Punk Rock Store

 

Dear Billy Buck,

            I’ve took your advice and since I was in the neighborhood, visiting my friend by Six Corners, or as you like referring it, Chicago’s light bulb. Why was that again? Because the majority of the stores go out of business within a year, so the neighborhood’s always changing, like light bulbs…something like that. Anyway, I got off the Montrose stop, off the Blue Line, took a left at Cicero and walked the seven blocks to Sunk Pork. When I first took a look at the place, the broken store window, painted black, the “S” in Sunk appearing to be held by one screw;  I was about to keep on walking. Though, I stopped and wondered about the door; it seemed to be bulletproof. When I looked closer at this “bulletproof” door there was dozens of bullet holes that penetrated through the heavy mental and covered the exterior. Any logical person with half-a-brain would have left by this discovery, but no, not me, my curiosity kept me there, longer than I should have, as you will find out later. I examined into the holes, noticing that quite the commotion was happening inside. At first it looked like dozens of grizzly bears mating with metallic stars. It sounded like it at least, since it was the punk rock store, I recognized the trouble punk music. The door knob even made me question the hygiene of the place, looking all dent and corroded, not weathered but putrefied by sticky hands and heavy mental rings. The closer I got to the door, the stronger the smell got. I lifted my sleeve over my hand and used the sleeve to open the door and: BOOM! A gust of that fowl stench hit me like a boomerang, flying back at me over and over with that smog toxin: old, old cheese, no, fermented diarrhea, or something between a New Jersey junkyard and the curly armpit hairs of a sweaty nomad. It got me gasping for air and I began coughing as I walked inside.

Everything took me by surprise: the walls were covered with a thick layer of punk concerts flyers, all neon colors, the floor piled with broken beer bottles, whiskey bottles, forgotten studs, pins, coke straws and hypodermic needles, some with more flesh on the end of the needle than the mass of the entire syringe. There were grunts, rants, grumbles, murmurs, riots, squawks, squeaks, cries, groans and I was pretty sure someone was puking in back. When you called this place the punk rock store, I didn’t expect this. All the merchandise was there: leather jackets, band t-shirts, hoodies, tight jeans and even had a section for studs. The people looked right, a bunch of mean looking m***********s bumping shoulders and arguing, making a sound of rotating gears and falling coins. I didn’t believe you when you told me that no one actually works there, that the store is just designed to be completely dysfunctional so that the punk kids can come in and just yell at each other out of irritation. A mean looking guy that appeared to be Johnny Rotten was asking the cashier by the door: “if they do holds.”

“Holds?” The cashier’s heavily pierced face crunched in as he spoke, animating his eyebrow and lip rings in a half- circular motion. “We don’t do holds.” The Johnny Rotten guy gave him a malevolent look, threw the leather jacket he was holding at the cashier, spat at the ground and walked out the door. “Drop dead,” the cashier said, looking at the zine he was pretending to read. His shirt had a picture of a school bus on fire with the sleeves cut off. I began investigating; walking over the garbage on the floor like it was wet snow, concentrating on not stepping on any sharp objects. I was getting mean stares from the people in the store, seeing me in clean clothes I guess, or it was maybe because I was wearing an oxford with a tie and would be actually able to take off my pants without the use of lubricant.[1] This one person really gave me a hostile stare. His face was covered with scars, some deeper than others, one beginning on his lip, cutting up across the nose and over the eye into his short bleached hair. I was able to feel his eyes burning into my skin and to tell the truth: I was a bit afraid. I could hear his nose breathing in, slicing the air like a turbine and letting steam out. It got louder and louder and all a sudden, I felt it on my neck, boiling my skin.

“Come with me.” I hear his voice behind me and it shook my bones. I turned around, staring at a human tooth necklace at my eye-level. He must have been seven feet tall if not ten. I look up slowly up to his bony, scarily face, trembling in my shoes and vibrating the garbage around my feet.

“Wha-wha-what?” I was praying for him to not respond and walk away.

“I said ‘come with me’. Do you UNDERSTAND?” I didn’t at all, but I didn’t want to argue with the man, I feared for my life. His pants were “acid washed”, held by red suspenders and the hem of his pants tucked into red boots, double laced, tied tight and a black bomber jacket with a small pin of someone kicking someone else in the face. When I looked closer the kicker in the pin really resembled the guy wearing it. S**t.

“You come with me,” and he grabs the back of my neck and almost drags me to the back of the store. We approach another heavy metal door like the one in front, but this one said EXIT, giving me no relieve. I was sure he was going to shank me in the back alley and that’ll be the end of me.  He takes out his palm, the other still on my neck and he pegs the door open with his arm straight out, palm flat. It eased me to see daylight; no murderer would kill their victims in broad daylight. He directs me down the alley and my neck began to really hurt from his strapping clamp grip. I felt the disks in my back separate from the force, each wide to the size of an Oreo.

We go down the alley, a block or so, as I was kicking and screaming. Ahead of us was a ruin down building, hiding behind a barbwire fence. He stops in front of it: “Go through the hole,” indicating to the hole in the fence. I resisted and attempted to flee, but he just clutched on my neck harder. “Go through the hole,” so I complied. He followed behind me and suddenly points to the door: “Go inside.” The condition of this door was worse the Sunk Pork entrance: rotten decaying wooden door, weathered and the paint was literally pealing and falling in front of me.

“What the f**k do you WANT WITH ME!” I was sure this was the end Billy.

“I want you to see something.”

“What?” he doesn’t answer and I give up. I was prepared for the worse. He reached down under a Welcome Home mat, flipped it over and revealed a rusty key. He unlocked one of what I counted to be seven locks and opens the door with a mechanic gear crank sound. I expected Dracula on the other side. He pulled me in and shut, locked and fastened the door with a moldy green two-by-four onto two hooks.

“I want to show you something.” I gulped and knew this was the end.

“Please, please don’t kill me! I did nothing to you. I don’t even know who you are!”

“I’m not going to kill you.” Unexpectedly he told me his name: Spencer. I concluded this must be his apartment. The condition of the place was worse than Sunk Pork. There was paint all over the walls, from small specks, to large smudges, along with newspaper clippings covering the floor. There was also dead plants on elevated stands, hideous paintings lining against the walls, and a sculpture of a unicorn in the far back which was the most tasteful piece in the whole apartment.

“If you’re not going to kill me, why did you bring me here?”

“Come, I’ll show you.” He directed me toward the back, as I maneuvered through what I just noticed to be rubble from the roof when I looked up to find a hole in the ceiling. So great I thought: I’ll die from asbestos. He points to a painting next to the unicorn. It was poorly done piece of a 14^th Century ship, like one Christopher Columbus used. There were eight or nine people onboard, each dressed like a member of The Village People, but it included additional members. “Look.” He points to the Village person at the very end that had oxford shirt and tie, just like one that I was wearing. “Look. Look! It’s you.”

“Yeah, cool, he’s wearing my outfit.”

“No. It’s you. You are on my ship. You belong on my ship, you belong in my painting!” He was yelling now, repeating: “you belong on my ship, you belong in my painting!” I was freaked out and told him to get away from me. “You belong on my ship, you belong in my painting!” He took the painting off the wall and shook it in front of me. I ran. I ran over all the s**t on the floor and I heard him running behind me. When I got to the door, I removed the two-by-four and as I felt him behind me I swung around it a full body twist and nailed him in the face! I didn’t even hesitate to watch him hit the ground. I immediately went to the knob, twisted, and pushed in: I was outside. I flew over the yard, dove in and out the hole in the fence and rolled into the alley. I jumped up and run all the way back to the train.

I’ll never take your advice again Billy.

            Your Victim,

 

           Alvah  Goldbook

 

Reviews

[Raef C. Boylan]

Hey, this was great. Something a little different.
Sometimes I just type a word into search and read every piece that comes up for it. Today, obviously, was 'punk'. Yours is the fifth piece and the best so far. I like that, although this is technically a story, you told it in letter format; it gives a sense of character straight off, and poses some interesting questions like who is Billy and why did he send his [supposed] friend to a place that Alvah clearly didn't enjoy - did he know Alvah would be freaked out? etc.
It's kind of like a dream, in that there are intriguing bits, nightmarish bits and very surreal bits.
Overall, I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for posting this.

p.s. is it a true story, as Alvah is you [or an alter-ego]?