Romeo and Juliet
(Knoffler, M) performed by Dire Straits
A lovestruck Romeo, sings the streetside serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like, You and me, babe, how about it?
Juliet says, Hey, it's Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack
He's underneath the window, she's singing, Hey, la, my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here, singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?
Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget, I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame
Both dirty, both mean, yes and the dream was just the same
And I dream your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me, as if I was just another one of your deals?
Well, you can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin
Now you just say, Oh, Romeo, yeah, you know
I used to have a scene with him
Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry
You said, I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
I can't do the talk like the talk on the TV
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you
Can't do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat, the bad company
And all I do is kiss you, through the bars of a rhyme
Juliet, I'd do the stars with you any time
Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry
You said, I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
And a lovestruck Romeo, he sings the streetside serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade
He says something like, You and me, babe, how about it?
You and me, babe, how about it?
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like, You and me, babe, how about it?
Juliet says, Hey, it's Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack
He's underneath the window, she's singing, Hey, la, my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here, singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?
Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget, I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame
Both dirty, both mean, yes and the dream was just the same
And I dream your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me, as if I was just another one of your deals?
Well, you can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin
Now you just say, Oh, Romeo, yeah, you know
I used to have a scene with him
Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry
You said, I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
I can't do the talk like the talk on the TV
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you
Can't do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat, the bad company
And all I do is kiss you, through the bars of a rhyme
Juliet, I'd do the stars with you any time
Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry
You said, I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
And a lovestruck Romeo, he sings the streetside serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade
He says something like, You and me, babe, how about it?
You and me, babe, how about it?
So, last week, I wrote about starting university in the Spring of '86 and meeting a new group of friends that made me feel free and alive. As close as we immediately were, and as close as we essentially remained, I also met someone else that first semester who would have an even bigger impact on my life: my first true love, Glen. So much of what I've written so far feels like it has been leading to this point in my life's story, and now that I'm here, I don't know what I really have to say about this time; I don't know what significance it has outside my own head. The story of how we met is a good start for getting it all out of me; like an emetic, or an exorcism.
Sometime midsemester, there was an event called the "Loose Ladies Cabaret", and all the female members of VOMIT attended together. It started in the pub, where only women were allowed for the evening, and we drank cheap shots and learned and sang together bawdy songs ("He gave me inches one, I said 'Baby, this is fun, roll me over in the clover and do me again'"), and there were games and draws with sex shop toys as prizes; I imagine the intent was to get the ladies all loose and randy before the event opened up to guys, too. It's no shocker to say that I've always been a bit of a prude, so I had an evening of hilarity with the drinking and the singing with my girlfriends, but didn't participate in the draws or the games because I couldn't imagine being presented with one of the "prizes", let alone bringing anything eyebrow-raising home to my parents' house.
At the end of a couple hours or so of cheap drinking, the event moved into the main building of the campus where a large room (maybe a gymnasium?) was set up like a typical high school dance, with a bunch of guys hungrily waiting for us loose and randy (and tipsy) women to arrive. My friends and I sat down on benches along the wall, but within no time, we were all being asked to dance; up on the floor and back again; just like a high school dance, but with bar service. I danced with a few different guys, but I stayed up on the floor with one guy for a string of slow songs, and as we slowly turned in a close clutch, I began to wonder if I had "met someone". When the beat picked up again, this guy asked me if I had something "to smoke", doing that pinched fingers toking mime. As I've said before, I wasn't into drugs, and when he told me to stick around while he went off in search of pot, I sighed and returned to my spot along the wall.
When I got back to the benches, none of my friends were where I'd left them, and there was this other guy sitting in our spot. As I had left my purse and jacket right where he was sitting, I said, "Excuse me, I think you're sitting on my stuff". He smiled at me, jumped up -- revealing my belongings -- and apologised. I was half -distracted by this guy I had just been dancing with -- was he coming back? was I even interested in someone who would abandon me to get high? as if just meeting me wasn't mindblowing enough? -- and I was so distracted that I wasn't really appreciating this guy who was standing right in front of me. Of course this was Glen, and the moment that I really stopped and looked at him, I was thunderstruck by his warm doe eyes and his lopsided smile and his big, beautiful body. Glen was over six feet tall, worked out, and usually wore tight t-shirts that strained against his pecs and biceps; I had never met a guy as young as we were who had spent that much time pumping up his muscles. What I didn't intuit was that a guy who devoted that much effort to his own body probably loves himself more than anyone else, but that negative stuff comes later. For now, I had been captured by Glen's orbit; a helpless victim of gravity and magnetism and cheap drinks. He asked me to dance.
Glen and I danced to every song for the rest of the night, and if that other guy ever came back looking for me, I'll never know. Before the night was through, he asked for my phone number (which I supplied, duh), and we made a plan to get together a few nights later for coffee and dessert at a trendy cafe.
We hadn't talked much at the dance, so all I knew about Glen was that he was a student at the university (because the Loose Ladies Cabaret was only open to students) and that he'd be picking me up at 8 on a Tuesday. I was waiting nervously by the door when I heard a ground-shaking rumble coming ever closer down the street. It was so loud that my Dad, who had been in the kitchen, came out to see what doom approacheth. When Glen parked his Chevy Nova (much like that picture I selected this week) across the street and started to climb out, my Dad (who had never asked me one question about the boys I dated through high school), called from the living room window, "Who is that?" I replied that his name was Glen and he was there for me. Then Dad asked, "Well, what's his last name? Where does he live? What does he do?" I had to admit that I didn't know any of those answers, and even though Dad started to say that that meant maybe I shouldn't be going anywhere with this "stranger", the doorbell was ringing and I was rolling my eyes and telling Dad the name of the restaurant we were heading to. What did Dad (a car guy) fear in that engine's rumble? I opened the door, and there was Glen -- probably even more gorgeous and mountainous than I had remembered -- and I introduced him to Dad and left. Once I saw just how big and shiny his car was (Glen told me later that he had had a custom paint job done by a friend at a pro shop who had snuck in "handfuls and handfuls" of expensive gold glitter to the paint mix; had added several extra layers of clearcoat on top), I wasn't sure that I shouldn't be embarrassed to be seen getting into it; this car was totally pimp. And when Glen started the engine and I was suddenly inside the growling beast, I was half excited and half embarrassed and more than a little thrill-nauseous -- like climbing to the top of a roller coaster peak -- to be beside this guy who suddenly promised danger and excitement. At the dance, I had had no clue that Glen was the kind of guy who would drive a car like this; I couldn't wait to get to know him; to start the ride.
When we got to the restaurant, Glen was a total gentleman, pulling out my chair and deferring to my preferences. I soon learned that he wasn't actually a student at the university -- he was friends with a guy who went to the school and through him had heard about the legendary Loose Ladies Cabaret. When he got to the pub area to see how to get in, he met a girl he knew (I eventually learned that there was a "girl he knew" everywhere we'd go) whose handstamp was still fresh enough that he was able to press it to his own hand and get access to the second half of the evening. I learned he was from B.C., had spent the six months after high school working (and partying) in the resort town of Jasper, and had moved to Lethbridge to live with a sister for a while; he was now working in the produce department at a grocery store until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. Glen was just so real and warm and interested in my own boring story that we hit it off instantly. By the end of the evening, we had plans to meet again, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'll leave off this week on the happy beginning.
As for this week's song choice: Dire Straits was Glen's favourite band, and even though this particular song came out long before we met, I hated the Brothers in Arms album (couldn't stand Money for Nothing or Walk of Life when they came on the radio, which they would have around the time I met Glen), so I went back in their catalogue for a more appropriate song choice. That's not to say that I thought of us as Romeo and Juliet (this was not a forbidden love despite my father's initial uneasiness), but even this song has an unhappy ending and that's about right. I also want to note that I've never seen this video before, and isn't it awful? That is the least sexy dancing -- for him and for her -- that I have ever seen. On the other hand, other than the glasses and if he were taller, the guy in the video looks kind of like Glen, and after I grew out my hair, I didn't look unlike her. Star-crossed after all.
He says something like, You and me, babe, how about it?
You and me, babe, how about it?
You and me, babe, how about it?