been cake batter, amply embellished with household cleaning products, urine, and a few dead bugs, climbing up the yet unfinished
Cooper Union Dorm construction site until they were directly over the noisy menace and dumped the whole bucket on their heads.
The boys quickly jammed back down the steps, over the roof, hearing the victims screams and threats, as they somehow managed to
gain entrance and were coming up the stairs to exact a hideous revenge. The boys ducked into a top floor apartment, luckily occupied
by their girlfriends, namely Gena and Hickey. Gena herself had just arrived home from work, tending bar at CBGB's, and had no clue
what was going on when the boys promptly hid themselves in her closet. The doorbell rang. “Don’t answer it...” the boys hissed, as
she turns the knob, opening it to find two batter-splattered immigrants brandishing a five foot pipe, demanding the heads of the
godless heathens. “Don’t ask me,” Gena snaps, “I just got here, ask these guys.” she retorts, pointing to the closet. With that, the
boys pop out, exclaiming ignorance, been here all day, they say. The pipe wielder points to the floor, telltale traces of footprinted cake
batter leading from the stairs to Gena’s door, at which point Puma tries coaxing them inside for a quick and painless death, at which
point the victims stalk off, unwilling to face the penalties of trespassing and what might happen if they cross that threshold.
at the bottom of a light less
shaft with a steady supply of
slop, noise and filth, the
place was a breeding hole
for hell’s armies on judgment
day. (Don’t laugh dauntless
reader, I’ve lived it, and I’ve
got the scars to prove it).
of mold evolving in the corner. Three of the outside views were other building’s garbage pits (the occupants the main
contributors). Puma had one room, Smoothie, the other. Puma’s room was the antithesis of order, to the extreme. He explained
this as,
“ You gotta be in touch with your environment, not just the dust and the microbes, but the vertebrates as well as the whole insect
spectrum, almost Tao-like, not interfering with nature.” This was coming from a guy who pointed out that politeness dictated that
you cover your mouth when you sneeze.
weapon was the old-school Boys of Honor Code, which boiled down to,
bullying you with- “Smoke Dope ‘Till Your Lungs Bleed!”
His peculiarities included a schizophrenic bashing of the English
Language to the point where our daily conversations sounded like 2
dyslexic elephants making love to a men's glee club.
The favorite wording structure followed a strict substitution of the letter
“ i “ with the letter “ o “. Therefore, right became rote, light became lote,
and shit became shiznam for reasons which were never really made clear.
rollerblading and illicit (illegal) substances and
the combination of the two. My precipitous
arrival into this scene was an initiation
comparable to the Spanish Inquisition. A strong
joint had addled the brain whilst two skates
were furiously spinning in an awkward ballet of
physics and pure adrenaline-twisted survival
instinct.
However many injuries were sustained that
day, the rush was comparable to that of
rediscovering religion while driving 125 MPH
straight into a state-police barracks with a bottle
of Jack Daniels in each hand. Puma was the
progenitor, the one who would usher hundreds
of people into a new era of free-flowing-balls-
out chemically enhanced sensorium. He would
teach us the value of removing our brakes from
our skates and adding decoration and paint as
well as structures to reinforce our skating
abilities.
The ultimate combinations of enhanced-
states of mind and exercise were the triple
threat of Roller-blading, psychedelic
mushrooms, and chewing tobacco. (Trippin’,
Dippin’ & Skatin’ as Smoothie would point out...)