A Riot is an Ugly Thing: A belated song lyric Thursday

I don’t ordinarily write deep or meaningful blog entries. I don’t ordinarily let you get to know my real feelings. The emotions you get to see are anger, hatred, silliness, or lust. A great majority of the time they aren’t even real, I just trumped them up for comic effect. Those are all fairly easy emotions. They don’t really tell you much about who I am, and what I’m really thinking. I know it’s cheating, but that’s what I’m most comfortable doing with my blog. Every once in a while I’ll say something real, but it’s not what I ordinarily do. So, don't give me a ration of shit about it.

For the past couple of months, I have been thinking of how I would blog about one specific song, Angie by The Rolling Stones, for Song Lyric Thursday. My Father used to belong to a community-based service organization, when I was younger. Every spring, they had a carnival at the Bryans Road Shopping Center. It was an actual traveling carnival, with rides, games, and carnies with small hands, who smelled of cabbage.

The kids, of the organization’s membership, got to work at the carnival, doing odd jobs. Except for me, I got to work at the ticket booths for the rides. So, before you say it, “yes”, for one weekend a year for three years, I was a carnie! I wasn’t older than the other kids. I was in the 8th grade, but I knew how to make change. It wasn’t brain surgery, each ticket was 25 cents. A chimp could sell tickets and make change at 25 cents a ticket. I had been the scorekeeper for my Dad’s fast pitch softball team since I was in the 4th grade, doing stats, batting averages, and ERAs. I could do simple math quite easily. It was trig functions and calculus formulas that gave me trouble.

The carnival had a set play list of songs that you heard every night, just in a different order. They were the general fare of early 70s songs, Motown, and disco; Oh, What a Night, The Hustle, Jive Talkin’, Philadelphia Freedom, and Angie. I usually worked at one of the booths for the kid’s rides; those spinning tea cups or the carousel. It was always busy early, but went away to nothing around 8:30, and they usually shut down those rides at 9:00. The carnival closed at 10:00. It was handy to have me work at those booths, as it freed up an adult to drink beer.

One of the other kids, my age, was a girl. I won’t mention her name, other than to say it wasn’t Angie, but she does share the same first name as one of the people who I link to on this blog. (Hint: It ain’t John, Dave, Mad, or Richard.) In the fall of 1975, she was just a regular 8th grade girl, with a very pretty face. We had always kind of liked each other, and innocently flirted. Over the winter, something great happened; because, by the spring of 1976, she had really developed. She still had the pretty face, but she had developed these curves and breasts, not just little 8th grader breasts, but real big ones.

At the carnival that year, we started talking more. The carnival always started on Thursday night and ended on Sunday afternoon. That year on Thursday and Friday nights about 8:00, when the crowds started to die down, she would get in the ticket booth with me, and we’d sit together. We talked about lots of things, including how different she looked. She told me that her doctor had said that she had packed a full-grown woman into her 14-year old body. I always thought that was inappropriate for a doctor to say to a patient, but of course I didn’t mention it. As fewer people were around, we started to snuggle closer together and rub against each other. By the end of Friday night, we kissed a few times. I couldn’t wait till Saturday.

On Saturday, things were going just as my wildest fantasies imagined. We hung out, rode some rides, and played games. As the night got later, the ride closed down, and we were by ourselves. We made out some, and then she asked if I wanted to see her body, which of course I did. Her shirt was a light-blue t-shirt with an iron-on appliqué of a herd of horses. The song Angie was playing, as she took her shirt off. Like me, she didn’t tan, and had very pale skin. Her bra was an enormous white thing, it looked more like a medical device than underwear. It was nothing like the sleek or sexy bras you see today. When she took it off, it was breath-taking. To this day, few naked adult women, and I have seen a couple, have had the same effect on me. Don't make something sick out of it. I'm not comparing adult women to a teen-aged girl, but she was my first 3D. She looked amazing, and she literally took my breath away.

She let me touch her breasts, and then kiss one of them. We started touching each other in places that we shouldn’t, the whole time Angie was playing throughout the carnival. Then we both started to get real nervous that we would get caught, or that something else was about to happen. So, she put her shirt back on. After we got ourselves together, we left the booth and walked around the carnival till it closed.

It may seem corny, but nothing has ever seemed the same since. I wasn't an adult, but I didn't feel like a kid any more. I remember the stupid stuff we said to each other, and the stupid things I thought. How we thought we loved each other, and that we’d be together forever. Unfortunately, then came Sunday morning.

When I woke up, I was terrified, but not that we would get caught. I was terrified of where do I go from here. I wasn’t ready for her or anything else. We were only in the 8th grade, and I still don’t know what I thought would happen. I was so worried I got sick, and couldn’t go to the last day of the carnival. I didn’t talk to her for weeks. We didn’t go to the same middle school; it wasn’t hard to avoid her. She sent word through one of her friends that she liked me, but I was too scared. I never talked to any of my friends about it; I knew what they would have said they would have done, without having to ask. When I finally talked to her, about a month later, it was too late. Too much time had passed, and too much damage had been done. It wouldn’t have done any good if I had talked to her. I didn’t know what to tell her I was feeling, because I didn’t know what I was feeling.

Through high school she looked good, but I barely spoke to her. She kept her nice curves; she had what the other genius boys of the time called baby-fat. As soon as she got to high school, the older boys discovered her. She started to get a little reputation. I always felt bad about that. She got passed around a bit. I felt somehow responsible, like our carnival adventure had caused all this, and maybe it did.

She dropped out and never graduated from high school. She came from a Charles County redneck family, and education wasn’t all that important. Her father’s motorcycles, deer hunting, and drag racing were the families’ priorities. He mostly didn’t work, while her mother had to. She became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like her Mom, she married a redneck, had kids, and stayed at home, while her husband hunted and drag raced.

I don’t know how it feels to be a woman. Maybe she feels completely happy and fulfilled. Maybe, I’m being too judgmental, because I feel responsible. I haven’t heard much about her since the mid-80s, but the last things I heard weren’t good. I do hope she’s happy.

I probably shouldn’t throw in all the bad part of the story with the song. Angie doesn’t make me said when I hear it. In fact, I usually smile. I don’t like to think of any of my theater kids in a situation like that, even though most of them are in high school or college, and have probably done worse. Maybe they were ready for it, but I wasn’t. I know you aren’t supposed to have regrets, but I regret that I wasn’t ready.

Angie – The Rolling Stones

Angie, Angie, when will those clouds all disappear?
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?

With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, Angie, you can't say we never tried

Angie, you're beautiful, but ain't it time we said good-bye?
Angie, I still love you, remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear:
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?

Oh, Angie, don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it time we said good-bye?

With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, I still love you, baby
Ev'rywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on Baby, dry your eyes

But Angie, Angie, ain't it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie, they can't say we never tried.

Comments

Dang, Uncle Keith! I gotta lump in my throat and stuff.

What a cool story/memory attached to a great song.

Posted by: Sweetie | December 14, 2007 at 08:13 PM

I read this a few days ago and couldn't think of a comment. It just seemed too personal for me to stick my two cents in. I thought I'd give it a few days and see what I could come up with.

I'm still speechless.

Thanks for branching out with something "deep and meaningful."

Posted by: Lillith | December 16, 2007 at 03:00 PM