It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 44: Chapter I (Cont'd)

Coarse, Offensive, and Racial Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

Edward Towne was not an intrepid fellow. He never worked for his dreams, never sought them out. They always found him. 'It's borin',' he complained to Colin, but when Colin put his foot down, Ed capitulated. Rather, he bided. It was a product of his growth. The older he got, the less he desired to argue, let alone openly fight. He wasn't a pushover, make no mistake, but a matureness had come with puberty. Pragmatism at its finest. 'Just wait,' summed up his philosophy as did Father Charles' long ago advice:

'Keep the faith!'

He was unique. Maturity had not wrought startling change in any of the (no longer) Tiny Teamsters. It only magnified what was already present. Except with Ed. He was the outlier through and through. Still the 'good boy', but more aloof now. He held his opinions in high regard, and did not care to engage with lesser ones. He looked around the world with disdainful jadedness. Alan couldn't understand what had brought this change about. He didn't mind that his friend was this way, but the suddenness of it, the sheer, visible magnitude of the change, confused him. Ed, as a boy, always trusted in his world, in what remained of his family, always in the Red Sox, but now walked through life with suspicion and contempt, as if expecting betrayal to befall him any second, as if his only defense to the cruelty of life was in being superior. The only person to remain in his confidence was Alan, and Alan was desperate to keep it that way.

Understand this! Edward Towne was an only child, and aloofness for an only child is not uncommon, and neither is the lacking need to be with people. Companionship for an only child is like change to a wide populous. It is the idyllic frontier, easily sacrificed once attainable. All only children dream of a 'Bud' for themselves, and yet all only children, by virtue of being the only one, are quite comfortable in the silence of solitude. The closer someone becomes to an only child, the more they strive to break through that reserved deportment, the easier it becomes to take them for granted. It's not criticism of only children, and they do not mean to be cruel, but it is how the world makes them. There wasn't a lot of convincing need once Colin was gone for Ed to bring Alan into the fold.

'Let's try the new stuff,' he said.

'I dunno.'

'What's the harm?' Ed pressed. He'd been pushing for weeks, a constant bug in Alan's ear. 'You're not scared of your grandfather, are you?'

How easy it is to play to a person's ego. How detrimental is vanity!

'Fuck off. I don't give a shit what he thinks.'

'So let's do it?'

'Yeah...fuck it!'

That Saturday they broke with the regular program. The parishioners were curious to begin with. The music that Ed composed and Alan vocally refined was all contemporary. It wasn't the best they'd ever do, but for teenagers it had potential. Intense, passionate, abraded, with a conscious of some sort muddled in there. A product of their time.

The landscape of music was changing, you only needed to turn on the radio to realize this. The folk era was dead. Doo-wop and pompadours were buried. Elvis was fat. Motown was tacky. The crooners were strung-out. This was the era of experimentation, of dissidence and psychedelic fuckery. The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie thundered from every record player. It was music without schlock, not meant to save and educate and romanticize, but to give you the excuse to release all that was bottled up. To feel all until you went numb. These were the new Voices of the West crying out for an androgynous future that need not make sense or surrender to decorum and propriety. It was not music, but sound that would not be contained in O'Toole's, and could not be confined to the cramped blocks of St. Gregory's. It tore out of the boys, scalding all in its path, and shone a light on future for Edward Towne where he need not cave to whims of anyone but himself.