Read Smiths' Meat is Murder for Free Online Page B

the start of one of maybe a thousand Latin quizzes we had that year.
    “None other,” he replied without looking at me, preoccupied. He was busy stuffing small cheat sheets up the wide bottom of his necktie. He called it his Declension Tie. It was left over from grammar school Latin, and looked comically stunted, truncated on a guy his size. Ray was the gentle giant type whose big-boned frame housed a potential energy capable of genuine damage. And he was one of the funniest guys I have ever met.
    “Yes, Sister. Right away, Sister. No, Sister, I was just straightening my tie before the quiz, Sister.” His voice could have an innocent child’s queak to it when he wanted.
    He had played on the freshman football team for about ten minutes. He quit after he broke another guy’s shin during the first practice. He told me his heart wasn’t in it, and I always thought many lucky opponents were better off because of it. The shin–shattering earned him a kind of quiet notoriety among the student body. Six foot two with the face and curly blond hair typical of a specific style of Baby Jesus painting: Jesus is probably three years old, naked from the waist up and hairless except for his head. His hands are clasped in prayerbeneath his chin. His head is tilted slightly to one side. Eyes, blue and among the most gentle and sweet ever witnessed. The only thing missing is the implied cartoon thought bubble that says, “DO NOT FUCK WITH ME!”
    Ray hit me in the hip with a savage wrist shot during a floor hockey game in gym freshman year. Too close to home. That was our formal introduction. He was on a breakaway, I was the net minder. A thought bubble of my own ruptured and spilled out all over the parquet floor as the red welt rose. Instead of “Pleased to meet you. Thank you very much,” I groaned out feebly, “You fucking asshole prick!” then collapsed, hitting the floor like a pillowcase full of monkey wrenches.
    My lips were actually touching the wooden surface of the gymnasium. A massive pair of hairless caissons lumbered to within inches of my nose. The pain in my hip subsided or was displaced rather by fear as I contemplated the real possibility of being deliberately crushed to death beneath the weight of one of those legs.
    “Nice save, Twinkle Toes,” he laughed, extending his stick like a lifeline. I grabbed on for dear life, and he pulled me to my feet and then some with a single jerk of an arm.
    * * *
    “It’s 1985, and I’m going to
Separate Piece
this one.” (That meant to go out on a limb.) “This is the best pop song of the Eighties,” I shouted unknowingly while the walkman squealed at full steam in my ears. Greatness sizzled from the tiny speakers and added a gigantic reverb to the snare spring fixed to the bottom head of my eardrum.
    There was and is no debating the obvious genius of Johnny Marr’s guitar playing. To say Johnny Marr’s Smiths–era guitar work was great is like suggesting John Lennon was an unusually talented songwriter. That said, I was a bass player, so I zeroed in on Andy Rourke’s bass playing. He played like no one else I had ever heard, and immediately replaced Bruce Foxton as my exiled mentor. I was intimidated, but optimistic that I could ape his bass style. First, though, I aped Mike Joyce’s hairstyle.
    I also credit Andy Rourke for turning me on to Joni Mitchell. After the first Smiths record was released in America, I read in an interview somewhere that Andy Rourke was really into Joni Mitchell’s music, especially the album
Blue.
How could that be? Joni Mitchell?
Blue
? As a foolish kid I thought Joni Mitchell was a whining, marginally talented hippie, which is funny because when I tried to sell The Smiths to a few of the more tolerant hard rock lovers I collided with, they mistakenly described Morrissey with similar words. Anyway, I convinceda reluctant Ray to tape
Blue
for me from his sister’s album collection. Needless to say, Andy Rourke was right: the album is