Punk Like Me

by JD Glass

  “Yeah, just gotta do the hair—wanna meet at your place or the station?” Kerry asked, referring to the train station that would take us to the boat, then on to freedom and adventure.

  “Um,” I breathed as I struggled with my “bondage” boot—so called because it had to be zipped, laced up, then buckled, seven times—“let’s meet at Universe, since it’s right there and you’re closer to the station

  • 53 •

  JD GLASS

  anyway. Sound good?” I got the last buckle in place.

  “No problema, you wanna get the 10:40 train?” she asked me.

  I could hear the hair dryer going in the background, and I envied her the fact that as an only child, she had her own phone in her own room, unlike me, who had to share the phone with everyone and my room with my younger sister.

  Yeah, I have one of those, too. My baby sister, Nancy, who we called Nanny (and I know, I know, we all have the same Þ rst initial—

  we all have the same middle one, too, but I’m not telling just yet), two years younger than Nicky and almost four years younger than I, shared a room with me. She, being the baby of our little bunch, had a saying:

  “You’re the culprit, I’m the victim,” whenever anything happened—

  anywhere—that any of us could get in trouble for. Come to think of it, Nanny said that a lot.

  It’s not that she was terrible or evil (well, maybe sometimes) or anything like that. It’s just that she was younger enough than me for us to not have too much in common until she hit high school. She was just starting to be cool, and I was just starting to relate to her, but she still had the reputation in our family of being a tattletale, and she thought I was “weird.” She hated all of my friends, and she was way too young to hang out with Nicky and me. Well, that’s all you need to know for now. Back to the phone call.

  “Yup, 10:40, be at Universe by 10:20?”

  “Uh-huh, see ya there, ’kay?”

  “Okay, then. Later,” and we hung up.

  I looked over at the clock on my dad’s nightstand—it was nine thirty—and I bolted for the bathroom. I still had to do my hair! No luck for me, though, the door was closed, so I did the obvious, I knocked.

  “Who is it?” Nanny sang out as sweetly as she could.

  “Nanny, you gonna be out of there soon? I’ve got to get in there and—” I stopped abruptly when I heard the toilet ß ush. I heard the water start to run in the sink as Nanny washed her hands, and I was getting later and later, so I knocked again.

  “C’mon, Nanny, hurry it up!” I said importantly. “I’ve got things to see and people to do!”

  There was silence for a moment. Nanny had turned off the water, and I could hear her rummaging through the cabinets. Suddenly the door opened and she shoved a hair dryer, gel, and hair spray into my surprised hands, then slammed the door shut again.

  • 54 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  “Go do your hair in Mommy’s room,” Nanny told me through the door. “You’re not the only one who has a life, you know. My Menudo club is coming over today.”

  I started to laugh and I couldn’t help it, I had to, just absolutely had to tease. “Menudo, oh, Ricky, Ricky, you’re so cuuuuute, I luu-uu-uuv youuuuu!” in the highest, drippiest falsetto I could manage.

  Menudo was a boy band created somewhere in Mexico, I think, and the members kept rotating—I think the rule was when the pubes come in, the boy goes out, and all these teeny little girls loved them and the stuff they sang. I thought they were all airheads, both the fans and the boys, and I knew for sure that if her club was coming over, I was glad I was going out. Nicky had stayed overnight at a friend’s house, so I knew he was clear, or he’d be coming out with me and Kerry, and for once, I didn’t want him along.

  “You’re such a jerk!” Nanny yelled at me from behind the door.

  “You think you’re so big just because your friends are weird and you all read stupid comic books and listen to weirdo radio stations with weirdo music no one ever heard of, and you talk about stupid things and watch stupid movies that don’t make any sense!” I stared in shock for a few seconds, caught between amusement and irritation.

  “Yeah, well, at least my friends know how to think for themselves,” I Þ nally shot back as I turned away from the door to stalk back to my parents’ room with my precious hair supplies.

  Something slammed against the door in the bathroom; Nanny must have thrown a brush. “Go do your hair upside down, weirdo!” I continued down the hallway; it would be undigniÞ ed of me to explain what I was actually doing. Besides, I had to get going! Kerry and I were going to CBGB’s, the mecca of all meccas for us, for the Þ rst time, well, for me anyway. This was going to be so cool…

  I had my hair done, got some money from my mom, and with a quick kiss to her and Dad, I made it to Universe and the train station in record time, where Kerry waited for me.

  We didn’t say much to each other waiting for the train or on it; a companionable silence reigned between us. We’d just grin at each other happily from time to time, but once we got on the boat, things started to change.

  We were sitting across from each other on the benches in the bottom level, and as the engines roared to life with a thrum that moved

  • 55 •

  JD GLASS

  through our bodies, I kept thinking about the day before and all the outrageous things we’d done and said. I began to feel a bit awkward. I mean, what if I’d gone too far, what if Kerry was thinking about it, too, and realizing that she didn’t want to hang out with a, well, I don’t know what. I frowned at Kerry’s plaid pant leg that she’d been repeatedly smoothing.

  Kerry stopped playing with her pant leg—I guess they were as smooth as they could get—looked up, and smiled at me. “Ya know, Hopey, I love you so much, I’d suffer a thousand paper cuts all over my body and roll myself in salt for you.”

  I smiled back, glad to be on familiar territory, happy to know that everything between us was still okay. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Yeah, well, I love you so much I’d suffer a thousand paper cuts, roll myself in salt, and dry myself with sandpaper,” I returned, and we just grinned at each other like idiots for a bit.

  “Ah, Hopey,” Kerry addressed me softly, leaning over from her side, “do you know what?” She hesitated while I waited for the rest of it. When she started to examine her Þ ngernails, which she’d painted alternately in bright neon yellow and bubble gum pink, I decided to help the conversation along with my brilliant discussion skills.

  “What, Maggie?” I lowered my voice to match hers and leaned to meet her halfway across the gap between us, so I could hear whatever she said next.

  She Þ ddled some more. “Do you…” She paused, as if to think about her next words. “Do you…” and she swallowed and stared down again. The silence grew until it felt like a heavy cloud between us—

  oppressive, dark, and frightening. The intensity was almost too much to bear, and I decided it was time to examine my hands and the red and black nails I’d painted the day before, while I wondered what sort of question was coming my way or if I’d survive this day.

  Kerry sat back and so did I. Her brow furrowed as she dug into her bag, but when she Þ nally Þ shed out her glasses and put them on, she looked relieved and happy, or at least happier. “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked me with a smirk.

  Huh? I was expecting something along the lines of, “Do you know what you’re saying?” or “Do you mean what you’re saying?” or “Okay, Nina, are you a dyke?” not this question, this loaded question that could be either about my street credibility as a punk or anything else.

  • 56 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  Kerry was smiling wickedly at me, and I narrowed my eyes at her a bit. Now, I’m naive sometimes, and I’m not as quick on the uptake as I should be for a self-confessed smart-ass, but as fucked-up and self-conscious as I can be, I can on occasion read between the lines,
and from the glasses Kerry hid behind, to the half-hidden smirk on those soft, full, lips, I knew I was being dared into something, and I had the feeling it was one of those you-tell-me-and-I’ll-tell-you sort of things.

  The problem I had, though, was what if it turned out to be an I-tell-you-and-you-tell-me-how-fucked-up-I-am sort of thing? That’s what I was afraid of, and no way was I going to fall for it.

  I eased myself back on my bench, then stretched my arms out on either side across it, slid down a bit, crossed my legs, and put on the coolest, toughest mask I had, the one that says, “Yeah, baby, I know it all,” to all and sundry who cared to look, and oh-so-casually inspected the nails of my left hand before I looked up at her, mask on, smirk in place, and with the full illusion of control.

  “You know I do,” I answered with a lift of my chin and a smirk of my own. “What about you?” I challenged. “Do you know where we’re going?” I held on to my expression for dear life and tossed that hot potato back. Her turn to kick or receive, baby, kick or receive.

  Kerry’s mouth twisted expressively, and she nodded her head in silent acknowledgment of the new game. She twisted on the bench, leaning her back against the wall and bringing her legs up in front of her, to face the window across from us and hugged her knees. She stared out at the passing bay, the deep throb of the boat engines the only sound around us.

  “Yeah, I know where we’re going,” she answered Þ nally, solemnly,

  “but you can lead if you want to. You know I’ll always follow.” She turned to consider my face, then went back to contemplating the water.

  Well well well, she’d gone for the kick and now it was my play.

  I contemplated the buckles on my boots for a minute. Seven on each one, and with a black rope lace underneath and a zipper below the whole thing. Beautiful black leather, and the buckles weren’t too shiny. They had a sort of dull gleam, more like pewter, and provided a great contrast. Done with the artistic inspection of my boot, I tried to respond.

  “Why don’t we just do what we always do, and go together? No one has to lead, no one has to follow, and we just, you know, get there?”

  • 57 •

  JD GLASS

  I suggested. I decided it was time to study the other boot while I waited for her response.

  Kerry chuckled lightly. “Yeah, we’ll just get there. Together, right?”

  I looked up at her with a slight grin. “Yeah…together.” A new tension developed between us as the eye contact lingered, but I was deÞ nitely not going to suffer another round if I could help it.

  There’d been enough of that for one day.

  “Hey, who do you think is playing today?” I asked, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, but who cared; it was taking us away from some very new and strange territory.

  Kerry gave a soft half laugh as we broke eye contact, and I think she was as relieved as I was—at least for the moment. “Would you believe it’s Dayglo Abortions, and I think they’re opening for Soldiers of Death?”

  “Dayglo Abortions? What time do Soldiers of Death go on? You think they’ll do ‘The Ballad of Jimi Hendrix’?” I asked excitedly, and together we started singing the opening riff, which is just like Hendrix’s

  “Purple Haze.” “Duh nah, duh nah, duh nah—He’s dead!” we shouted joyfully, and laughed.

  We spent the rest of the ride quoting and singing lyrics from our favorite songs, but for those of you who want to know, not a one of them was by Dayglo Abortions, since we’d never heard of them before, and by the time we got to Bowling Green Station and the train that would take us to the East Village, neither of us could hardly breathe from laughing so much.

  The fare paid, our tokens slid into the turnstiles, we went through, barely making it onto the cars that had just pulled up. We quickly found our seats, across from one another in the empty car, and settled in for the ride. Kerry stretched out on her side, and I did the same on mine.

  “Ya know, Hopey,” Kerry started, swinging her legs down off the seat to look at me with a smile, “I love you so much, I’d give up hair spray for you.”

  I was startled, but recovered quickly enough. “Yeah, well, I love you so much,” I paused for dramatic effect, “I’d drink it!” I grinned triumphantly. Actually, that wasn’t such a big deal, considering how much hair spray got accidentally swallowed during most applications,

  • 58 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  but still, it was gross.

  “You’d drink it, huh?” she asked. “Well, I love you so much I’d spray it in my face while I’m smoking!”

  “Nah, don’t do that,” I admonished, still smiling and swinging my legs down to the ß oor to face her. “You’d ruin your hair,” I joked. “And besides, I love you so much, I wouldn’t let you.” Kerry’s focus seemed to gather inward, and she looked down pensively. Ooh, too far, I thought, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

  It’s not that I really thought I’d said anything out of line. It was just, anyway, well, I don’t know. Too much, too far, and maybe, scarily, too real.

  She stared at the ground a while more and I examined my boots again. They really, truly were such a great pair of boots, maybe I should have gotten two pairs if I was going to wear them so often. I’d heard that this pop-star icon had, like, Þ ve pairs of the same boots for that reason, and if someone, like, that thought it was a good idea, then maybe it really was and—

  “Hey, Nina,” Kerry interrupted my important boot reverie, “the guys aren’t here. What’s our excuse today?” and she gave me her best wide-eyed and innocent look, which didn’t fool me at all, but did leave me in the position of having to come up with both an intelligent and nonincriminating answer.

  Great. Just great. I Þ gured at this point she had enough on me to say whatever she wanted to whomever she wanted, and there’d be more than a little truth to it, and then people would start to say shit and—fuck it.

  I was punk, I was cool, and I never did like bullshit, not then, not ever. I might have been crazy, or stupid, or brave, but I did my best to be as honest as I could despite the trampoline dancers in my gut with what I said and did next.

  Leaning back on the bench in my oh-so-casual manner, I stretched my legs and crossed those beautiful boots. Then I lit a cigarette (which, by the way, boyz ’n’ gurlz, was and still is illegal now on any and all forms of NYC public transportation, so don’t try it!) and dragged on it.

  Cool, calm, and totally collected, I looked up and arched an eyebrow in self-deprecating mockery at my best friend. “I’d say it’s a case of PLT.” I exhaled at her, and let my hand dangle along the orange plastic bench

  • 59 •

  JD GLASS

  backs. I let the smoke rise between us.

  “What the fuck is PLT?” Kerry asked with a cocked brow of her own.

  “C’mon, Kerry, you know, PLT—Pre-Lesbian Tension.” I took a drag on my cigarette and smirked like I knew all about it. Actually, I really did think I knew at least something, though not all, about it. I’d read a lot about “the gay thing” in some books, I watched PBS and stole my mom’s Cosmo magazines from time to time. That had to give me some handle on the psychology of this thing. Besides, one thing I knew and understood instinctively so far was where there was smoke, there was Þ re, one way or another.

  “I know you have to be covering this stuff in your health class, Kerry. For Chrissakes, you guys study birth control.” I continued to smoke while I watched Kerry’s reactions, now that I’d basically told her that I knew, really knew, what she, what I, what we were really doing here and that I, at least, wasn’t going to lie about it and, on the other hand, I was just so cool, I could dismiss this as just a “sophisticated conversation about normal teenage yearnings,” or some such shit.

  “Pre-Lesbian Tension,” Kerry practically muttered under her breath. “Give me a drag of that thing, will you?” and she reached across for my cigarette, which I handed to her. She dragged on it like it held the secret of immortalit
y, her eyes focused or, rather, unfocused, on some point midway between me and the ß oor. She twisted her mouth into a grim smile and exhaled smoke through gritted teeth.

  Hmm…PLT. I didn’t know where in my brain that had come from, but it seemed pretty accurate to me at that time. Now too, come to think of it.

  “I guess…I think I could do the uptown thing, ya know?” Huh? I changed the smirk on my face to a quizzical look. As far as I knew, we hadn’t changed plans to go up farther than Prince Street.

  Kerry looked back at me as if I’d just dropped my mind on the ß oor, then realized that I had misunderstood her. “No, doofus, no, not that,” and she rolled her eyes and stood up. “I mean, you know, uptown!” and she gestured to herself, from the shoulders up.

  Oh, okay, I got it, I could go with that, I understood. “Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, me too, I think,” I responded. I Þ gured it was fair, she admitted something, I would too. “Kissing’s, like, no big deal—people get accidentally kissed all the time, right?” I thought for a second, and,

  • 60 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  my mind having just translated from “bases”—you know, kissing is Þ rst base, bras and beyond second, that stuff—to city zones, I brought that to its next logical step.

  “Well, actually,” I reß ected, “I think maybe I could do the midtown thing, too,” and I gestured between my navel and shoulder blades. “I mean, I don’t know, but, like, it’s just, you know, skin, like an arm, right? So that wouldn’t be too big of a deal, right?”

  “Right!” she hurriedly agreed, “yeah, that would be so not a problem, because, well, everyone does it sort of anyway, ’cuz I mean, look at straws and stuff, and that’s just sort of a nip—um, anyway, every girl touches her own boobs every day”—and here she blushed crimson—“I mean, putting her bra on.”