The Jesus and Mary Chain: Darklands Visible

1. I Fall To Pieces.

If there’s anything worse than unrequited love don’t tell me about it, I don’t want to know. OK, so lots of things are worse, but love’s like a toothache: when you’re going through it there’s nothing half as painful. And when you finally build up the nerve and tell the woman how you feel, and she reports you to the supervisor, you might be excused for going off the deep end.

Or I might be. I did. Right off into the darkness on a Saturday afternoon alcohol binge in the Village. Scotch laced with bitterness and self-pity and self-loathing; walking in the middle of stalled traffic and banging my fist against the hoods of taxis; screaming in the street: “Somebody run over me, please, please.”

In a bar, shortly before I get thrown out, I repeat two lines mantralike. Hereto me: “We are friends, business friends. But if you think we’re ever going to be buddies and go out together... it’s never going to happen.” The supervisor: “You’re way out of line, Iman. Way out of line. This can never happen again.”