The Ned Wood Archive

Just Remember, There are Two Sides to Every Story

I wrote that last chapter as sort of a tribute to Mary.  I guess I kind of thought that maybe if she ever read my book, she’d think, finally young Ned has learnt something.  I guess, even after all of these years, I still want to impress her. This whole book is a tribute to Mary,

Funny when I think back.  She’d be spouting off about politics and I’d be spouting off about music.  And we’d both know we were right.  But did Sonia or Jo or Helen feel as inspired by my Velvets pitch as I did by Mary’s lectures?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Actually, I told her something like the first half, the bit about the football, soon after.  I was really going to show her.  I told her how I thought it was dreadful what they’d done to that guy and how it was such an insult to the memory of the Brazilian World Cup winners, and it made me mad being a football fan, and so on.

And she looked at me with that gentle, half sorry, half mocking smile and said, Oh you silly boy, it was a little indoor stadium that holds about three thousand and stages boxing matches.  That’s where they butchered Victor Jara.

And I said, Oh, that’s OK then.  No, I really said that.  I think I thought something along the lines of if it was only three thousand and not fifty three thousand or whatever in the stadium, then it wasn’t as bad.  But it came out as who gives a shit about Victor Jara, as long as the football ground is OK.

Man, I hate boxing.

But Mary was in one of her forgiving moods.  I mean it must have been pretty obvious I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.  Obviously, I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the carnage.  She said, actually they put folk in both the boxing stadium and the football stadium.  And even then, they probably didn’t have enough room for every one they wanted to lock up and murder.