Punkzilla Read online

  Later I walked into town which was pretty small and boring with an Ace Hardware and a bowling alley and some fast-food places and a RadioShack. I eventually found Highway 69 where this guy Alan Skymer picked me up. It started raining pretty hard which helped because I looked good and pathetic when he pulled over in his Crown Victoria. Alan Skymer had a brown beard and was dressed like a janitor meaning he wore one of those navy blue uniforms. I asked him if he was in the custodial profession and he shook his head and said he was a meter man. I asked him what that was and he said “I read peoples’ meters.” I said “Like gas meters?” and he was like “Gas electricity water distance time . . .”

  I stopped asking questions after that because every time he spoke he smiled this private smile and he would laugh in this weird way like he was casting some ancient spell that was going to give him pleasure later. He had these big yellow teeth that made me feel a little nauseous P. And things did eventually get weird that night when he asked me to put my Buckner gym shorts on. We stopped at a Motel 6 way on the west side of Missouri like near the border in this town called Joplin and when we checked in to the motel the man at the front desk asked Alan Skymer if I was his son and Alan Skymer said “Nephew” and patted me on the head and I played along and called him “Uncle.”

  Anyway when we got settled in our room I went to the bathroom and when I came out he had gone into my bag and laid all my stuff out on the end of one of the beds. He said “Are those your gym clothes?” I nodded and then he stared at them for a long time like he wanted to try them on or something. I kept having this feeling that the TV was going to suddenly turn itself on to some blaring talk show with like Oprah or Montel Williams or Jerry Springer. I kept waiting for that to happen but it didn’t.

  Then Alan Skymer asked me if he could hold my hand and I said “Like HOLD hold it?” and he said he only wanted to hold it for a few minutes. He had mad bad breath P like beef stew gone bad and KFC coleslaw but I let him do it anyway.

  His hand was big and hairy. Up close he had one of those faces that seems young and old at the same time like a shop teacher or some guy who owns a store where you take broken-down kitchen appliances. Maybe his brown beard had something to do with it. He looked at me really intense-like for a minute and then his face turned all red and he closed his eyes and put his head in my lap.

  So I can’t believe I’m telling you this P but then Alan Skymer said “Can I get closer?” There was something in his eyes that I trusted. I’m not sure what it was because like I said before he had been laughing in that weird way and he had those big yellow teeth but I nodded anyways. He had those sad pleading eyes that clowns sometimes have. Clowns and Saint Bernards.

  I had never gotten a blow job before P but I just closed my eyes and tried to imagine Cornelia Zenkich from back home like her walking around naked on our lawn and then leaning back against our maple tree and that really helped a lot. When I came he said “Isn’t there anything?” and I said no that I didn’t come like that yet and he seemed a little disappointed.

  When it was over Alan Skymer kept telling me how beautiful I was and he asked if he could do it again but I said no and he was very polite and good-natured and then I told him I was going to go sleep in the car because I was feeling mad disgusted and I kept looking at myself in the motel room mirror and sort of hating what I was seeing like my eyes and my mouth and the way my nose sort of turns up a little at the end like a fucking rabbit and he said “Okay okay” and then I put the things back into my gym bag and went out to the Crown Victoria and tried to lie in the backseat and not think about what had happened. There were cars parking and leaving and people talking and headlights panning across the windshield and it made me feel really lonely and unsure of things.

  About an hour later he came out to the car and watched me through the rear windshield. I rolled the window down and he said “I just wanted to say good night.” He was wearing wire-rim glasses now. He went from looking like a shop teacher to looking like some nerdy freak librarian. I said “Okay” and then he said “Good night Neph” and went back into the motel room and turned the light off.

  “Neph” made me really anxious and I started clawing at myself like at my chest and neck and I was clawing so hard I thought I was going to make myself bleed. I eventually stopped when the red streaks started showing up on my face. I could see them in the rearview mirror. I looked like I had run through the forest and gotten scraped by a bunch of low-hanging tree branches.

  I couldn’t sleep but I didn’t get out of the car because I thought if I did I would try and murder him. I was going to use my alarm clock but I wasn’t confident that I could hit him hard enough because Alan Skymer had a pretty big head. But the next thing I knew I had my alarm clock in my HAND like I was squeezing it really hard and I was out of the car and there was the smell of diesel fuel and the sound of cars driving on the highway and then I tried to open the door to his room but it was locked and so I was going to try sneaking in through the window but then the door opened and he was standing there in a pair of pajama bottoms that had yellow smiley faces all over them and he wasn’t wearing a shirt and his chest was weird and flabby and hairless and he said “What’s wrong?”

  I didn’t know what to say and I was totally fucking busted and I looked at my hand which was holding the alarm clock and I said “I thought maybe you’d need this to wake up tomorrow” and he said “They got one next to the bed” and I said “Cool” and he said “Thanks for thinking of me though” and I said “Sure” and then I turned and walked back to the car and sat in the backseat and started squeezing the alarm clock so hard in both hands I thought I was going to break it.

  We didn’t talk much the next day. Being in the car was like being trapped in a museum or something. He wouldn’t even put the radio on. I didn’t stay in a motel room with him that night even though he offered. It was a nicer one too with a pool and a Jacuzzi.

  P I never found out much about Alan Skymer like what he meant by calling himself a meter man or why he wore the same blue janitor’s uniform the next day. I did see him put this gold ring on though so I’m pretty sure he was married. What’s weird is that I can’t remember what kind of license plate he had and I never forget those details. It was a strange experience like strange in a scientific way but I’m glad he drove me all the way to the western edge of Kansas to this little town called Goodland. He let me out in front of a movie theater where one of the Shrek movies was playing. He said good-bye and gave me forty bucks and I used six of it to see the movie and another four for popcorn and Coke. There were all these families lining up to see the movie. Lots of little kids with Kansas Jayhawks T-shirts and baseball hats. For some reason I felt really bad for all of them. I wanted to yell at them to run away while there was still hope to like get the fuck away from their parents and board a ship to some deserted island or some place where they could create their own society with their own rules but I didn’t even open my mouth. I don’t remember anything about the movie because as soon as it started I fell dead asleep.

  That night after the movie theater cleared out I met Carson Block who’s that logger from Vancouver I was telling you about before. He was standing outside the theater next to a black SUV with Canadian plates. Some terrible country song was blasting out of the driver’s side window and I was like Oh shit no not country music but I couldn’t be choosy right? Carson was obese like maybe three-hundred-some pounds and he had a big meaty face and one of those extra chins and he also had a little red mustache and wore cowboy boots. After he took his shoe off and shook something out of it, he turned to leave and I asked him point-blank if I could get a ride with him. He turned and saw me and said “A ride where?” and I went “As far as I can get.” Then he like sized me up a little and asked me if I was in some sort of trouble but I said no and that I missed my ride and then he asked me what direction I was heading and I said north. I have no idea why I said north P it just came out. Maybe it’s because of Santa Claus and the North Pole or
the North Star or some ridiculous shit like that.

  He said he was definitely going north and asked me where my parents were. And I said “That’s who I’m trying to get to. My parents.” Then he asked me where that was and I said Oregon and I have no idea why I said that because I had never even THOUGHT about Oregon before. He said “Portland?” and I said “Yeah Portland.”

  The he pointed at his SUV and told me to get in.

  The inside was huge and all leather and smelled like a candy apple. I was still pretty clean-cut with my Buckner hair so I’m sure he thought I was a decent enough kid and not like no punk or nothing. He didn’t talk a lot but he liked to use this toothpick to stab at his gums. We listened to just about every famous country song there is. I liked the stuff by Johnny Cash the best. Carson never sang along to anything or turned up the music. I think he had some serious ice water in his veins. His stillness made me want to smoke like crazy but I didn’t dare ask him for a cigarette because not only did he seem like the last person in the world who might smoke but he also probably had some DVD about lung cancer stashed in the glove compartment.

  We drove all night and most of the next day. We wound up staying at a Best Western just outside of Salt Lake City.

  Like I said he was really fat but not in a gross way meaning that he showered and wore deodorant and shaved and changed his socks and underwear but man did he have a lot of loose flesh like it really flopped around in waves. In addition to being clean with his hygiene he was also really detailed about folding his clothes and keeping his suitcase neat.

  Nothing bad happened with Carson Block even though I kept expecting it to especially after the dick-sucking saga that went down with Alan Skymer. Saga’s the correct word right P? I’m almost positive it is.

  The only thing that was a little weird was that I think Carson Block was tempted to turn me in because I overheard him talking on his cell phone in the bathroom. He was telling someone how he picked this kid up who he was planning on dropping off in Portland and he was asking whoever it was on the other end if he should “make a call” meaning to the cops I’m almost positive. Then he just said “Uh-huh” a few times and flushed the toilet.

  When he came out of the bathroom I was sitting in a chair by the window. He hiked his pants up around his waist and closed the bathroom door and just stood there. I asked him if he was going to call the cops and he said he thought maybe he should but that he wasn’t going to and then he said he was going to go to Burger King and asked me if I wanted anything. I said I’d eat a Whopper but I said I was broke which wasn’t completely true but he said he would get me one and then he left and came back a little while later with my burger and an orange Fanta. He ate a Double Whopper with cheese in the bed and I ate my regular burger at the little table by the window in about four bites and all you could hear was us swallowing and breathing.

  At one point Carson Block put his Whopper with cheese down and asked me how old I was. I told him I was fourteen and he told me I looked younger. He was like “You look about twelve. Or eleven maybe.”

  Then he started talking about how these days most kids look older than their age. He said it was because of all the chemicals in the cows and the “hormones and whatnot.”

  I told him I really was fourteen and then he didn’t say anything else and he watched a country-western music channel on TV and finished his Whopper with cheese and then he went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth and came back out and watched some more country videos and fell asleep with his clothes on.

  I eventually fell asleep in the other bed but I watched some more videos first. One was about this blond guy walking in the desert. He comes across an island oasis with tropical fruit drinks and a live mariachi band and this hot skeezer in a turquoise bikini. The whole thing turns out to be a mirage and the singer drops to his knees and finishes the song while the sun is setting and the skeezer in the bikini turns into a prickly green cactus. After that it was like a switch got turned off in my head and I fell asleep in my clothes too. I even tied my hoodie under my chin. I’m not sure why.

  Hang on I’ll be right back. . . .

  P check it out so the driver just pulled the bus over to the side of the road and we had to get off because some weird guy sitting near the front thought we had a gas leak. “We got a leak!” he kept turning around and pleading with everyone. He had a face like a cartoon. The bus driver made us walk like a hundred feet away while he disappeared under the bus and assessed the problem. Cars were mad zooming by us and the weird paranoid guy couldn’t stand still and the sky was sort of churning like it was going to rain again and a cop even stopped to ask what was going on so it was pretty tense. The cop made me more paranoid than the weird guy. I thought he was going to come over and question everybody but he didn’t he just hung near the bus driver and nodded a lot with his arms folded.

  I wound up bumming a cigarette from the black woman with the pink shower cap who got on the bus in Portland. It was a Newport and I normally don’t like menthols but you have to take what you can get right? Man it tasted good like way better than food way way better. But I have to tell you something weird happened with the black woman P and it’s a little embarrassing and this is what it is: she thought I was a girl. I went up to her while she was packing her Newports and I asked her if I could have one and she said “You got it girl” and gave me a cigarette. Then she lit me and said “Motherfuckin’ bus always jacks up my back.”

  Then the driver came walking toward us and lifted his hockey mask so he could yell and said everything was okay and we all ran back over to the bus because it started to rain.

  Now we’re back on the bus and it’s raining like crazy way worse than yesterday and I have to admit that I’m afraid to look at that black woman in the shower cap. It’s like she knows something about me that’s not true but maybe it is true in some fucked up way and just to prove something to myself I’m tempted to walk over to her and whip my dick out and be like “Bitch who you callin’ a skeezer!”

  I’m going to stop writing for a minute P because I’m getting too worked up and I almost just kicked the seat in front of me. I think there’s a retarded man sitting in it eating a bucket of caramel corn hang on. . . .

  Okay I’m back.

  And there is nobody actually sitting in front of me. That retarded dude with the bucket of caramel corn must have moved closer to the front.

  I think I need to tell you more about Branson because it sort of relates to the thing that just happened outside.

  So in Portland me and Branson shared a room in that place Washington House which was this low-income place for loners and street kids. There were some maniacs there too like this one guy everyone was afraid of called Fifty Watt Dave whose head was shaped like a lightbulb. He would hang out in the fourth-floor hallway with a remote-control car and drive it up to you and try and drive it over your feet and sometimes park it in front of you and talk to you like the car had a voice and say “Wanna race kid? I’m clockin’ zero to sixty in four-point-four” and weird shit like that.

  The way me and Branson met was he was standing around in this parking lot outside of this bar on Burnside Street called the Crystal Ballroom. He was huffing glue out of a brown paper bag and trying to call this junior-high girl called Easy Elise on a cell phone he’d just stolen. Apparently Easy Elise used to go around bragging that she’s on a milk carton back in Iowa or Illinois or someplace. She was majorly into giving head to anyone especially if you drank Bombay gin. In that parking lot Branson was dialing her number and then huffing glue. He would dial and huff dial and huff. I was just sort of minding my own business near the sidewalk because that’s almost exactly where Carson Block dropped me off and I was holding on to my gym bag and trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

  After Easy Elise didn’t answer for like the fifth time Branson threw the cell phone against a brick wall and it smashed into a thousand pieces. I was just trying to play it cool and not get too nervous when Branson asked
me if I wanted to fight him. I said no and then he asked me for ten dollars but I told him I didn’t have ten dollars even though I still had about thirty bucks from Alan Skymer and then Branson just stood there sort of looking at me and started smoking a Camel Red and said “Why won’t you fight me you a little bitch?” I told him that I would fight him but I didn’t feel like it because I was tired. Then he asked me where I was from and I told him about how I hitchhiked from Missouri and about Alan Skymer and Carson Block and what their cars were like and what sort of music they listened to and the whole time Branson kept nodding but he was looking towards the entrance of the Crystal Ballroom like that little junior-high girl was going to appear. He wore this old-school Chicago Cubs hat cocked to the side and these baggy jeans and low-cut black patent leather Adidas shell toes and a white puffy ski vest with a hoodie underneath.

  I asked him who he was waiting for and he said “Just this little ho. She frontin’ though. Skanky-ass juice-box.” Then he sucked hard on his cigarette and said “How old are you?”

  I told him I was fourteen. I know I probably should have lied and told him I was older but I was too tired. Then I asked him how old he was and he said he was seventeen which didn’t seem right. A few months later when I saw his birth certificate I realized we were almost exactly the same age. Branson was born six days before me. In fact his birthday is the day after tomorrow and that’s partly why I gave him my iPod.

  He asked me if I was in school and I said no and asked him if he was and he said “Fuck no. School’s for the future of America” and then he pulled out a pair of nunchucks from the small of his back. They were black with silver diamonds on the handles and he started doing figure eights and all these kung fu combinations. Then he put the chucks away and said “Let’s break north” and we walked across Vista Avenue over by where all these other punks and homeboys and runaway girls were hanging out and smoking blunts and listening to music. It was lots of street kids with bad acne talking about where the cops were roaming and where they slept the night before and where they could score good meth and heroine and poppers and who had learned how to cook crank down on a hot plate with Sudafed and Benadryl and Arm and Hammer baking soda and on and on. I couldn’t see where the music was coming from but it was this weird old-school trancy drum-and-bass stuff with some girl singing in the background like she was getting drugged.