Tunesday : How Soon is Now

How Soon is Now

(Morrissey, S / Marr, J) Performed by The Smiths

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry
And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen "now"
Well when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

This is the last Tunesday before the girls go back to school (that's technically "back to university", but I'll keep them little in my mind for a bit longer, thank you), and as my intention had been to spend the summer sharing songs that my friends and I loved when I was in university (thirty *cough* years *cough* ago), that set list wouldn't be complete without The Smiths. Yes, this is the obvious choice from the band, and while I have been semi-trying to avoid obvious choices for this project, How Soon is Now was really the only Smiths song that got played at the clubs; pretty much the only one I danced to anyway. (Actually, Meat is Murder got some play, and although we shivered along to lines like "The meat in your mouth as you savour the flavour of MURDER", our response [as meat-eaters all] was kind of ironic; and as that wouldn't honour the intent of the song, I'll stick to the one that I had an honest emotional response to.) And I did respond to this song -- what teenager doesn't yearn to be loved, just like everybody else does?

Last week I was talking about how freaked out I was about a couple of old friends who sent me Facebook friend requests out of the blue, so I think I'll just share a few stories about one of them: Nancy. The first time I wrote about her was here (where I shared her stories about being visited by Little People as a child), and as for our high school days, I wrote about that here, and included Nancy when I wrote about her part in the planning phase of the Europe trip Kevin and I took here; looking back, as peripheral as Nancy essentially was to my life, I may have actually written more about her than anyone else from Lethbridge. Huh. So to briefly recap: On New Year's Eve of Grade Twelve, our little group of friends had a blowup (which was apparently a long time coming, even if I was oblivious to it) and Nancy and I were cast out; suddenly only having each other to hang out with, even if we had never hung out just the two of us before. 

I did have a boyfriend (Doug), and a part time job (at Bonanza), and with school and whatnot, I was busy enough throughout the week. But I must have been lonely and mopey enough on the weekends for my Dad to notice: one day, totally out of nowhere, Dad said, "Why don't you take my car and go get some friends and drive out to Waterton for the day?" The only person I could even think to invite was Nancy, and she was happy to come along. As I wrote before, I always loved going to Waterton -- it's a beautiful National Park in the Rockies, without the crowds or commercialism of Banff or Jasper -- and we did all the usual tourist stuff: driving the slightly terrifying twisty road up to Cameron Lake (where Alberta, BC, and Montana intersect); taking the boat tour that crosses Waterton Lake into Montana; I'm only mostly sure that we went horseback riding; but I do remember specifically that we had lunch in a diner/cafeteria that had a self-serve cooler for beer and soft drinks, and although we were both slightly underage, when we plunked the beer cans down on the counter, the cashier rang them up without batting an eye -- it was so hot outside and we were so exhausted from touristing that I still remember how sweet that lager went down (doubly sweet for being contraband).

As I said before, Nancy and I both took a semester off after high school: me, because I was sick of school, and Nancy, because I think her parents needed her to work. Her Dad was a mechanic in the garage at the university, and at the time, that meant that Nancy and her brothers would get free tuition. Even so, when her older brother had graduated high school, he immediately moved out of the house and went to work somewhere. And when Nancy graduated, she got a job soldering together early generation cell phones; handing over every paycheque to her obese, wheedling mother; gratefully accepting whatever portion of her own money she was allowed to keep for herself. It was while we were both working that Nancy and I started dreaming along with Kevin about backpacking through Europe the next summer, and while at first Nancy was as onboard as any of us, her parents eventually put their collective feet down: they couldn't afford to have Nancy spend her own money like that; it was bad enough that she was planning to start university the following fall. (Obviously, I have no idea how tight money was for Nancy's family, but I'm sure from my tone that it's clear I found this whole situation unfair at the time -- and especially because Nancy's mother didn't work [not outside the home, and looking around at the squalour, not inside either]: she was simply huge, and every time I saw her, she'd be sitting in the same recliner chair, with a plate of snacks at her elbow [or asking Nancy to refresh the snacks at her elbow], and listing off all the chores Nancy would need to have completed before she'd be allowed to go out [feeding her little brother, doing some laundry, giving Mama a kiss on her flabby cheek]. And here's the most important fact about these living conditions: Nancy didn't mind at all. She would happily do anything her mother asked, hand over her paycheques without complaint, fluff up the pillow behind her Mama's back; not dream of going anywhere until her mother was satisfied she could get along [somehow] without Nancy's help. And here's a caveat: I might well have inflated all of this in my memory -- Nancy's mother might not have been that obese or that demanding or that sedentary; but it's sure how I remember it.)

A canonical story from the time: When Kevin and I were preparing to go on our trip, Nancy was a good sport and happily came along on shopping jaunts with me; helping me choose my backpack and bathing suit and various sundries. She came with me to Radio Shack one day when I decided I wanted a travelling foldup clock, and as was always the case at that stupid store, you couldn't just buy some little thing without giving them your name and address and phone number (they said this was for "warranty" purposes, and maybe that made sense for TVs and stereos, but it was a pain in the butt when you just wanted a five dollar alarm clock). The clerk asked my name, and I replied, "Krista with a K", and when he asked for my last name, I simply replied, "Jones" (which I had never needed to spell out for anyone in my life to that point). When he then asked me to spell my last name, Nancy jumped in and said with great impatience and exaggerated airquotes  , "You know, 'Jones', as in everybody has one?" That was apparently all the information the clerk needed because he was, indeed, able to spell my last name from there, and we moved on to the address and whatever and were finally allowed to leave the store in a fit of giggles. What was important was that this was a running joke forever in our gang of friends: "You know, 'Jones', as in everybody has one?" I simply cannot think of Nancy without thinking of that story (even if it doesn't read as hilarious, it was one of those things that grew more and more funny the more it was repeated.)

The following spring, when Nancy was about to turn nineteen, I had this big idea to spoil her with a stunning, adult night out: we'd have a fancy dinner at the Lethbridge Lodge's fine dining room; a night of theater at the University; and conclude the evening at a bar that was having their once-a-month, latenight male stripper event. In order to make it a surprise, I asked Nancy's Mom to pretend that she was going to take Nancy out for dinner (so that my friend would get appropriately dressed up), and then all us girls would swoop into her house, yell "Surprise", and carry on. This was all planned with much love -- if anyone deserved some spoiling it was the supportive and uncomplaining Nancy -- and even her mother was really happy to play along, but here's what I never considered: I don't know if Nancy's mother ever took her anywhere, and when we piled into their house to yell "Surprise" and kidnap Nancy, her face briefly fell before rearranging back into a smile. I think she was actually, completely devastated: we had set Nancy up to believe that she and her Mom were going to have a girls night out -- and how much did Nancy deserve that? -- and Nancy was so delighted to be going out with her Mom, and it turned out to be a prank. On the other hand, her Mom was so ridiculously happy to be included in the ruse -- do I remember tears of joy in her eyes as she waved us on from her recliner? -- that Nancy matched her smile and sportingly joined us for what would turn out to be a truly mediocre evening. 

Dinner was probably fantastic (as it doesn't stand out in my memory, it must have been as good as the restaurant's usual: I think I remember us sharing a bottle of wine, as we were all by this point old enough to be served alcohol and that would have felt "adult"), but the play was pretty dumb: it was called Firebugs and was a totally amateur student production (and the only thing that stands out in my memory, other than overall dissatisfaction, was a Greek Chorus of firefighters marching around the stage, chanting their lines over the principal actors' dialogue. So lame.) Then we whisked Nancy along to the male stripper event (the likes of which none of us had ever seen before) and it was totally lame. In my mind I was thinking of the Chippendales, but when we got to the lounge, it was just one (not terribly tall or hot or even handsome) guy. And instead of performing on a stage, he was alone on the dancefloor, mostly blocked from view by pillars and tables and chairs. His first number was a slow song, and he swayed and swivelled his hips, slowly taking off his clothes until he was in just a g-string. And then he swayed his way over to the few scattered occupied tables, slowly thrusting himself in each of our horrified directions (we had no clue that this was probably where we were supposed to stuff his gaunch with singles, so this was no doubt a lame night for him, too). And because he was the only performer, he had to stretch out the experience by spending the next, also slow, song laying down on the dancefloor, running his hands up and down his own bare body, doing weird yoga-like poses. Laying down, he was totally obscured from our view, and every now and then someone would stand up and look and confirm that he was still rubbing and stretching, but for the most part, we'd be talking and laughing about something else (another reason for why this can't have been a good experience for the guy, either). His third, and final, song was a fast one, and to our absolute horror, he removed his g-string and flopped around the little dancefloor, and worse, flopped around from table to table. There was nothing sexy about this performance from beginning to end, and I was so dismayed by this man's floppy penis as it led him on towards our eye-level chairs, that I placed a shielding hand over my unbelieving eyes, turning away from his bold advance. How would he have worked up the nerve to pull off this sad burlesque? I remember his body was completely hairless.

These are the stories I think of when I remember Nancy; I don't recall much more of our daily interactions (other than remembering her as always friendly and supportive and up for anything); I have no memory of saying goodbye to her when I moved away. As I concluded last week, I don't think that Nancy's Facebook friend request was actually a chummy gesture (as Curtis and I essentially ended our own friendship in an acrimonious divorce in which he got to keep the friends, I can only imagine that he has spent the last twenty years -- to the degree that he would have ever thought about me at all -- shaping my memory into that of a villain) and that's a little sad: I'd like to think there is a universe in which Nancy has a blog where she remembers the good times we shared together, too; I have nothing but love and admiration in my memories of her.

Nancy