Patti Smith, My Mom and Me by Kevin M. Hibshman

It was 1978. I was fourteen and floundering in a small town , nowhere, USA. I spent most of my time shuffling between being bored sick at school and playing the proverbial black sheep at home. I was a rebel in thought only. It was still an innocent time. 

        The town had three shoe factories, one paper mill, a chocolate factory and a place that made leg-hold traps for catching animals before they were forced to stop making them. The 70's were awash in a lazy cloud of naivete. Conformity was law. No questions asked. No answers tolerated. 

        I had cultivated an early interest in pop music that supplanted my need for socializing. My mom played the small transistor radio she kept stashed on a cart in the kitchen. A cart with wheels that never moved. One morning my sister and I were goofing around being silly, pestering my mother as she prepared lunch when time halted for me because of a song.

        The song began inconspicuously enough with a pretty piano but when the voice broke in, my world shifted. Skull rockets fired. My neurons were sent skipping over a lake of fire. I'd never heard anything like that voice. It was pure sex, the dangerous kind. It was romantic yet threatening. I needed more. It was Patti Smith's brand new single “Because the Night” and it launched me on a lifetime of exploration. 

     I found the record and the photo on the sleeve, remember 45's? was as unusual and captivating as the tune nestled inside. A wild-looking woman with unkempt hair was cupping her breast in one hand.

It was all there; the power, the passion, the mystery. Needless to say, I spun that little 45 many many times, never getting enough of the thrill. This was a blinding love, one that ravishes as it strips away the many layers of pretense we wear as protection.

       I had to buy the album. The cover of the LP was another jolt. Patti looking tough and a bit ravaged was sporting under arm hair in the photo! Flipping it over, I gazed at the song titles: “Rock and Roll Nigger?!” Whoa...I knew some kind of portal was about to open in front of me. It was also going to open in the family living room where the only stereo was located. My mom hadn't yet commented on my new discovery. That would change rather abruptly.

        I got the album home, burning with anticipation and immediately put it on. This was raw rock and roll and this woman sang it like no one I'd heard before. I was aware of punk but hadn't delved into it just yet. Patti made my palms sweat, my glands secrete. She took my imagination hostage and I could not have been a more willing victim. Everything was going fine until we got to “Babelogue,” the spoken word piece that segues brilliantly into the aforementioned N-word song. My mom was in the kitchen, doing dishes and didn't catch Patti declaiming: “I haven't fucked much with past but I fucked plenty with the future.” I was relieved at first but the sensitive slang kept coming, not to mention the dicey religious metaphors. By the close of side one of “Easter,” Patti had run through a litany of words my mother would find offensive but still hadn't noticed. I, of course had lowered the volume considerably by then. Things were only heating up.

        I made it through the first side of the album but was not prepared for the opening salvo on side two. Patti ends the 60's cover tune “Privilege” by chanting “I'm so young, I'm so god damn young” and then the final few “god damns” she finishes the song with. My mom HEARD all of these and came into the room. I was caught! To my parent's credit, they never forbade me any music or literature I craved, even as they both became darker and more threatening to the mores they aspired to. After “Privilege” there were only a couple of “shits” and the album was over. Soon after, I received my own stereo and could close my bedroom door, crank the volume and let Patti cuss to her heart's delight. 

        Patti nearly got me in hot water again with my mom when I asked for her book: “Babel” for Christmas. All my mom would say was how she didn't care for the language and wasn't sure it was a good idea for me to procure the book. I'm sure she was shocked when she leafed through it at

the local mall. We didn't discuss Patti much after that but a new era had begun for me.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide. In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).