Punk Rockers on the Town

Tiny and Louie had been painting their faces again, and Louie was sporting a huge rooster-comb coiffure. Both boys looked as if they were trying real, real hard to act nonchalant about it, but you could see their eyes darting about. Nicki figured they were hoping to see little old ladies fainting or having apoplectic strokes or reaching for their smelling salts or something. It pleased her to see people just going about their business and ignoring the boys’ stupid, juvenile attempts at some kind of cheesy ornithological mating display. God, she hated a showoff! Finally, she caught Tiny’s eye, which glared out balefully from behind stripes of orange and blue. Tiny had spent a semester at Syracuse before they kicked him out for flunking elementary freshman English twice, and had got himself a taste for the dear old Orange and Blue, even if not for anything resembling academic discipline. Nicki waved with the back of her hand, in the manner of certain English royalty, and walked out into a gentle spring night all lit with red and purple neon and sodium-vapor orange and a smell of rain and a hint of ozone in the air. It was near the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice and time rolled on in that peculiar way it had of seeming insubstantial and unreal in the moment, as if she weren’t really there. Traffic thinned and retail stores began to shut and go dark. Restaurants remained open, but they would be closing soon, too, this being a cultural backwater and hardly the big city. Nicki shrugged and started up the hill toward home. She was there, in the moment, but her steps were hurried and strenuous as there came over her a vague sense she was supposed to be somewhere else and about to get in a peck of trouble because she wasn’t. Life in the computer age, she thought. What bullshit. She heard footsteps behind her, running. “Wait up!” a voice called: Tiny. She stopped and stood aside as all 300 pounds of Tiny rolled up the trail, unstoppable as a locomotive. He throttled down to a walk and breathed heavy through his mouth, a rattling sound coming from his throat. “You didn’t hafta just walk out on me,” he said. “Well, actually, I did. I was getting ready to puke at the sight of you two morons parading around trying to get attention.” “It’s self-expression and we’re allowed,” Tiny whined. “It’s called freedom of speech and we’re allowed. We weren’t hurting nobody.” “Yeah, well. In my case it’s freedom of movement – away from you two posturing jackasses. Yeah, you and Louie have the absolute right to make assholes of yourselves. And I have the absolute right to be somewhere else while you do.” “Okay, Miz Holier-Than-Thou. You go wherever you want and the hell with you. By the way, your nose-ring has a big strand of snot hanging off it. Only a friend would tell you.” ###