Punkenville Chronicles: A Journey of Misfit Memories

I was born in a town called Punkenville on December 5, 1964.

At the time it had a population of about 4,000.

Today there are over 6,000 people living there.

Probably due to the fact that every d********g I went to high school with had like a gazillion and a half kids.

That’s just my theory.

It’s not scientific or anything.

I flunked science four times.

Now you know why it’s not scientific.

It was an OK kind of town, I guess.

Nothing special.

Had the usual amenities.

As for my family…

Let’s just say they were insane in their own special way.

Just like yours, right?

I’m not going to tell you anymore about my childhood.

Because one, I don’t want to.

And two, it really was no different from yours.

I had my first drink when I was thirteen [Peppermint Schnapps] and I got so sick they had to rush me to the hospital. I had 3 broken ribs from the CPR and my throat hurt from the tube they shoved down my nose and throat to pump my stomach.

I lost my virginity when I was fourteen. Her name was Aimee Moses [sorry for publishing your real name, Aimee] and the only thing I remember was her saying, “Did you put it in yet?”

Somehow I managed to graduate from high school.

I don’t know how.

Isn’t there something called social promotion?

The principal was probably like, “Just graduate the kid. I’m tired of his s**t. Let his parents deal with him. I got more important things to worry about.”

The day after I graduated the old man said he had a few things to discuss with me.

“Like what?” I said.

“Like your future,” the old man said.

You ever make your old man so mad that he looked like he was about to haul off and punch the s**t out of you?

Well, that’s exactly how my old man looked when I said to him, “My future can go f**k itself. I’m gonna live my life one day at a time and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my a*s goodbye.”

The old man never kissed anyone’s a*s.

Especially mine.

But at least he said goodbye as I was packing.

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned my old lady yet.

She died of ovarian cancer when I was four.

Even though I don’t remember her, I’ve seen pictures of her.

And she’s bald in a lot of those pictures.

That’s why I shaved my head.

To sort of honor her.

And I’m not going to say any more about her or else I’ll start crying.

And I’m in no mood to cry.

The day I moved out, I said to the old man, “This is the best damn day of my life.”

“Best damn day of my life, too,” the old man said.

That was the last time I saw him.

Three months later he died of an aortic aneurysm.

I was the only surviving family member.

The old man didn’t leave me anything because he didn’t have anything to leave.

The house was put on the market and sold.

I didn’t get a dime from it.

I guess all the money went to the lawyers and the state of Connecticut.

Whatever.

One thing I’ve learned about life.

Most of us don’t always get what we want. Or need. Or like. Or love. Or believe in.

Most of us are lucky to get anything at all.

I told you this wasn’t going to be much of a feel-good story, didn’t I?

After that I pretty much did what I do best.

Bummed around.

You know how it is.

Spent a lot of time at the library.

Reading mostly.

I’d never been much of a reader, but one day I was just wandering through the nonfiction section, somewhere in the 800s.

I closed my eyes and touched one of the books with my finger.

The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski.

I took it off the shelf and started to read one of the poems.

I forget which one.

The guy wrote like a million and a half poems.

But this one was like no other poem I’d ever read.

I ain’t even gonna lie.

Bukowski sounded a lot like me.

The way I talked.

The way I saw the world.

I could actually relate to a lot of the s**t he was writing about in those poems.

Lousy luck, s****y jobs, crazy women, fights, alcohol, cigarettes, and horse racing.

I really identified with the s**t about horse racing because it was about the only thing my old man and I had in common.

Every September he’d take me to the Great Barrington Fair to see the thoroughbreds’ race.

It wasn’t exactly Suffolk Downs or Rockingham, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun.

Especially for a twelve year old punk like me.

Only thing is, we didn’t know it at the time, but the joke was on us because all those races were fixed.

The last time we went the old man lost over a thousand bucks.

We stopped going after that.

From that point on it was off-track betting for the old man.

Now you know why he didn’t have anything to leave me in his will.

Over the next few months I read a few more books by Bukowski.

And the old boy never let me down.

He was like that grouchy old uncle who had everyone pissed off in the family at least once but somehow you were still glad he’d passed his genes down to you.

But there were other writers, too.

Better writers, I suppose, although when it comes to things like that I’m not much of a critic.

I read what I liked and that was always the determining factor.

Sam Shepard, Samuel Beckett, Richard Brautigan, Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger, Hunter S. Thompson.

I was particularly attracted to those dudes because they were bad-asses.

Now you may define “bad-a*s” however the hell you want to define it.

I define it as “I’m ‘onna write whatever the f**k I ’m ‘onna write and the rest a ya’ll can go f**k yourselves.”

Now you’re probably not going to find that particular definition in Merriam-Webster or Oxford or Cambridge or whatever your go-to dictionary is.

But you’re going to find that definition in my dicktionary.

Which has never been published.

Never will be published.

And there’s a reason for that.

The world just ain’t ready for my dicktionary.

Let’s just leave it at that.