pink punk

    In the first day of school this one girl really captured my attention: a pretty punk. Not a Lejeune punk, but a lovely anarchist, with short red hair, lip piercing and a dirty jean jacket with a bunch of band patches glued to it. We were the two oddballs everybody was talking about: the goth boy and the punk girl, both ridiculously introvert and shy. No one would talk to us and we wouldn’t say a word to each other, even though I noticed her desperate looks over the shoulder, and am pretty sure she noticed mine too.

   The classes were happening and it felt like the teachers were talking gibberish, because I lost all reason to focus on my “skin head girl”, dreaming of love for her liberal ways and an open relationship to last a week, full of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Wasn’t long ‘til I started writing about her to put my embarrassment onto paper, and to my surprise, she also pulled up a small and shabby notebook, and I never loved her more than in that moment when I saw her cheeks blushing while trying to write a note on a busy page. You know, we had something in common, and this is the first step to a relationship.

   Time passed slowly that morning, what only worsened my anxiety. All I wanted was to go home and delight myself in the image of the punk girl, fantasizing of the possibilities in my real life fantasy. But that had to wait, because instead I got the real deal.

   I’ve always thought being the last to leave the classroom was a sign of good luck, so I sat there waiting when the bell rang, and weirdly enough, she did too. It was an awkward moment were I didn’t knew if I should wait for her to get the hell out of there, or just run in despair; and we were like two warriors turned to stone, dying slowly of grief, confused about the situation. After a few minutes I thought to myself “fuck good luck”, grabbed my backpack and walked as fast as I could without looking back, but tripped on a crack and fell like a bag of sand, hurting my knee. The girl was right behind me and helped me get up, and about to say thanks, I looked into her eyes and felt like an Ann Major cowboy seeing the love of his life for the first time; gazing at those two black pearls, she was a succubus, ready to tear my body apart for pleasure. Those eyes were not human and I was hypnotized and vulnerable, but even though I saw a Great Old One in them, the rest of her face seemed just as scared as mine. With a trembling smile she broke the ice with a “hi”, to which I replied with a “morning”. “Want to walk?”, she asked after a few seconds. “Sure”. And off we went into the sunset, not saying a word, but enjoying every second.

   After a while of walking aimlessly we found a lone bench in front of a general store, and sat there to rest watching the cars go by. “Want some booze?”, she asked with pleading eyes. “Please”, I answered with a fading voice from lack of use. A half-empty 2L bottle of vodka was pulled from the messiest backpack I have ever seen. In one breath she swallowed a third of the liquid and handed it to me. Trying to show her I also was a tough nut, gulped down about the same amount, politely hiding a burp that came after, what made her giggle and show a nice collection of off-white teeth. For a minute we found ourselves again in a moment of tension exchanging glances, and once again she was the first to snap out of it. “Want to play a game?” Her voice already sounded a little slurred. “I know one called grab and run”. “Alright. What are the rules?” My body started to feel like jello and I could barely understand the rules she was trying to gesture. We entered the general store and she was smiling, her eyes blinking slowly, shushing me with a finger on my lips. After a good half a second of indecision in the boissons aisle, the choice was a cheap bottle of bad whisky that she took shuffling to the cashier. But instead of paying, she looked at me with a satanic smile and screamed: “RUN!” Useless to say the cashier was just as surprised as me, but when I realized what was going on, ran at the speed of light after her. We kept on running for almost a whole mile, laughing hysterically at the feeling of danger, imagining the cop cars chasing us with sirens, and ended up at a hidden alley in the middle of nowhere.

   Still laughing we sat there on the floor facing each other. Me, admiring how beautiful she looked at half-light, she, looking at me with her shiny black eyes that said nothing and everything at the same time. When she finally noticed I was looking at her, blushed and lowered her eyes, focusing on opening the bottle with a switchblade as fast as she could.

   The whisky was finished in under five minutes, even though it tasted like diesel; we both needed to get really drunk to do what we wanted to do. After a few laughs and a few touches, it was my time to blush when her eyes rested on me. My heart was going so hard I could feel the body vibrating with every beat; I could feel the blood flowing through my veins and going directly to my face, and I was drunk enough to not let that opportunity pass. In a quick move, I pulled her to me and kissed her with all my might. After the initial surprise she started to kiss me back, the alcohol making us do what we were not brave enough to do earlier, that is, until she pauses out of nowhere and barf straight into my throat. When that pungent smell hit my nose I instantly sobered up, pushed her and threw up all over her jacket. Twice. Covering her up with both of our vomits.

   I’m not sure of how this next part happened, but that scenario messed with her senses and she attacked me, embracing me with abnormal strength, kissing like a maniac, and after struggling for a few seconds, I gave up to it, ran my fingers through her short hair, closed my eyes and let her suck my soul dry. We persevered through the horrid taste of vomit and cheap alcohol, and left reason to the next person, loving each other like animals in heat. Unfortunately, the rest of the night I was too drunk to remember.

***

   The hangover was so strong I could not get out of bed, and it lasted for a few days. The punk girl didn’t show up for the rest of the week, nor the week after, nor the rest of month, or ever again. She vanished and I heard some people saying she quit school, but when I questioned on her whereabouts, nobody would tell me anything. That was a crazy night that turned my life upside down for years to come, but to this day I still ask myself if it wasn’t just a dream. All she left for me was the faint smell of jam inside my nose, and a strong scent of cheap men’s cologne that stuck to my sweater through five washes.

   And if you’re reading this, pink punk. Go fuck yourself.