Stealing from the needy
I drove out of Bay St. Louis Monday with a box of non-perishable items, thinking how funny it would be if I got pulled over, apparently removing relief supplies from a hurricane-stricken area.
The superheroes had decided to split up, with some headed immediately to New Orleans on the bus, some “inch-worming” their way on bike, to help in places in between, and others holding down the fort and fulfilling obligations in Bay St. Louis until the folks from the sister city project could return.
As a result of splitting up, the three weeks of food that had been purchased in advance had to be split up into what could be carried or left based upon how much cargo or storage space was available. A decent sized box of food was left with no home. A conveniently-timed dead minivan battery kept me around about 10 minutes after my goodbyes, and a solution was found.
Presented as my first superhero mission, they asked me if I could take that box of food to a pantry (in addition to taking the numerous glass bottles, aluminum cans and number 2 plastics to a recycling center). Fulfilling the belief that the universe knows what it’s doing, and what seems like a negative turning into a positive, I was happy to help. The minivan was packed with the homeless goods, and a few brief real goodbyes later, and I was on the road.
For about the first two hours, I drove in silence. I had some CDs ready, but about 20 seconds into any song, I’d shut the music off and just contemplate what I’d experienced the previous 48 hours. I wasn’t ready for the distractions. When I eventually did turn the music back on, one of the first songs I heard was “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve.
Among other associations, one of my most prominent memories of that song comes from December of 1997, riding in the car with my friend Josh. Josh had been my best friend in high school, and while we had still remained friends, a lot had changed in each of our lives over the year that had passed since graduation. The song came on the radio, and Josh turned and asked “What do you think of this song?”
I loved that song. I was living in England at the time, going to school at Lancaster University. It was a reminder of the excitement of the previous four months and what was to come over the next eight. The years before, first in Auburn and then my freshman year in Lincoln, I’d struggled through those indie-kid pains of loving a band no one else had heard of. This was the peak of the “modern rock” era, when mentions of The Verve would get responses of “Oh yeah, I love the Verve Pipe.”
During the summer of 1997, I’d heard The Verve were releasing a new single, which confused me and eventually made me feel horribly out of the loop. Last I knew, they’d broken up in 1995 or something; I had no idea they’d gotten back together or even considered releasing anything new.
When I got to England, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was still the anthem of the world at the time. Follow-up single “The Drugs Don’t Work” was still a month away. In the first month, “Symphony” and this other fantastic new pop song I’d heard at the bar, “Tubthumping,” were on every mixtape I sent home. My friends were the lucky recipients of this great new music, until a month later when those songs hit America and putting them on a tape was a mixture of punishment and mockery.
I had come home from England for Christmas only a week earlier. Literally no more than ten minutes before the call came, I said to my mom, “I need to get in touch with Jeromy while I’m home.” Then the phone rang, and then my friend Brian told me Jeromy had been found after having hung himself. His funeral was in two days.
Josh and I used to go running and riding bikes together, invented made-up languages, were in a band together, built forts together in high school, and basically did everything that you do that proves you’re still young and free. Although our lives didn’t overlap as much after high school, we were still definitely friends and still hung out as much as possible.
But sitting in that car that day, 19 months after high school graduation, driving from our friend’s funeral in Iowa to his burial in Auburn, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” came on the radio.
I had told him I liked it.
“There’s a lot of truth in this song,” he said to me.
I’d never thought of the song as a source of truth, or anything beyond a catchy pop song. I’d never thought about lines like “Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money, then you die” being anything more than words rock stars say in songs. Thinking about such hopeless words striking a chord with my 19-year-old friend was almost as tragic as what we were honoring that day.
And that’s when I knew we weren’t kids anymore, and nothing was ever going to be the same.