Lou Reed
Perfect Day

"Dear friend of mine, bitterness is beautiful, because without the bitter, the sweet isn’t so sweet."

He turns on the stereo: Lou Reed's voice wriggles in, sliding over words that seem sweet but have a dire outcome.

"Just a perfect day..."

"Here, take this pipe," he tells me.

I bring the cigarette to my lips. I light it.

The ritual begins.

"...drink Sangria in the park..."

Lou Reed's voice continues to mark happy moments with his proverbial layer of existential bitterness.

And for us, for our merry band of goofballs raised on Trainspotting, his perfect day can only be an anthem.

A song... or rather THE BITTER song par excellence. And when the few notes of the double bass serve as glue between the tragic advance of the voice, always suspended between joy and resignation, and the piano weaving its melancholic tapestries, one can only remain in reverent silence.

Even better if this silence is accompanied by the smoke of a cigarette.

"...and then later..."

Around us, there's little to nothing. A dimly lit fountain covered in writings that perfectly depict the many burned-out adolescences marked by nights full of alcohol and drugs. In short, we were in the ideal meeting place for all the teenagers of the area. A place that at sixteen inevitably symbolizes your personal idea of discovery/joy/sin/redemption. And when you're older, it becomes the lair of nostalgia. A perfect place to perform the ritual.

"...when it gets dark, we go home..."

Around me are the companions of misfortune, ferried by Lou Reed into the depths of resignation, worthy of crossing the Acheron with me; they've all paid the fee in their own way.

"Just a perfect day..."

After all, we were quite a diverse group. Just like in the movies. We had nothing to envy Spud, Renton, and the rest of the company.

I mean, they had nothing to envy us. After all, they were our heroes.

"...feed animals in the zoo..."

Memories of that place resurface in the silence. Once, it wasn't like this. The fat guy I had next to me while we carried out the ritual was always there.

But he was present in a different way. And this square wasn't so dark. It was colorful. Full of people: boys, girls, friends, enemies, but above all hopes.

"Then later a movie too..."

And now, it's just us. Five years later. The survivors. The leftovers of the great repression.

The slackers. Those who at twenty are too stupid to abandon their adolescence and look ahead. And those who know they have to but are too cowardly to take on their responsibilities. At least for now.

Or perhaps they're too proud to accept defeat. The time for possibilities is about to end. The refrain approaches, and hopes and good intentions dissolve.

"...a movie too, and then home"

It's really true. Today, at twenty, we're just old without experience.

"Oh, it's such a perfect day"

The refrain starts. The aura of sacredness that the ritual had assumed up to that point breaks into a rather profane karaoke.

We all start singing our anthem, which, if not for our generation, is at least fitting for a bunch of losers like us.

Sure, that evening we could have done something to change things. But we preferred to depress ourselves thinking of a sunny past in a grayish present.

"I'm glad I spent it with you"

I, for example, thought about the day I met her. A cold January day. The wind was blowing, but the sky was clear: not a cloud in sight.

I thought about her frizzy red hair. And her blue eyes. It feels like a century ago. We were so different. The place was the same.

This small square, with this old stained fountain. It was different.

No.

We were different: we were sixteen years old.

At that time, Perfect Day played pedantically in my media player. Before broken dreams, before Lou Reed's words became more of a burden than a relief.

Before you left this place for good, not abandoning this fountain but your adolescence. Before I abandoned the projects, the dreams, the hopes that you can only have when you have enough time to think big. Before settling for a medium-low salary and the good memories you have up to that moment because you know, if things go well, that's what you'll have left.

"You're going to reap just what you sow"

Tired and visibly annoyed, I throw away the cigarette butt. I puff a bit. The ritual is now over. It starts to rain.

I get into the car. I take Transformer out of the stereo. I put it back in its case. Lou Reed's big face gazes at me with an indifferent and at the same time annoying look.

"So, how's it going?"

"It's a big mess," I say

"...but after all, it goes on," I add.

"What do you think you'll do?" he addresses me, guitar in hand with that smug air of his.

"Nothing, what should I do? I take it with philosophy," I reply, quite annoyed.

"And why is that?"

"My friend, I'll reveal a secret to facing life: enjoy even the bitter."

"Because, deep down, without the bitter, the sweet isn’t so sweet."

Without giving him time to respond, I slot the CD into the car's compartment and shut it forcefully.

Visibly shaken, I light a cigarette and drive away.