Dead Crush #2

Of course, most of the dead people died by doing stupid things. They died young and so are young and beautiful forever. Not that I don’t also have crushes on dead old people.

Once in a bar bathroom in Dover NH a very drunk 50-something woman slurred at me: “I used to be young once too.” It was a strange accusation. I was 24, probably at my physical prime in spite of the cigarettes and drinking, and I hated myself. I think when they die young, they probably don’t like themselves too much. I am saddened at my attraction to this. I know I’ve already mentioned my love of self-destruction in (male) others. I’m sure this won’t be the last time. I’m also startled and surprised by my steadfast heteroness. But I’ll get into that another time.

So I’ve never really crushed on James Dean, per se. I mean, he’s so obvious. This is mostly an excuse to write about one of my weaknesses. Without the JD model, I would have been without a major real-life crush experience: on the fragile, world-weary, hard-living, touchingly sexist Greaser.

Have you ever waited 7 hours in the rain to meet Morrissey at a signing? I did, circa 1993. Did I see him? No. Did the ten or so pale but tough boys with greased hair and triple-rolled jeans who were somehow mysteriously moved to the front of the line get to? Yes, and one came out breathing into a paper bag. Did anyone else get to see him? No. And there were plenty of other people in rolled-up jeans and horn-rimmed glasses that didn’t get to see him either. It’s not really any surprise that someone who sang “…and the rain that flattens my hair, oh these are the things that kill me…” would inspire a whole white (and Chicano, too, actually) culture of fashion clones. But since Morrissey’s style was based on James Dean’s greaserness (I mean, he left Primrose Hill to film a video in Fairmount, IN, where he lip-synced while lying on Dean’s grave) I credit JD with indirectly creating this whole greaser fashion of the late eighties/early nineties.

My first boyfriend was one of these fake Morrissey greasers. He was very quiet and occasionally used Butch Wax. And fake because his parents were middle class Iowa Democrats who still went to political rallies. The fakeness didn’t make him any less attractive to me, but mostly because I didn’t know there were real greasers still, people who held onto their Vitalis, Levi’s, bikes, and sideburns because daddy did, and daddy before him did too.

But they did exist. And some of them lived in Iowa. Two of them were brothers who drove school busses and fronted a rockabilly band called the Roughhousers. Oh My God. I can’t even begin to explain how in love I was. Obviously from a long line of working-class drunks, they themselves went nowhere without their flasks and Lucky Strikes. (Oh, there are issues here, me being attracted to and idealizing what is essentially a class difference. But the issues are complicated, as I am also from a long line of working-class drunks. These drunks just don’t happen to be my parents. I’m just saying they weren’t POSING, as many early nineties twenty-somethings did, as (some) of the Morrissey clones did. And as I did, when I thought that as a college student I’d ever have a chance with one of them.) Their rock shows were attended by punks and old locals alike. They went NUTS on stage. I believe the genre is sometimes referred to as Psychobilly. It made perfect sense to me.

I had no chance with either of them, as they were both married or otherwise entangled, and, as I said above, they probably weren’t interested in English majors, even those wearing fifties dresses. I don’t think I’d really figured out yet that it wasn’t a costume. It was who they were.

I understood this much better with the next greasers I met (they would hate it if I knew I called them that, by the way) in Portsmouth NH. Also in school-bus related fields (they repaired them), the two J.s were probably kindest guys I’ve ever met. They preferred Johnny Cash to psychobilly, had beautiful cars and beautiful eyes. I met them at a particularly low period in my relationship with E. They were sitting with yet another J. at a bar I went to nearly every weekend while E. was working his third-shift job. I had seen one of the J.s around town and was very drawn to him, so I went to the table at sat down. He was the sweetest, most polite man I’d ever met. His pompadour was not greasy, and he gave the impression of being both large and small at the same time. He refused to let me pay for any of my drinks. He was quiet but very funny. He was from up North and had the reassuring accent of that area. So far, I had only met dads with that accent. I don’t even remember what we talked about, but I felt very appreciated after the months of abuse I’d been suffering under E. J. complimented my shirt, my eyes, and my laugh. He held bar doors and car doors (he had a sweet, sweet, sweet MG that he fixed up himself) open for me. He didn’t ask for my number. His friend, the other J., was smaller but equally sweet. He didn’t really talk to me because he had a girlfriend. I felt incredibly guilty.

This went on for several weekends. J. still had not asked for my number. It appeared that he was courting me in a kind of old fashioned way. I don’t think we ever touched each other on accident, even. He wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though—the guy could drink. I got the sense that he could really mess someone up, but that he would do anything in his power to protect his woman from this side of him. Sexist, yes; but I appreciated it. It was almost like I was experimenting with a traditionally gendered relationship, but with a person I was desperately attracted to, which normally wouldn’t have been the case in such a relationship. The girlfriend who usually went with me on these excursions told me I should break up with E. immediately; didn’t I see now that I could be with someone who was nice to me?

One night we went to the all-night restaurant where E. worked. I still hadn’t told either J. about him. I knew at some point this had to end, but I had hoped it wouldn’t be in the way it did. Of course E. saw me coming in with the J.s. Of course he made a big point of coming over and sitting down and pawing me all over. Of course J. gave me a confused look. And of course he got up and sat with another woman across the room, a younger woman I knew who wasn’t very nice. He made a show of hugging her and then leaning across the table to engage her in intimate conversation. “Is he mad?” I asked the other J.

“I don’t think he knew you had a boyfriend,” he said. He seemed confused too.

Ugh. I’m such a jerk.

I don’t think that J. and I really had too much in common. I think what we both liked was making another person feel happy, as stupid and simple as that sounds. We never got close enough to hurt each other. The more I was wooed by the opened car door, the more chairs that were pulled out for me, and like that. Around him, I became sweet and sort of helpless. That wouldn't have worked for too long.

I’m still drawn to greasers both real and fake, and I can usually tell which kind they are by merely looking. The fakes have modeled themselves on an idea, rather than simply living the idea. James Dean was a model for Morrissey and his retinue: be bad, look good while doing it. The real greasers don’t need this model. They live it because it was handed down to them. I don’t know if it’s anything to be proud of: static 1950s white male “rebellion.” I learned a lot from J. though—he was 100% true to himself. And he looked really, really good in his car. Just like JD.