1982 (36 page)

It may be a testament to Bob and the Thornlea Vocal Group’s progressive thinking in 1982 that they cast an aspiring New Wave brownish Persian kid as the Ivory part of “Ebony and Ivory” at the Harbourfront Centre. It might
even look good to the audience in a diverse city like Toronto. On the other hand, people might say things like, “Isn’t that nice … they’ve got the Paki boy singing the Ivory part.” That’s probably what Jim Muffan, the angry hockey player, would say. Or maybe people wouldn’t notice at all. But I noticed. It was too complicated to go from being teased as a kid and isolated in the locker room and regularly called a terrorist to pretending it was natural being Ivory onstage. But nor could I give up a glorious opportunity to achieve the acclaim and acceptance I so badly wanted.

Maybe this was another colourful example of the paradox that was me in 1982 and beyond. I was a terribly sensitive and insecure soul who wanted to be accepted. I wanted to fade into the woodwork. And yet I never shied away from putting myself out there in some form of potentially masochistic public adventure. It’s like I needed to keep proving to myself as much as to others that I wouldn’t succumb to judgment. So, as much as I feared being disliked, I created the conditions where I might polarize reaction. I shared my opinions and did the announcements. As much as I wanted to fit in, I would elect to wear purple eyeliner and pointy boots. As much as I wanted to be part of the group, I would set myself apart by becoming the student class president or the team leader. I was fearful of disapproval by my peers, or my cool sister, or the older theatre students. But I was even more scared of giving in to that fear. So I would soldier on and pursue my passions—sometimes recklessly toying with the implications. Maybe not all that much has changed as I’ve gotten older. For most of my life, people have assumed I’m a confident guy with a Teflon exterior. That you could say anything about me—or
to me—and it will just wash away because of the strength of my ego or character. That’s pretty much the opposite of the truth. But criticism has never fully prevented me from pursuing my goals or what I believed in. I somehow wouldn’t let it. I guessed Bowie wouldn’t either. Oftentimes, I was stupid to put myself out there. It’s hard to tell, when it came to “Ebony and Ivory,” if I was being stupid in May of ’82.

When the moment finally arrived, I climbed the steps at Harbourfront Centre as my name was called and joined Kim Richardson onstage for the finale of the Thornlea Vocal Group concert. We stood together in the spotlight. Kim was dressed in a leopard-skin Van Halen dress. She was taller than me in her heels. I wore tight black pants and black pointed boots and as much hair gel as I owned. The audience politely clapped and Bob nodded to us from behind the piano and began the opening refrain of the song. I took a deep breath and tried to look confident. Kim was smooth and calm—ever the pro. I tried to follow her lead. We began singing.

Kim: “Ebony”

Me: “and ivory …”

There was some clapping from the crowd, the way people clap because they recognize a song. I don’t know why people do that. It’s not like we’d written it. And we were only a couple of lines in. But it was exhilarating nonetheless.

Together in harmony, we sang the living together in harmony part. We sang about being side by side on a piano keyboard and then we reached the high notes at the end of the phrase that asks the Lord why we can’t live together. (As you can see, much of the song involves living together or wondering if we might live together or if we can live together.)
As we entered the first verse I took the first line of my two solo verses about there being good and bad in everyone. Kim responded with an obviously more impressive voice about how in order to survive we must learn to give each other what we needed.

I would give you an actual transcript of the song and the parts that Kim and I sang, but I can’t, because it would cost too much money for the rights and it would make my publisher angry, and then this book would be in trouble. Yes, even the lyrics to the worst duet in history require a mountainload of money to reprint. If we meet in person sometime I can sing you my parts. Like, privately.

But the point is, the song went off relatively well, I suppose. It was probably all very sweet. A cool black teenager and a confused brown younger teenager singing about being black and white. I had eased into the song about halfway through our performance. I got used to hearing the echo of my voice being blared over the speakers with no stage monitors. I got comfortable with sharing my half of the centre stage with a dear friend and one of the best singers I knew.

At the last part of the song, the whole Thornlea Vocal Group returned to the stage and sang the refrain about ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony. Kim and I stood at the front, singing along and doing a two-step dance the way Sonny and Cher would have done, if Cher had been a tall black woman with giant breasts and Sonny had been a skinny Middle Eastern kid. I tried not to look into the crowd for fear it would throw me off. I focused on Kim. And Bob. And the ground. And the lights. And the music stands to the side. And then it was over. Mercifully. Triumphantly.

When we finished the song, Kim and I hugged onstage the way men and women who do duets hug at the end of songs. No couple has ever done a duet without hugging at the end. This communicates that you’re happy and moved and feeling very close, even if you’re not. I was probably holding tightly onto Kim more out of relief than anything else. The audience cheered, and Kim and I waved appreciatively. It was, for all intents and purposes, a winning moment. I’d soldiered through the song and been made to sound better by singing alongside Kim Richardson.

But there was no way to fully embrace what I’d just done. I’d been miscast. And the point is that there was no part that existed for me at all. I had gone along with the Ivory casting and hoped no one would notice. And to be fair, no one really said anything. But I noticed. And so a confused ethnic kid with New Wave clothing and brownish skin earned applause for playing the role of Ivory at my biggest concert to date. I started to think of it as a character that I was playing. That’s right. Maybe I was increasingly just a character. That’s what Bowie had done for most of his career. Maybe it was okay.

The Harbourfront concert was over. Wendy had not been in the audience, and that was gratifying news. Being a rock singer was cool, but performing the role of Ivory wasn’t. There were some messed-up sides of me that I decided Wendy simply didn’t need to see. And in the end, most of the time, winning the affections of a doggone girl was what was important.

11

“THE THINGS THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF” – THE HUMAN LEAGUE

W
e’re totally going to get caught!”

I was getting anxious and whispering far too conspicuously in Murray’s direction. He was characteristically calm. It’s little wonder we joked about him being Mr. Spock.

“The worst that can happen is they kick us out,” he said. “Stop stressing. Remember how badly you wanted to see this.”

We were furtively squatting inside the Imperial Six cinema with our eyes fastened on the screen. I kept turning around and searching the theatre to make sure no ushers were about to bust us. We weren’t supposed to be in there. We had snuck in. And now, in the middle of 1982, I was witnessing full-frontal on-screen nudity for only my second time.

The star of the film was a sexy young actress named Nastassja Kinski. I couldn’t really figure out the plot. I had deduced it was something about a mysterious woman with a cool short hairdo who was also a ferocious black cat—a panther or leopard or some kind of rabid feline—and unrelated to that, her lips were often wet. That was the storyline, as
much as I could understand. The movie was called
Cat People
, and Bowie had worked on the soundtrack and sung the title song. This was the “erotic” film of the year that everyone was talking about. It wasn’t rated X. It was just restricted and labelled “erotic.” I decided “erotic” was the name adults gave to an X-rated movie that they wanted to see in public without feeling creepy. Besides, this film had a major Bowie connection. It was credible.

I was too nervous to actually be aroused by the occasional lurid activity happening onscreen. But I saw this as an opportunity for education. It was all about sex. I was committed to discovering more about sex. And I wanted to be old enough to watch
Cat People
. And this film had Bowie’s voice attached to it. That meant he approved of it—a Bowiesanctioned movie. Nastassja Kinski looked a bit New Wave. And I had increasingly become preoccupied with girls. Thankfully, this had nothing to do with Wendy. Besides, as I found out in the new school year, Wendy had moved on.

WENDY HAD A NEW BOYFRIEND
in September of 1982. And it wasn’t me.

I learned this because I was a sleuth. I had cunningly garnered this information on the down low on our second day back at Thornlea Secondary School. It was all very savvy. I’d overheard Donna Davis chatting with another girl near Room 213, and I’d read between the lines to conclude that Wendy was no longer single.

“Wendy has a new boyfriend.”

That was what Donna Davis said. It was obviously an ambiguous statement open to interpretation.

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” her friend replied. “She’s off the market.”

Okay, fine, maybe it didn’t involve much sleuthing. Maybe that crushing conversation was overheard with absolute clarity. But it was only one clue about Wendy and her new man. How could anyone be sure? I was just going on a feeling. But then I saw Wendy with her new paramour and any doubt evaporated. That happened the next day. Wendy was walking down the hall on the second floor at Thornlea accompanied by a tall, preppy blond guy. My heart dropped. I told you, I had a feeling.

I recognized the new man immediately. His name was Joe, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to call him a man. He was entering Grade 12 and widely known at school as a track athlete. He was tall and white and handsome in a tall, whiteguy way. And he was preppy. He had a button-down pink shirt on and khaki pants. And now somehow Wendy looked preppy, too. She still resembled Bowie. But she looked like an awkwardly healthy Bowie with a tan. Or something. Or not. Maybe she didn’t look preppy at all. Maybe it was just my imagination compensating. I couldn’t explain what my Bowie girl would want with this guy cut from a Benetton ad. That is, other than the fact that he was tall and handsome and blond and an athlete. Apparently, Joe played acoustic guitar, too. He was tediously perfect.

I hadn’t spoken to Wendy since our magical day at the Police Picnic and the kiss on the cheek I received at the Finch subway roundabout. It had seemed inappropriate to call Wendy again right after our date. We had agreed to go to a concert together, but she hadn’t committed to anything more.
Phoning her after that would have been much too overt a nod to my intentions. I wanted Wendy to know that I liked her without letting her know how much I liked her. It’s like when John Ruttle wanted to ask Valerie Tiberius out on a date to see Journey without it seeming like he was asking her out. You had to be tactical about these things. After the concert, I’d decided to wait three weeks for our next encounter when school began again. I hadn’t pictured it going like this.

Wendy spotted me as she walked towards where I was standing at the end of the hallway. I was now in Grade 10. She was in Grade 12.

“Hi, Jian!” She smiled warmly and looked into my eyes as she approached. Her Ralph Lauren boyfriend was at her side. “How are you?” she said. “How was the end of the summer?”

“Oh … hi, Wendy.” I tried to act cool and relatively uninterested. “Yeah, it was fine.”

I was staring at the blond guy and couldn’t seem to stop. There was a pause. Wendy could likely tell I was distracted by his presence.

“Oh, Jian, this is … Joseph.” Wendy turned to address the blond guy. “Jian is the one I told you about. Jila’s younger brother that I saw Talking Heads with.”

Ouch. I was now back to “Jila’s younger brother.”

“Of course,” he said. “Hi, Jian.”

Joe sounded like a man. He had a deep voice. If he’d been doing the morning announcements instead of me, everyone would probably have thought he was a teacher. And there was something annoyingly precious about the way Wendy called him Joseph.
Joseph?
His name was Joe. He was a jock. He probably wasn’t that smart. And there was no way he
understood Talking Heads like I did. I was quite convinced this Joseph would not be talking to me if it hadn’t been for Wendy. He probably made fun of artsy guys. He had chiselled features and his blond hair was parted on the side like a baseball player’s. Calling him Joseph was obviously an attempt to suggest some sophistication. It wasn’t working. I didn’t like this Joseph—even if he was being nice.

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the three of us. Wendy smiled and said they had to be going to class. Joe shook my hand as if we were signing a peace treaty. It occurred to me that I had never really asked Wendy if she had a boyfriend. I’d never been specific about investigating her status. Maybe they had been dating all along. Maybe he had been away at a place where older tall white preppy guys go while Wendy and me attended the Police Picnic. Or maybe they weren’t dating at all. Maybe he was just a new acquaintance. But then, Donna Davis had called him Wendy’s boyfriend, and the other girl had added, “She’s off the market.” Either way, it was disappointing. I thought Wendy was New Wave. If not me, I thought she’d end up with a cool punk guy or a mod or someone into ska. It seemed strange to see her so comfortable with a preppy jock. I wondered if I’d been wrong about Wendy. Or maybe I was wrong about Bowie. Would Bowie forgo potential punk girlfriends and boyfriends to date Loni Anderson? No. A thousand times no. It made no sense.

Wendy was letting down the team. If Wendy was rejecting me after our special day at the Police Picnic, what pretty blond girl would ever accept an ethnic, artsy, skinny guy as her boyfriend? None. And besides, if someone cool like Wendy was ready to bypass all the fine New Wave candidates to date
a poster boy for preppiness, what hope was there for anyone in the alternative world? I was angry with Wendy. I wondered if I should be angry with Bowie, too. I stopped listening to Bowie. I changed the channel when the “Fashion” video came on TV the next afternoon. My boycott of Bowie lasted three full days. But only three days. If Wendy and I were breaking up, she couldn’t have him—even with her Bowie eyes.