Permanent Damage
Memoirs of an Outrageous Girl
Mercy Fontenot and Lyndsey Parker
Rare Bird Books
Have you ever been cruising along, windows down, maybe as the hypnotic sounds of your favorite Ambrosia or Slipknot cassette pump through the speakers of your factory-installed hi-fi while en route to work or perhaps to the Piggly Wiggly, when you roll up on a terrible car crash? Suddenly, your complete attention is captured by blaring sirens and blinding rescue vehicle lights. Blazing flares placed on the road force oncoming traffic to merge left as the trained medical team pulls a broken and bloody body from the wreckage. The scene is unspeakably horrifying. Yet, you just can’t help but gawk, rubbernecking, Linda Blair-style, as you coast by at seven mph. Aw, shit! How could ANYBODY possibly survive THAT type of tragedy?
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with all things L.A. — especially the golden era of the Sunset Strip during the fabulously freaky late ’60s — the clubs, the bands, the fashions, and the gaggle of glorious groupies. At the forefront of that untamed sex, drugs & rock and roll scene was one particularly outrageous girl: Miss Mercy Fontenot.
So I was pretty pumped to discover Miss Mercy’s salacious tell-all memoir, Permanent Damage, while I was doing research for a recent Frank Zappa-related writing project. Upon close Amazon examination, I realized quickly that I was kinda late to the party, as the book had actually dropped in 2021. But I reasoned that it would likely be a case of “better late than never.” To quote the great American poet and philosopher David Lee Roth, “I don’t feel tardy.” Then I noticed the co-author credit — celebrated pop culture journalist Lyndsey Parker. As an ardent admirer of Parker’s work, I knew immediately that this was a must-read. Add to cart.
In her heartfelt foreword, Parker points out how it would prove challenging at times to get Mercy to open up fully and to recall clearly her decades worth of drug-fueled debauchery. As a result, it becomes obvious in short order that while the stories belong to Mercy, the storytelling belongs to Parker. Like a gawker coasting past the horrifying aforementioned car crash, my attention was captured initially by Mercy’s un-sanitized, graphic accounts. But it was Parker’s sparkling writing and the perceived promise of a narrative payoff (at some point) that kept me invested ‘til the afterword.
From the onset, Mercy recounts her earliest brush with death, as well as losing her body and mind “virginity” at a young age — from having a gambling-addicted father, a mother who beat her with a razor strap, and a sister who hated her, to hanging with a host of hippies and a bunch beatniks, to her first groupie-ish encounter with Brian Jones. Then things get weird.
Mercy’s recollections of her experiences with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Charles Manson are certainly fascinating. However, for some readers, her accounts of flying saucers, alien abductions, and claims of being part alien herself and having multiple past lives might compromise her credibility. “I was on drugs. I was always on drugs,” Mercy confesses. “When wasn’t I on drugs?”
Despite the allure of Mercy’s salacious exploits, the litany of drug disclosures, carnal conquests, and ad nauseam name-dropping became tiresome — although I did appreciate her occasional insider candor regarding several of rock’s most sacred “golden gods.” She (almost) gleefully takes credit for being (at least partially) responsible for Gram Parson’s life-ending heroin addiction and she brags about agreeing to shit in a bucket while banging Chuck Berry, circa ‘74. Wait! What?
Mercy’s role as a member of the infamous Frank Zappa-created all-girl group, the GTOs, was short-lived, as even Zappa, the iconic avant-garde music genius, became so fed up with Mercy’s nonsense that he pulled the plug on the project before their one and only album was released.
The faint heartbeat of Permanent Damage is often drowned out entirely by its erratic drumbeat. Which can be frustrating. Every time Mercy seems ready to show us a piece of her heart, she (once again) ends up either shooting, snorting, or smoking something on a sticky bathroom floor with another unwashed junkie. She boasts of doing cocaine with her first husband, R&B soul musician Shuggie Otis, on the night of their nuptials. “It was our own idea of a white wedding,” she says. Fortunately, Parker serves as an effective defibrillator when the story factor begins to (frequently) flatline.
At times, Mercy comes across as likable as Anna Delvey. Such sweeping statements as, “Everyone was smoking crack. That’s all there was,” are pretty pathetic. While watching her boyfriend getting sucked off by one of her girlfriends, Mercy recalls, “It made me sick.” Yet, oddly, agreeing to shit in a bucket while banging Chuck Berry didn’t trigger her gag reflexes. Hmm.
There was, however, one (unintentionally) funny part. At least it was funny to me. Strawberry Nesquik nearly shot out my nose when I saw that Chapter 9 opens with a “trigger warning” regarding the sexual assault and battery content contained in the chapter. While those experiences certainly are harrowing, one could make a strong case for the entire book needing one big trigger warning.
For those who prefer shock over substance, Permanent Damage scratches all the required itches. However, the first 190 or so pages had me feeling frustrated — and icky. But, just as the two-minute warning sounds, Parker runs onto the field sporting a fabulous-looking referee-inspired black and white polka-dot ensemble (with matching bag and heels) and the story sails suddenly into the end zone. Touchdown! And it is then that Mercy shows her true honest and pure heart and soul — delivering the beautiful, wonderful payoff I’d been hoping for. In those final pages, Mercy also reveals her heartbreaking battle with liver cancer. “I’m going to be dead soon,” she writes bravely. Sadly, Mercy passed away just prior to the book’s publication.
In sum, I was pleasantly surprised by Permanent Damage. Fortunately, I gawked at the car crash long enough to get to the payoff. It’s kinda crazy how a book that I struggled to choke down initially turned out to be one that I actually would appreciate — and recommend.
