Panic, at The Roxy, 2008
The FROG Princess
In the morning I say to her…
“I have an old memory of walking up to this girl in a club and asking if I can bum a fag, actually using those words and feeling like a twat as I do so. She managed to roll her eyes without moving an inch, these first words to her doing a whole world of good if the impression I’m trying to leave is that I’m tongue tied and juvenile. Error! It’s hot, I start to sweat and realise I’m a fucking idiot, and she still hasn’t answered because it’s such a banal thing to ask, I have no idea where to look and this instant lasts forever even all this time later. And she says “sure” and I’m pretty confident that she can smell my relief, but now I’m too nervous to comment on her accent (“Oh, where’s that from? Really?! I hear it’s gorgeous there, but I haven’t made it yet, just as far as Boston. Of course I’d love to come and visit with you once we’ve had children…”) or even to make the smallest of talk but ohfuckI’mstaringathertits! But she didn’t notice, so I got away with that one. She fishes for her cigarette packet and I try to ask her about the music, because I can be witty and win her, but she doesn’t hear me over the bassline and instead we end up bumping heads, and not even in a romantic way. It was clear to me in that moment that I would never, ever have sex again. It goes downhill from there, if you can believe it, because she hands me a packet of Rizla, and it’s not just that I can’t roll them but I barely even smoke. She takes a drag on her roll-up and stares at me floundering, some human sacrifice to this goddess of Americana cool manifesting in London, and she almost smiles. I’m thinking ‘whose fucking idea was this anyway?’ and next to the great scorecard of my life I hear someone writing F. A. I. L. in chalk. “Boys Don’t Cry” becomes “Once In A Lifetime” and she just walks away. She was bored of me, trapped within every indie-boy’s worst nightmare.”
…and my girlfriend just laughs.
© Matthew Sheret, 2008
