Punkzilla (3 page)

Even though I puked from eating all that chocolate Christmas Eve didn’t really suck as much as I expected it to. It was way better than the ones back in Cincinnati where everything was tense and Mom was so confused about whether or not we were going to midnight mass and before you left she was always sweating you about where you had been the night before and whether or not you were going to agitate the Major about him being a Republican war-lover and did E have one of his stress headaches and did she buy enough food and why wasn’t anyone helping her in the kitchen.

The last Christmas in Cincinnati I went down to the basement and sat up against the cement wall and took like three Actifed and listened to the Dead Kennedys on your old iPod while Mom did the dishes and the Major paced around the living room preaching to E about personal excellence and achieving goals and staying physically fit. Man when I think about it I used to do a lot of Actifed. Thank god for Actifed and your iPod P. I don’t think I would have made it without those two support systems.

The weird thing about Christmas Eve with Buck Tooth Jenny and Branson is that the following morning meaning Christmas morning this woman from the fifth floor burned to death and we had to evacuate the building at like nine a.m. We hung out near the lobby and saw the paramedics bring her body down on a stretcher and it was pretty eerie because the lobby was playing “Silent Night” and “Little Town of Bethlehem” and there were paramedics and firemen and this dead woman on a stretcher who had just burned to death and her face was charred like grilled chicken and they hadn’t even put her in a body bag yet. I had never experienced that particular smell before P. The scent of a burnt human is unlike anything else.

She was this woman they called Black Betty even though she wasn’t black. One of the firemen said she fell asleep smoking and that her hair caught on fire.

After the firemen kicked us out of the lobby me and Branson and Buck Tooth Jenny walked over to the Roxy and ate free scrambled eggs and hamburgers which was cool. I think the management at the Roxy felt bad for everyone at Washington House. We didn’t talk much but Buck Tooth Jenny kept saying she was going to quit smoking those clove cigarettes. She was obviously freaked out about Black Betty and I have to admit I was too. In fact every time I closed my eyes I could see her charred face and sometimes I still can.

P the bus is shaking too much so I’m going to stop writing now.

March 3, 2008

Dear Zilla,

This is a letter to wish you good luck on your bus jerny. Its been real nice getting to know you these past months, Zilla, especially at Christmas and New Years when we made bolony pizza and ate that big pineapple that Branson borrowed from the supermarket. I hope you will come visit Portland again.

You are a nice boy and we will all miss you very much, specially Branson and Larkin and all our friends at Washington House. I wish I had some extra money I could give you or maybe buy a present with but I don’t have any right now. I only have some checks that I have to cash. I was thinking that maybe I could give you a nice towel or some vitomens.

When you get to Memphus please write back so we know you got there with safety. I also wanted to tell you that I think you are very handsome as well as smart and that you will make some girl you’r sweetheart someday, and you can merry her and give her sweet babies with jules for eyes and buy her chocolates and rice putting and make her very happy the same way Branson makes me feel even when he’s being mean or maybe punching me in the leg or not cleaning himself. I forgive him and so does Jesus Christ and God and Santa Claws. He cries sometimes when nobody’s looking, like when he’s in the bathroom or hiding behind a car, and that’s why I know his soul has gold in it. And your’s does too, Zilla. Your’s has gold and silver.

Many kisses and hugs. I hope you like my drawing of the little puppy dog. His name is Poprock and he will guard you with ferociousness.

X and O tick-tac-toe go with the flow

March 4, 2008

Dear P,

It’s a few hours later. It’s dark out my window now and I can’t sleep. Man this bus is still making me nauseous like I’m not inside of it but it’s inside me. I realize I sort of ended the last letter mad abruptly and didn’t really say good-bye. Sorry about that. I’ll try to be better with endings in future letters.

I should tell you a little more about Branson who tells everyone he’s from Philly. Fat Larkin thinks he’s just another stupid lost white boy from Seattle. Fat Larkin’s always like “Fool’s prolly got a poster of the Space Needle’bove his bed. Supersonics pajamas and shit.”

I know Branson’s from Waldo Ohio because I saw his birth certificate folded up in his wallet which I shouldn’t have been snooping in but he was sleeping and his wallet was on our desk like begging to be messed with. There wasn’t any money in it just the birth certificate.

Once when I was in Buck Tooth Jenny’s bathroom I heard Branson telling her that his dad was a professional astronaut. He was getting a hand job and telling her how his dad had been up in the stratosphere and how he was living on a space station and Buck Tooth Jenny believed him and went on the Internet and learned some stuff about astrology and the solar system. She started talking about the planets and how many galaxies there were and stuff like that. Another time when we were eating at McDonald’s she asked Branson where he was from and he made that wolf face and told her he was from wherever she wanted him to be from and she stopped asking after that.

Branson’s birth certificate says his full name is Evan Branson and that he was born in Waldo Ohio in Marion County to be exact and he doesn’t have a middle name which is pretty fucked up like his parents were too distracted to come up with something. Even Mom and the Major gave us middle names even though when I say my full name out loud I feel like my mouth is full of fake dice or something. It’s the name of a guy who paints the yellow lines on the highway and lives in some broken-down trailer with a lot of dead plants. I wish I had a name that rhymed like Shady Grady who was that kid who moved to our neighborhood from Columbus a few years ago. Like I said everyone pretty much called me Punkzilla in Portland.

Branson would’ve definitely kicked my ass if he knew I went through his wallet. He gets in mad fights mostly with smaller dudes but once in a while he’ll start something with a grown man which is really weird.

Once we were over by this big theater called the Portland Center Stage and he walked right up to this forty-year-old dude and slapped him in the face and said “What motherfucker? What?!” and the man just stood there staring at him. He was all clean-shaven and wore nice clothes and he said something like “You better walk away from me son” and then Branson got crazy and slapped him again and said “I’m not your fucking son bitch!” and the man went red in the face and just stared at him and then Branson turned and walked away and later when we were going over to the Roxy to meet up with Fat Larkin I asked him why he did that and Branson said “Punk-ass needed to be taught a lesson” and then I asked him what lesson and he was like “A life lesson son!”

When he said good-bye to me at the Greyhound station I wanted to call him his real name Evan but I didn’t because I was feeling sick to my stomach and his eyes were really red and raw looking and he was drinking one of those Cokes with the vitamins in it and almost threw up after the first gulp so it wasn’t such a good situation.

He told me to call him when I got to Memphis which is weird because he doesn’t have a cell phone and there wasn’t a phone in our room at Washington House just a payphone in the hall that hardly ever worked. I promised him I would call him but I know deep down that I may never see him again. I better go because I feel like I’m going to be sick.

I’ll write more later.

December 12
^th
, 2007

Dear Jamie,

Thank you for your brief letter dated December 2
^nd
. . . .

Wow, what an old-fashioned way to begin a correspondence with your own kid brother!

I was so happy and surprised, Jamie. You made my day, my week, my month, and maybe even my year, no kidding.

Yes, by the way, to answer your first question, you had the correct Memphis address. Unfortunately, Jorge and I haven’t done well enough to move out of our little prefabricated, overly carpeted bunker at Stonegate Apartments. Oh, it has its charms, like the stucco walls and the false gypsum ceiling and the highly functional air-conditioning and the spleen-colored linoleum on the kitchen floor — I shouldn’t complain. It just feels a bit like Jorge and I are the strange exception in some elderly community of sponge people.

And yes, we do have a Christmas tree! It’s so fake it might as well be wrapped in aluminum foil, but it’s thoroughly decorated and smells vaguely of chewing gum, which is better than the scent of mold, hemorrhoidal ointment, and joint compound that seems all pervasive in our building.

So it’s been a while since we’ve communicated. I recall speaking to you on the phone after the Major dropped the news that you would be getting shipped off to that horrible place, but after that, we lost touch, which is mostly my fault and I’m truly sorry. I’ve learned that being an artist is perhaps the most self-indulgent life-form on the planet; especially one who rehearses in front of a mirror seven hours a day. I rank right up there with the clown fish, who I understand needs nothing but occasional feeding as it has the unusual ability to self-procreate.

By the way, I promise I won’t let anyone know that we’ve been in touch, especially our poor dear sweet mother and that military automaton that passes for her husband. You certainly don’t have to worry about anything leaking from this end. As you know, I of all people in this confused, beleaguered world can sympathize with the need for a disgruntled midwestern boy to make a clean break.

So you went AWOL, huh? Now two-thirds of Wyckoff boys are official runaways! Congratulations on joining the club! And to pull it off at the frighteningly early age of fourteen! I was damn near twenty-three by the time I drummed up the courage! You’re amazing, Jamie! I’ll be the president of the Wandering Wyckoffs and you can be the secretary of state. As we both know, Edward is too afraid to run anywhere but right to where he’s supposed to be, which is somewhere very near the longitudes and latitudes of his meticulously constructed master plan that lies faceup on the desk in our father’s spit-shined study. Poor, cowardly, airbrushed Edward.

So at first you really had me with “P-town.” I couldn’t read another sentence. I had a map of the United States out and was combing every page. Is it Pittsburgh? Platteville, Wisconsin? Philadelphia? Provincetown, Massachusetts? I wondered. And then your hilarious reveal a few sentences later! Anyway, I hope “PORTLAND, OREGON, NOT PORTLAND, MAINE” is giving you a new perspective on things. I’m so glad you’ve made some friends. And who all is in this “Posse” of yours? Be descriptive! I want to read about these people, but most of all, I want to hear what
you’re
up to, baby brother, as in where you’re living, what you do at night, what you are doing to generate income, etc., etc., and spare no detail! Be frank at all costs! Gross your older, decrepit, nearing-thirty brother out!

Do you have a best friend?

Do you have a girlfriend?

I promise not to judge you, Jamie.

By the way, have you stopped smoking? If not, I hope you’ll at least consider it. The stuff will not only kill the living shit out of you but will also make you broke faster than a gambling habit.

Also, regarding your AWOL status, I doubt very much that you should have anything to worry about. I can’t imagine that those old potbellied, retired army men from Buckner will be spreading their big bad butterfly net very wide. It’s simply farfetched to think that that contemptuous academy gives a flying piece of pornography where their boys wind up when they get away. From what I understand, with regard to tuition, it’s a nonrefundable situation, so they get Major Wyckoff’s carefully counted money and a simple solution to a boy’s future, which is utter apathy. I can just imagine them sitting in some barracks office, staring at a map of the United States, sticking pushpins in all the cities where they think you’ve run off to, wreaths of cigar smoke hovering. I imagine them drinking cheap bourbon and playing Texas Hold’em, laughing themselves to sleep at the table.

As dangerous as it can be, it’s probably good that you hitchhiked and didn’t leave a trail; electronic, paper, or otherwise.

So Christmas is upon us, Jamie — three weeks away to be exact — and Memphis is as lively as a slowly cooked roast. What are your plans for this festive, terrible day? I don’t think there’s a season that depresses me more. Last night I performed a benefit reading of my one-man show, “The Second Guesser,” and the little basement theater was full. Over seventy people showed up and we charged forty dollars and I think it went over very well. It’s a fairly obnoxious anti-Bush, antiwar, anti-just-about-everything piece that takes place in a small-town, southern Indiana Laundromat where two elderly ladies discover a suitcase of unmarked thousand-dollar bills, a logarithmic code that will launch a missile at any target they wish, and a special cell phone that is a direct line to the Oval Office. I, of course, played both ladies (Ethel and Doris) with grace, humor, and excellent midwestern accents, as well as George Junior (as a three-year-old). I was preaching to the choir, no doubt, as the audience was made up mostly of queers, transvestites, poets, and three or four poor wheelchair-bound souls, though one of them was rather strikingly handsome in a kind of John-Stamos-kind-of-way (that’s
so not
your generation, I know). So there were no converts, but lots of laughs and a good time had by all. Jorge and I are using the money to help the theater buy a new soundboard. For all intents and purposes it was a big success and we reached our measly little goal of two thousand dollars.