Friday, April 11, 2003
I was standing on the massive, concrete wraparound porch of my parents’ house, endlessly rewinding and playing the Cure’s “Disintegration,” tears racing down my face.
It’s August 1989, and my then best friend RB has just left. For good. For who knows how long. To the east coast. Hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. RB and I have, over the years, had a shall-I-say complex relationship, but it’s always been one filled with brotherly love. But on that warm summer day, all I felt was abandoned. He was the one who understood me in ways no one else did, the executor of my secrets, the one person I trusted above all others.
The Disintegration album has always been a favorite of mine; not only do I find it to be the Cure’s finest moment, I think it’s one of ‘89’s best as well. It’s blissfully bathed in depression, “Love Song” being its lone exception. Robert Smith’s lyrics are at their most gloriously bathetic, while the band’s accompaniment augments, but never overtakes, his sentiments. Every single time I listen to it (which is fairly often due to its brilliance, especially if I’m feeling blue or down), I’m taken back to that day, watching RB’s Honda CRX (or was it the Beetle?) going down the gravel driveway of our farm.
He’d had a rough summer. Things weren’t going well with his family, and his manic depression seemed to be growing in scope. He was nearly 18, and being completely smothered and stifled by the small town in which we grew up. RB had been accepted at a college for high school students (I’ve never completely gotten that) in the northeast, and after a day at work (and at home) which seemed to him completely emblematic of his life at that point, he decided he’d had enough. So he went home on a break from work (all of us worked there that summer, a very tight gang of four), packed his things, and got ready to take off, with only a note to his parents. But I was off that day, lazing at home. So he came to call.
I think I knew something was wrong when I saw RB drive up. I wish I still had my journal from that year – was I even keeping one? I don’t recall. And neither do I recall all of the precise details. What I remember is him telling me what was happening, and what had already happened (he’d lashed out at one of our closest friends at work), and saying “I’m sorry, Tom,” as if he were letting me down (which, in a sense, he was – I needed him around desperately, and I think he knew that). We embraced, and I started crying immediately. He probably had to pry himself out of my bearhug. Then he was in his car, kicking up clouds of dust as he drove down the driveway lined in maple trees. [Dad even named our property Maple Lane Farm, and had signs made which he proudly posted at the end of the driveway.] I stood there, on the porch, sobbing for a good 10, 15 minutes. I was confused, I was hurt, I was, as they say of those grieving, utterly bereft. Robert Smith and company provided my only possible soundtrack. And there’s a little part of me which, every time I play the cassette (I still have my original 1989 copy), still cries.
It’s August 1989, and my then best friend RB has just left. For good. For who knows how long. To the east coast. Hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. RB and I have, over the years, had a shall-I-say complex relationship, but it’s always been one filled with brotherly love. But on that warm summer day, all I felt was abandoned. He was the one who understood me in ways no one else did, the executor of my secrets, the one person I trusted above all others.
The Disintegration album has always been a favorite of mine; not only do I find it to be the Cure’s finest moment, I think it’s one of ‘89’s best as well. It’s blissfully bathed in depression, “Love Song” being its lone exception. Robert Smith’s lyrics are at their most gloriously bathetic, while the band’s accompaniment augments, but never overtakes, his sentiments. Every single time I listen to it (which is fairly often due to its brilliance, especially if I’m feeling blue or down), I’m taken back to that day, watching RB’s Honda CRX (or was it the Beetle?) going down the gravel driveway of our farm.
He’d had a rough summer. Things weren’t going well with his family, and his manic depression seemed to be growing in scope. He was nearly 18, and being completely smothered and stifled by the small town in which we grew up. RB had been accepted at a college for high school students (I’ve never completely gotten that) in the northeast, and after a day at work (and at home) which seemed to him completely emblematic of his life at that point, he decided he’d had enough. So he went home on a break from work (all of us worked there that summer, a very tight gang of four), packed his things, and got ready to take off, with only a note to his parents. But I was off that day, lazing at home. So he came to call.
I think I knew something was wrong when I saw RB drive up. I wish I still had my journal from that year – was I even keeping one? I don’t recall. And neither do I recall all of the precise details. What I remember is him telling me what was happening, and what had already happened (he’d lashed out at one of our closest friends at work), and saying “I’m sorry, Tom,” as if he were letting me down (which, in a sense, he was – I needed him around desperately, and I think he knew that). We embraced, and I started crying immediately. He probably had to pry himself out of my bearhug. Then he was in his car, kicking up clouds of dust as he drove down the driveway lined in maple trees. [Dad even named our property Maple Lane Farm, and had signs made which he proudly posted at the end of the driveway.] I stood there, on the porch, sobbing for a good 10, 15 minutes. I was confused, I was hurt, I was, as they say of those grieving, utterly bereft. Robert Smith and company provided my only possible soundtrack. And there’s a little part of me which, every time I play the cassette (I still have my original 1989 copy), still cries.
# posted by Thomas : 1:44 PM
