I'm losing my edge.
The four words from the LCD Soundsystem song by the same name run through my head. James Murphy's voice loops. He is justifying his credibility. He was there. He can't possibly be losing his edge.
I worry about losing my edge in a lot of things. I can only blame two things: sobriety and domestication. I wonder if I lost my edge when I quit smoking and drinking a couple months back.
I ran into an old boyfriend. Jordan and I had attempted to start a band together a couple years ago, but the sexual tension didn't make for a productive work environment. His image of me was always skewed. I looked into his vacant eyes, the ones that peered at me from beneath his excessively tweezed eyebrows, and I told him. I told him that I had quit. I had quit it all.
He rocked back on his skinny frame for a moment. He did his best Kings-of-Leon stance, putting his hands on his skinny hips, housed tightly in his skinny jeans and said,
"Where is my fucking Rock N' Roll Bree now?"
Fuck, I thought. He was right. I was right. I was losing my edge. Without my Ramones-style drinking and Strokes-influenced chain-smoking, what was I? How could I be Fucking Rock N' Roll Bree? How could I write these stories about sexual awkwardness and drug and alcohol-fueled emotional abuse if I was sober? What was so rock n' roll about sobriety?
I remember when I was eighteen I wanted to quit smoking. I thought about it. But I couldn't until I moved out of my parent's house. I had this fantasy about smoking cigarettes in bed. I imagined myself rolling across my queen-size mattress, wrapped in a crisp white sheet, reaching for my menthols. I would lie there on my stomach and rest my elbows on the edge of the bed. I would kick my smooth, porcelain legs up in the air and light a smoke. This dream was quickly shattered by the reality that if I did actually roll across my bed, eventually I would run into my boyfriend. He would lie there, blocking the nightstand. He hated cigarettes. He also thought I was too loud.
At twenty-one, I had one or two wine cooler-induced drunken evenings under my belt, and that was it. A friend took me to the Snake Pit. A friend of a friend introduced me to vodka. I danced to The Jam and drank vodka and Sprite with friends, and friends of friends, every Wednesday night. Soon, it was multiple nights a week, and multiple drinks, and friends that became more than friends.
I sat outside the Snake Pit on a cement barricade eating pizza with Billy, and we discussed Charlie Mingus. Night in Tunisia was my favorite. He was stunned and thrilled and turned on by my vast knowledge of old Jazz. As I sucked on a cigarette between bites, I smiled as big as I could without falling over the barricade and onto 13th Avenue. The Jazz history class I was taking that semester was coming in handy. I was going to get laid. But I was really thinking about the fact that the booze was taking the edge off. The booze was how I was going to do this. I was about to lose my second virginity. Before I met Billy, I slept with James. For four years I slept James, the boring one who thought I was too loud.
Billy and I fucked on a mattress in the corner of his studio apartment that was housed over a small theater. American Psycho played in the background. This was picture perfect. This was a picture perfect example of what I never thought sex would look like. When we were finished, he cleaned up in the kitchen sink. I wrapped myself in a crisp white sheet and lit a cigarette. Then I walked down the hall to the bathroom he shared with the real estate agent's office across the hall.
This was what booze-fed sex looked like. This was a template. I would slide different boys in and out of Billy's place, and interchange a Pulp or Iggy Pop album for the American Psycho background noise. The aesthetics were different, but the emotions and actions were the same.
Billy never treated me like a girlfriend. I never was Billy's girlfriend, even in my own mind. But it was a lesson. A lesson about boys and girlfriends. A lesson I wouldn't learn for several years after him. One of the last times I saw him, he was leaning against the wall at the Streets of London Pub. He slipped his hand behind the jukebox and was searching for the button that skipped songs. He liked to press it when some jock in the bar had paid money to hear a song by Boston or Cheap Trick. You couldn't find albums like that in Billy's vinyl collection. They just didn't sit nicely with his limited edition Bowie and Can records.
This was why I wanted to be with him. He was so fucking artsy and obscure. He was so fucking rock n' roll. He was so much older and so much cooler. That was how he lured me back to his place that night after we left the Snake Pit. I had laid the trap for myself with talk of old Jazz music. He closed the deal with promises of showing me an original pressing of a Warlock Pinchers record.
I have quit smoking and drinking. Wednesdays at the Snake Pit were over four years ago. Billy moved to New York. I still think of him when I hear a Go Go Go Airheart song. I still think of him when I see a sweaty, half-consumed pint of Stella. I still think of him when I smell bologna and cigarettes.