Punk

 We are walking into the direction of the Glouccster. We are walking across copper spring splashes of mid-afternoon light. We are walking together, past the metropolitan frenetic pulse of mid-London. We are walking having just somehow come to the common consensus that we are in this thing together. This sociological experiment of raking together in almost random assessment youth from the most opulent republic ever constituted in the discourse of the planet. mesh them together for 10 days in the oligarchy from hence they separated and then watch as the youth return from the place they originally came from, perhaps never to witness this place or the scent of the others smile again.

I am squeezing Daisy's hand.

That in 20 hours this dream will be more no more.

  We are en route walking a different route back to the Gloucester three blocks over. 

We are walking and Daisy is smiling at me.  I have assured her that I will talk with both Spencer and Jim Baker the moment I return to the hotel. We are walking down a road called Queens Gate's Garden. There is what looks like gridlock. The British stop lights which myopically blink yellow whether one is coming or going.

Daisy points at a street sign, It is the same name as our hotel.

I add and annoying yet somehow British vernacular remedial cheerio!  She is still holding my hand squeezing as if the interior of my palm were some sort of stress ball. It feels like she just painted her nails all of two hours earlier.  Perhaps she got the free manicure at Harrods.I continue lugging Daisy’s suitcase. We pass pigeon excrement that looks like asterisks. I try to make her laugh. I ask her what she packed in here. Daisy giggles. She says her dreams  I wonder what would have happened if I not chased after her. I wonder if she actually would have gone through with her ploy of running away or just gotten board sitting on the steps of the British museum of Natural History. I wonder if the whole trip would have paused. I wonder if we would have had emergency group-only meetings because one of our tribe was considered missing. I imagine the Big Ten as a whole would get interrogated with Baker’s Daisy Train shenanigans becoming more well known throughout the various groups.

I imagine the Big Ten would be blamed.

I imagine Trevor would set us all down and say because of the incessant Daisy Train taunting we have ruined the trip for the collective whole.

I am looking around. Several men with stolidly recognizable British chins I wonder if I will somehow saunter into a Boots and finally be able to purchase the razors Granpa Salm commissioned from me on the way home.

We are two blocks away when we see them, milling outside the subway Mark used when he escaped to Sloane Square.  We pass creatures with voluntarily shaved heads.  They are clad like leather knight.We pass creatures with multifarious piercings in nose and eyebrows and visible navel.They have chains and leather pants. The beer they are passing between them is a slender can with a bumblebee in the center.g. They are harlequins clad in leather and piercings. Stalactite hair of green and blue. Everything is pierced. 

Daisy gives my hand a little apprehensive squeeze.


 I remember Mr. Reents telling me not to make eye contact with them for fear of solicitation. They have leather pants with bobby-pins inserted in places their just shouldn't be bobby pins. I pick up my gait.I try to change my thoughts. I think about Rita waiting for me in that black dress. 

I tell myself that Rita is waiting for me 

I state that Rita is waiting for me like a Koan. I imagine her somehow stagnant, puzzled at first when I enter the Gloucster toting Daisy's cargo before explicating that the reason I felt compelled to momentairly  


I think about Mark independently ditching the group. I am at the same tube stop where my mentor left port all of 24 hours ago.

Daisy tilts her should into my shoudler as if we are corpooreal pieces of a collective 3-d puzzle. 

 Daisy grapples my hand even tighter.

They continue to walk behind us. Neon pinked haired spiked that looks like he just he got electrocuted placing a British pound in a socket.  Daisy is walking fast. For the first time in the trip I don’t mind being seen with my glasses saddling the angular features of my face. From my periphery I fucking swear it looks like one of the so-called punks has what looks like a standard Elias Das Amarillo Texas pin in their nostrils. The punks are wearing Doc Martens similar to the one that Mark bought only they are actual boots. Next to me I can feel Daisy slightly titter.

Again we accelerate the pulse of our gait. 

"It's okay" I tell Daisy as we accelerate our conjoined gait. I feel they are doing the British inflection of a Jersey catcall. I am telling Daisy just to look straight. From behind me we are being summoned. I am being called a bloke. I can feel two leading members of what look like the latest incarnation of the third Reich imminently behind me walking in gnarled stomps.  For a second I want to tell Daisy to run. I feel we are being jumped.

One of the punks is saying Miss, Miss. From the sly-corner of my eye I ascetain that they are marching after us. W are being accosted by the colorful insurgents of reckless abandonment.

One of them is saying what sounds like oy and bloke. 

Something is snapping the back of my neck. I need to protect Daisy. Again I glance back.

He has a tattoo of either a swastika or the pentagon constructed out arteries.

He is wearing the sort of gloves that don't include fingers,


There is a whisper at the back of my neck. A hint of saffron. I wonder if he is trying to punch me. Daisy tells me that maybe coming back to the Gloucester and re-joining the group was a bad Idea after all and maybe the two of us should have just found an alcove and started over in London together.



Per recommendations my wallet is in my front pocket, in the exact location where my standard Gideon bible was before I hurled it across the room via my tirade with Justin.

I am in front of Daisy

He is saying Miss. Miss like someone a fan of the opposing team who just shot a three pointer at the last second.  Again I feel a slight guillotine-related breeze humming at the back of neck.

I set Daisy's suitcase down. I turn around. My plan is that I am going to tell Daisy to run. My plan is that I am going to take all three of them on. My plan is that I am going to mandate that Daisy hall ass and that I am going to go out fighting. That I am going to take all three of them on. That it will be like that scent from YOUNG GUNS that I watched the night, mere hours before this dream convened.

 That I am going fucking maniac. That I no longer care about the fleshy epidermal-armor that I have been clad in since  my first blink. That I am giving it up somehow for this.

I turn around. I squeeze Daisy's hand. I am in the middle of giving her a look of haul ass to heaven before her interrupts with perfect English 

"Hain sarry Miss. Aye ba-leave oy dropped this."

The skin head is menacing. He is holding up Daisy's makeshift hijab when she was endeavoring to go incognito from the Goucester. . She smiles. She accepts the dropped scarf as if it is some sort of tithe, She says thank you.

The Skinheadsslash neo-Nazi punks were merely trying to return something back to us which we have lost while we were in a hurry. 

Daisy still looks scared as shit.  Three of them are looking back in our direction.

I step up and communicate the only way I know how.

IN a way it feels like I am giving my Young Columbus speech all over again.

"That's really kind of you, I mean."

"No problem mate. Just loust aye personal valuable. Dan't wahnt ta losuse dat now dose ya?"

I tell him thank you. From my calculation we are less than a block and a half from reentering the Gloucester.

I notice that he is wearing a tanktop of a cat that looks like Roadkill. Above the Cat are the words Just Can't Get enough.   It is Depeche Mode.


"You a Depeche mode fan, brother?"

The skinhead nods again. He says fucking aye mate sit of course.

"They're my favorite band back home. I discovered them last summer. This girl I was madly in love with, the only song she would dance to was the song that is on your shirt. I mean, I had heard of Violator and Enjoy the Silence and loved it but listening to their older stuff, I mean, it just cut me open with keyboards."


They laugh. 2/3rds of them have on leather collars with spikes.

"Phuck oy' new shite. I mean their new phuckin' shite is just piss on a stool. That whole Songs of Faith and Devotion shite. They bloody sold out."

I nod. I refrain from telling my new found neo-nazi Samaritan that I have had I FEEL YOU and THE MERCY IN YOU lodged in my cerebral cortex since takeoff at Newark.

"Yeah, its shite" I agree, stating the word shit in the same inflection.

"Yeah man, phuckin' shite Dawgs. Dave Gahan sold out I lake the early albums. I mean, they were like bleeding across the keys and all."

I smile. The punk with the stalactite hair that is the color of a pomegranate takes another swig off his beer with with a bumblebee in the center of it.

Behind me Daisy is squeezing my hand. She raises her eyebrows as if to point into the direction of our hotel. I reach into my pocket. The Rick Steves video we rented from the Peoria Public library had american tourists posing the so-called British insurgents for a photograph only they had to pay five pounds.

I have maybe an accumulated three pounds in my pocket.

"What'eryaphuckingdoin' mate?" He says.

"I just wanted to thank you for picking up my friends scarf and everything. You, know. I mean, that really meant alot. Maybe give you a little gratuity for your kindness."

He swipes his head back and forth.

"Its Lawndon man. I mean, dis' is phucking London man. I mean, we're all phucking family ere."

I nod, I tell him thanks. I don't know what else to say. Daisy is squeezing my hand so hard that the interior of my palm is turning the color of their hair.

"Well, we gotta be going man. I mean, we have to get back to our group. But hey, like really, thanks again."

He takes another swig of his beer.


"No mention it mate."

I shake all three of their hands in the ambassador-assenting manner I have been shaking everyones hand this entire trip. I tell them thank you.  I pick up Daisy's suitcase.

"Well, it has been really cool hanging out with you guys. I mean, I really dig your style."

"It's Lawndon mate. Family. Booom town. Phuckin 'aye."

Daisy and I continues to walk. She adds an ohmygod and tells me that those guys were like so scary.  I continue to squeeze the front of her hand. Daisy tells me that I am a real gentlemen for carrying her suitcase and then asks me if I know that. More cars spring past us. We are two blocks from the Gloucester. I ask Daisy if she is excited about tonight.

Daisy says yeah she guesses. She says that she likes the way the British populace as a whole pronounce the word shit. With an eee.

 As we  turn into the parking lot of the Gloucester Daisy asks me if the rumors are true. I ask her what does she mean.

“You know. That you are some famous actor and went undercover on this trip.”

I smile back.

 I think about Tony from Blossom. 

I tell Daisy that all of it is true.

Every damn word.


As we walk into the back entrance of the Gloucester I swear I can see Rita. I wonder why it seems like every time Rita and I are about to engage in a semi-flirtatious semi-philosophical conversation we always get interrupted. I want to tell her again just how ravishing she looks in that black dress.  I wonder what would happen if I would totally ditch Harmony tonight and sit next to Rita at our final dinner in England.

Something tells me that Harmony would not even notice.

Something tells me that Harmony would not even care.