One Hundred and Eighteen

Watching Billy Idol sing Eyes Without A Face made me think of someone, but I didn't know who. 

Then YouTube recommended another music video for me—one in which a young Billy, looking like a choir boy who's hoping he'll be interfered with, sings Kiss Me, Deadly.  Apparently he's always been a cinephile, and began as a fan of American films, as most Brits do.  I was a fan of Brit films when I was around the same age as Kiss Me, Deadly Billy.  I learned English mostly from watching Brit films when I was a boy.

Remembering those days made me realize who it was that Billy Idol made me think of: Gene ‘Buddy’ Whitney.  But why?  The young Billy who sang Kiss Me, Deadly looked to be the same age that ‘Buddy’ and I were when we knew each other, but Billy Idol didn’t look anything like ‘Buddy’ Whitney. 

‘Buddy’ was a working-class boy—something punk rockers like Billy Idol only pretended to be.  I never saw ‘Buddy’ wear anything but a black leather jacket and pants, because he couldn’t afford a change of clothes, so he always looked intimidating; but he was the nicest boy in school, hence his nickname.  All the middle-class girls shunned him, of course; but we boys all adored him (Except for those boys who adored middle-class ‘Dickie’ Bell). 

'Buddy’ and Bertha.  I always had a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time.  Surely every boy is 'gender fluid'—or what Freud called polymorphous perverse—at that age, and every girl.  I can’t believe my generation was unique in that respect. But perhaps we were.  We did grow up to become free-loving hippies.  At least some of us did.  But our ‘summer of love’ ended badly.

I was spending the weekend in Bonnie’s bed when the riots broke out on Sunday morning.  I got dressed and went home, and we didn’t see each other again for weeks.  When we finally did, she told me she was engaged to marry someone else.

She said she didn’t love him, so nothing had to change between us; we could go on just as before.  But I couldn’t.  I had to change.  I wasn’t a boy any more.    

The last time I went in for a checkup, the doctor asked me what color my hair had been before it turned white.  She said she thought it must have been blond.  I told her it had been platinum blond when I was a boy, but it grew dark as I grew older.  Billy the handsome sailor, whose beauty strikes Claggart dead, became 'Buddy' as I grew older.  My hair had turned reddish brown by the time I went to college and met David.  

I was wearing black leather, too, by then, and no doubt looked as intimidating as 'Buddy' had.  David was a middle-class boy with platinum blond hair, a choir boy who hoped he'd be interfered with; but I was no Claggart.  I’m still a choir boy without a choir.