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[ChrisLovesYou]

Chris had reached his limit. It was now the beginning of March, which meant he had been living in the big city for half a year.

The longer he stayed there, the more he felt like he was trapped inside a Velvet Underground lyric. Granted, heroin and similar weren't freely available in this country, but there was enough Korean liquor to make everybody he knew stupid. And although drag queens weren't common outside of television, he had seen a movie on the weekend where the lead actress was a tranny and he had found her uncomfortably sexy.

All in all, he was sure on some different plane of existance Lou Reed was sneering about him. Hey white boy, what you doin' uptown? Chasin' Asian schoolgirls around? 'I'm sorry, Lou,' he would say in his mind. 'It's not racist for me to be attracted to Asian schoolgirls here. They're the only girls I meet anymore.'

The only girls he met anymore were all pretty cruel to him anyway, he figured. One girl he'd taken out to expensive dinners whenever she asked, only to have her freak out when he moved to hold her hand. 'I have a boyfriend!' She had built him up just to put him down. What a clown.

At school he wasted away, surrounded by people who were frightened or fascinated by him, a man from another planet. He'd watch his friends get beaten over the head by asshole teachers who had more of a hard-on for power than anyone he'd ever seen back home. It was evident in the phallic table-leg his homeroom teacher carried around to enforce the rules.

His best friends were all space cadets. Two of them came from different countries, didn't speak any of the same languages but regularly balled eachother anyway. Whenever he was around they'd always be fighting, though, so he had no idea how their relationship worked. One was a sixteen year old girl who he loved like a sister though she had no sense. She told him she'd got drunk with two university students who took her to a motel and tried to double-team her until she punched one of them 'cause he was hurting her and then left. 'You realize you were almost raped, right?' he'd said. 'That's rape?' she replied. Then he wanted to run outside and punch somebody, too.

And all he could do was listen to the Velvets, because it was the only music that matched what he was living and the only thing that could help him keep all the messed-up stuff going on around him in perspective.

Nico was the first exchange student, eh? I mean, she comes from Germany and Andy Warhol is like, 'hey, Velvet Underground, she should be your singer.' And everyone else says, 'what the fuck?' They turn around and make my favourite rock and roll album.

And despite all the imputations, you know, I just go out and dance to their rock'n'roll station. And it was all right, hey baby, it was all right.

[mere1975]

Keep going.

- Mere "I like the way this story starts" 1975

[monet2u]

so how much longer are you there?