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"Hey where were you on Saturday night?" came a voice from behind me.
It was my neighbour, that irritating half-breed nosey-parker.
"I was at this punk party, well maybe it wasn't what you could call punk at all."
He said nothing and carried on staring at me.
"Well was it any good, I mean what you mean, wasn't really a punk party, haah?"
So there I was standing in the middle of my driveway explaining to this belch of a human being my weekend curriculum. Thus began I on my sordid tale of fire, fast cars and losers who listened to Rancid at night and donned suits and ties during the day…

It all began to unwind in suburban Claremont outside Gino's pad, night was setting in and it was some time around nine-pee em. My dead beat friend Merle and I had just enjoyed another keyboard jam at his place and having climbed out of my old Golf 86, were arbing around the street wondering which entrance we were to use to get inside Gino's house.

As we stood there we watched as the streetlights began casting strange unearthly shadows off of the parked cars onto a nearby wall as their owners sat cosily inside a raunchy neighbouring restaurant. "Shit that looks like an elephant," I said.
"And that one like a dinosaur," I said interrupting Merle mid-sentence (this has been quite a routine since I met the crazy kid some seven years ago). We could've gone on staring at these shapes and figuring some alien life form had found us and was trying to get through to us by using some rudimentary form of communication, but we had things to do, we had a punk party to piss up on.

Finally an ahoy of some sorts arose from across the wall, it was our cue to use the adjoining gate and we slid in while an old woman, smiling held the gate open for us. 'I wonder who that was,' I thought to myself. A quick sweep of the desolate back yard said there was no sign of life here, just an old dirty couch facing a half-smouldering fire, the flames barely visible behind a veil of smoke.

Where were the lively punks who it seemed were always so keen on a party or two? Nowhere to be found. Had this all been a hoax, had Gino just wanted us over there 'cause he couldn't find anyone else to lame with? Then as we looked again we saw what looked like the rough outlines of the long-haired hippy and another body, lying entwined in one another.

The hump of flesh belonged to none other than slob retro-styler Karen. We were in for a sad pathetic evening. Later as the night dragged on into infinite boredom Merle would lean closer and say, "Once in a while Gino picks up this fat ugly chick and starts acting all weird on us".

To an outsider with no prior knowledge of Karen or her pestering childlike attitude to everyone around her, you might just have asked, "so what's the problem then?" Why was Merle considering skipping the fence and getting the fuck out of there? Were we on a one-way slide to one of those nights where you go out try have fun but somehow when in the depths of the morning your head finally hits the pillow you can't stop yourself from wondering what a dull and mediocre life you lead?

Well look if you'd arrived to whines and whinges of, "Hey where's the wood, you guys didn't bring any wood," you probably would've considered belting as quick as possible. The catch was that the fire was our only source of amusement and it was now dying. We had to come up with a plan soon. Karen wasn't getting any more relaxed anyway. "Can't you guys go to the BP express station, it's not that far, just buy us some wood". Then Gino had to add his ten cents in support of flabby lips, "you guys didn't bring anything, no boos or food, go on and get the wood, come on man".

"We didn't bring any booze because we don't plan to drink anything alcoholic tonight. We had enough of that last night," I rebutted referring to our rough night at the River club (Stage Magazine showcase five bands and six free tequilas). "Yeah and anyway you didn't tell us to bring any wood, " added Merle, who by now was beginning to get fired up by the whole thing.

"Gavin is going to have wood," said Gino. But something weird had happened. In between more conversation and shuffling around we begun pulling out bits of wood from the house.

It started when I casually asked where they'd gotten hold of the large smouldering plank of wood that was leaning up against the vibercrete wall. Beneath the annoyingly large sheets of smoke the piece of pine looked remarkably like the door of some small cupboard. "Yes we were pulling out stuff from the house," laughed Gino to himself. Soon all hell broke loose.

The hippy was first to get started. He disappeared into the house emerging soon after with an arrangement of dry bush. "It really is so lovely," Karen called out.
"Throw it on then, throw it, thow it," I chanted and then quickly started breaking it into smaller pieces so as to ensure our hippie hosts didn't turn all Green Peace on us and decide to call off the burnings. If this happened it would throw our whole wood-collecting project into disarray returning us to a moaning, winging Karen and driving Merle and I steadily deeper into cranium dysfunction.

Then something bizarre happened. Like a sex-crazed fiend who upon entering a crowded city street sees only big-breasted women amongst those before him, our eyes became hooked on one thing and one thing only. Wood. Over there between us and our neighbours (the old woman who'd opened up for us stayed there) - wooden poles. The chairs we were seated on - made of wood, a kitchen stool out between the couch and the fire, a lovely varnish covering it - also wood and over there what's that, looks like a piece of …

Next thing we'd dived into an outside storeroom and like rabid dogs in search of water, began hunting down bits of pine, oak or whatever we could find that resembled wood. Merle and I came out the cramped 'storeroom' with bits of wood, planks and oddly shaped pieces of pine. Then Gino produced his cupboard door. That soon became fuel to the fire as well when like a bunch of neo-Nazi's in training we propped it neatly up against the wall and began taking turns to boot kick the shit out of it, snapping the board neatly.

At about this time, the fire rejuvenated and spewing metre-high flames up, that George, one of the punks emerged. Of course we'd met George before, yes I'd say it's been two or three times already that we've been introduced to one another, but you had to laugh as we traded names yet again.
"Hi - George."
"Hi - Merle". ("yeah for the fourth time," whispered Gino leaning over to Merle)
"Hey -Johnson," I said.

Then the evening kicked into action with the arrival of Gavin. Yes the puppet-man himself. It was no surprise that he looked the way he did with long spindly arms and legs, weedy glasses and a long twisty black Confucius-style goatee. The guy was into clay-mation stop motion filming and came across more like one of the characters in his video-clips than like your everyday Homo Sapien.

Our evening's entertainment had begun and Merle kept surreptitiously decanting some of Gavin's prized whiskey into a glass, telling me it took the edge off his hangover. Jokes, satires, quirks you name it, it didn't matter what the guy said it was just the way he said anything that was enough to make you laugh. A freak you say? In the old days of the travelling circus maybe yes, he would've been branded as one and would have served as the perfect excuse for any amateur gypsy ringmaster to strike it rich.

But just as we were all getting comfortable it was Karen's crackly voice which would plunge us once again into disequilibria. "Gavin won't you please fetch us some wood," she whined. Soon all four of us minus the baggy women excuse for a punk crusty, were squashed into Gavin's derelict grey BMW. After the old eight-point turn (because "I am not going to scrape my car over that pavement, no ways") we were off, Gavin flopping around like an old Irish poodle in the driver's seat.

There's a first time for everyone to be driving with the weedy geek and our number was up. This was it, goodbye all nice knowing you. To admit, it was peaceful to start off with. When Gavin skipped through a stop street no one worried because we were in a quiet side road and most anyone would probably have jumped it even if they were a hundred percent sober and the sun shining with their old woman buckled tight in the seat beside them.

Then all hell broke loose. Gavin steering at a steady 70 kilometres an hour realized after some hasty calculations that he wasn't going to make the intersection 300m further down the road before the light turned red. His foot went flat and he screamed, a crazy sinister cry of, "We're not gonna make it". The car climbed to 130 as Merle and I in the back held our breath and gritted our teeth. Gavin was bending over the wheel almost like he was trying to push his foot further into the pedal. He was taking us with him, our suicide bomber. Next to the crazy sat Gino, his back tightly pressed up against the leather lining of his seat as if he were melting into it.

Still roaring along at over a hundred he yanked the car into a near spin, taking the sharp bend that would lead us to the BP express station. He decelerated at once came to a steady stop and we all got out. I was stunned. I'm one of those passengers that likes to enjoy the view when enclosed in the metal cage of a car or a bus. Tonight I somehow thought that the only view I was going to be looking at was my face planted in the seat in front of me.

So in we go, me at first hanging back, but then soon we're all inside squirming around the isles looking and feeling things. We all take something to drink or munch, except for me. I can't decide whether it will be worth getting a coke or a sprite or just try and sap off some of Gino's orange juice back at his place. But as I was later to discover, maybe I should have just got a damn drink there after all because he'd been hogging it too himself and things weren't going to change all of a sudden when we got back.

Outside Merle and Gino struck up a convo with a man leaning up against the shop window. He looked like he worked there. "Does it get quite busy here at night," Gino asked looking away and down at the bricked ground in an almost disinterested way. "Ja, very, people they come and park here and play their music loud in the car and it's like a party here sometimes. Later they do drag racing up and down the street," said the manager, waving his arm to the busy street to his left, "but I'm not into that," he said.

Gino was the first to realize that after all the trouble we'd gone to we'd almost forgotten the freaking wood. He picked up a bunch and standing in a kind of wild man pose at the doorway, his arms flapping at his side, he shouted across the floor to Gavin - "six Rand for the wood". The whole store turned to see the longhaired Gino standing like something that had just walked out of the bush. Merle and I hovering outside turned to the store's manager, and all nodded our heads as if to say, "let's remove him from here before someone else sees him".

Back inside the BMW Gavin started up again. "Sheez my car is going to be really messed," he said, laughing once again when I said I might never drive with him again. "No, do you think I always drive like this, ha hah, I don't man honest," he said as he ripped the German-built car into neutral plunging it into a screaming five second rev. At last we were back with our eight stumpy excuses for wood. We threw most of it on the fire in one go. Shit that wasn't worth the hassle and the R6. The wood looked like the ends of rather thick juicy roots that people'd picked up in Mitchell's Plain, out on the sand dunes where some say only rotten stuff grows.

We settled down and Gavin began telling us about his latest job. Just like in his previous job when he was a Mr Delivery man driver his new rent paying excursion again involved the use of his BMW. "I drive a prostitute to work everyday and back again," he said grinning through his weedy glasses frames.
"You what?" we all seemed to say in unison.
"This friend of mine knows a prostitute and I drive her to this brothel in Durbanville everyday. I get R170 a trip!" he grinned.

"Does she like being a prostitute?"
"No man, who actually digs that anyway. But she makes money fucking men and she's 29 and yeah I think she needs the bucks. She's studying and wants to go overseas," said Gavin nodding here and there and in a strange sort of way that made him look like he was bobbing up and down on a rocking chair. Though he was lounging all sloppy on the couch as he usually does, today he felt ten feet taller in stature than any of us.
I began prodding him with more questions, my back to the thrashing fire.
"How many are there? What kind of girls go there? What kind of clients?"

"Okay man stop asking so many questions," protested the geeky Gavin slobbering as he enunciated his words. "He's excited, he's actually talking to someone who knows a person that has sex," joked Merle as he tore into laughter.

"They are middle-class quite respectable-looking, there's about fifty of them. You should see the kind of cars that park outside. They range from your really shitty Ford Cortinas to your expensive convertibles. But man you should see this, from when you leave the N2 there are cameras watching you."
"That's probably so that they can keep track of customers and get the plates of any freaks who ended up slapping the women around," I said, Gavin turning slightly to agree.

Soon the punks were arriving. We'd first caught a glimpse of them as we headed off in Gavin's BMW to the BP express. After having to turn the beast of a car around we'd passed four or five figures. It was the punks pulling computer boxes, monitors, keyboards and wires from two parked cars.

"Punks with computers, that's a rare thing," said Merle, laughing cos punks are like kids that never grow up and hardware like that is only ever used by them to play games on. "Are they networking," asked Gino chuckling along.

When we arrived back after that trip down to the BP express shop with Gavin all four or five computers had already been set up and were lined up in the living room. I asked Robyn a punk chick what was up. "They have to press fifty new copies of the Hog record, you know 'Driving Miss Daisy'?"
"Heard of it, not actually heard it," I reluctantly admitted.

Later we were outside when things turned ugly. Someone should've expected it. The mood was uptight and our friend Gino had just brushed us off by disappearing inside to fiddle around with the punks' toys and talk shop with them.

Back to the major social slur. It started with Gavin who threw some irritating babble back at punk-ass Robyn while she was slowly recounting some allegory she had of life and how you shouldn't piss people and their religions off, how apt.

"What's the big thing about punk?" came Merle in a quiet way that didn't reflect his growing irritableness with the punks.

"It all about being yourself, about individuality about being free to express who you are, you can be a punk without actually listening to punk music. It's a way of life," she said as if she was reading off the main points of some code of conduct. So in theory Gavin with his maniacal driving antics was a punk, Merle and his belief of the freedom of the individual was punk and even me with my anti-establishment anti-macho crap could be included in it too.

But why didn't people call us punks then?

Wait Robyn's talking bullshit, hasn't it got everything to do with the way you dress?
The chains. What's with the freekin chains? Someone once told me, I think it was a punk too, that it's what they use to attach their keys or their wallets to. That's it punks have this underlying fear of either losing their keys or having someone (another punk or maybe a "fuckin" surfer) steal their wallet, so much so that they also have this key ring tag-thing hanging around their necks.

They also have to wear skate shoes, like Vans or Island Styles and those vests or their baggy pants. Those pants are the most interesting. They have to and I stress HAVE TO at all accounts (even at the risk of looking like a geek wit homey) hang as low as possible. This is so that punks can show off their latest style of boxer shorts. It has to be boxer shorts. Men try the same thing with normal underwear or briefs and check the reaction. Your friends and peers will see you as a sicko fag and wannabe who is only trying to get his arse or dick out of his undies to prove to others his complete lure for perverts.

Let's return to the example of Gavin who in all earnesty could be a punk. His don't give a shit skanky lifestyle of fast cars, hauling prostitutes, stop motion Claymation and his Offspring guitarist Noodles look (the Smash photo session) all make him more worthy to be called a punk than all the punks at the party put together. He even realized that: "Each of my pieces of clothing taken on their own could be punk, I have the boots this rough-looking shirt, the dirty jeans, but once you put them all together, no punk is going to tell you that this all looks punk anymore". So give him the label for godsakes. Make him a punk somebody, please.

Let me say some more on this whole clothing - individuality - sub-culture thing we've got going here. Look at the goths. They also started out preaching the whole 'individualist thing' but in the end they and the punks end up looking more conformist than your average middle-age yuppie clad in Diesel wear and driving a SUV. Maybe it's who we are as humans that we all have to fit into some sort of group or other. Even those who propound to be for the individual and minority rights and shit like that and spend their whole lives rubbing up against the mainstream and the dominant belief structure, even they are at the core of it all - followers.

Is it human to be a follower, to be part of a group and to want to fit in? Is it so terribly wrong not to become offended if someone disses your religious or political group? To believe they are not attacking you, but this non-living entity called a group. No it is all mixed up in who we are. Force-fed to us when we were in school being systematically conformed to fit into the group politic.

And that's where Merle made his mistake. If only he'd remembered what Robyn had said earlier about insulting someone's religion. At parties the safest is to keep away from topics that introduce religion or politics to those around you. It's age-old, you're taught that from when you're this screaming adolescent to when you're a blithering single adult getting sod-drunk at parties. For your emotional, mental and physical security don't risk it. Don't talk about Jesus, Islam, killing Jews, the Holocaust or the ANC or DA. It's not worth it.

Most of us stay away from these two subjects just cos we want to avoid remorse. Offend someone in front of tens of people you don't really know, that in the spirit of the party you would probably want to at least get on with till the night was over, and you risk being ostracized from the party's populous. Shooed away from the drinks tables when you try to drown your guilt in booze and neglected by potential mating partners who now see you as insensitive and arrogant prick.

But then again why should anyone have to care, right? Fuck our heritage - isn't that more punk than punks themselves…well maybe. So how did Merle go down? How did he shoot himself in the foot? Here's how, he started telling a joke he'd told to so many people before.

"What's this," he said stretching his arms out.
"I don't know," came Gavin.
"A bad way to spend Easter," splattered Merle. Gavin, Merle and I rolled into laughter but from the corner of my eye I could tell all was not well. Robyn, who managed to salvage and bear an unconvincing smile hadn't by this time said a word. But see Merle reckoned he was on a roll. He was eager for more and he swept in like a Stuka dive-bomber dropping down onto fleeing Polish reservists. "What's this," he yelled, swaying back and forth with arms outstretched once again. "Jesus on a rubber cross!"

"Hahahahhaha."
That one really had Merle, Gavin and I in a fit of laughter. But Robyn just sat there. No smile, no wince, just sat there, not amused at all. Aah okay what now? Gavin braved the question that was on all of our minds…

"Are you Christian by any chance?" he asked, a grimace of uncertainty stretching across his face. "Yes a little," she said, still a little mashed at the whole affair. Merle delivered his meagre apologies as we sat trying to think up simple dumb convo waiting for Robyn's inevitable departure from our company.

It soon came and she went back inside to where the rest of the skate-punkers were.
"I think we just offended a Christian," somebody said as we sat there musing in our thoughts.

What is so romantic about being a punk anyway? Oh well who cares, at the end of the day they're flesh and blood people just like us, with needs, dreams, aspirations, they get bored, have fun and lay down and go to sleep just like everybody else.

"No you can't go now," pleaded a depressed-looking Gino to Merle through the car window as I started up the Golf's rusty-sounding engine. We were tired and had to go to sleep and eased off into the road. Actually truth was that we'd got bored of the party and Gavin's waxing lyrical was the only consolation to another dull, airless weekend night.