The Life and Times of Amy Smith…

For most of the first year that I lived in Calgary, I would walk to work down 8th street almost everyday. As we have seen, I tend to find my own amusements along such routes. One day I noticed some graffiti on the wall of an underpass that read, "Amy Smith is a Slut!" … "Good to know," I thought. A few days later, I noticed a bus-stop bench that elaborated slightly, "Amy Smith is a fucking slut." Now I was intrigued. I started searching out such vicious libel against Miss Smith. I certainly didn’t have to look very hard. The stuff was everywhere, bus-stops, subways, garbage cans, lamp-posts… I even saw stickers. "Amy Smith has herpes," (who doesn’t?) but also, "Amy Smith has Genital Herpes," which was helpfully specific. I also enjoyed "Amy Smith is a filthy whore," because it sounded like something I would say, "whore" being one of my favourite expressive words. I also saw, "Amy Smith is an infected bitch," which made me think there was some vindictive stuff going on. And my personal favourite, "Amy Smith has genital warts in her mouth," which, beyond being physiologically suspect, seemed to express a deep-seated hatred.

I began to develop an intense curiosity. Who was Amy Smith? What had she done, or more probably, not done, to incur such wrath. What was her story. My instincts told me that she was the victim of a vicious urban smear campaign. And speaking of smears, I really doubted that she was haphazardly spreading sexually transmitted diseases around western Canada. I became obsessed. I sought out graffiti. Like an archaeologist I tried to sift back through the strata of spray-can hatred. At one point, I thought I had found the source. I came upon the words "I love Amy Smith" that were later crossed out and changed to "I hate Amy Smith," with the now popular moniker "slut" scrawled across the bottom. Ah-Ha! I thought. Here is the source: heartbreak and a tortured soul who had somehow contracted all his friends to denigrate Ms. Smith all over town. Eventually, I even found more vicious examples. Outside a hair-salon were the words, "Amy Smith, who works here, is a fucking slut." Now that was too much. The slight veil of anonymity had been shattered. I felt bad for Amy Smith.

And apparently, I wasn’t the only one. One day I noticed a new graffiti tag on a park bench: "I Support Amy Smith." Vive la Resistance! The people had spoken. My heart leapt up in joy for the cause of this poor woman. I spotted more and more supportive graffiti. But still, I remained curious about the story behind all of this. Over the course of the year though, new graffiti stopped appearing, so perhaps I’ll never know.

But Ms. Smith, wherever you are, I’m with you.

God, that would suck if she actually is a slut.