You Won't See Me
(Lennon/McCartney) Performed by The Beatles
When I call you up
Your line's engaged
I have had enough
So act your age
We have lost the time
That was so hard to find
And I will lose my mind
If you won't see me
(You won't see me)
You won't see me
(You won't see me)
I don't know why you
Should want to hide
But I can't get through
My hands are tied
I won't want to stay
I don't have much to say
But I can't turn away
And you won't see me
(You won't see me)
You won't see me
(You won't see me)
Time after time
You refuse to even listen
I wouldn't mind
If I knew what I was missing
Though the days are few
They're filled with tears
And since I lost you
It feels like years
Yes, it seems so long
Girl, since you've been gone
And I just can't go on
If you won't see me
(You won't see me)
You won't see me
(You won't see me)
Time after time
You refuse to even listen
I wouldn't mind
If I knew what I was missing
Though the days are few
They're filled with tears
And since I lost you
It feels like years
Yes, it seems so long
Girl, since you've been gone
And I just can't go on
If you won't see me
(You won't see me)
You won't see me
(You won't see me)
Here's another strange story from when I was in grade nine: It was a couple of days after my 14th birthday (and as this is my birthday week, I'm talking about this time of year) and the phone rang and my mother answered and she said it was for me. At that time, we had one family phone in the house (the other was in my parents' bedroom), so I took this call in the kitchen, with my Dad sitting at the table -- where he usually was when he was home -- listening in.
The guy on the phone introduced himself as Bruce and it took me a few painfully bewildering moments to remember who he was, and when I did, I was even more confused. Two years earlier, my Dad had traded his dune buggy to a quasi-friend of his (who owned a roofing company) for a new roof for our house. I was twelve at the time, it was summer vacation so my brothers and I were at home, and although I had been warned that roofers would be coming that day, I hadn't known it was a father-and-sons business and that the oldest son would be a hunky studmuffin. I kept casually walking past windows to eyeball this long-haired hippie dude with his tight jeans and blond beard as he took off his shirt and hefted heavy things over his head, and would turn bright red if he happened to look towards the house (even though I'm pretty sure that the angle would have kept me invisible, I felt like a peeping Tom in my own home and it was thrilling). There were maybe three other younger sons, all chunky red-faced boys with buzz cuts in descending heights, and they did not have my attention at all. On the phone, Bruce was the oldest of the buzz-cutted brothers.
Bruce explained that I had caught his eye when he had been working on our roof two years earlier, but when he asked my Dad's permission to ask me out, Dad told him he had to wait until I was fourteen before I'd be allowed to start dating (which was a surprise to me as I had already been to a couple of dances with guys that I would have considered "dates"). Bruce said that now that he finally had my Dad's approval, he wanted me to come to his hockey banquet with him, and as I glanced over at my knowingly grinning father, I was very confused about the whole situation: once I realised that I was talking to one of the roofers -- and not the good looking one but one of the others that I had lumped together in my mind -- I started wondering to what degree my father wanted me to go on this date, and I felt a little pimped out and a little over my head, and even though I didn't even know if I could say no, I was flattered nonetheless by this strange guy waiting two years for me and I stammered out something like, "Yeah, okay, sure". When I hung up the phone, Dad grinned all through his cross-examination of the conversation.
When the night came, I had no clue what to wear to a hockey banquet, and even though my mother directed me to wear what was essentially my best things (grey capris with my grey cowgirl boots and a silky top), I immediately realised it was too casual when Bruce picked me up and he was wearing dress pants with a shirt and tie; yet he was grinning uncontrollably as he led me to the car; and I was taken aback by the fact that he was still chunky and red-faced and sporting a buzz cut in the winter. Bruce and I sat in the back seat chatting awkwardly as his friend and his girlfriend sat up front trying to keep a conversation going and I don't remember much about the banquet itself except that it was a bit boring (with speeches and awards) and the girls were all dressed in sexy, slinky dresses that made me look like the gawky little kid that I was. When the dance started, Bruce said that he and some friends were thinking about going to a movie instead, and as I had been slightly dreading being held in this stranger's embrace on the dance floor, I said that a movie sounded fine.
We left, and I'm remembering it as just me and Bruce and a couple of other guys, and we went to see Slap Shot. I think it may have been my first R-rated movie (I was in grade 9 but these guys were all in grade 12) and the swearing and nudity made me blush, even as these guys howled at all the rude jokes and the violence. As we drove back to my house after the movie, I remember being asked about my high school and if it was filled with "Chinks and Pakis". I didn't know anyone who spoke like that (I didn't actually know exactly what a "Paki" was) and I replied something about going to a Catholic school, which meant it was pretty much all white. And they all thought that was amazing and almost worth becoming Catholic for as their school had been taken over by...whoever...I was too shocked to take it all in.
Everything about this evening proved to me that Bruce and I were from two different worlds and I didn't want anything more to do with him, but he just kept grinning crazily at me all night long; he must have thought it was going pretty well. When we got to my house, he walked me to my door, and with his buddies watching from the driveway, I can't remember whether he leaned in for a kiss and if I let him or if I backed away or if I scooted into the house before it could come to that. No memory at all of what happened at the door.
I do remember that Dad was really mad when he found out that Bruce's friends had been our drivers -- Dad had apparently told Bruce that he could take me out so long as he didn't do the driving and Dad figured that Bruce had purposefully misunderstood that meant that Dad expected one of his parents to drive.
Sometime after Christmas, Bruce called to ask if I wanted to go out snowmobiling with him and his friends and I said that I was busy.
I don't know why you
Should want to hide
But I can't get through
My hands are tied
Sometime after that, Bruce called to ask if I would go to his prom with him that June -- involving a dinner and dance aboard a Toronto harbour cruise -- and I told him that I'd have to think about it, see if I had plans. He called back a few more times, saying that he needed a decision because prom tickets were on sale, and I kept putting him off because I didn't know how to say no and I didn't know what I was expected to say; had my Dad arranged this, too? Once when he called, I made a face when I realised it was Bruce again, and afterwards, Dad gently told me that it was really unkind to make faces while talking to a boy on the phone, and the way he said it, I think he was imagining all the girls he had asked out once upon a time; remembering the risk of putting himself on the line like that, and I took that to heart. Eventually, Bruce stopped calling.
When I call you up
Your line's engaged
I have had enough
So act your age
I was really still a kid, but I know I didn't treat Bruce well; I knew that much at the time. I also knew that, being from a back woods village, my Dad had more in common with Bruce and his friends and family than he did with our white collar neighbours; rejecting Bruce was like rejecting the kind of person my father is; especially when the whole situation had my Dad's stamp of approval. Perhaps I was supposed to find it chivalrous, but I never liked the idea that Bruce had sought my father's permission to ask me out -- growing up in the 70s, I knew I was no man's property -- and no guy ever asked my Dad's permission again; wonder what he made of that?
You won't see me
