Rock Star Hour

Shag Day Lunch Break

"It's that time, huh?" my boss says, opening the fridge.

"Yep," I say with a smile.

I put my leftover hamburger (fake meat!) helper in the office microwave for a minute-and-a half. I fill up my water bottle and descend the steps and go down the hallway out the back door. Students are gathered in clusters, others walking, some on the phone, but I see one empty concrete table left for me, in the middle of everything.

I take a seat and start on my food. It is lukewarm -- more like half-hot, half-cold. I eat the hot parts and decide to save the rest for dinner. I reach for my bag of chips that is supposed to be my afternoon snack. Ever bite into a regular potato chip when you were almost positive you had brought jalapeno chips?

I open up the book I'm reading, and glance over it while smoking a cigarette. Having taken the last table, I am obliged to say "yes" when a young man asks if he can sit with me.

I read. He quietly eats his lunch, sitting sideways. A passerby approaches and says to the stranger, "Good job, today, man!"

And he says thank you.

Ellen Willis is talking about baroque and classical sex, defining them and applying them to music, books, movies, pornography, pop psychology and feminism.

I listen. I try to figure out which I subscribe to, but I can't, as each seems to have within it some inherent setback, a cultural paradox she develops and points out.

I turn the page without another thought, and begin an essay on her desert island album pick. Turns out to be a lengthy but pensive ode to The Velvet Underground. I am not surprised by this, as the book contains another essay, "Beginning to See the Light," the same words in gold decorating its spine.

I eat up Willis' descriptions of the punk aesthetic and its ties and frays from rock 'n' roll, how art rock became a means to justify itself as such, and how it arose out of need for self-acceptance as well as respect. She goes on to talk about new wave as the culmination of the two and as an antithesis as well.

The stranger gets up, and I turn to light another cigarette. He stops and says, "I'm sorry, but why the cigarette?"

I stare dumbfounded, not quite insulted. His air has that of a legitimate question, with not even an echo of condemnation; the sound of his voice is pure inquisition.

"You just look so peaceful," he said. It's a beautiful day, and you've got your book, and you look so comfortable. I was just wondering if it added something. You just didn't look like anything was missing."

Again, he is genuine, but unapologetic, just staring at me expectedly.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm an addict. I guess if I knew the answer to that, maybe I could ..." I couldn't finish my sentence.

On second thought, a word enters me: companionship. But the stranger who has been sitting silently near me for quarter of an hour is gone.

I return to my book, and now Lou Reed has become something that Mick Jagger and Pete Townshend never could be. And now "White Light/White Heat," "Heroin," "Pale Blue Eyes" and so many others contain the spirit of contempt, despair, confusion, enlightenment, estrangement and many other elements, and they just sort of wash over me all at once with her words, and Reed's lyrics are floating through the spaces in the crowd.

Lou Reed said, "I don't know."

And Ellen Willis said, "I don't know."

I checked my time, and put up my cell phone. I closed my book, and put it away. Through all this I am exchanging stares with another stranger, 10 feet away, sitting down, facing me, on a wall. He's faceless, except for his red and yellow striped polo shirt, and a sternness that is not in the least bit a smile. His look tries to penetrate across to me, but I cast my eyes downward.

I clumsily take up my things and stand up. I trip over my left foot. I still do not look back. I sigh, and walk slowly through the doors, up the stairs, head full of words, and sit back down at my desk.

Labels: Addiction, Books, Ellen Willis, Music, People-watching, Quitting Smoking