Good Boy Punk

Sophomore year in college, I met a bisexual woman named Sydney. I had little to no experience with anything other than heterosexuality, so she intrigued me. It crossed my mind occasionally what I would do if she came on to me sexually, if I would respond. But I just didn’t have those feelings. I like men. Just men. Sydney never made a pass. We were friends.

She introduced me to a friend of hers named John. He was very bright, talked fast about interesting things and was funny as hell. But he was punk.

I remember we went to see Roman Polanski’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. He made some joke about Polanski’s penchant for underage girls which wouldn’t make sense to me for years.

He was so incredibly sweet. He wore kelly green jeans and hi-top Vans. He was punk, but good boy punk, not angry punk. He would have been an excellent, kind, thoughtful, devoted, affectionate, loving boyfriend.

He worked at a sub shop on Lake City Way. One night he wrote me a long love letter on a cash register tape, handed it me rolled up. Who does that? Who does that? But I could not get past his kelly green jeans.

What a fickle short-sighted snob I was. The man wasn’t a diamond in the rough. He was a diamond.