I Know What Boys Like

Kay and I met in grade five, in Miss Barfoot's class at Senator Gibson School, and we've been best friends ever since, except for the nine year period during which she moved to Bermuda and didn't speak to me at all. We've been back together for three years now and it's just like old times, except for the fact that we live three thousand miles apart.

In grade five Kay was already wearing a bra, and holding hands with Rodney Sanford at recess. I, on the other hand, having no need for a bra until grade eight or so, was taking guitar lessons and had a mad, unrequited crush on Roger Larmon. He was taller than me, and skinny, and vaguely resembled Shaun Cassidy. Kay rode the school bus, so after school I'd walk the three blocks home alone, occasionally looking over my shoulder to see if Roger was following me. He never was.

Four years later Kay and I were in highschool and nothing much had changed, except that Kay was wearing a larger bra size and Roger had moved away. Kay was short but had gorgeous, long, blonde hair, and deeper than average cleavage. Still is and does. She was my best friend but I hated her, because the boys always liked her better than me.

I was too tall; taller than most of the boys. Still am. My hair was a tribute to Gilda Radner, my cleavage non-existant, but I had legs right up to my neck. Still do. They're kinda too long; they get in the way and I never seem to know what to do with them.

Kay says the same thing about her breasts.

By the end of November Kay had a boyfriend with a motorcycle and a tatoo, and had learned what boys really like. I, on the other hand, had learned the words to every Connie Francis song from my parents' records, and was still trying to master the F chord on my guitar. I liked boys who liked music, and boys who liked cars.

Still do.

By our senior year Kay was an expert at what boys like, and was rushing home after school every day on her boyfriend's motorcycle to practice. Her first abortion three years behind her, she now had a prescription for The Pill and could practice as much as she liked.

I had found a boy who liked music, and who liked me. He had a Rickenbacker bass and an Ibanez electric guitar, and played in a band. After school we, too, rushed home to his place to practice: Blondie, Talking Heads, B52s, and The Sex Pistols. Him on bass, me on guitar. He'd even let me take his guitar home sometimes, but I didn't have an amp and I blew the speakers on my parents' stereo trying to learn Planet Claire.

Kay went to community college and stayed close to home, hoping to marry her motorcycle boy. Before she graduated he was killed. On his motorcycle. She eventually married a different boy, and bought her own motorcycle.

I went far away to university, became a DJ, and managed a band. I learned how to do that other thing that boys like, and was even able to combine the two: I slept with the bass player once, the singer twice, and dated the keyboardist for a few months. They were my boys; my best friends. I loved them all — except for the drummer. And they loved me because I had a car, I got them gigs, I managed their finances, and I changed their guitar strings when they broke onstage. I could fill in passably on any instrument for soundcheck, and sang backup from time to time. They never made it big, but they made it small: I booked them to open for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Everything But The Girl, Aztec Camera, and The Pursuit of Happiness.

Kay's second abortion during those years was a result of a broken condom. Sometimes you do everything you're supposed to do, but it still happens.

---

It's Saturday night, October 30, and Halloween happenings are happening tonight on Beale Street in Memphis. Beale Street, if you haven't been, is wannabeing Bourbon Street in New Orleans. And it does a fair job of it (there's even a Pat O'Brien's) — unless you've actually been on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Kay and I have spent the day here in Memphis, dressed in matching Priscilla Presley circa 1967 costumes. And we both got to do the thing we know boys like.

I recorded a song at Sun Studios. For $30 you can do exactly what Elvis did, some 50 years ago: put on headphones, listen to the music, read the lyrics, and sing into a microphone. Then a producer at the studio will record, mix, and press your CD. (I begged them to make it a 45, but they just don't have the machinery for that anymore. The label of the CD is designed to look like a 45, though, so that's something.)

It's just like karaoke, really. They have a book of songs, and you choose the one you want to record. They had no Connie Francis, no Nancy Sinatra, and no Blondie. So I recorded Crazy by Patsy Cline. Not my best song; it sounds a little weak. But it doesn't suck. At least, not too badly.

Boys I like, like music. My karaoke buddies will be so envious!

Later, back on Beale Street, we're having dinner at King's Café, and Kay is admiring the bartender. He's wearing a cap of some sort, and she's wondering whether his head is shaved underneath. She likes her boys that way. When the waitress brings us our bill, emboldened by a double vodka Kay asks, "Could the barman take off his hat?"

She knows how to deliver a line, you gotta admit.

A few minutes later the bartender, whom the waitress has identified as "Nighthawk," appears at our table, two drinks in hand, puts them down in front of us, sweeps his hat off his head, and bows.

He has hair. He also has tatoos. Kay likes the look of him.

We move to the bar, finish our drinks, order another. Ask Nighthawk where he got his tatoos, because we are thinking about doing it ourselves. Just like we did our piercings together (and this time I do mean ears) when we were thirteen. He tells us about Memphis Tatoo, around the corner on 4th Street near Union.

King's Café is closing, but it's connected through a door in the wall to another bar next door. Nighthawk is greeted as a regular, and is enjoying having one of us on each arm. He introduces us to his fellow barman as Priscilla and Priscilla.

It's not long before a band makes its way to the stage. The bass player has bleached Billy Idol hair and is wearing a black t-shirt with cutoff sleeves. No surprise, their first song is The Clash, followed by Led Zeppelin, Bowie, then Pearl Jam. An odd mix, but then this is Memphis.

Kay is letting Nighthawk weigh her breasts in his hands. If you've got it, flaunt it, right? I move to the end of the bar, nearest the band, and tug my go-go dress up over my knee.

The band's set ends and the bassist, Clive, comes to chat with me. Kay taps my shoulder as she passes on the way to the single-occupant ladies' room in back, then returns almost immediately as it is occupied.

"Why don't you go back into the other bar? If the door's locked I imagine your friend has a key," I suggest.

A moment later I watch Kay vanish through the door, which, apparently, was not locked. Thirty seconds after that, Nighthawk follows.

I guess he had to go, too.


When Kay returns I notice she's now barefoot in her white go-go boots. We leave the bar and head for Memphis Tatoos, but we haven't stepped five steps into the street before Kay blurts, "Would it surprise you if I told you I fucked him in the ladies' room?"

"Would it surprise you if I told you I'm not surprised?" I reply without a pause.

We walk on in silence for a block or two. Then the vodka forces Kay to speak.

"I don't want you to think I'm a bad friend for leaving you alone in there."

"Don't worry about me. I was enjoying the band. Look, you're a big girl now, and I'm not your mother, nor am I reporting to her. I just don't want you to think I'm a bad friend for not stopping you."

"Oh, no!" she assures me.

But I feel like I let her down again. Just like I did in grade nine.

---

These days, Kay is divorced and no longer believes in love. She dates a Trinidadian boy in Bermuda, and tells me he is above average in every way.

Me, I like a boy who can play the piano, sings Frank Sinatra, and knows who the Buzzcocks are. He drives a black Porsche Carrera, the car of my dreams. But his best girl is his 1992 BMW 525i.

* * *
In the next story, Postmodern Sass observes and reflects on the American presidential election while in Mississippi.

Goin' to Graceland, Graceland

I'm going to Graceland for reasons I cannot explain. There's some part of me wants to see Graceland. Some part of my best friend, Kay, too. So we're here together. And I've reason to believe we both will be received in Graceland. So long as we pay our $27.00 for the deluxe tour.

Elvis Presley would have loved Graceland.

My friend Tim told me it is plenty weird and in some ways twisted, [but it's] worth the price of admission, if only for the baroque early-sixties-nuclear decor. Hmn; I dunno. I'd say it's late sixties and some of it is definitely 1970s. The avocado green fridge, for example.

The house does not disappoint. It's a time capsule of millionaire excess in the 1960s/70s. And if Elvis hadn't died when he did, we'd never have seen it — it would have been redecorated periodically had he lived to detest wood panelled walls, shag carpeting, gold-threaded mirrored walls, and walnut trim like the rest of us.

The best room in the house is the TV room. All done up in dark blue and lemon yellow. The bar is covered in yellow leather, and has built-in chrome and yellow bar stools, like in a diner. It's fabulous. I want it in my house.

Out back is the trophy room, and another room full of Elvis artifacts. I asked Kay if she could recall whether Elvis had ever won a grammy, and this room holds the answer: three. All for Best Inspirational Performance, two of them for How Great Thou Art. Like Tim says, gospel is where Elvis found his soul.

The black leather suit from the 1968 "Comeback Tour" is on display in this room. I recognized it because that's what Elvis is usually wearing when he appears in my dreams.

There are movie paragons and paraphenalia, including the poster and the script from Change Of Habit, the rarely seen Elvis-plays-it-serious movie, co-starring Mary Tyler Moore as a nun. I haven't seen it, but I can already guess the ending. Heck, wouldn't you leave the convent for him?

The deluxe tour includes not only the house and grounds, but the car museum and the two planes.

In the car museum there are two dozen bedizened outfits from the 1970s. It's an Elvis impersonator's wet dream. Even the Eagle cape from the 1973 "Aloha From Hawaii" tour, which Elvis threw into the audience, has found its way back to Graceland. Possibly because it killed the person it landed on.

I remember watching that concert on TV with my mother. I must have been in kindergarten. Too young to appreciate the Elvis that had been, and mourn the Elvis he had become. The video of the concert plays continuously on an enormous screen suspended above the spread-eagle cape.

But oh, the cars. Yeah, yeah, there's the pink Cadillac. A purple one, too. But they're nothing compared to the twin Stutz Blackhawks. Both black, one a '71, the other a '73.

There's a post office at Graceland where you can mail your postcards and they'll get a Graceland cancellation stamp. I sent a card to my aunt saying the usual, Elvis was here... oh... actually, Elvis is still here.

In fact, Elvis is everywhere: Sun Studios has his social security card and high school diploma. Lansky's, an upscale men's clothier in the upscale Peabody Hotel has his pink leather coat. The Hard Rock Café has, naturally, his guitars.

At the end of our day at Graceland, Kay and I had an Elvis Special at the Rockabilly Café: a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. We toasted Elvis with our toast.

Here's to you, Elvis. How great thou wert.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass tells how she met her best friend, Kay.

Lose Yourself

I'm in the Budweiser Brew House in the Memphis airport because it's the only place in the airport, other than those disgusting glass-enclosed smoking rooms, where civilized people can smoke. It's 3:00 in the afternoon and I have three hours to kill.

My Sharona is playing on the bar's sound system. There are only two other people in here: men, sitting alone, reading, minding their own business. It's easy to lose myself in the music, the moment. This may be the only opportunity I got to write. So I write.

You can't swing a dead cat in the South without hitting a bottle of Jack Daniels. I wonder where Lynchburg is. I mean, where in Tennessee; how far from Memphis, where I'll be staying for the next few days. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in the South, drink Jack Daniels.

I order one on the rocks.

The reason I have to kill three hours here is that my best friend since grade 5, Kay, is flying in from Bermuda, where she's lived for the last ten years since she left our homeland, Beamsville. We're spending the next few days here in Memphis. Just for the heck of it. Something we haven't done enough of since we grew up.

The bartender's name is Shannon. I ask her, do you know where the place is, where JD is made? The name Lynchburg has escaped me for a moment. She offers as she thinks it's somewhere right here in Tennessee, but whether it's 8 mile or 80, she doesn't know.

A young man — very young — walks into the bar and sits two stools over from me, my bag occupying the seat in between. Starts talking on his cell. I hear about how he was delayed getting out of Detroit because Bush was there, and how he's missed his connecting flight and is stuck in Memphis. It appears as though this is not the first bar he's visited. He looks like a college football player.

He snaps his cell shut and asks,
- Are you Canadian?

The cigarette pack always gives it away.

I finish writing the sentence above, then reply: Yes.

- Are you a writer?
- Yes.
- What do you write?
- I write about my friends, and people I meet.
- Are you going to write about me?
- I don't know yet. Maybe.

He calls the bartender over and orders a drink. She asks, as she has asked of everyone, do you want to make it a double. He says yes. When it arrives it's a very big drink. Something orange.

He's on the phone again. I go back to writing.

- Want to see a picture? He asks next.
- That depends. Of what?
- Well, I don't want to offend you.
- I'm not easily offended.

He leans closer, over the chair with my bag.
- It's piercings.
- Yours?
- Yes.
- I'm guessing you don't mean ears?
- No.

He opens his phone again, and fiddles with it for a few moments. Finds the picture he wants. Hands it to me somewhat sheepishly.

That's definitely not an ear. And, by the way, congratulations.

There are two studs, right through the... uh... neck. With large balls on each end.

Metal balls, I mean. On each end of each of the two studs.

I consider for a moment, then ask,
- Are they all the way through?
- Yes.
- That had to hurt.
- Not really. But I took them out because I hurt someone else with them. She, um, needed stitches.

I cross my legs. He orders another drink.

His girlfriend is from Canada, he tells me. I ask him to pronounce Toronto.

"T'ranna," he says.

Excellent.

Next he opens his wallet and hands me a laminated card, and says,
- This comes from there.

I see a standard-looking ID card. The only word I can make out, in the dim light and without my glasses, is Ohio. He said he was from Detroit. The photo, though, is clearly him.

- What am I looking at?

He leans in again, and whispers:
- I'm only 19.
- And this card comes from...
- T'ranna. A guy downtown. You know where the big record is?
- Of course.
- Across the street.

- And you know about this place. You live in Detroit. How?
- Everybody in my high school knows about it. Heck, all the teenagers in Detroit know about it.

I had to come to Memphis to find this out.

- My name's Tommy
he says, and offers his hand.

- I'm Sass.

Snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity.

He asks for my Web site. He hopes to read about himself. I tell him the name. See the puzzled look. Write it down.

He pays for his drinks and leaves. Says he wants to catch a nap before his flight to Florida. Something about a football game.

I could have guessed.

Tommy, if you're reading this, talk to Sass. I've turned on the comments, below.

And email me that picture.

* * *
Go to the next story, in which Postmodern Sass and her best friend, Kay, visit Graceland. Or, go here to learn more about piercings than you'll ever want to know.

Teenage Kicks

Today's title is not meant to be clever. It is my homage to John Peel, who, sadly, will spin no more records (or do whatever the heck it is you do with CDs) for us at the BBC.

Thank you, John, for Girls At Our Best. My copy of the GAOB Peel Sessions is one of my most prized posessions, and the reason I'll never give up my turntable.

If you're too young, or too old — no; that's no excuse — let's just say if you don't appreciate the new, the eclectic, the thought-provoking, the challenging, and the wonderfully weird and woolly in music...

...hmn; then you're probably not reading this... but just in case:

Go download Teenage Kicks by The Undertones.

Right now. Go, already.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass meets a (very) young man in an airport bar, and he shows her his pierced penis.

Who's Sorry Now

Ever since I was a little girl I've had a knack for pissing people off without realizing it.

It's more than just the fact that I do it unintentionally — I mean, I've never said to myself hey, why not do something that'll really annoy my friend, or that'll make my dad angry with me, or that'll drive my mother around the bend? (OK, well, that last one, maybe.) — it's that after I've committed the egregious act, I'm blissfully unaware of it, and go on behaving as if everything were just fine between me and the offended party.

Is it the responsibility of the offended to inform the offender of the offence? Or is it the offender's job to know when she's caused offence? Does it depend on the situation? If there are rules of engagement for the giving and receiving of offence, I'd appreciate it if someone would clue me in.

Today it was brought to my attention that I offended friends who were recently married by not attending their wedding after having RSVP'd in the affirmative. This surprised me, because I've been to at least three dozen weddings in my life, and with the exception of my father's, which was held in the new wife's living room with only her children, me, and the X as guests, I honestly don't believe anyone would have noticed if I hadn't been there. Especially not the bride and groom who, one would think, have more pressing thoughts than who had or hadn't shown up.

Knowing that the couple would be on their honeymoon the week after the wedding, I waited until they returned, then emailed an apology. Not wanting to draw questions about why I hadn't shown up, I made what I thought was a self deprecating joke about how they probably hadn't even noticed I wasn't there, then inquired on the honeymoon which had been spent in the recently hurricane-decimated Bahamas.

The groom, my friend Simon, replied: Of course we knew you weren't there — you bugged me about making sure you got an invite. We only invited 65 people, you were one of those 65, as the placecard at your table indicated. I'm sorry you weren't able to make it but a note at least the next day would have been nice.

I bugged him to get an invite?

The bride, Carly, who I met only when she began dating Simon, replied: Just so you know in the future for other weddings .. It is noticeable. Very noticeable. And a last minute no show (you + date, so in fact there were two empty seats at a table) still has a meal prepared for them and paid for.

So it's about the money, then? Christ, I sent them a present two weeks before the wedding. I picked the most expensive item on their registration list (Ralph Lauren sheets, $150) just so they wouldn't think I was broke. Or cheap.

So why didn't I go?

My handsome Scot stood me up.

I know what you're thinking: "Come on, Sass, why didn't you just go alone?" But that's because you didn't have to listen to me talk incessantly, like an adolescent schoolgirl, about my wonderful new boyfriend, and how he was coming all the way from San Francisco just to escort me to this wedding, and what a great dancer he is, and how I can't wait for you to meet him. You didn't sit in your kitchen on the afternoon of the wedding, dressed in a fabulous pink Jackie-O dress and matching coat with rhinestone buttons, chain smoking and watching the clock. You didn't spend the evening getting drunk and crying on your friend Magda's shoulder.

I couldn't bear the thought of going to the wedding alone, and listening to my friends' well-intentioned words. "Forget about him, he's an asshole," which, of course, is code for, "Wow, you pathetic loser!"

Because it takes a Herculean effort to offend me, perhaps that's why it doesn't occur to me that others are more easily offended. When, for example, strangers are rude to me, it simply confirms my belief that among the masses there are few people whom I'd care to get to know better. I think to myself, (1) that person's an asshole, but (2) I'll never see him/her again, so (3) who cares?

I can't remember the last time someone I cared about truly offended me. Annoyed me, sure. Pissed me off, ok. But I get over it almost immediately. Not to sound to Pollyanna about it, but life really is too short to stay mad at the people who share yours.

What bothers me is that Simon and Carly are so angry with me it's possible our friendship is over. I don't have many friends with whom I can discuss postmoderism in pop culture, film, and literature; in whose presence I can refer to Joy Division without drawing a blank stare, and whom I can tease and mock and banter with and who can give as good as he gets. Simon is one of those friends, and now I may have lost him.

Ironically, I was worried that he would feel sorry for me. Instead, he's angry with me.

But I'd rather be hated than pitied.

* * *
Go to next story, which is not so much a story as a goodbye to John Peel. Though for months Sass was sure her friendship with Simon was over, an olive branch was eventually extended.

Boots or Hearts

The other night while I was making dinner (notice I don't say, "cooking") I did something I rarely do, because the mere act makes me feel pathetic: I turned on the TV to keep me company. I really ought to know better; there's nothing on post-news and pre-prime time but games shows and reruns of long-dead sitcoms. This time it was the former — Hollywood Squares. I hadn't known that was still running. Or is it not so much still as again? Retro is in; everything old is new again.

Star Jones was asked the question, "If a woman has a lot of shoes in her closet, chances are she is what?"

The answer was, "overweight."

I own 38 pairs of shoes and 17 pairs of boots. How fat does that make me?

Ironically, I'm thirty pounds lighter than I was two years ago when I started building my modest footwear collection. The same winter my Long Term Relationship started to unravel, so did my best-loved black boots, and the thing about boots and hearts is that when they start to fall apart, they really fall apart.

I had, at the time, four pairs of black boots and one man. Once, when all five were in the closet at the same time, the X was heard to ask — rhetorically I can only assume — how many pairs of black boots do you need? Because I take a perverse joy in responding Socratically to such questions, I replied, "One pair is for the snow and cold, the low-heeled low risers are for wearing with pants, the shiny high ones are for wearing with skirts, and those," I paused, gesticulating dramatically, "are the fuck-me boots you bought me for Valentine's Day. So, fuck you."

The day after he left I threw the low-heeled boots away. There was not a thing wrong with them. But as my hero Nicole Kidman wryly opined to David Letterman after Tom Cruise was fool enough to unravel her boots, "At least now I can wear heels." Nothing says "fuck you" better than an Oscar, does it, Nic? Maybe a Pulizer. We'll see.

Half way through my first semester at McGill University, I spent two months' food, rent, and clothing budget on a pair of red boots at Pegabo. They were not only the cat's meow but its whiskers and claws, too. Flat soles, pointy toes, scrunchy wide tops — the most "in" a boot could be in that year, and the most expensive boots I've ever owned. Utterly impractical. I couldn't possibly justify owning them. I was terrified my mother, the keeper of the purse strings, would find out, but I was willing to live on Kraft dinner until graduation, if I only I could have those boots.

Winter came, I had my boots, and I was dating a musician named Norman. Dating, of course, being a euphemism for fucking. We had exactly one date in four months — he took me out for dinner on my birthday, which, I have to admit, was fucking sweet of him. He was, truth be told, a very sweet man. Wholesome: his mother was a school teacher, his father a Presbyterian minister. Virginal, even, or so I thought. Which is why I dared him, one night while I was driving him home to the suburbs after a downtown party at a mutual friend's, to stop at my place on the way. We were both twenty two and I seriously thought there was a good chance he was still a virgin.

Turns out he wasn't.

The day in late March when he broke my heart it was just above freezing; the snow was turning to slush. I walked home in my red boots, and ruined them.

These days, my preference runs more toward go-go boots and men who aren't Irish Catholic. My new mantra is, I'm done with the fuckin' Irish.

Last summer, I found both. A pair of fabulous red go-go boots and a six-foot-three computer engineer of Scottish descent. At last, I could wear even my highest heels and he still had two inches on me. Big enough to pick me up — something no man has been able to do since my father when I was ten.

He took me dancing at The Starlight Room in San Francisco for my birthday. Flew me out there first class on a 747. We stayed at the classiest hotel on the highest hill in the city. We walked for hours along the most romantic beach in the world. And for those three days, I was Cinderella.

Cinderella is about shoes, after all.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets stood up and misses a wedding.