A Punker's Notes [Original Novel]

Part One: Entry 13

Ryan, Ish and me stop off in a cul-de-sac across Westminster Boulevard from Bolsa Grande High School. We pick up long haired glam-rocker Steve Reynolds, former bassist for Condemned.

“Yeah...fu-uck,” Steve slowly drawls after getting into the car. “This dude Jimmy Fairclaw OD’d in my bedroom last week.”

“Fuck...! I know that dude,” Ish exclaims.

“Yeah..., anyway..., fuckin’ paramedics came by and everything... So I hid the dope way up on top of this wardrobe thing in my room. Then my parents are all askin’ me if I do dope and shit and I’m all, ‘No way...! I don’t do that stuff!’ And they ask to see my arms... I start to stretch out my left arm and I pull it back and show ‘em my right...cuz it’s clean. And then they were okay... So then after all that shit was over I got the rest of the dope from off the closet thing and did it.”

We drive a short distance east over to a neighborhood known as ‘Clinton’ in Santa Ana to get some heroin. Then back west on Westminster to Knott Avenue. There, we turn right heading north up to Bradford Estates, a trashy condo complex at Knott and Lampson in Stanton. Ish lives there in a small unit with his mom, dad and little sister.

In Ish’s small bedroom Steve and Ryan work together cooking up the dope. When they finish Steve tightly ties a short piece of rope around my left bicep. My veins bulge. I stand staring at a Discharge flyer that has been thumbtacked to one of the flat-black walls of the room. I take my eye off the flyer. Then watch as Ish pierces my flesh. He pushes the needle into a vein midstream. He pulls back on the plunger drawing blood into the syringe. Presses back down forcing the heroin into my bloodstream. Instantly dizzy and losing consciousness I fall.

I pick myself up off Ish’s clothing strewn floor. Sitting on a twin size bed I steady myself with one hand on the headboard.

“Shit dude..., we thought you OD’d,” Steve sounds a little stunned by the incident.

“No..., I just got a problem with needles,” I answer weakly.

Everyone gets high then we make our way out to a big communal lawn. I stifle the urge to vomit. I sit back against a boulder at the edge the wide open space. With barely open eyes I imagine that there are large white flowers growing in various places all over the lawn.


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Photo by Brandon Wong