Читать книгу The Great Cock Hunt - Alex - Страница 14

Sometimes being in our group of friends was like a blood sport. Back in college we were ruthless people. We all loved each other but there was just something a little challenging in all of our relationships. Your best friend could turn against you on a dime. And it’s not like they would really want to hurt you; it was almost like a one-upmanship kind of thing. Or it was just trying to save face. We weren’t an easy group of people to befriend. Or at least we didn’t used to be. We’ve all so mellowed over the years, matured and all, but back in the day we could tear each other apart like no one’s business. All out of love, of course.

Case in point. When we were driving over to campus from the hotel, Lizzie just happened to advance the CD changer from the steering wheel so I didn’t notice anything and all of a sudden on came the slit-my-wrists song that I had with Jack just after college. As I mentioned, Jack was the one love of my life who broke my heart and then stomped its shattered pieces into dust; the guy who ruined me for other relationships. The song was like my favorite college song and Lizzie and I used to drive around the lake and listen to it over and over again whenever things were bad and we needed to feel better, and it always worked. Then it was co-opted by Jack and me; it became our song.

I always thought that would be so cool. To be a singer with an amazing voice and to sing fucking cool songs that people would totally dig and through which they would define parts of their lives. I love how music has that intangible power; how just hearing the beginning of a song can conjure up all sorts of memories and emotions and sometimes even physical reactions like tingles or shock. It fascinates me that you can love a band and then never want to hear them again because the memory it brings carries too much pain; or conversely how you can listen to the same band over and over and over again because you think every word they sing was written just for you.

For the most part, for me at least, I associate music with relationships. Not always romantic ones, but ones with friends and family too. That’s why the song that Lizzie put on, which used to be a favorite, but had then become the song symbolizing my ultimately unrequited love for Jack, was now verboten. Sometimes the power that music has can really suck though. You know, you have a few bad relationships and that can totally render a previously enjoyed album as contraband. Come to think of it, if you fall in love like three times you can totally kill an entire band. If you’re really into music and you have a favorite band that not a lot of people know about, and you introduce a boyfriend to them, and then you listen to it all the time together and then he dumps you, you’re just not going to enjoy the band as much after that. And of course if the whole band isn’t killed, he’ll inevitably have a favorite song on the album, which you of course love, because you kind of love them all, and then you break up and that song makes you think of him every time you hear it.

Well, shit, it makes you want to date musically illiterate people. Like this guy King Kong I used to date. If you’ve ever read my blog you’ve heard all about King Kong. But in a nutshell he was a hot, smart guy with a massive dick and we dated—and fucked really, really well—for a long time. He was the longest post-Jack relationship I ever had. And he was also the relationship I took the furthest. We really got along well together but we both also did some stupid shit. I think he was ready for a more serious relationship than I was. The thing was I didn’t think I’d ever be really ready for a serious relationship again. It was hard: I was still, years later, stinging over Jack and I seriously doubted that I wanted to go through all the potential hurt again. I wanted to have fun, get a regular fuck buddy and still sleep with other guys, and never have to put myself out there like that again.

King Kong made overtures toward a more exclusive, serious dating relationship, and I tried to put them off. He even told me that he loved me once. I didn’t know if I really loved him; in retrospect, I think that I could have if I had let myself, but I wouldn’t let the walls down. As he moved forward with our relationship, I gave him vague assurances that I was in it too, but I held off being serious for a while. I think I held off for too long. I did finally come around and commit to him more than I had to anyone else, but by that time he was bitter that it had taken me so long and he tried to hurt me just to show that he could. And he did. And we fought. And like a moron, I still thought it was worth trying again.

When I sit back and think about King Kong I don’t know if he was really an asshole all along, or if, more likely, my behavior drove him to that end. I wasn’t cruel to him and didn’t lie to him or anything; I was just non-committal when he wanted a pledge. And his downfall was immaturity; he couldn’t handle my nonchalance about our relationship and so he acted out to fuck it up. And he did.

Anyway, the good thing about King Kong, taking this whole ramble full circle, is that he had horrible, seventh-grade musical taste, so when it was over I didn’t lose any of my favorite music. No joke—he loved Debbie Gibson and if I never heard her bubble-gum lyrics again I wouldn’t be too sorry. So maybe the lesson I should take from this is that I should date people with poor musical taste. But since that isn’t all that likely, because King Kong was a total exception, and I can’t usually respect people without some decent musical leanings, maybe I’ll try to limit relationships to albums. And then I’ll only listen to the other albums when I’m alone. That way if we break up and it’s devastating I won’t have to stop listening to the band entirely, just one album.

Anyway, back to the car, “Black” by Pearl Jam was still playing, I turned to Lizzie and said, “Thank God he won’t be here this weekend.”