at the smiling, giggling, beautiful little girl in the backseat. I had to blink back the tears. I knew that whether or not I ever got another recording contract, whether or not I ever acted in another movie, whether or not I ever performed again . . . none of it mattered. Not really. Everything that mattered was right here in this car. All that mattered was Tina, and all of the unconditional love that I felt for her.

 

I knew that with this one step I could finally lock all of that pain from the past away in its own velvet tomb. Lock it up and throw away the key. All this because of the giggling, smiling child in my car. A child who is more important to me than all of the money, fame, and records in the world.

 

Because Tina loves her auntie Cherie.

 

And if she loves me, then it must mean that I am worth loving.

 

 

 

 

 

Afterword

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back on my life since that fateful day with my niece Cristina, I really see how truly blessed I am. Many years have passed, we have orbited the sun more then 7,500 times and I have seen such extraordinary things, and had so many profound experiences that I could easily fill the pages of another book. In the years since the Runaways I have lost some of my dearest friends, and I have reinvented myself time and time again. But through it all, the wonderment and personal triumph that emerges from the emotional depths I have experienced leave me knowing I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

 

Sandie and T.Y. split in 1982, and both went on to meaningful, long-term relationships, though sadly Tony Young passed away from lung cancer in February of 2002. In 1989 Sandie married director/producer Alan J. Levi. Sandie has continued with a successful acting career, and recently appeared in the blockbuster summer hit The Hangover, the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

 

Shortly after the release of my original book, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story, in 1989, I left my job as a drug counselor after two years, and became a personal fitness trainer. I loved it. Talk about a 180, from hopeless drug addict to a focused, fitness guru! I was also working weekly with a voice-over group called the Studio City Carvers, looping everything from TV shows like Colombo and Quantum Leap, to major motion pictures like The Sandlot and various Adam Sandler productions.

 

When I wasn’t doing voice-over work, most of my time was spent in the gym, and it was there, on a sunny November afternoon in 1989 that Marie introduced me to the actor Robert Hays. Of course, I already knew who Robert was via his work, which I had loved. One of his most famous roles was in one of the largest-money-making comedies of all time, Airplane! Robert had also starred in the ABC television series Starman and Angie. I was later surprised to learn that he had started out in the theater, doing a wide variety of dramatic roles, including Shakespeare.

 

Bob was interesting, down-to-earth, handsome, witty, and just as wonderful as he was depicted on the screen. Hell, I thought he was the sexiest, funniest actor out there. We were married just seven months later, on May 12, 1990. It was the first marriage for us both. On our two-day honeymoon in Montecito, California, we decided to throw condoms to the wind, and I discovered I was pregnant that July. Bob continued to star in some classic family films like the Walt Disney hit Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, and he also lent his voice to many television commercials and did countless voice-overs for animated films and TV. But Bob says his favorite production by far is the one he and I made together—our son, Jake Robert Hays, born February 8, 1991.

 

Jake, who turned nineteen in February, was an artist from the start, drawing in two dimensions at the age of four. His teachers claimed they had never seen a student like him. He picked up the guitar at age twelve, and has been writing, singing, producing, and recording music ever since. His appreciation for Japanese art set in motion a love for the art of tattoo. He has been a praised tattoo artist for more than a year and even Martha Davis of the Motels is adorned with a tattoo, her one and only, courtesy of Jake. But mostly Jake is a wonderful person to the core, and Bob and I really can’t take credit for who he has become. We can only sit in awe and utter disbelief at this pure and wonderful human being that we have had the honor of bringing into the world.