My mom used to be totally into Joan Armatrading. She waited for her new records to come out and bought them as soon as they did. I remembered being impressed by her voice even as a little kid. This record is in great shape and played just fine. I was pretty nonplussed by it. Not that it doesn't stand up to the test of time. It's just not my thing. I don't know. I am certain there will be specific Joan Armatrading songs that I will find while going through the stack that move me. None of them were on this record.
Anyway screw all that shit. Wanna hear an embarrassing story? Of course you do!
So when I was around ten or eleven I guess, I had a crush on this cute little girl in my school, which was appropriate because I was a cute little boy. So at the time I lived in the fucking sticks of New Hampshire. It was not a good environment for young love. There was no way I was ever gonna go walk to her house, meet her, take her out for an ice cream or whatever. Everything was miles apart. I guess I could have asked one of our moms to drive us around. I don't think I would have though. I have no idea what I was thinking. I had a bike but I didn't even know where my cute little red-headed girl lived. But I would not be perturbed. This was New Hampshire in the 1980s and everyone's phone numbers were listed. I figured I'd give her a call on the phone and ask her out. That was the extent of the plan. I am not a maker of elaborate or well thought out plans.
But I wanted this girl to think I was cool. And what's cooler than music? So I turned on my mom's stereo and played whatever was on there, which happened to be some album by Joan Armatrading.
My venture was not a rousing success. I turned the music up way too loud and the little red-headed girl's mom answered the phone. I don't think she could even hear me. I never got the object of my heart's desire on the phone. Her mom got a weird call from a quiet kid backed by loud music and had no idea who it was, I suspect. There was also no caller ID in the 80s, not in the sticks anyway.
Later on in sixth grade this same girl's parents got divorced. She knew my parents were divorced and talked to me about it. At the time I was the only kid in school from a divorced family, other than my sister, and Eric who had moved away. So I talked her through it. She was really bummed out. I told her the deal. I told her that her parents would move out and not love each other anymore. And they'd still love her and they'd still be her parents. I told her it was stupid and they shouldn't do this kind of thing to their kids but they were adults and they didn't know any better. I told her it was gonna suck but she'd get through it. She'd still have her friends and teachers at school and sometimes her parents would need her to do stuff and she had to be strong for her younger sister. The deal, I told her The Whole Deal: it's gonna suck but it's not your fault and fuck them anyway.
So the fucking punch line is, this caught her attention. She started leaving me presents and little notes and shit. But I was so wrapped up in my own shit I didn't even notice. Goofy, chubby, little burgeoning proto-punk-rock-fuck walking around in my coke-bottle glasses, blasting the Clash in my headphones, trying to figure out how and why all the adults in my life were fucking me so hard. It wasn't all in my head, they were hitting me pretty hard with some pretty heavy bullshit.
I had finally caught the attention of my schoolboy crush and all I could think was, Shit, Jane gave me another book. Doesn't she know I'm busy trying to figure out ways to keep Tyler from killing us all in our sleep?
Which was an exaggeration, he never did anything that out there. I still maintain that was only luck. He had it in him. Anyway, I had heavy shit going on. Not long after that, depending on who you ask, either my mom kicked me out of the house or I "chose" to move to Jersey to live with my dad.
Never saw Jane again. I blame Joan Armatrading.
[wikipedia]
No comments:
Post a Comment