Arts Tough Guys Love the Cure
I was sitting in the Mecca yesterday, waiting to meet someone with whom I would have a beer and then see The House of Mirth, at the Seattle Center. (The play—based on the Edith Wharton novel—is about gambling debt, pride, and impropriety among the wealthy of the Gilded Age. It’s long, tragic, and pretty okay.)
I was waiting for my companion, listening to a couple of drunk dudes at the other end of the bar. From their talk, it seemed they were military boys on leave. They clumsily hit on women. They shouted and told stories about beating up other people. They were loud and obnoxious. A few quotes:
“I hope I don’t have to beat anybody up tonight!”
“Are you being a naughty girl today?”
“I never bring out my gun unless I go home—everybody’s got a gun there.” [slams palm on the bar.] “It’s like, BOOM!” [slams palm on the bar again.] “You gotta gun? I gotta fucking gun!”
“I made that guy suck that bottle like it was a dick.”
“Fuck it, the only thing that matters is that you have fun.”
You get the idea. They were macho dudes, toughs, hard-drinkin’, hard-hittin’ motherfuckers. They rocked to the jukebox and howled with drunk-afternoon glee.
Then “Caterpillar Girl,” by the Cure, came on the speakers. I wondered how they were going to take it. One turned to the other: “This is a great song.” The other turned to the bartender: “Excuse me, would you turn this up?” Then they shouted along to the lyrics, waving their arms in the air, closing their eyes and looking, for a moment, like teenage goth girls at a slumber party. The song ended with their voices cracking along with Robert Smith tremulous falsetto “Caterpillar giiiiirl.” There was a moment of silence.
“Let’s do a shot!” one shouted.
“Let’s do two shots!” the other shouted.
“Man, that’s a great fucking song!”
wait, say "based on the Edith Wharton novel" again.