Now is the Time to Smile, Motherfuckers

Just not in a creepy way, alright?

It all started in 1991.

I’d just purchased the cassette single (Cassingle) of You Could Be Mine by Guns and Roses from this record shop called HMV in the high street in York.

And I was heading home in the damndest of moods. I could have fucked a hamster. I was so happy. I found a phone box, called my mate Chris and told him.

“We should get some women over,” he said.

I agreed. But who?

“There’s that skinny white ginger chick with the glasses. What’s her name again?” he said.

“Kirsty,” I told him. I only knew because, in our school mixed basketball competition, I had put my arm out to block her and instead grabbed her left tit in the most accurate way one could imagine. Since then, she’d always smiled at me. She had incredible teeth, especially for a British person. And I’d get a hard-on every time she looked at me, thinking about how soft her left tit was.

I called my cousin, who was Kirsty’s friend, got her number and called.

Contacting people was a real fuck around back then.

“Hi, Kirsty,” I said. “It’s Frank from school.”

“This is her mum,” said her mum. “What do you want?”

I didn’t expect that.

“Oh, I just bought the cassette single of You Could Be Mine by Guns n Roses,” I said. “I wanted to incite Kirsty to listen to it.”

I knew immediately I should have made something up. I was a compulsive liar in those days, too. It wouldn’t have been that hard. I just freaked out.

And I shouldn’t have used the word incite.

Her mum told me she was busy and immediately hung up the phone.

And I’d used my last 10p coin so I couldn’t call back.

Fuck it.

I headed home, disappointed about the lack of women but still pumped about getting to listen to the single from the new Schwarzeniver movie Terminator 2.

On the way back, there was this derro hippy fuck on the corner with dreadlocks and he was smiling in an extreme way—one of those ‘contagious’ smiles, as they call them.

In hindsight, I realised he may have been on something.

And he had this big sign in front of him which said, Free Hugs.

And I thought, fuck, this guy is smiling so hard. And I felt so ecstatic about getting to hear this new single that I might want to hug him.

Music does that to you when you are young.

As I moved into him, I said,

“Alright.”

And he smiled like he had this incredible wisdom—like he knew I had the cassingle in my pocket and was heading home to listen to it.

It was like he was a god, and I was just a young schnub, eager to learn his ways.

I reached in and hugged the guy and for a moment, the universe dropped away and I felt only pure love and connection.

Then I felt his hand cradle my fourteen-year-old bollocks, rub them once or twice, grab my dick and wank me off with two full strokes through my pants.

And as a fourteen-year-old, I got an instant stiffy. I mean, I may have had a stiffy already at the prospect of listening to the single. That’s how it goes when you are fourteen, or at least it did back then. Suppose the wind blew more than four mph, you would get a full stiff. If it reached six mph, you would blow your young load and need to change your underpants.

We got used to it.

Maybe it's not the same these days. I mean, we didn't have porn. We didn't have anything. We had to wank using our imaginations only—either that or spy on our sisters in the bath.

But, this was most unexpected.

“What the fuck, man,” I said and pulled away.

He looked at me with these fuck me eyes. And to be fair, they were nice eyes. I would have let it continue if they had been on Kirsty, the skinny white ginger. But they weren't.

I slapped the hippy hard across the face. And I immediately knew as a man, I should have punched him, not slapped. But it was too late. I couldn't follow up with a punch now. It wouldn’t make sense.

We looked at each other with that empty look, as if none of us could believe what had happened.

I couldn't believe he had grabbed my fourteen-year-old cock. And he couldn't believe I’d slapped him across the face. And sure, these days it would be all over the damn newspapers. Back then it was just tough fucking cheddar, Kid.

Deal with it.

It was like one of those moments during a hypnotist show where the hypnotist uses the traditional pattern break by giving you something you've never encountered before, so you slip into a trance as your subconscious mind enters learning mode and looks for any kind of phenomena to build a pattern for this damn new situation.

But the subconscious found nothing. It was unexplainable. A hippy offering free hugs had groped me.

I walked off and strolled home, and I wish I could say I just forgot about it, but I didn't.

I was in my teenage homophobic stage, and having no source of education, I wondered if I was now officially gay.

Eventually, I got home, and Chris was waiting for me. We smoked rolled cigarettes in my back garden, and I put the single on.

You Could Be Mine blared out down our street.

“This is fucking brilliant,” Chris shouted.

“It's alright,” I said.

The B-Side was Civil War:

I don't need your civil war.

It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.

You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store.

Ain't that fresh?

I’m not sure Axl knew much about civil war, to be honest, but it was a great song and I managed to enjoy it despite my new unwanted status as a fully-fledged homosexual.

I thought about the hippy’s smile and how genuine it was.

And I said to myself that I would always smile at people from then on as a sign that I was on their side , I was their ally, and that we’re in this crazy life together and I would always protect them rather than try and fondle their balls.

And now, here on planet S57689-E in the year 2024, I figure that, in these times of extreme cock waving behaviour in the world, now is the time to smile at people — at your Muslim, Jewish, Christian, black, white, grey, human, fish, cockless, well hung, outer flapped, inner flapped, big titted, small titted, medium titted, Buddhist, Hundu, shark loving, shark hating, gluten intolerant, gluten tolerant, vegan, carnivorous, rectus, anus, sheep shagging, Welsh, Irish Scottish, haggis eating, tightarsed, shaven, unshaven, wheelchair-bound athletes/non-athletes, prostitutes, vicars and youtube influencers — in order to let them know that you are on their side.

Fuck it.

I never thought any of that really. I never made any pact to always smile and all that crap. Most of what writers write is utter shite.

The best thing to do is, if anyone is offering free hugs, don’t fall for it unless ya fancy having your cock fondled, in which case, do it, and just pray hard that it's a drug-addled pervert on the other side. 

That's all I think.

Oh, and here's a quick message for your grandma:

Honestly, if you wanna use a vibrator on yourself, you should do it. Age is not a thing, and don’t listen to those fuckers who say that it's the devil’s activity. And no one will hear you in that retirement home. The walls are thick enough, plus they’ll just think it's some kind of hallucinogenic buzz caused by the blood pressure medication interacting with the barbecued prostate meds. Go for it, Granny.

Pass it on, would ya?

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