Uncovering Bruce
Looking back on it now, it seems like it never really happened.
It all jumps around a lot, but it seems to start where it ended in this LA graveyard – Eternal Hollywood they call it. Yea, like I’m Hollywood or something.
No, I’m only in town to visit my friend Johnny. Maybe you know him. He’s got a baseball card collection. His brother Dee Dee lives there too now, and we were all there for his birthday. Joey crooning 10 times larger than life on the mausoleum walls.
It was great. Kind of like Ricky Nelson’s “garden party”, except for punks. Now, I know what you are going to say. You are going to say I don’t look like much of a punk. Well, that’s fine but you know it’s not the kind of thing where you go out and buy an outfit.
I’m not sure really how you get to be a punk, except that when it’s going on in the first person it’s like obscenity in that you know it when you see it. For me I suppose it was a little like the guy in an officer and a gentleman – I got noplacelsetago. So I was 19 once, and the man said leave home so that’s what I did…………
And Bruce was there with me.
He sat in the corner of class in high school. Like a lot of new kids in town, he never said much, and he was dressed like the teacher. But unlike all the other kids, he wasn’t afraid to give you a smile from across the room that let you know he saw that you weren’t alone. And you know, being young is about a lot of alone.
And suddenly here is this stranger on the bus whispering “hey, buddy……I can see it…you’re one of us…” He offers up a smoke and the blended stench of menthol, deodorant and diesel fuel fills your nostrils while the girl two rows up checks her make up. The bus stops, she gets off, you both watch her exit this dimly lit stage and you look at each other like oh man someday…..I’m gonna…. and the connection is made. Finally you are home.
His house was a lot easier not to get in a fight in than my house, so for the rest of my youth, if things got tough, I’d hide there. Like a lot of kids, we’d close the door, speak under our breath, and count the seconds until we got out.
We had to get out. How were we gonna get out? Where were we gonna go? How much was it gonna take to get there? What were the people on the outside gonna look like? It’s my life. It’s a hard world to get a break in.