Smiths' Meat is Murder by Pernice Joe

Author:Pernice, Joe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing
Published: 2010-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

1. The Headmaster Ritual

2. Rusholme Ruffians

3. I Want The One I Can’t Have

4. What She Said

5. That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

6. How Soon Is Now

7. Nowhere Fast

8. Well I Wonder

9. Barbarism Begins at Home

10. Meat is Murder

See you tomorrow,

Allison

I was in love with her penmanship. I studied the way she dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s for insight into the secret inner self I imagined she was dying to let out. She was obviously intimately aquainted with the very album that crushed me more with each spin. It was too perfect. A powerful, ready-made connection. Meat is Murder was the giant shaded area of intersection in our Venn diagram. The trick was to somehow convert the motherlode of our love of the album into love for each other.

Allison’s note read like a thirteen line poem. I went over it a few more times then folded it in a tight, even square. I dried a small place next to the slimy soapdish on the bathroom sink vanity and put the walkman down there. I carefully pried open the belt clip on the walkman and slid the folded note in the place where a belt should be. I gently released the clip and at the same time adjusted the note a little from side to side, just making sure everything was centered and even and preserved.

To my disappointment, I failed to conjure up an accurate mental image of Allison while I sat on the toilet, listening to ‘Barbarism Begins at Home’. Every innocent family member who opened the bathroom door after hearing no response to knocking received a variation of the same fierce earful, “Give me a friggin’ break! I’ll be done in a minute!”

* * *

I have no idea how many times I listened to Meat is Murder that night in bed, but it was a lot. Every song was, or would soon be, about my life and Allison’s place in it. I was short-listed for the starring role in the Off-Off Broadway musical production of The Cathexis Handbook.

I fumbled in the dark for the light switch, took out my notebook and started to write a sentence for each song: School is a waste of time, except for Allison. Jocks are violent assholes (find out if Allison goes for jocks). I want Allison. I’ve already scratched her initials on my leg; that counts. I am human and I need to be loved by Allison, Allison, Allison. Allison smokes because she wants to die (because she needs someone to know her) … I wonder if she has a car we can have sex in? Does she see me when she passes, because I look for her everywhere. Stuff like that.

It proved more of a challenge to bend and apply the song ‘Meat is Murder’ to fit the simple curves of my life. The problem was I liked meat. A lot. I was raised on meat. I had probably eaten meat at no less than two meals a day for the past twelve years.

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