Paperback Writer
(Lennon/McCartney) Performed by The Beatles
Paperback writer
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job so I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer!
It's a dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand
His son is working for the Daily Mail
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer!
Paperback writer
It's a thousand pages, give or take a few
I'll be writing more in a week or two
I can make it longer if you like the style
I can change it 'round and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer!
If you really like it you can have the rights
It could make a million for you overnight
If you must return it you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer!
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
Grade nine will always stand out in my memory as a very weird year. It was the first year of high school, I took the bus for the first time (which meant, for the first time, I was in classes with dangerous urban kids -- by which I mean rich Italian girls with jangly gold bracelets and large crimped hair), we wore uniforms, we wrote midterms in official-looking booklets, and I met boys who hadn't known me since I was the awkward newcomer in grade three.
Also new in high school was the notion of a home room and mine was first period French. The boy who sat behind me was named Paul and he had Cerebral Palsy and wasn't a very friendly kid. I have no idea what elementary school had been like for him (or if his experience there had made him distrust/dislike social contact), but as I wasn't used to people being brusque to my face, I started a charm offensive against Paul, and within no time, we would exchange smiles and chat before class started.
Paul's best friend was named Randall and he also had some sort of disability that I didn't recognise: his head was overlarge, his face was very pale with permanent red splotches on the cheeks, he had hunched shoulders and a shuffling gait, and speaking was difficult for him. Whenever I passed Paul and Randall in the hallway, I'd be sure to smile and greet them both warmly.
On Valentine's Day of that year, there was a rose delivery in home room for secret admirers and I was shocked to get two or three (and I remember them as being anonymous and I never did find out who they were from). Behind me, Paul was really upset and he wouldn't talk to me, and he started banging his fist on his desk and muttering about, "He won't listen...he just won't listen..." Paul may even have been crying and his tantrum got worse until he was asked to leave the classroom. Now, I started with that picture of John Travolta from The Boy in the Bubble because that had been a popular TV movie around this time and there was a scene where Travolta had a freakout and that's what I was thinking about as Paul lost control behind me -- I was a little scared and confused and didn't know how to help someone who I thought of as my friend.
After home room, Randall was waiting for me out in the hallway and he handed me a rose and a stack of looseleaf papers that had been stapled into a booklet. I was taken by surprise and thanked him, and as I walked away, I could see that the booklet was a collection of love poems that Randall had written. With Cora and Andrea at my sides, I ducked into the bathroom where I could get a better look at the writing, and although the girls were cracking up and trying to get a good look at the poems, I felt terrible and had no clue what to do; by trying to be the girl who would smile and say hi to a couple of guys who were used to being ignored, I realised at that moment that I had led each of them to believe that I was interested in them romantically -- or at least might become so -- and one of the boys was currently having a meltdown and I needed to do something about the other.
When I left the bathroom, Randall was waiting right outside the door, and although I hadn't had time to make a plan, I smiled and handed the poems back to him and said, "Thank you so much but no thank you. I can't..." I didn't really have anything else to say and a small tear trickled down Randall's cheek before he turned and lurched down the hallway. I think my friends were still laughing, but I never found it funny.
Paul was very cool towards me in home room after that despite my efforts to act like nothing had happened; I think I had confirmed for him that people can't be trusted and he had been right in the beginning to not make friends. Randall avoided me in the hallways and it took a while before I saw him and Paul hanging out together once more. And I just felt terrible about the whole thing.
I don't mean to offend about anything in this story or the way it's told: I started with The Boy in the Bubble because, as I said, it was on my mind at the time, but also because I liked the image of a person with a disability finding romantic love -- I wasn't necessarily turned off by Paul or Randall, I just wasn't attracted to either of them. And I chose Paperback Writer because the urgency of wanting someone to read and approve of what you've written that's captured in the song is exactly how I remember Randall acting as he handed me his poems. Thinking about Paul and Randall now, I can't think of any reason why either of them wouldn't have eventually found true love, and if they think of me at all, I hope that they don't remember me as some mean tease who had set out to stomp their hearts.
