I'm watching Finn and Critter climb the steps into
the bus and this thought suddenly hits me and I mean upside
the head.
They go inside each other's bodies.
And it does seem kinda weird. It makes me wonder if I
really am prejudiced deep down. Then I remember how I felt
when I first found out my mom and dad did that and talk about
weird.
It's impossible to stand still very long on the side walk be-
cause the crowd is like two rivers converging and going sud-
denly into rapids on the pathway through the trees. There's a
current that carries you along and we're already moving with it
when the bus pulls away but I can't help turning back to scan
the windows in case Finn and Critter switched sides. They
didn't but the blonde did and now she's sitting where I was
and looking right at me or actually a little over my head which
means she's looking at Jonnyboy.
Who's looking noplace but straight ahead and charging for-
ward with one hand locked around my wrist and the other
clenched above his head and I can't see his lips but I know
what they're saying which is vintage Johnny Rotten.
As in Follow Me!
Where the trees stop and the open field starts the sudden
heat from the people and the sun is like an airlock into another
world. Everyone slows down and there's room to move apart a
little and head for the different ticket kiosks. There's portable
chain-link fencing between them topped with blue and yellow
helium balloons instead of barbed wire and most of the people
taking tickets are Asian types in robes the color of those
crushed velvet ropes you see outside restaurants with valet
parking. We're at one end of a huge long grassy space too
narrow to really be an oval that slopes uphill toward a giant
stage built on scaffolding maybe three stories high. Bright col-
ored boxy tents with streamers and flags around the edges
make it seem like the midway of a carnival.
Before the semis hauling the rides get there that is. Before
the drivers discover there's no room for any rides with all the
people. Who knows how many but all of Monterey has like
25,000 total and there must be twice that here. With more
than half of them boyz with their shirts off or else taking them
off right now the way Jonnyboy is because the field is com-
pletely surrounded by trees that shut down the natural San
Francisco air-conditioning from water on three sides and since
it's the middle of June the sun is twelve o'clock high in the sky
even though it's more like three. The film of sweat on Jonny-
boy's chest just emphasizes how built he is in a natural way
from surfing and sk8boarding and the letters of the Team Pain
tattoo on his left upper arm are distorted from climbing up the
swell of his biceps and it almost shames me into keeping my
own shirt on but I just figure what the hey and tie mine around
my waist too.
- Kief Hillsbery, War Boy [Picador, 2000] pp. 41-42
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