A Visit from the Goon Squad

It is 1979. The teenager Rhea belongs to a group of kids who form a punk band, currently called The Flaming Dildos. Rhea is in love with Bennie, but Bennie is in love with Alice, who is in love with Scotty, and Scotty is most interested in Jocelyn, who is in love with a music executive named Lou Kline. Rhea feels that nobody loves her because her freckles make her undesirable. As Jocelyn—who is Rhea’s best friend—spends more time with Lou, Rhea tries to befriend Alice, but Alice distrusts her. Bennie arranges for the band to play at Mabuhay Gardens. Jocelyn convinces Lou to come and see the band. Lou takes Rhea and Jocelyn out for dinner before the gig; he gives them cocaine and puts an arm around each of them, and “like that, we’re Lou’s girls” (50). At the show, Lou takes a professional interest in Bennie. Rhea sees Jocelyn perform oral sex on Lou, “while Lou mashes Jocelyn’s head against himself again and again, so I don’t know how she can breathe, until it starts to seem like she’s not even Jocelyn, but some kind of animal or machine that can’t be broken” (53).