"Maneater"

1982.

Is there a word in the language more beautiful than "Oates"? Say it loud, and his music is playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Oates. John Oates. You could argue the 1980s officially ended the day he shaved the mustache in 1991, but the mustache is still the Oatestache, and he made it America's stache for a long and honorable run. It has been argued in some quarters that Hall held him back, but I would not say that is true. I would say, "Oates."

One of the many fascinating things about the most successful boy-boy duo in the history of s...o...b..z is that they are, as far as I can tell, the only act in history that became new wave. There were lots of cla.s.sic rock guys who tried to make new-wave records and failed. Many other artists made a great new-wave record or two, but couldn't or wouldn't hack it as a full-time new-wave act. Only two men pulled it off, and they pulled it off together, although (if you believe their claims) they never pulled each other off.

We all have our favorite Hall & Oates jams, and each of them is sacred. They had so many hits, practically everybody has a different favorite for every different mood and occasion. That's part of why G.o.d put them on earth. See, sometimes it's hard to tell what kind of idiot you are. Hall & Oates are here to let us know. So if your favorite song is "Private Eyes," you are a "raving idiot." If it's "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)," you are "blithering." If it's "Method of Modern Love," you are "savant."

I am a "hopeless idiot," and ergo my favorite Hall & Oates song is "Maneater," except on those special occasions when I prefer "Did It in a Minute," which shifts my idiot profile to "village."

"Kiss on My List" was the first time Hall & Oates made a new-wave hit, but it was "You Make My Dreams" that made them a bona fide new-wave group. They went all-out in that direction, leaving their folkie '70s adult soft-rock incarnation behind. They'd already been around forever-I remember that when they put out their alb.u.m Along the Red Ledge, Along the Red Ledge, there was a radio ad proclaiming, "It's like hearing Daryl and John for the first time!" Yet they gambled their history on a dizzy, bouncy synth sound that must have seemed like a fad at the time. They didn't just go for the new-wave novelty hit-they threw all their non-new-wave baggage aside. They got the haircuts, the suits, the silly pants, and rolled all the way with it, and (of course) got a lot more popular than they'd ever been before. They were not just carpetbaggers. We loved them for trying so hard and for caring enough to get the details right. They had a lot to lose, and no reason to expect that we would embrace them, but (if I may speak for the new-wavedork-circa-1982 community for a moment) we did. They were the only superstars who got the new-wave pa.s.s. there was a radio ad proclaiming, "It's like hearing Daryl and John for the first time!" Yet they gambled their history on a dizzy, bouncy synth sound that must have seemed like a fad at the time. They didn't just go for the new-wave novelty hit-they threw all their non-new-wave baggage aside. They got the haircuts, the suits, the silly pants, and rolled all the way with it, and (of course) got a lot more popular than they'd ever been before. They were not just carpetbaggers. We loved them for trying so hard and for caring enough to get the details right. They had a lot to lose, and no reason to expect that we would embrace them, but (if I may speak for the new-wavedork-circa-1982 community for a moment) we did. They were the only superstars who got the new-wave pa.s.s.

They embraced us right back, churning their "Kiss on My List" profits back into a new wardrobe of brighter, baggier pants. The only other previously popular band I can think of that went new wave and got away with it was the J. Geils Band, but I have to disqualify them a bit, because (1) I'm from Boston, so I overrate this band so wildly I tend to give them credit for things they never achieved, so I have to take even my own crazed enthusiasm with a grain of salt, (2) they were slightly better at being rock than being new wave, and (3) they broke up right after they went new wave, at the height of their Freeze-Frame Freeze-Frame fame, which meant they never got a chance to make their "Maneater," although they came close with "Flamethrower." fame, which meant they never got a chance to make their "Maneater," although they came close with "Flamethrower."

"Maneater" is from the alb.u.m H H2O, which has Hall & Oates' second-gayest alb.u.m cover. Since gay was nothing but a compliment in the new-wave book in 1982, there was nothing not to praise about an alb.u.m with a cover that showed two men perspiring as they stared into each other's eyes, one on one as it were. They were probably not having s.e.x out of camera range when they took this photo, but you could have fooled any of us. Daryl Hall actually had to explain in Rolling Stone Rolling Stone that he was not into Oates that way ("he's not my type-too short and dark"); he added, "The idea of s.e.x with a man doesn't turn me off," which was a pretty freaking bada.s.s thing for a mainstream pop star to say in the '80s. (Boy George never came out and said anything like that-but then, he didn't really have to, did he?) Naif that I was, I remember reading this and saying, "Wait, that doesn't mean he's actually had premarital s.e.x, does it?" That's right-I was sixteen years old, and still believed that Hall & Oates were virgins. They sure liked each other a lot, though, and we liked them to like each other. that he was not into Oates that way ("he's not my type-too short and dark"); he added, "The idea of s.e.x with a man doesn't turn me off," which was a pretty freaking bada.s.s thing for a mainstream pop star to say in the '80s. (Boy George never came out and said anything like that-but then, he didn't really have to, did he?) Naif that I was, I remember reading this and saying, "Wait, that doesn't mean he's actually had premarital s.e.x, does it?" That's right-I was sixteen years old, and still believed that Hall & Oates were virgins. They sure liked each other a lot, though, and we liked them to like each other.

I first heard this alb.u.m at my friend Terry's house, where we listened to it over and over one rainy Sat.u.r.day afternoon as we played Stratego. We had spent the previous hours of the afternoon listening to the Clash's Sandinista! Sandinista! and the Psychedelic Furs' and the Psychedelic Furs' Talk Talk Talk, Talk Talk Talk, so we felt pretty daring and open-minded for being cool enough to appreciate the fact that these commercial pop guys were up to a Stratego-worthy standard of new wave. "Maneater" took the ba.s.sline from the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love"-it was pretty obvious, since Phil Collins had just covered the song and had a big hit with it. so we felt pretty daring and open-minded for being cool enough to appreciate the fact that these commercial pop guys were up to a Stratego-worthy standard of new wave. "Maneater" took the ba.s.sline from the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love"-it was pretty obvious, since Phil Collins had just covered the song and had a big hit with it.

But I love every minute of this song. The long, smoldering intro, building up tension beat by beat. The cheesy '80s sax solo to end all cheesy '80s sax solos. The way Oates utters that "oooh!" at the end of the sax solo. The way Hall utters the non-word "ooobaaddaaaswougghew!" at the precise four-minute mark. And the way it warns me about those tough girls they were always singing about. This girl was deadly deadly, man, but she could really rip my world apart?

Why the h.e.l.l didn't I meet any girls like this? Where did all these she-cats hang out? I was more than willing to be chewed up, digested and/or spat out by this heart-breaking, love-taking, dream-making maneater. Okay, so the beauty is there, but the beast is in her heart. Where's the downside, Hall? He wouldn't say. All he told me was "I wouldn't if I were you. I know what she can do." And all Oates added was "Watch out!" I have to admit, I was intrigued. But since she was a night creature, it was fairly unlikely she would wander over to Terry's house in the middle of our Stratego game. Oh well. I was a cautious Stratego player-always look for the bombs before you go looking for the flags. And as they say, lucky in Stratego, lame at love.

When I listen to "Maneater" now, it's on the Hall & Oates greatest hits alb.u.m Rock 'n Soul: Part 1 Rock 'n Soul: Part 1, which I stole from my sister Tracey. She won it off WHTT by calling in to the station as soon as she heard the intro to "Say It Isn't So," and the DJ announced her name on the air. (I got it on tape!) This added a level of unspeakable excitement to an already exciting record. Instead of stealing it when I went to college, I waited until Thanksgiving break, which allowed me to get away clean. I still don't know if she realizes where her copy is. But I do know she thought Hall was the cute one.

It's a little weird to listen to "Maneater" now and realize it reminds me of my sister. But songs that give out sensible advice, as most Hall & Oates songs do, always remind me of my sister Tracey, because she was the person in my life who made me smarter. Like Hall & Oates, she was fond of pointing out what a moron I was, and yet instead of making me defensive about it, she had a knack for convincing me how right she was. She is still exactly this way, and so is her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, who already laughs at what a bad chess player I am. The last time I was able to fool my niece about anything was when I convinced her that the restaurant sign that says EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS means it's illegal to wash your own, and even then she only bought it for about ten seconds.

When I was a little boy, I begrudged the way Tracey understood things I struggled to even see. When she would correct my grammar, I would call her Miriam Webster, who I thought in my childish ignorance was the author who wrote the dictionary. Tracey set me straight on that one too. Tracey is the sister who makes me less dumb. I spend a minute with her and she breathes in my dumb and breathes it back to me as smart. She does not even have to try to do this. n.o.body else in my life has this same effect on me.

When I had my first apartment in Boston, I had Tracey over for tea. I was so proud of myself. I was a sophisticated man of the world, having my sister over to my place for tea. We sat on the couch, sipping from our Thermoses, enjoying a spread of EZ Cheez and Lorna Doones, as I said things like, "How are your cla.s.ses going?"

As she was leaving, Tracey said, "Hey Rob, I don't know if you ever have, you know, girls over to the apartment?"

I didn't say anything.

"Buuuut, if you do? They really like the toilet paper to be on the little rolling thing."

"They do?"

"Yes. We do."

"The rolling thing that spins around?"

"Yes. They like the toilet paper hanging from the rolling thing."

"But you can reach it. It's just there on the sink and-"

"We just do."

"It's easier to-"

"We. Just. Do."

So I put the toilet paper on the rolling thing.

One of the things she keeps reminding me, often in so many words, is that my sisters are right. About everything.

But when you're a teenage boy, you can be narrow-minded about things that are girlie, things that are frivolous, things that are pop. Boys always want to be taken seriously, and they always want to transcend the tawdry emotion of the pop singer-it's a fairly standard response to the rigors of young manhood. You could trace it through the past century back to Ezra Pound in 1915 denouncing the lyric poem as unmanly in his hugely influential essay "The Serious Artist." The lyric was weak and feminine-a truly virile poet should be writing epics. This isn't so different from how people talk about culture now. Rock epics are for boys; pop hits are for girls. When you're a boy, pop is scary because it's a maneater. You sing along with a pop song, you turn into a girl. That takes some degree of emotional risk.

One of my new-wave idols, Scritti Politti's Green Gartside, used to tell a story about the days when he was an abrasive art-school punk. One night in the spring of 1980, he was at the Electric Ballroom in Manchester, England, talking to Joy Division's lead singer Ian Curtis, frustrated by the dead end of their doom-and-gloom musical styles. "I don't think I was able to offer him any solace, nor he I," Green said. "We were feeling pretty dejected and found our respective ways out of it."

A week later, Ian Curtis killed himself, and Green began playing disco. Ian Curtis's old bandmates went disco too, renaming themselves New Order. Green never looked back. As he proclaimed, "Fear of pop is an infantile disorder-you should face up to it like a man."

ROXY MUSIC.

"More Than This"

1982.

One thing we all learned from our radios in the '80s: Taking Kenny Rogers's advice? Always a good idea.

Walk away from trouble when you can.

Don't fall in love with a dreamer.

Never count your money when you're sitting at the table.

Love the world away.

The best part of life is the thinnest slice.

Actually that last one was Air Supply, but it sure sounds like something Kenny would say. I have no clue what it means, but like everything Kenny says, it drips with the wisdom of a silver-fox Zen sage.

Don't take your love to town.

It don't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek.

Love will turn you around.

He sang this in the movie Six Pack Six Pack to his foster family of zany orphans who tagged along on his stock-car racing adventures. This song turned Diane Lane from a child actress to the mature, grown bombsh.e.l.l she became in the film to his foster family of zany orphans who tagged along on his stock-car racing adventures. This song turned Diane Lane from a child actress to the mature, grown bombsh.e.l.l she became in the film Streets of Fire Streets of Fire, where she got to sing Meat Loaf songs to Willem Dafoe and the guy from Eddie and the Cruisers Eddie and the Cruisers. Love did did turn her around! turn her around!

Sail away with me, to another world.

Most often, one does not sail to another world, especially if one is an island, and Dolly Parton is the other island in the stream. But do not argue back with Kenny. He doesn't need to hear your lip, buddy. K-Hova's been around the block, and he knows what ladies like to hear, and it isn't complaining about how they picked a fine time to leave you, with four hundred children and a crop in the field. Kenny knows how to give them what they want, without losing his mind. These are all good lessons, and I tried to learn them by heart. You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

No woman made me break as many of these rules as Ms. Calasta.

Ms. Calasta always showed up late for cla.s.s with a mug of coffee the size of a cinder block. She kept her hard pack of unfiltered cigarettes propped up on her desk, with a disturbing ill.u.s.tration of a salty old sea dog on the cover. My temples throbbed when she cleared her throat after a smoking break. I still dream of Ms. Calasta, who taught me so much, like the way modern literature reflected the alienation of a G.o.dless universe, and how if you hold your coffee mug at a certain angle, you can reduce a high school boy to Camembert.

She was a pheromone parfait in a pencil skirt, always rocking a severe bob of red hair and gla.s.ses that she could have used as a shiv. Years later, in my college French cla.s.s, I would see the movie Les Diaboliques Les Diaboliques and realize that Ms. Calasta had stolen all her facial expressions from Simone Signoret. But it was all new to me. Where did she come from? How had she gotten this cool? n.o.body knew, but we all worshipped her. The cla.s.s was full of stoners, thespians, hockey players and bookworms, but everyone seemed to idolize Ms. Calasta. I was certain I loved her best. and realize that Ms. Calasta had stolen all her facial expressions from Simone Signoret. But it was all new to me. Where did she come from? How had she gotten this cool? n.o.body knew, but we all worshipped her. The cla.s.s was full of stoners, thespians, hockey players and bookworms, but everyone seemed to idolize Ms. Calasta. I was certain I loved her best.

It's always dangerous to have a crush on your teacher, because the crush filters into whatever you're supposed to be studying. Thanks to my Latin teacher, I will always feel a certain nescio quid nescio quid whenever I will have used the future perfect tense (like just now). Whereas my crabby math teacher means that I will never truly enjoy full erotic release in the presence of a hypotenuse. Ms. Calasta had that effect on my reading and no doubt still does. whenever I will have used the future perfect tense (like just now). Whereas my crabby math teacher means that I will never truly enjoy full erotic release in the presence of a hypotenuse. Ms. Calasta had that effect on my reading and no doubt still does.

As near as I could guess, she hovered somewhere in her forties, looking back over her shadowy past with the elegant disdain of a 1930s bank robber in the back of the getaway car, glancing over the landscape as it trailed behind her. The clincher was her deep, hearty laugh, which involved downturned lips, a few seconds of sustained eye contact, a coda of hacks. Then she'd say the name of whoever made her laugh, as in, Oh Raaahhhb Oh Raaahhhb. Whatever she laughed at, you'd say again. She had a way of making you feel like an adult, as if you might slip up and she'd find out you were really just a sixteen-year-old boy reading The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby for the first time. She would ask us questions like, "Have you ever argued about the death of G.o.d with someone you were s.e.xually or romantically involved with?" for the first time. She would ask us questions like, "Have you ever argued about the death of G.o.d with someone you were s.e.xually or romantically involved with?"

Not even Kenny Rogers could advise me how to handle this one. I could neither hold nor fold her.

Ms. Calasta laughed warmly at my enthusiasm for music and pop trash. She found it fetchingly jejune that I knew all the words to all the songs on the radio and read celebrity magazines. I even knew the oldies from the '50s and '60s that she'd grown up on.

"Oh, Raaahhhb Raaahhhb," she said. "You have so much pa.s.sion for the Shirelles. Tell me about that Skeeter Davis song again."

I was a dreamy boy, always b.u.mping my head on ceiling fans and tripping over chairs, but she saw something in me that I hadn't seen in myself, and I became more like whoever she thought I was. She gladly read my stories, poems and plays. She listened to the tapes I made her. After hearing me gush about music, she called me "Dolores Haze," after the radio-listening, comics-reading nymphet in Lolita Lolita, but unfortunately, that was a joke I wouldn't get for years.

Like any teenager who reads The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby, probably, I was madly in love with the teacher who had opened it up for me. She was teaching us about Gatsby, the way he disappeared into his own Platonic conception of himself, the way he followed the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, drunk on the impossible past. But what did I know about the past? I didn't have one yet. I could only covet hers.

"Daisy and Gatsby had a connection," she mused. "But not s.e.xually. Gatsby never could have fulfilled her." I wasn't sure what she meant, but I wrote it all down.

When I go up into my parents' attic and dig out my high school copies of these books, I am dumbstruck by all my feverish scrawls in the margin. I guess I really identified with the narrator of Notes from Underground. Notes from Underground. Looking at the novel now, the guy just seems every bit as much of a tool as I was, so either I was easier to impress then or I was just mesmerized by my frantic love for Ms. Calasta. I fished for details of her past, but instead I got more book recommendations, and devoured every one-John Milton's Looking at the novel now, the guy just seems every bit as much of a tool as I was, so either I was easier to impress then or I was just mesmerized by my frantic love for Ms. Calasta. I fished for details of her past, but instead I got more book recommendations, and devoured every one-John Milton's Samson Agonistes Samson Agonistes, Aldous Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. A Moveable Feast.

This was also the period when I was cultivating arcane devotions to obscure saints. In a way, Catholic devotion was preparing me for my adulthood in the record collector/taper/critic world-collecting relics, obsessing over hagiography, looking for physical traces of the divine in the most ordinary things. It's no coincidence that so many record geeks grow up Catholic-it really prepares you for that path. Praying the rosary was twenty minutes, just like an alb.u.m side. And it had five mysteries, just like (most often) the five songs on an alb.u.m side.

When I discovered Roxy Music, it was like I'd been waiting to hear them all my life. Bryan Ferry took romantic obsession even beyond Kenny Rogers. Where Kenny had merely urged me to "Love the World Away," Bryan Ferry insisted that for the new-wave love-boy, the whole world would be obliterated by the sheer intensity of your devotion. Bryan Ferry wore a tuxedo and oozed ironic romantic despair. He had barely any voice at all, but his vocals were full of ornately stylized emotion; you could hear how many times he'd rehea.r.s.ed every quiver, but somehow, that just made him more believable. "More than this," he whispered. "There's nothing."

This song was more than a hymn-it was a religion in itself. No wonder he did the video in a church, standing under a cross that only existed to shine light on him. And just like Gatsby, he took romantic obsession to the point where he disappeared into the Platonic conception of himself. He spends the video watching himself up there on a movie screen-an awkward, ungainly man dancing like a foxy disco lady. He clearly knew how funny he was, but all his emotional playacting didn't detract from his sincerity-it was was his sincerity. He was a self-parodic Casanova in the privacy of his own mind, and every song was an invitation to the swinging party going on in his mirror-the more, the Bryan Ferrier. his sincerity. He was a self-parodic Casanova in the privacy of his own mind, and every song was an invitation to the swinging party going on in his mirror-the more, the Bryan Ferrier.

I've loved this song since the first moment I heard it, yet I really have no idea who the girl is he's singing to or what she's like. I guess this is a song about desire so complete, it doesn't even need an actual girl in it. He is beyond such details. If she won't accept his love, he'll have to adore it himself. The end of the song is just Bryan Ferry murmuring the words "more than this" and "nothing," so that every time, they describe a new shade of blue. Gatsby would have understood.

Thrillingly, Ms. Calasta answered the letters I wrote her from college, always beginning with "Dear, dear Rob." She got a little exasperated I was still calling her M s. Calasta. Every time I was back home from college, I went over for coffee. One sunny afternoon, she taught me to smoke, on the barstools in her kitchen. She had the same hard pack with the same disturbing sea dog cartoon. I tried to seem nonchalant as my virgin lungs filled with smoke.

"This is pretty strong, Ms. Calasta."

"Yes, Rob."

"Where is your bathroom?"

"Upstairs. You could call me Catherine."

One day when I was in town, I called to invite myself over for coffee and cigarettes. But she was gone-she'd left abruptly, in a cloud of mystery. When asked about her whereabouts, other faculty members cleared their throats uncomfortably and changed the subject. Had she killed a man? Robbed a bank? Corrupted a student? (A student who wasn't me? Unthinkable!) Whoever knew wasn't talking, at least not to me. I would never find out. She left no trace, like the green light going dark at the end of Gatsby's dock, or like the siren on a Roxy Music record cover.

The Gatsby blues made so much sense to me in Ms. Calasta's cla.s.s. When I read the book as an adult, I was startled to see that Gatsby and Daisy have only known each other for five years. When I was sixteen, this seemed like a lifetime's worth of tragic romance. I'd always cherished Gatsby and Daisy as the emblem of a doomed, fatal, endless romantic obsession. They'd met, they'd fallen in love, they'd endured a tragic separation, but he had carried the torch for her all this time. But it was just five freaking years? I'm an adult now-I can do five years standing on my head.

But as Gatsby knew, five years is is a long time. That's the time the boy and girl have spent together in the Human League's "Don't You Want Me," easily the most famous breakup song in history. They've had five years together, and now she's got the world at her feet and she's leaving him behind. That's how long we've got until the planet burns out in Bowie's "Five Years." It's how long John Wayne wanders the wilderness looking for Natalie Wood in a long time. That's the time the boy and girl have spent together in the Human League's "Don't You Want Me," easily the most famous breakup song in history. They've had five years together, and now she's got the world at her feet and she's leaving him behind. That's how long we've got until the planet burns out in Bowie's "Five Years." It's how long John Wayne wanders the wilderness looking for Natalie Wood in The Searchers The Searchers. It's how long Ione Skye and her dad have lived together in Say Anything Say Anything.

Odysseus and Circe got five years in The Odyssey The Odyssey, so do Humbert and Dolores in Lolita Lolita, so do Axl Rose and his Sunset Strip groupie in "You Could Be Mine." There's something primal about that time span. Five years doesn't seem quite as epic as it did back then, when it was a third of my life. But I still get it. LCD Soundsystem sang about it in "All My Friends": "You spent five long years trying to get with the plan, and the next five years trying to be with your friends again." By the time you're an adult, you're used to seeing friends disappear into their five-year plans. They drop out to get married, have babies, go to grad school, get divorced. They start a band or enter the penal system. They vanish for years at a time-some come back, some don't. Some of them you wait for and some you let go.

Sometimes the only way they come back is in a song. Sometimes the song is the green light at the end of the dock, a sign that the dream we've been chasing is already behind us, in the past. Sometimes when a girl goes away, the conversation doesn't end. You keep talking to her, just in case she can hear.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into Bryan Ferry.

BONNIE TYLER.

"Total Eclipse of the Heart "

1983.

People rarely threaten to kill me these days. That's one of the weird things about being an adult. It's illegal, so it just doesn't happen very often. In the past few years, only two other guys have threatened me with murder, and neither time was all that alarming. One guy got mad at me in the accountant's office when I was getting my taxes done. I was on crutches at the time, because of the tragic roller-disco crash of '05 (don't aaaask), and he tripped over my legs on his way to use the waiting-room coffee machine, which hasn't worked since the Clinton administration. Enraged by the denial of coffee, he threw the Styrofoam cup at me and said, "I'm gonna f.u.c.king kill you." It was a weird threat to make, depending on how you rate Styrofoam murder weapons. It could be done, killing a man with Styrofoam, but it would require some degree of premeditation-carving a styro-scimitar, or maybe a blowgun to shoot those little peanuts. But for your garden-variety impulse killing, Styrofoam gets you nowhere, especially in Brooklyn. His wife made him come back over and apologize, which was embarra.s.sing for both of us.

The other guy was on an Amtrak train, using his cell phone in the quiet car. I usually avoid the quiet car because I loathe hearing myself chew, but this time I was in it, and although I didn't mind this clod's moronic conversation (reading the Star Star out loud), I couldn't stand the slow exhales and exasperated sighs of my spineless fellow pa.s.sengers. I always regard a succinct and informative shoosh as morally superior to an hour of feeble throat-clearing, and as a longtime librarian, I pride myself on my nonconfrontational shooshing skills. But my professional expertise must have failed me, because this guy took it hard, particularly after other pa.s.sengers joined in. He waited till we were on the escalator at Penn Station to utter those same five magic words, "I'm gonna f.u.c.king kill you." It was hard to take him seriously, since it would have been out loud), I couldn't stand the slow exhales and exasperated sighs of my spineless fellow pa.s.sengers. I always regard a succinct and informative shoosh as morally superior to an hour of feeble throat-clearing, and as a longtime librarian, I pride myself on my nonconfrontational shooshing skills. But my professional expertise must have failed me, because this guy took it hard, particularly after other pa.s.sengers joined in. He waited till we were on the escalator at Penn Station to utter those same five magic words, "I'm gonna f.u.c.king kill you." It was hard to take him seriously, since it would have been much much easier to kill me on the train. I mean, getting thrown from a moving train would be kind of hot. A very Robert Mitchum way to go. But escalator killings? No cla.s.s. easier to kill me on the train. I mean, getting thrown from a moving train would be kind of hot. A very Robert Mitchum way to go. But escalator killings? No cla.s.s.

Strange as it may sound, though, whenever I hear those words, it always makes me feel all warm and gushy inside. It whisks me back in time to the golden summer of 1983, when I worked on a garbage truck with a bunch of other guys. We threatened to kill one another all the time. In fact, we considered the day a waste if n.o.body did any heavy bleeding.

There was me, Soup, Okie, Psycho and Psycho's brother, Chicken. They called me "Bones." Our truck driver, a crusty old Irish guy named Harry, called us all the same name, which was "You f.a.ggots." We were picking up garbage on the Southeast Expressway, working for the Ma.s.sachusetts Highway Department, out of the Granite Avenue barracks. We had our orange vests, our plastic bags and our idiot sticks-you know, the stick with the little pointy spike at the tip for spearing trash. Every morning, we'd pile in the back of the truck and Harry would drive us to some point in the road, drop us off, then go get a beer.

We cleaned the sides of the expressway between Exit 11 and Exit 20, the southern stretch, all the way to the Central Artery in downtown Boston, down to the Furnace Brook Parkway in Quincy. We covered I-93, the six-lane highway connecting Boston to the suburbs, down the Neponset River, through Savin Hall, beneath the Boston Gas tanks with the rainbow paintings. We cleaned the living f.u.c.k out of that place. We speared all the garbage that piles up along the side of any roadside: p.o.r.no mags, paper bags, Burger King wrappers, crushed drink cups, beer cans, the occasional pair of pants.

At the end of the day, with our truck loaded with garbage bags, Harry would drive us all to the dump, and we'd usually "go to the Qs for a jump," which meant swimming in the quarries. Everybody had a story about dead bodies in the water, and Psycho claimed there were dead horses in it, but everyone swam in the stew anyway. That's usually when damage would get done with those idiot sticks. Blood might get shed, but never tears.

It was hard work but it meant being outside in the summer sun, which made it a perfect job. We took an aggressive att.i.tude toward garbage, which meant that frequently the crew would tie rags around their heads like the soldiers in Apocalypse Now Apocalypse Now and head under the expressway exit ramps doing the war chant, which was the opening lines of Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" (Rise up! Gather round! Rock this place to the ground!), which in retrospect was somewhat doofy. We would stand around, talk s.h.i.t about one another and use our idiot sticks to write the words "f.u.c.k Harry" in the dirt. Soup would always draw the Blue oyster Cult logo. Then Psycho would say, "Hey, Soup, how's your mom, the Black and Decker p.e.c.k.e.r Wrecker," and more blood would get shed. and head under the expressway exit ramps doing the war chant, which was the opening lines of Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" (Rise up! Gather round! Rock this place to the ground!), which in retrospect was somewhat doofy. We would stand around, talk s.h.i.t about one another and use our idiot sticks to write the words "f.u.c.k Harry" in the dirt. Soup would always draw the Blue oyster Cult logo. Then Psycho would say, "Hey, Soup, how's your mom, the Black and Decker p.e.c.k.e.r Wrecker," and more blood would get shed.

I could not believe how cool it felt to wear the orange vest of pride. It was the garb of a working man. I had never felt before like I was part of a gang of guys. It was like being in the cast of The Great Escape The Great Escape-I got excited driving to work every day. These guys were from all over town: Psycho and Chicken were from Dorchester, Soup from Southie, Okie from Quincy and me from Milton. Okie was the one with the radio. I brought my Walkman the first day of work, but I never put it on, partly because I knew Harry would think it was goofing off, partly because I knew Soup and Okie would liberate me from it, but mainly because it was more fun to listen to a bunch of other seventeen-year-old males shoot the s.h.i.t. We once spent an entire day debating whether you could kill a guy by biting off his thumb. Soup said the guy would bleed to death. Okie said the guy's blood would clot, so he wouldn't die in time, and he could use his other thumb to gouge out your eyes. Psycho just giggled.

Psycho was probably the guy who knew from experience, but he never said much-he just laughed all the time, with flashing eyes that made everyone a little more scared of him than the others. We all just said, "That guy Psycho is fried." When we were in the back of the truck, Psycho liked to beat on the roof and yell, "Onward!" Harry wouldn't have taken that from the rest of us, but even he was too creeped out by Psycho to say anything.

The day revolved around the coffee breaks at the Dunkin' Donuts on Morrissey Boulevard. The radio was always playing "The Safety Dance," with that boop-boop-beep boop-boop-beep one-finger synth loop blasting behind the counter. If Harry was at the counter with us, we'd listen to him tell us he was sick and tired of our goofing off. If Harry brought his friend Red, the supervisor of another truck crew, we'd listen to Red's Vietnam stories. Sometimes Harry brought Frankie, who only knew how to say one sentence: "The only thing I give a f.u.c.k about is bucks, booze and broads-in that order!" For lunch, Harry dropped us at the McDonald's on Gallivan Boulevard while he went to the Eire Pub across the street. I would listen in on the Soup-Okie debates. one-finger synth loop blasting behind the counter. If Harry was at the counter with us, we'd listen to him tell us he was sick and tired of our goofing off. If Harry brought his friend Red, the supervisor of another truck crew, we'd listen to Red's Vietnam stories. Sometimes Harry brought Frankie, who only knew how to say one sentence: "The only thing I give a f.u.c.k about is bucks, booze and broads-in that order!" For lunch, Harry dropped us at the McDonald's on Gallivan Boulevard while he went to the Eire Pub across the street. I would listen in on the Soup-Okie debates.

"You're such a b.i.t.c.h-off, I can't believe I'm even talking to you."