Free Punk Like Me by JD Glass Page B

of strangers. This, this was the world I’d been looking for, a world where differences were not only accepted, but also encouraged.
    The smile I felt grow on my face actually hurt, but I couldn’t have held it back no matter how hard I tried, because the rest of me felt so full of warmth, awe, and some unnamed, undeÞ ned joy that I felt ready to burst.
    How long I remained like that, eyes wide-open and face ready to split, I don’t know. I was so caught up in everything I’d even forgotten I was holding Kerry’s hand.
    • 62 •
     
    PUNK LIKE ME
    I settled back to earth quickly enough, though, when I saw everyone start to gather in tight clusters by the entrance. I saw a few guys walk away from the door, shaking their heads in obvious disgust.
    “Damn ID card!” I heard one of them exclaim to a friend.
    A discontented murmur seeped back through the crowd, so I, still holding Kerry’s hand, started to work my way forward. Kerry pulled me back.
    “Hey, Kerr, c’mon and let’s go see what’s up,” I called out to her halfway over my shoulder and continued my forward motion, but her insistent pull on my hand stopped me. I turned around through the press of bodies to look at her and was surprised—Kerry suddenly looked very uncertain, and I interpreted it as her being shy. Which shocked me.
    “Um, let’s just wait back here. We’ll Þ nd out what’s going on soon enough,” she stammered out and cast her eyes down to wherever the sidewalk was. Her cheeks were ß ushed, and I thought maybe she was tired out from that brisk walk from the subway.
    “Nah, Kerr, I want to see what’s going on.” People had started to disperse a bit and regather into scattered clusters. Some were shaking their heads or shrugging their shoulders at one another in the universal “I dunno” gesture. A couple of groups settled in peaceful rings on the sidewalk, pulling out sodas and chips from army bags and knapsacks, and passing around packs of cigarettes in impromptu picnics.
    I looked at Kerry again. “You stay here a sec. I’ll go talk to the door and see what’s up.”
    She glanced quickly over to the large group still in the general area of the entrance, then turned back to me and nodded.
    I made my way through the crowd, excusing myself when I could, challenge-glaring when I couldn’t (no, I wasn’t trying to cut the line—
    just needed to get information, thanks) until Þ nally I stood in a small semicircular clearing in front of the entrance of CBGB’s, which was half a door.
    The bricks on the wall, where they weren’t covered with layers of stickers and ß yers of glory days gone by, were silver, and the same for what could be seen of the door or, rather, half door. That half was topped with a shelf that held a stamp pad, a stamper, wristbands, what looked like rafß e tickets, and the beefy forearms of the door guy. His head was shaved completely bald, and he had a row of small silver hoop
    • 63 •

JD GLASS
    earrings running up the edge of his left ear, forming a seam around its edge. Although his head and cheeks were completely hair-free, he had a beard that hung down to his rather prominent chest.
    Thickset and well muscled, like a lot of bouncers, he was wearing a white, ribbed, sleeveless T-shirt (which is a guido or a guinea-T to New Yorkers, but if you can’t say “howyoodoowin” right, don’t call it that—you’ll get hurt) that showed off the massive black cross he had tattooed on his left deltoid and a rose and dagger design inside his right forearm.
    Arranging my face into a careless but tough smile, I took a breath.
    “Hey there,” I called out casually to Bouncer Boy with a nod of my head.
    His eyes slid over to me and ran a quick appraisal. Apparently deciding I was “safe,” he nodded in return. “Hey.”
    “Long day?” I asked him. I Þ gured it couldn’t hurt to be polite, and after all, it was up to this guy whether or not Kerry and I got in at all.
    Bouncer Boy rolled his eyes