When I was doing my O-Levels, there was practically no one in my universe having sex; not with anyone else, anyway. We, the good Catholic boys of St Mary's College-the College of the Immaculate Conception, no less-were made to feel guilty about even having sex alone; indeed, those entrusted with our spiritual guidance were convinced that just having "impure" thoughts could put your immortal soul in jeopardy (don't mind all the good it did for your more fun, less eternal bits). About the only thing the priests didn't tell us was that we drove a six-inch nail into Jesus' palms on the cross every time we picked up something else of about the same dimensions in our own.
In those days, intercourse with the opposite sex consisted of conversation; you couldn't even pro-perly say relations were strictly oral, in the context. Boys and girls weren't so much into "having relationships" as "going 'round;" to be said that a boy and girl were "going 'round" was the deepest level of commitment we could envisage (without embarking on a train of thought that would lead to Jesus' palms suffering). Going around with a girl or boy, then, involved pretty much that alone: going from here to there. Your school held a May fair? Your girlfriend went with you, or met you there. She had to go to church with her family on Saturday? You went along. "Going around" was more "running around," as in running errands, than "playing around."
It was not unheard of that a boy might be "going around" with a girl he'd never kissed. No exaggeration. I know several cases-at least one involving me, regretfully. Parents in those days were much more watchful. I imagine my girlfriends' fathers muttering, under their breath, every time they saw me, "I had to get married first, you little shiretrit, so you don't even look at my daughter in a bikini for too long. You get married to her first, just like I did her mother. Misery loves company." Well, okay, they probably didn't say the last bit-but they looked like they thought it, and they certainly lived it. The point is, it wasn't unusual to have romantic connections without any physical ones. I had one girlfriend whose parents sternly warned her that holding hands could lead to pregnancy, which, strictly speaking, I guess it could. (Luckily, for several boys of her generation, she had the technique of palming condoms.)
All this comes to mind because of an old friend who was the market leader-we could call him a "loss leader," I suppose-of going around with a girl without getting anywhere. He went 'round with the same girl for six weeks without ever once kissing her; which was strange, even for the time-but you must take into consideration that those six "weeks" really consisted of six weekends, the only time, during the school term, that boys and girls could be sure of liming together; and even that often meant meeting at church; and St Ann's parish church was not exactly an orgy of sensual bliss; we were lucky if the incense smelled nice. The girl involved was head over heels besotted with my pardner; and he, with her; but he was a good Catholic boy and terrified of breaking Jesus' heart (though he would probably have done some damage to His palms, like the rest of us). Any time we limed, she would stare adoringly at his profile, like a lap dog, until he turned and looked at her, when she would hurriedly look away; and then he would stare at her, until she looked at him, and then he would look away quickly, and the pattern would repeat itself, without bringing anybody any satisfaction, like a change of government in Trinidad.
For weeks, I reminded him he had to "pop the question;" because it didn't matter if you were necking with a girl at every house party over the long vacation, you weren't "going around" until you asked her to, and she said, "Yes"; you could see that kind of approach leading to marriage vows. So, one day, at my insistence-I think I would have happily and speedily asked the girl concerned to go 'round with me, but for the fact that she didn't know I existed-he popped the question. And she said yes. And they met every weekend for six weeks, but he never had either the nerve or the closed door or both together to do more than sit around while they went around; that's as far as he got, 40 years ago in Cascade, and that's as far as they go together, in this space, today.
And I'm only thinking of them, and of that incident, because I'm thinking of, not so much popping a joint question myself, but of the question of jointpop, the local rock 'n' roll band. For those who don't know them-and there are very many such, particularly amongst the group of disc jockeys who determine what records are played on local radio-jointpop are Trinidad's best rock 'n' roll band. (They are not to be confused with Orange Sky, Trinidad's most successful rock band, who have toured the US with Kings X and Yngwie Malmsteen and Trinidad with Basdeo Panday.) It's no exaggeration to say that, as was the case with the music of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Andre Tanker, David Rudder, the Shadow, U2, the two Bobs (Dylan and Marley) and the same Orange Sky, jointpop's music changed my life. Without their songs I would not know myself, or this place.
And tonight, at 7 o'clock or so, at the Readers' Bookshop, 1 Middle Street, near Long Circular Mall, I will have the honour of introducing some of my favourite jointpop songs, with three members of the band-Gary Hector on guitar and vocals, Damon Homer on lead and Phil Hill on keys-playing an unplugged set, kind of like VH1's Storytellers; except I'll be telling the tales; out of school; in Port-of-Spain style.
BC Pires plays the bottle-
not the bottle & spoon, just the bottle-with jointpop. Read more
of his writing at www.BCraw.com