I’m now going to tell you a story that my dad brings up at all family get-togethers. It involves the two pillars of teenage rites of passage: underage boozing and trying to impress girls. The story goes like this: I had been invited with my mates to a party at someone’s house whose parents were away. I knew it was in a posh area so I thought I would upgrade my poison to show my class: I took a bottle of red wine. Which I drank from the bottle. I also thought the girls would be impressed if I drank it really quick. This I did and I was pretty sure I was the very life and soul of the party. Then it all started to get a bit fuzzy. The sweating started first, and then the room started to spin. I ran, knocking over things on sideboards, to the toilet. The night was not going as I had hoped but worse was yet to come. My friends saw my rapidly deteriorating state and called my dad to come and get me.
They carried me to the comfort of the kerb outside, which is where my dad found me when he pulled up in his brand new car. A Ford Escort he was so proud of. The first brand new family car we’d ever had. He never even uttered an angry word as I was gingerly put in the front seat and my two giggling mates got in the back. We set off. This is where the really bad thing happened.
The motion was not good for me. I began retching. ‘Wind the window down if you’re going to be sick,’ my dad urged. My motor skills weren’t up to that and I threw up all over the dashboard, gear stick, even my dad. My mates in the back couldn’t hide their laughter. My dad was now beginning to retch but still managed to drive the incredible exploding son home. He had his jacket pulled over his mouth in an attempt to escape the dreadful smell next to him. In his brand new car. My memory is hazy as to the events that followed. What I do clearly remember is waking up the next day.
First thing I felt was my throat. It was on fire. My nose was blocked. But that was nothing to what came next. Into my consciousness in a drip-drip manner came the memory of what had happened last night. In my dad’s brand new car. Holy shit. I then realised there was a very strong smell of disinfectant in the house. Some late-night cleaning had happened. I didn’t want to leave my bedroom.
I hobbled downstairs to see my mum. She said nothing – just nodded in the direction of my old man reading his Sunday paper. Could this be any worse? I told my dad how very sorry I was and made the promise I am still making 20 years later – that I would never get in a state like that ever again. He summoned up his dad wisdom and said quietly, ‘Bollocks.’
I was stunned. ‘Sorry?’ I said.
He then explained that of course I would do something like that again, and asked what had happened. I told him about the red wine and the rapid drinking method of seduction. He said, and I remember it to this day, ‘Son, you will do many more stupid things to get your dick wet.’ I had never heard that expression before and still haven’t to this day. But his words were so true.
My mum and my sister were not so understanding. For the next few weeks no one could sit in the front passenger seat because of the stench of chunder. The seat was permanently stained in a V-shape where my legs had been. Weeks later little bits of dried pasta could still be found.
I said earlier there were two ways of getting booze. The other way was pubs. For some reason, we always went into pubs in groups of about 30. It was strength in numbers, I think; the theory being that it would take too long to check our entire group’s fake ID. In my local pubs, checking our age extended to ‘You old enough to be drinking in here?’ A chorus of various pitched ‘Yeahs’ would mean lagers all round. We were now men. Drinking with other men. But with poor facial hair.
VIRGINITY
To men, young men, virginity is something you want to get rid of ASAP. To young ladies it’s something to cherish. The frigid ones, anyway.
I’m not going to say too much about the losing of my cherry as gentlemen never tell. That and the fact I was very bad. All I can say was that it was on an overseas holiday with my family. I took off my espadrilles a boy and put them on again a man. The whole encounter lasted no more than a few minutes. And that included the taxi back to hers.
At school there were so many rumours and myths surrounding sex. For a while I was seriously led to believe that if you had sex with someone and you were wearing a Swatch watch (remember those?) then they wouldn’t get pregnant. This may be why I have two small children.
THE END OF FIRST LOVE
Underage drinking, losing your cherry, getting and spending your first pay cheque. You think these mark you as a man. They don’t. Having your heart broken for the first time does.
I remember when I was first properly dumped. 1986. Man, it hurt. Mainly the pain from trying to break the vinyl single of ‘our song’. You cannot simply snap vinyl. You have to bend it several ways. It takes ages. Which lessens the thing, really.
My mind was tormented. When would I ever be able to see and touch a pair of breasts again? So many happy memories of me staring at the very things Steven Williams had shown me in that magazine that time. Makepeace had a pair of these too. Now I was girlfriend-less but more importantly boobless. Time to play really depressing music over and over again until my mum told me to get outside in the sun and open my curtains.
I needed to heal my aching heart. My parents needed me to stop moping. It was decided I should join a club or society. My mum had heard from a friend with a very serious and polite son that he was enjoying the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. So I was made to go along. Stop laughing. We are the people who are first on the scene of major disasters at fêtes with some weak lemon barley squash. I once saved a man’s life – he had severed an arm at a banger racing meet – with weak lemon barley squash.
Every Friday evening in a damp and smelly church hall, I and some other teenage boys would meet up and practise first aid. The best bit was French-kissing Annie. That’s Anatomic Annie, the rubber doll we were supposed to be honing our resuscitation skills on. The next girl I kissed benefited from the time I spent perfecting my snogging. I pinched her nose and blew into her mouth.
There were also girls in St John’s Ambulance Brigade and we would get to see them at the various public events we attended. I was something of a rebel among my fellow Johners by wearing Stay Press jeans as part of my uniform. This was not standard issue, I need you to know. This Fonze-like coolness was countered by being forced to wear a beret. I looked like Frank Spencer. However, at one memorable school fête, during a lull in field casualties being brought in from the coconut shy, I somehow managed to start getting off with a girl. In the back of the ambulance.
With her grey uniform, black tights and all that triangle bandage play, it was too much for me. I casually removed my beret, took off my white handbag that contained my first aid kit (bandage, safety pin, lemon barley squash and some Chewits – the Chewits were for me, gotta chew something while saving lives) and the ambulance was soon rocking. We were discovered and I was asked to leave the brigade. I was made up. It was the first time I’d had my hand up a girl’s skirt. The Stay Presses had worked a treat.
Over the next few decades, various rites of passage would happen to us. Moving in with someone. Them moving virtually all your stuff into the nearest bin to allow more space for all their stuff. Owning your first home. Having your first mental breakdown trying to buy that first home. Attempting your first flat-pack. Surprising yourself with the number of swear words you know while building that flat-pack.
Whatever the rites of passage, men are tested – and when that testing comes you can bet we will rise to the occasion. And do something odd. The boy in the Stay Presses is now the man who still carries a small quantity of weak lemon barley squash just in case.