A Punker's Notes [Original Novel]

Entry 23

Jenkins at the wheel of the Cutlass exits the 405 Freeway onto Culver Drive. He follows Frank’s directions to the middle of a bland residential area in Irvine and stops at one of many hideous dwelling places. Ryan and I climb out of the back seat of the two-door sedan while Jenkins and Frank walk across the lawn.

Inside, in the bathroom, this girl Mindy James draws a snake from her temple down onto her cheek with a makeup pencil. Her dyed red hair about four inches in length has been teased and sprayed into a standing position. Next to her, a green-dreadlocked beauty named Mischa applies lipstick.

“Not bad,” I mumble while walking past the bathroom pausing to take a long look at the two young ladies. “Which one is yours?” I ask Frank.

Frank is in the back of the Cutlass to the left of Mindy, Mischa is next to her. The rest of us are jammed up front as we ride north to Hollywood.

“Where you guys wanna go?” I ask from the driver’s seat looking back at Frank and the girls in the rearview mirror. “We’re goin’ to the Joneses at the Roxy. I can drop you guys off wherever.”

“Lhasa..., we’re going to Lhasa,” Mischa announces with an air of haughtiness.

“You’re going with us aren’t you?” Mindy turns a stern stare at Frank.

“Fuck no...! I’m goin’ to the Joneses.”

I exit the 101 Freeway at Santa Monica Boulevard and head over to the Lhasa Club.

“We’ll come back here after the Joneses,” Frank lets the girls know before we roll away towards the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard.

I find a parking spot up in the Hollywood Hills then we walk down to Sunset. In a liquor store just down the road from the Roxy I show my I.D. before paying for two fifths of Vodka and a quart of orange juice. Then we look for a good spot to drink. We decide on an empty parking lot behind a strip-mall.

“Fuck dude...! Fuck! I gotta shit!” Ryan howls heading off to the far end of the parking lot. From where we’re at we can see him off in the distance rummaging through a pile of trash.

I sit down on a four foot high cinderblock wall that borders the parking lot. Take a bottle out, twist the cap off breaking the paper seal.

“Okay, yeah..., fuck!” Ryan’s huffing after returning from the far end of the lot. “Fuck, I just shitted in a box over there. It was fuckin’ lame... Had ta wipe my ass with a leaf from that tree there.” He points to a young elm that’s been planted next to a dumpster. “I got leaf-butt now... How’s that bottle doin’?”

I hand the fifth I’ve just opened to Ryan. He takes a big hit then grabs the orange juice, gulps washing down the hooch.

“That one with the green hair back there isn’t very friendly,” Ryan states the obvious. “But I sure would like to fuck her little pussy.”

“Fer sure,” Jenkins agrees.

“Wher’dja meet that red haired chick?” I ask Frank.

“Some party in San Clemente.”

We take our time drinking ensuring that we will be thoroughly wasted before going in the Roxy. We’re avoiding the problem of everyone but me being under 21. While getting good and sloppy, me, Jenkins and Ryan try and deduce what it would take for us to get the green haired girl’s gear off.

“That chick’s not gonna put out unless ya spend some money on her.” Frank puts in. “And not just takin’ her to the movies and buyin’ her some popcorn and candy bars, believe me. And that red head chick? She’s stayed over at the bat cave two or three times..., and she won’t let me do anything but finger ‘er.”

We’ve spent too much time drinking and when we get to the club, the Joneses have already finished most of their set. The four of us in our drunken state run to the dance floor. We start moving to the pure rock n roll trying to get all we can out of it. They play two songs, then for an encore finish up with the anthem “Pillbox.”

Afterwards, Frank seems to have forgotten about his date and gets a ride back to San Clemente with some folks from down there. And in search of some good pot Ryan ends up going with them.

“What ya wanna do?” Jenkins asks me after getting behind the wheel of the Cutlass.

“Let’s see if those chicks are still around.”

Jenkins navigates from the west of Hollywood near Beverly Hills, to Lhasa on North Hudson Avenue. He slows down in front of the place.

“There they are,” I point to two girls leaning against a car.

Jenkins pulls over and the young ladies get in.

Mindy sits in front and Mischa in the back with me. Jenkins wheels the car out onto Hollywood Boulevard.

Being wasted and all I’m instantly hitting on the young girl. She wears only a mini-skirt and a halter top.

“Is your hair green all over?” I enquire quickly sliding over close up against Mischa.

“Maybe,” she answers coldly, staring straight ahead.

Then Jenkins pulls into a Chevron gas station. Mindy and her friend get out to use the toilet and I stay in the backseat.

Minutes later the girls return from the bathroom. As Mindy prepares to re-enter the front seat Mischa shoves her into the back.

Moving south on the 101 Freeway a short while later I’ve got Mindy lying down on the backseat next to me. I repeatedly make attempts at kissing her with limited success. Each time that we reach the point of ravenous making out she stops, “I can’t... I’m not sure about it... Your cute but...” and she pushes me away. “Just hold me,” she says.


Entry 24

“Yeah..., Tim?” I’ve called Tim van Lier’s place in San Clemente. “Is Frank there?” I ask actually hoping that he is out.

“No, he’s surfin’.”

“Oh..., cuz he was gonna try and get some opianated buds for me,” I lie.

“Opianated buds...?” he laughs. “There’s no such thing.”

“No dude really... Supposed ta be some hippies. Some Deadheads or somethin’ that can get ‘em.”

“No man, I don’t know anything about that.”

“Well ah..., that’s cool... Oh ah...! I just remembered, I need ta get in touch with that girl Mindy he’s been hangin’ out with... She was tellin’ me about this really cool art gallery in L.A. the other night. Do you think you can get me her number?”

“Just a minute..., I’ll get Frank’s phone book.”

A minute later I’m dialing the number. A woman answers but soon I’m talking to Mindy.

“This is Jack, you remember...? From the other night?”

“Oh yeah... From when we went to Lhasa.”

“Yeah that was cool... I don’t remember much of it though cuz me and those guys got all wasted on vodka...”

That night Jenkins and I prepare to go over to the James residence where Mindy lives with her little sister and mother. I wear black, slightly pegged slacks with a black gas station jacket over a dark blue wife-beater. I stand looking vainly into the mirror admiring my flat stomach and cropped white hair. Jenkins walks out of my bedroom wearing pointed Beatle-boots, black leather pants and an untucked long-sleeved dark green dress shirt. His longish unkempt blue-black bangs droop in his face.

“Alright,” I nod. “Looks good.”

Twenty minutes later we’re standing at Mindy’s front door. Mindy’s little sister Sally leads us into the living room where her mother, Helen, sits watching Father Murphy. Seventeen-year-old Mindy comes prancing out to greet us wearing nothing but men’s boxer shorts and a cut off t-shirt leaving her mid-rift bare.

“Don’t you think you should be wearing a little more clothing in front of these young men?” Helen asks both serious and sarcastic at the same time. Jenkins and me sit down and watch Father Murphy with Helen while Mindy changes.

A few minutes later the red-headed beauty struts into the living room wearing extremely short blue jean cut-offs, black leather knee-high boots and a man’s white button down shirt. The long sleeves of the shirt are shoved up above her elbows. Mindy’s mid-rift is still showing as she has tied the shirt’s tails tightly in a knot just under her breasts.

“Alright, let’s get the fuck outta here!” she yells.

“Where are you going?” Helen asks as me and Jenkins stand and head toward the front door.

“Up to L.A.,” Mindy nonchalantly replies.

“You’re not taking her to the ghet-to are you?”

“No, just up to Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard. Somewhere around there,” I assure the mother.

I take the wheel of the Cutlass heading, on Culver Drive, to an Exxon station next to Interstate 5. Mindy has three dollars in change and I put it together with two crumpled dollar bills to pay for gas. Then Jenkins takes over the driving and aims the car onto the freeway and up towards Los Angeles. I open a bottle of gin that me and Jenkins had started on earlier in the evening and pass it around.

We exit near the Hollywood Bowl and meander around the area a bit before heading west on Sunset to Beverly Hills. We motor up into the hills exploring the night-time affluence. Mindy sits in the front seat between the two of us. I put my arm around her trying to draw her close but she shrinks away and ends up next to Jenkins.

Later, I’m driving again and we head back to Hollywood. As we ride along Mindy’s got her hand up Jenkins’ shirt.

“I just love this little belly of yours,” Mindy rubs Jenkins’ small paunch.

I’m fuckin’ pissed. Because I’d decided that all I needed to do was show up at this girl’s place with my cool outfit and hair. Then turn the charm on a little doing the silly drunken punker act and I’d be having my way with her in no time. But I was dead wrong as she is completely enamored with Jenkins.

We finish the gin and with no more money for booze or anything else we end up heading back down the 5 kind of early. Mindy is all over Jenkins for the entire ride back to Orange County. I sit silent holding my anger when I drop them both off at the James residence in Irvine.

Photo by mihaipanait