Content solitude can sometimes make people hard

By Caitlin Ward

Reach You
By Michael Bernard Fitzgerald

Once I met a girl, at the supermarket
She said that she worked, worked so hard and
bagging groceries and fresh produce
I turned to her and said, “how can I help you?”

”I work my 9 to 5 and get paid, nothing new
I work too hard to be rescued by you.”
I said “baby, I mean lady pardon me miss
You can’t miss the mark if you’re not afraid to hit”

CHORUS

I am trying to reach you baby, I’m trying to reach you, yeah
I am trying to reach you baby, I hope you understand
That I’m gonna be your man

Like the child I am, wanna be your friend
Wanna hold you tight, hold you through the night
Look inside to see, look inside of me
I hold you. Can I hold you? Uh

But you’re not here to stay, forced to be a slave
Hid out from my hand, here to be your man
Let yourself go, let yourself go, let yourself go, let yourself go

CHORUS

This is my hand, this is my heart, and our full sky
It could be great if you only try
The good addition inhibition trust your heart
And if I hurt you, make a mark

This is my hand this is my heart and our full sky
It could be great if you only tried

I am trying to reach you baby, I’m trying to reach you yeah
I am trying to reach you baby, I hope you understand

I am trying to reach you baby, I am trying to reach you yeah
I am trying to reach you baby, I hope you understand
That I’m gonna be your grocery cart man
Your man, Your man, Your man.
I’m gonna be your man.

I worked at the meat counter of an Extra Foods one summer. I was up at six in the morning, walked to work amidst the joggers as the sun was just finished rising. I’d cart mounds of dead flesh around the store, sling 60-pound boxes of chickens through the chute that went down to the basement. I could name every cut of meat on a cow and tell you which ones were kosher. I could gut a salmon in four minutes. I knew intimately that T-Bone steaks smell almost sweet when they’re raw, and I could pinpoint almost to the hour when a piece of chicken was going to go off.
I walked home in the midday sun, feet aching, white shirt caked in dried, diluted blood. I’d submerge that oversized men’s dress shirt in bleach when I got home and hang it up to dry. From there, I’d go to my other job, and walk home at 10 o’clock at night. The next morning I’d put the shirt on again, starched from bleach and water, and I’d start over.

So I know how the woman in Michael Bernard Fitzgerald’s song Reach You feels when she says, “I work too hard to be rescued by you.” In fact, had she been me, she may well have been less polite. But then, had she been me, she would’ve been caked in dried blood, so it’s very likely MBF wouldn’t have had any designs on her. It’s slightly off-putting to smell like recently killed cow.

There’s this moment, and I think it comes at least once in everyone’s life, when you feel completely alone. It’s not that you’re in despair or even lonely, but you’ve carved out this space for yourself, and it’s full the way it is. You work hard, you’re young and on minimum wage, and even though it’s 12 hours a day, there’s always only $12 in your bank account. But it’s yours. The idea of some sensitive guitar-playing fellow coming in off the street and declaring he’ll be your man is enough to make you want to hit something. Probably him. With his guitar.

There’s a certain verity of emotion in not wanting to be saved. After all, no person can save any one of us — at least, not in the way this girl presumes the narrator means it. When you’re keeping your head above water just fine, there seems an innate arrogance in someone who doesn’t know you coming in and telling you what to do. Especially if what he’s telling you to do is to love him. You have 240 more pounds of chicken to carry downstairs, thank you very much. You have no time for this “love” business.

But those hackles rising on the back of her neck and mine — they’re about what we heard, not what the narrator said. There is a presumptuousness in declaring he’ll be her man, but the song’s lyrics imply a humility that belies (or at least tempers) that presumptuousness. He understands the over-simplicity of his declaration (“like the child I am / Wanna be your friend”), and at the song’s end, the chorus shifts from “I’m gonna be your man” to “I’m gonna be your grocery cart man.” A small distinction, but a significant one nevertheless. Despite heady declarations that might imply otherwise, the narrator isn’t looking to change her life; he wants to be a part of it. And those are two very different things.

Not to say, of course, that she needs to acquiesce to his passionate, rather drum-laden request. But the thing about being in that moment — that moment of mostly content solitude — is that it makes you hard. It doesn’t have to make you bitter or cynical, which I think would be the obvious avenue to explore here, but the resilience and the independence it breeds makes it difficult for anyone else to get in. You can’t let anything into your life unless you’re willing to make room for it. And perhaps some of us don’t want to make the room, but I do think we often let the vagaries of life take those decisions from us, instead of bothering to think about it for ourselves.

Ward is a freelance writer and aspiring documentary filmmaker based in Saskatoon. You can find her short bursts of insight and frustration at http://www.twitter.com/newsetofstrings