Smiths' Meat is Murder Page 5

  To my disappointment, I failed to conjure up an accurate mental image of Allison while I sat on the toilet, listening to ‘Barbarism Begins at Home’. Every innocent family member who opened the bathroom door after hearing no response to knocking received a variation of the same fierce earful, “Give me a friggin’ break! I’ll be done in a minute!”

  * * *

  I have no idea how many times I listened to Meat is Murder that night in bed, but it was a lot. Every song was, or would soon be, about my life and Allison’s place in it. I was short-listed for the starring role in the Off-Off Broadway musical production of The Cathexis Handbook.

  I fumbled in the dark for the light switch, took out my notebook and started to write a sentence for each song: School is a waste of time, except for Allison. Jocks are violent assholes (find out if Allison goes for jocks). I want Allison. I’ve already scratched her initials on my leg; that counts. I am human and I need to be loved by Allison, Allison, Allison. Allison smokes because she wants to die (because she needs someone to know her) … I wonder if she has a car we can have sex in? Does she see me when she passes, because I look for her everywhere. Stuff like that.

  It proved more of a challenge to bend and apply the song ‘Meat is Murder’ to fit the simple curves of my life. The problem was I liked meat. A lot. I was raised on meat. I had probably eaten meat at no less than two meals a day for the past twelve years. I thought about one of my earliest memories, when I was about four years old, unable to finish a cheeseburger, and my mother gently telling me,

  “Just eat the meat. Just eat the meat.” Eating the meat had always won me my mother’s approval, in the form of a pat on the head, a kind word, or a cookie of some sort. I started to kick around that idea for a while and soon fell asleep convinced vegetarianism might be the catalyst I so badly needed: for what, I wasn’t sure. To my list I added: Find out if Allison is a vegetarian.

  That night I had a dream that was equal parts ‘Rusholme Ruffians’ and James Joyce’s ‘Araby’: I am alone, wandering the walkways at the poorly attended, fly-by-night Brockton Carnival. Everything is gray, and flea-dusted puddles of standing water pool on the seats of the dormant, rickety rides. I have recently pinched my finger in the rusted safety clasp on the Tilt-A-Whirl. It will probably require a tetanus shot. There’s a real threat of more rain and some random violence. The ground is already muddy and cannot tolerate another soaking. I am feeding an upset stomach with a blue mushroom cloud of cotton candy.

  Next to the reeking porta-potty, one man stands behind Allison and firmly strokes the back of her head while cupping her left breast so that it’s raised visibly higher than the right. Another sways in front of her and worms a massive dirty thumb into her open mouth. His other hand is buried to the elbow up her dress.

  As I move to slap my hand down hard on the shoulder of the brute having his thumb sucked, he turns around explosively and drives his bare fist wrist-deep into the flesh of my stomach. Before I collapse and go unconscious, I press the cotton candy to my wound and start paraphrasing a speech I attribute to the dying Fiorello Laguardia. The warm blood causes the blue woolly sugar to melt and run purple to my crotch. I am too tired and thirsty to continue speaking. I pass out to the sound of the three of them laughing and applauding.

  The next morning I wake up to find that I’ve come.

  * * *

  “I’m hoping for an early death,” I said to Ray as I slid onto the smooth vinyl passenger seat. He had barely brought the car to a complete stop and he stabbed the gas hard before I had the door closed. His hair was still wet, unusually volumeless, and he was wearing a huge pair of mirrored sunglasses like the state cops wore. A lit smoke fell from my mouth and rolled out of sight on the floor. The rubber mat was almost completely hidden by old newspapers, coffee cups, a rotten pair of red canvas Connies, a thousand cassette tapes and some aborted books and schoolwork.

  “This place is a fucking fire hazard. You should install a sprinkler,” I said in a strained voice while reaching my arm deep beneath the seat. There was a hole in the floor about the size of a dinner plate, and I could see the road racing by through a section of it. “Hey, Flintstone, I can’t find my smoke in this dump.”

  “Don’t bother,” Ray said. “The carpet under there is soaking wet. That smoke is dead by now.” He turned to me and cracked an exaggerated, toothy smile. I could see a reflection of myself grinning in his glasses. Beneath the seat, my hand grazed something that felt like the elastic waistband from a damp pair of mens’ briefs. I pulled my hand away fast and wiped it on the carpeted door until my fingers were rug burned.

  “I’m going to swing by the Greeks for a coffee. You in?” Ray asked.

  “Why not? It’s Friday. We’re already ten minutes late. Might as well be twenty,” I said, wiping some more of the toxic residue off my fingers, onto the dashboard. Allison wasn’t in my first period class, so I had no problem missing it. Besides, it was the nicest weather of the year so far. Soft morning sunshine, the air warm and filled with a cheerful but false optimism.

  All in one week, I was falling in love with a girl and discovering an album that got right under my skin easier than a deer tick. Allison and Meat is Murder were hopelessly intertwined. There are few things delightful than listening to an album that is the soundtrack to a great, soaring love affair. On the other hand, the surest way to render it eternally and painfully unlistenable is to connect it to a serious relationship that goes down sadder than a jumbo jet into a hospice for addicts. In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, a mask supplying ample cyanide gas will drop from the ceiling. … And if one of the songs is really popular, or if the title is the name of the other person, you might as well jump from the bell tower onto a pile of English bicycles because you’re as good as dead anyway. I knew I was playing with fire, but it was out of my hands. I was pointed directly at the sun and the heat felt good.

  I popped side one into the cassette player, rolled the window down and cranked the chrome and bakelite volume knob. The car’s interior nearly cracked on the downbeat of one, and it overflowed with guitar melodies and piercing, glorious treble. We wanted everyone to hear. Morrissey’s vocals—at ear-numbing volume— enraged both mother and meathead alike, and we absolutely loved it. If I hadn’t been so anxious to see Allison in second period, I would have suggested to Ray that we ditch school, grab a six-pack of Narragansett tallboys and spend the day cruising around Nantasket Beach.

  Ray cut the volume by ninety percent as he pulled up to the Greeks’ drive-thru window. The engine idled hard and fast, and the Dart jolted forward with a baritone clang as he shifted into park.

  “Yeah, let me have two regular coffees and two chocolate frosted doughnuts.” The girl at the drive-thru window took the order then vanished back into the void. Ray sat at the wheel, tapping his fingers on his lap, and stared—from what I could tell—at nothing in particular through his gigantic shades.

  “You’re right,” he said. “This is a fucking amazing album. A heavy album.” He was quiet for a few seconds. He started to say something, hesitated, then went on, “I don’t know if you don’t like talking about it because he was your friend and all, but ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ just started reminding me of your friend who shot himself. And I never even met him. I guess it’s just the whole suicide thing.” Ray was pretty sharp and let it drop when I said nothing.

  We thought we were old, but we were so young and ill-equipped. I certainly was, though at least Ray was trying. I couldn’t even talk about an old friend’s suicide. I mean, I had nothing to say.

  A line of cars was starting to form behind us. I looked back and a lone, red-faced man in a suit was getting visibly frustrated by the wait, pounding the wheel and throwing his hands up in the air. His pink jowls spilled over the top of his buttoned collar. I could see him mouth the words, “Come on,” as he jerked his car out of line and drove off, only to brake hard and dissolve into the endless creep of traffic. Going nowhere fast.

  �
�What do you think about Allison from study?” I asked Ray, not looking at him, but past him. The girl inside the Greeks was working at unfolding a cardboard tray for our coffees. He was quiet for about half a minute while he rummaged through his pockets for money.

  “What do you mean by, ‘What do I think about Allison?’ Do I think she’s good looking or smart or do I like talking to her or what?” Ray questioned me back, with more animation than I was expecting.

  “You talk to her?” I asked.

  “No. I mean, she likes good music and everything, and you know, we talk about records sometimes. But we don’t really talk talk.” Ray paid the girl and handed me the coffees and doughnuts while he got himself situated for driving. “Murph’s sister Patty is pretty good friends with her. Me, Murph, Patty, Corcoran, Allison, Francesca D’Angeniro from Weymouth and some kids from North Quincy High … I don’t know, about ten of us, all drove down to Providence February for the Furs concert in Murph’s mother’s station wagon.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you knew her.”

  “I don’t really know her,” Ray said. “I’ve talked to her, but I don’t know her know her. She’s Murph’s sister’s friend. Why do you want to know anyway?” Ray asked, sliding the shades down his nose a bit, as if to prove he still had eyes.

  “Yesterday after study—after Bloody tore me a new ass—Allison passed me a note with all of the song titles from the album written out in order.”

  “What album?” Ray asked.

  “This album. Plus she wrote she’d see me tomorrow,” I said, replenishing the ninety percent of volume he had previously dialed out.

  “No shit,” he yelled, shaking his head and smiling. “She’s pretty cute.” The car shifted into drive with the same baritone clang as before. When Want ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’ finished playing, I rewound it, and we listened to it again. And then one more time.

  * * *

  Allison was not yet in her seat when I showed up for the start of second period. I took my place in the front row and worked maniacally to appear relaxed. But I was sweating and fidgety as I waited for her to make her entrance. I tried to gauge what would be her eye level in the empty space outlined by the doorjambs. Toward that place I directed an intense stare that said, I am so much more serious and deserving of your attention than any of these other buffoons.

  She’ll be looking right at me. She’ll be looking right at me, I thought in a way that was half command, half prayer. When my eyes locked hard with those of the wrong mark, it was obvious I had grossly miscalculated Allison’s height. My lack of familiarity with her physical dimensions instantly drove the point home: I basically knew nothing about her.

  I readjusted the aiming mechanism and shook my stare free from that of the wrong girl who was unaware of the magic in the air. She piped up in perfect Bos-tonian, like JFK on helium, “Allison’s absent tiday, Sis-tah.” She was a miniature girl named Margaret who liked to go by Peg (one of the two hundred Margarets in my school). Peg was a leftover acquaintance of Allison’s from grammar school and looked like she was just entering puberty at sixteen.

  I felt myself beginning to wilt, and I let out a groan, then disguised it as a cough. I’d have to wait until Monday to see her. I would have gladly given up the next two days of my life to make it Monday. Under the best conditions, a single Sunday afternoon could take forever in suburbia. There was nothing to do but stew in the crappy inevitability of Monday. Sweaty-faced, perverted evangelists and round table pundits had a choke-hold on the airwaves. No distracting stores were open, and even if they were—through some loophole in the antiquated Blue Laws—the buses all ran a Sunday schedule which meant more waiting and thinking … about Monday.

  “They think she has mono, but they don’t know yet for sure.”

  I wanted to strangle the little terrorist. “There’s a good chance she could be out for the rest of the term,” added the vicious little slip of a thing.

  Oh, puny Peg, with your toddler-sized, mono-grammed Shetland wool sweaters, one for every color in the visible spectrum. Peg, of the school spirit preachers. Peg, of the pre-prom gymnasium decorators, the slow-dancers, the ‘Sad Eyes’ singers, could I have accidentally stomped on your foot, as tiny as an eclair? Did I mock your two-handed milk carton grip? Or your hummingbird sips? Surely not I, you demi-sadist, you late-bloomer! You perfect-attender, as healthy as a pedigree toy pony.

  The clock inched backwards as I began living my rendition of the first stage of grieving. Allison seemed more dead to me than the truly dead. When people spoke to me in the halls or in The Lung, I heard every fourth word and looked over their shoulders in hopes she’d turn the corner. It was no use. The school was definitely without her. And somehow I knew she wasn’t coming back. I went home that day and adopted phantom symptoms of her affliction.

  * * *

  Charles was this guy a grade ahead of me. He was more than mildly effeminate, which was an unfortunate trait to have in Catholic high school, one that usually guaranteed its possessor an endless supply of negative attention. If you were gay—or even suspected of being gay—you had, on one hand, the faculty toeing the company line. They preached from rote about the perils due you for committing such immoral, unnatural and—in some states—illegal acts. And then, just for a bit of comic relief, you had squads of neckless fun-lovers who basically wanted to kill you.

  I don’t know what it’s like today. I imagine, or at least hope, that high schools are marginally less hostile towards homosexuals, suspected or otherwise. But back then? Not so good. There were some real birds of prey in my school (and did I mention that there was only one black person at St. Longinus, and he left after two years).

  Charles was spared because he held (and broke a couple times in ’84–’85) the Catholic Conference record for some indoor race. I don’t know, I think it was the ten trillion meter dash. Big deal. He was from Southie, and growing up would have had plenty of incentive to run like a crazy fucker. He had himself a pair of million dollar stilts and was going to Boston University, full boat. The faculty basked in the notoriety he brought to Saint Longinus High School. After he broke the record the second or third time, all three local TV stations did features on him. The school administrators were licking their chops thinking about the influx of new applicants to Saint Longinus High … and the cash. Charles was something of a made man.

  I had spent my entire school career in the Catholic school farm system and posted good numbers before getting the call up to the big leagues: Saint Longinus High. Right up until I was accpeted, I had no clue who Saint Longinus was. In a nutshell, he was the Roman soldier who finished Jesus off with his sword while the latter faded on the cross. The former went on to appreciate the shortcomings of his action and decided to live the rest of his life in the “spirit” of the latter. Everyone knows what the latter did: He inspired, among other things, excellence in athletics. The mascot at Saint Longinus High School was a sword. An inanimate object. It didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense.

  There was an English teacher named Sister Patricia Ralph. She was known as Ye Olde Salt. Her face resembled that of the actor M. Emmett Walsh, but with a few rogue whiskers jumping ship from her dermis. She used to like to say, “The sword of Saint Longinus is alive.” Anyway, we were called the Saint Longinus Swords. Behind his back, Charles was The Blade.

  I really could not have cared less about the indoor track records Charles held. And the fact that he was gay (among other more colorful and creative self-descriptions, “as queer as a three-pound note” would become an old standby of his) made me a little uncomfortable at first. How could I not be uncomfortable? I had been on the receiving end of a decade’s worth of negative, faith-based bullshit. I had never knowingly known anyone who was gay. And AIDS had already been firmly rooted in the consciousness of America as “the gay disease.” Homosexuality was getting some especially bad press then. Come to think of it, if you weren’t as straight and white as Loni Anderson’s chicklets, you had your work cut
out for you.

  What did interest me about Charles was an ancillary talent of his, one that didn’t do much to counter his flamboyant image: Charles played piano like a virtuoso in all of the school musicals, and could kick the living shit out of a showtune. It’s cliché, but it’s true. Showtunes weren’t exactly my bag, but his talent was formidable and undeniable.

  Hello, Dolly, Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, Grease, no problem. He owned those scores, not only figuratively, but literally. During the rumble scene in West Side Story, when the score called for the players in the orchestra pit to go completely apeshit, I could have sworn he tipped his hat to ‘Bodies’ by The Sex Pistols. That May, I walked away from our first conversation convinced that he had.

  “You’re the kid starting the band, right? You into Japan?”

  I stopped fumbling with my locker, surprised, disoriented. I thought he meant the country. He was wearing too much Polo cologne, though at that age it struck me as confident and mature.

  “Umm, I guess so,” I answered stupidly. He seemed a little frustrated by my lack of enthusiasm, as if a preconceived notion or two of his own had been validated.

  “What about Kate Bush?”

  “Don’t really know her,” I said. He let out a groan, then pointed his thumbs at the badges fixed to his breast, which read: The Dreaming and The Kick Inside respectively.

  “The Cure, Joy Division, Bowie, Bauhaus, The Smiths? Tell me you like The Smiths.”

  The Smiths? The Smiths?, I thought. “I love The Smiths,” I said, holding up my walkman for him as if he’d be able to see the poorly marked cassette inside.

  He let out a sigh I took to be genuine and said, “Thank God, because I don’t think you could be my bass player if you didn’t like The Smiths.”

  Charles was as noticeable on campus for his appearance as he was for being a gay star athlete. His style of dress was new wave, though the ill-informed called it punk. The guys’ uniform at Saint Longinus was pretty drab: blue pants, a solid dress shirt in pastel colors only, school tie, leather shoes (no canvas). Because Charles was famous, he got away with dressing like Ducky’s wardrobe consultant for the movie Pretty in Pink.