Part One: Entry #9
(Los Angeles/Orange County Circa 1980)
I turn the Cutlass left off Knott onto Wardlow towards Long Beach. Ryan and Jenkins sit in the back taking deep hits off a makeshift bong. The thing’s got some kind of gas-mask apparatus you strap to your face. Robbie Blount, in the passenger seat sticks a GBH tape in the stereo. When the music starts he turns it up a bit. Then he opens the glove compartment and engages the 120-watt graphic equalizer. We’re inundated by a wall of British hardcore the lead singer Colin snarling:
“Dude,” Jenkins turns to Ryan, “you can hear his fingers movin’ on the strings.”
We arrive where Nina Bultanski lives with her mother on Karen Street near vast Eldorado Park. I pull into the driveway and cut the engine.
Jack Grisham’s new band, Cathedral of Tears, is into their set playing on the patio next to the house. I take a seat on the couch in the living room. I can see the band through a picture window. Cracking a beer I take a look around for any girls worth talking to. Ryan and Jenkins go with Nina into her mother’s room to do some coke. Tracy Randall and Leann Kotten are on the other end of the couch. They’re enraptured in a Klaus Kinski film, Nosferatu.
“He’s so fucking cool,” Tracy goes on about Kinski. “No wonder Natasha’s so hot.”
“Yeah,” Leann joins in, “I’d totally suck him off.”
“Ooh yeah,” Tracy responds. “I’d ride his cock, cream all over it. Even though he’s like, fifty or somethin’.”
The band takes a break and I step out into the semi-darkness of the patio. By this time there’s at least a hundred and fifty or more people outside. Parked in the middle of Karen Street are a couple Long Beach Police Department patrol cars. I walk back under a morning glory covered lattice. In the far left corner of the yard Erica Nielsen stands next to Nancy. Erica’s eyes meet mine, she instantly dashes over to me. Slips a hand up under my t-shirt rubbing my chest.
“I hoped I’d see you here,” she whispers huskily me.
“This party’s gonna be broken up soon. What’re you girl’s gonna d—,” I’m grabbed from behind instantly cut off.
“What the fuck!” I yell.
“You threw that beer bottle!” a police officer bends me over the trunk of a Chevrolet Nova police cruiser. “Now let’s see if you’re goin’ to juvie or downtown.”
He pulls my wallet from my back pocket and takes out my I.D.
“No fuckin way I threw a bottle...! I was standin’ there talkin’ ta that girl!”
“Yeah...!?” he’s staring intensely at my license. “What the fuck...?! This a fake...!? Because if you really are 21..., I just might be a prick..., and advise that you’re prosecuted for supplying alcohol to minors.”
“I didn’t give any alcohol to any minors.”
“How old is that girl back there...?! Fifteen?!”
“No...! She’s fuckin’ seventeen.”
“So...?! Still a minor...! Jailbait...!” He keeps examining my driver’s license like he’s trying to decipher if it’s counterfeit or not. “What are you doin’ at a party with all these kids anyway?!”
“She’ll be eighteen soon enough,” I mutter.
“You fuckin’ mouthin’ off to me?!”
I don’t bother answering then the officer handcuffs me and puts me in the backseat.
To view previous entries please click on #punker-notes
Photo by KorTex