LUNKHEADED

Part 14

I'm on old-fashioned dude and I usually prefer to do my own legwork when it comes to finding jobs or apartments. I'd always preferred just getting a newspaper, a red pen, coffee and cigarettes, and spending a few hours on the phone. But with school staring soon and the Appliance at death's door, we had to find a place fast. The three of us went into one of those apartment finder services that used to dot Broadway avenue back in those days and told them our parameters-big, cheap, and fast. We found a 1000 square foot loft on Wolcott in Wicker Park right off the bat, but the agent seemed skeptical.

"That's a raw loft..." he said, rubbing his chin.

What does 'raw' mean, we wondered. He told us it usually meant it had exposed wiring, or old floors and ceilings.

"But, this is a RAW loft..."

The second he got the jiggly lock undone and the rickety door swung open we knew it was the place for us. Oh, it was a dump, all right. It was a GLORIOUS dump! The wiring hung from old pipes, the bathroom was the size of a closet and the kitchen was no bigger. It was directly next to the el tracks, so the windows didn't open. The floor was uneven and splintery. The neighborhood was sketchy as all hell, and despite the fact that it was October, the "heater" was already broken. The "heater" was just a huge fan with a heating element behind it. It didn't look like it could keep this fucking cave warm but there was no way to test it, and the agent assured us that they have it fixed soon (it would be mid-January, in fact).

So, it was dirty, rickety, stuffy, and in a real gnarly neighborhood. But, it was also HUGE and more importantly, it was ours. Me, Pete, and Ray. At first.

The first day was spent moving all of our respective stuff down too the city and getting settled in. Me and Pete loaded up the Appliance to it's breaking point and headed south, while Ray filled his parents' van and met us down there. We spent the day unpacking and yanking bongs. We realized we were the only ones with roof access and quickly made it our own party patio. There was an old elevator shed up there, too, so we had a little cabana for when it rained.

Later that night, the three of us went out for burritos and stopped to grab ourselves each a forty ouncer of malt liquor on the way back to the loft. I stopped on Milwaukee avenue to use a payphone to call my girl Cassandra because our phone wasn't on yet, setting my bottle on the payphone while i dug out my calling card. It was around midnight on a sunday and the streets were deserted, adding an air of privacy to my call. Cassandra picked up and we'd been chatting for a minute when an old, busted-up station wagon sidled up to the curb next to me. I turned to look and it contained about eight older mexican dudes. Way older, like my dad's age. I could smell the alcohol fumes from eight feet away and my alarms were all going nuts. I made on excuse to get off the phone, grabbed my beer and started walking quickly towards the loft with my head down. Their car started to move slowly, keeping pace.

"Hey man, we jus' wanna taaaalk to you..." they called to me as I picked up the pace, muttering something about not needing to talk to them.

I knew I was in big trouble. I was still a block from the loft, and if the guys (or another tenant) had closed the deadbolt, I was fucked, I had no key for it. The mexicans were right next to me, hanging out of their car, hollering and gesturing at me, while I strode forward staring straight ahead, knowing I had to make a move or it was gonna get really ugly. So, when I reached the corner I BOLTED down Wolcott, hearing their wheels screech in response as they tore around the corner-I knew this might be it. One hand held my forty and the other was digging through my pockets for my keys as I ran full-speed down the street. I got to my front porch and their car was right on top of me and I couldn't get my keys and I knew I was outta time and I had to do something and, almost instinctively, I reared back and FIRED my 40 ouncer at their windshield and bolted up the steps without even watching it hit. I heard the smashing glass as my hand touched the doorknob. I stole a glance back and the car was lurching up onto the sidewalk, it's occupants pouring out. I grabbed the knob and IT WAS UNLOCKED! I threw the giant metal door open and dove inside, slamming the big deadbolt home as they hit the door, pounding and screaming. The adrenalin was really pumping and I knew I was safe now, so I started taunting them throught the mailslot.

"FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!!! WHOO-HOO!!! COME GET ME, COCKSUCKERS!!!!" I screamed at them.

A bunch of my new neighbors *(none of whom I'd ever met) came running to see what all the commotion was about. Someone went to call the police and I introduced myself around, apologizing for the insanity and promising them that it wouldn't be the norm. But it would.

That night we met the Sculptresses. The Sculptresses were these two Brazilian women who lived down the hall from us. They were lesbians, without question the two hottest authentic lesbians I'd ever seen (Hustler magazine lesbians don't count. Um, they're not really lesbians. Sorry). But then again, every once in a while I'd see them with a couple yuppie-looking dudes, and then I'd hear them getting the shit fucked outa them a few hours later. But, other than occasional yuuppie dude, I was positive these chicks weren't into men. They butched their hair, smoked weed, drank, hung all over each other, one of them punched Pete in the face for no reason, and generally acted like dudes. Looking back, I'd say they were hookers. That'd explain most of it. One of the two of them (I never learned eithers' name) was a bronze sculptress and despite the old, solid nature of the building the walls were incredibly thin and we could hear everything that went on in each others apartments. So we came to the agreement that we wouldn't complain about their pounding brass if they didn't complain about us skateboarding or having band practice in our place. It was a good deal.

LUNKHEADED

Part 13

Our first show with Ron was a huge comedown after the last VFW show, but a show was a show. Even if it’s in a crappy Kenosha apartment at a crappy Kenosha party. We played during the day for some reason to about 10 or so mildly interested Kenosha punks who were wired up on gas station speed and wished we sounded at least a tiny bit like The Exploited. Afterwards, Ron was delighted to report that he’d seen Renee, the parties hostess and quite the little nugget, running around naked. Me and Pete and Tom had been out back smoking and missed the whole thing. Typical.

We went on a weird streak of house shows for a little while after that. We played this basement thing with THE ODD NUMBERS from California that was kinda cool and kinda lame at the same time, ya know? Played an attic at PAULIE THINK’s house in Milwaukee. An empty pizza place in Evanston. Did one at Potato Kalinowski’s house in Wildwood that featured, among other atrocities; Arnold wearing only FILTHY boxer shorts, and beating the living shit out of some doofusy, neon-clad snowboarder kid.

Things at the bookstore had been getting weird, too. Ron and I had been catching a weird vibe. The owners, two lawyers from Milwaukee, had been lurking around more than usual. Plus, there were rumors that some of the Wisconsin stores were going under and that wave might ripple all the way to our information desk in Gurnee. It seems Barnes and Noble were openly targeting our Wisconsin store, opening up a block or two away and then suffocating them out, just like Wal-Mart does.

Sure enough, a couple weeks after the most recent invasion to our territory, my boss Virginia called me into her office. I had been working there since damn near day one, and Virginia and I had a great relationship. She respected my goofball views on literature and life, and I hers.

We’d really gone nuts with the store inventory computers. We had gone past merely changing the names of the books in the system (“A Tale of Two Cities” became “A Sale of Two Titties”, “Tess of The D’Ubervilles” became “Tess of The Doobie Brothers”, etc.), to actually creating fake books ‘written’ by various members of the staff. One of my bitchy assistant managers had found out about her autobiography, “I Wake Up Screaming”, and was NONE TOO AMUSED, so I figured that was what this was about. It wasn’t. Virginia told me Dicken’s Books was getting downsized. And that I was the down getting sized. She was nice about it and asked if I’d rather get my hours cut and go part-time, or get fired and collect unemployment. I picked the latter and decided it was the perfect time to go back to college. And, much more importantly; not work.

I’d always fancied myself a writer and had been long enamored of the Columbia College. It was in the city, great ciriculum and teachers, andit had a three year journalism program. So I drove down to the loop in my smoky, sputtery Renault Alliance to sign up. The thing about the Appliance was, if you went over 50 miles an hour; the light smoke whisping from the tailpipe would thicken into a fire-extinguisher-like, road-blocking fog like the video game Spy Hunter. So, the hour-and-a-half round trip took four, smelly, humiliating hours.

Moving back to the city was my only option if I wanted to make my second college go-round last. I had unemployment and Pete had some money he’d saved up and he wanted to get out of his moms’. Our buddy Ray had recently been kicked out of his parents’ house so he got in on the action. More people means more money towards rent, right? Yeah. Right.

LUNKHEADED

Part 12 Brian said he'd play one more show and we had a good one booked at the local VFW hall. We had given up trying to find bars in the suburbs so we decided to lie to local hall rental folks and book our own shows with us and our friends' bands. The Gurnee VFW was the first one we tried. Me and Pete had gone in there and met with Red, the old-timer in charge of renting out the hall. He was the prototypical crotchety old VFW hall type of dude. We sat down with him at the bar and told him with straight faces that we wanted to hold a 'dance' with live music. Specifically a 'dance' for 'the kids'. When Red asked me what kind of music we'd be having I told him, "You know, dance music." He gave us a mean look, but he went for it. We booked a Sunday afternoon and left giggling. To advertise for upcoming shows, we'd combine our shoplifting trips with flyering trips. We'd do our usual business, then leave a stack of flyers on the way out the door. This was not only a few short weeks after the "talent show" disaster but it was also the first all-ages punk show in the Wildwood/Gurnee area. There'd been a couple death metal-type shows with the occasional punk band tossed in [Ed. note-I vividly remember seeing No Empathy at the Libertyville VFW on one of these type of shows, which also featured a post-Paul Alford version of Not-Us], but not a regular, city-type punk show, so anticipation was high. We wanted to get Ron into the act so we thought it would be funny if he sang the national anthem before we played. I'm not sure why this was funny, but it sounded hilarious. When showtime came, we were all really shocked by the turnout. We had 120 paid by the time the first band, so we were amped to rock it the fuck out. When the time came and we were tuned up and lubed up, Ron took his place at the mic and without any ado leapt into an earnest accapella version of the Star Spangled Banner. At first people were just confused. A little heckling, but mostly just looking around wondering who WAS this guy? Then the spit came. First once, then again. Suddenly, Ron was standing up to a veritable spit shower. At one point, a loogie of formidable size caught him on the nose and just hung there, as Ron sang on with dedication. He finished the song, spit back, and we played Brian's farewell show.

LUNKHEADED

PART 11

Ron had a friend named Saucy Jack who was also from Trevor and also shared Ron’s subversive sense of humor. The two lived together and were always into something.

Saucy was the perfect partner for Ron. Ron had a shaved head, huge earrings, and generally looked punk. Saucy, on the other hand, looked like Joe Q. Public. You’d buy what he was selling. An example: Some years back, Saucy and a buddy of his bullshitted their way through an episode of the MTV show “Fanatic” by saying they were huge Bruce Willis fans. They, like most everyone else, could give two shits about Bruce Willis, but they’d heard he was gonna be one of the people they featured and MTV took the bait. They were flown to London where he was opening a Planet Hollywood to meet and interview him. Jack said that by the first night the MTV people were already suspicious and kept peppering them with questions like, “Are you guys REALLY that into Bruce Willis?” and stuff. At one point, they were threatened with MTV revoking their return plane tickets if they could prove they it was just a ruse. Jack and his accomplice refused to budge, though, swearing their allegiance to Willis and calling upon their vast pop culture knowledge to reference songs from Willis’ long-forgotten blues album “Midnight at Bruno’s” or whatever the fuck they called that piece of shit. They were put up in a four-star hotel in downtown London and told the meeting would be the next day. So, they partied it up on MTV’s dime all night and stumbled iinto the interview. It’s funny, but if you see the video, you simply CAN NOT believe MTV didn’t just throw their asses right out the door. The spend the entire episode practically laughing at the camera. When they finally did the interview, it only ended up lasting a couple minutes. An aide came in and whispered something into Willis’ ear and that was that. Turns out, what he whispered was that Phil Hartman (another partner in the Planet Hollywood empire) had just been shot and killed by his wife. So the pair were deposited onto a plane home under the disapproving frowns of the MTV suits, who steadfastly believed (correctly) that they’d been had.

Ron had an unusual childhood. Not a bad one, just an unusual one. His parents had divorced when he was young and his mom dated a guy named Ross for most of Ron’s childhood with whom Ron chose to live when they split up. Ross died recently, shortly after Ron’s mom, and I truly felt for him. It was one of the toughest periods anyone I’ve known has gone through. Ross was the coolest fucking guy, too. Everyone loved him. He’d come to our Wisconsin shows and hang with us and was a genuinely interesting cat. At his funeral a procession of people appeared out of the woodwork to thank Ron. It turns out Ross had been secretly helping out many, many people financially, emotionally, or both. And ya know, I wasn’t the least bit surprised, he was that kinda dude.



One day I was over at my parents doing laundry and mooching food when Pete called.

“Brian quit.” He said.

I asked why and it was pretty much what we figured would be his eventual undoing; he preferred metal and he preferred playing guitar, and though he wouldn’t say it-he was just too good for Lunkhead.

I thought for a minute and said, “Well ya know, there’s this guy I work with and he’s cool as hell and he plays bass…”

Pete asked if he was any good, and I said I didn’t know. Pete asked if he was cool.

“He’s into Crimpshrine.” I said.

It was done. We called Ron and he said he’d think about it and call us back. The phone rang a few minutes later and Ron said he was in. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes.