He had been in the sticky black booth for well over an hour trying to coax his half erection into maturity. He had been unsuccessful from the start. The regular video fare of the old in-and-out just wasn't doing it, so he had been flipping channels, hastily turning the dial in search of some new and inspiring perverseness. Three-way, anal fisting, leather, Japanese cum bath, pseudo-rape, twink sex, electrocution, foot jobs, midget menage a trois, blacks on blondes, tranny spring break, nothing seemed to satisfy his member's laconic disinterest. At a dollar every 90 seconds, this activity was becoming a very expensive.

He had finally settled on one channel, some over-dyed, dried-up old redhead, who looked like she had no idea where she was or what species she belonged to, and tried to get down to business. Spitting on his palms, switching hands, using both hands, one finger in his asshole, he just couldn't make it happen. He became increasingly distracted by the string of disappearing dollars. This was all the money he had. And he was hungry besides being horny. There was lunch to think of.

Just as he was about to resign himself to this small failure, this little death, a man's face popped on the screen. It was old, pink, and mustachioed. "Hello Punk," It said.

His eyes widened. He turned the dial frantically. The channel wouldn't change.

"I know you have the gray papers. I need those. I'm going to send some nice men for you to give them to, OK? You'll recognize the white suits."

Punk bolted out of the sweaty seat, his heart racing. He quickly walked back through the rows of glossy covers painted with acrobatic contortions, impossible configurations of flesh. His hair was on end. Did that actually just happen? Who was this guy? How could he know what he had? He made the obligatory non-eye-contact nod to the proprietor, Rageena, and was about to push his way out of the glass door when he stopped short.

The back of a head he recognized. A black baseball cap with metal lighter covers clipped along every available edge. Chainsaw. He deftly slipped back into the racks of videocassettes.

He pretended to browse, while surveying the scene outside. They were all there. Chainsaw, Fag-ass, Knees, and. . . Crystal, that was the last one. She looked shorter somehow. Perhaps due to her namesake. Street kids. Wanna-be fucking gutter punk posers. Punk once had to pretend to be tight with them -- his other meth connection had skipped town, and he was in a bad way for a while. But even under the blanket of sense-dampening drugs his nerves were raked over by their particular brand of idiocy. And he, Punk, would hang out with anybody, really. But these kids were too fucked to handle.

He knew they all had nice homes to go to in the fucking suburbs. It was raining now, and he would bet all those dollar bills that not one of them could be found sleeping on the streets down in the square tonight. That's how he always knew an oogle. Everyone was poor as shit, homeless, whatever, until it rained and then half of them disappeared. Punk knew, he was out there rain or shine.

They were always harassing people, or making up stories about stomp-downs in train yards, giving themselves bruises and scrapes as proof. They were the ones pissing all over each other for kicks, talking to local reporters to propagate the stereotype in the media, mugging elderly couples, creating false homelessness statistics, and generally giving the streets a bad name.

He knew they were all pissed at him right now. The rumor was the guys in white suits had been looking for Punk, and picked up some other kids by accident. He thought it was all bullshit. Until just a few minutes ago.

The last thing he wanted to do was go outside, but he knew they would be camped there for a while. It was one of their favorite places to spange, right in front of the porn palace. This backdrop tended to reduce a night's change intake, but they didn't care much. Chainsaw preferred this scenery for his come-ons. Plus, it was one of the only places on the strip that still had a canopy -- in case it started raining again.

He needed to find Ollister and unload the stupid papers before this crazy old guy and his white suits found him. He didn't want to, because Ollister would want to know where he got it, and he wasn't good at lying, and then Ollister would know about him and Matilda. But he was scared now, and time felt short.

"Hey!" Rageena. "This ain't the forkin' homeless shelter."

Rageena recognized Punk as one of them. And the gutterpunks were, most defiantly, no longer allowed in Bunny's. He was going to be thrown out if he didn't leave.

He put his hand on the glass door's bar, looked in the direction of his half-erection, which now refused to retreat at all, preferring to remain in stubborn, aching limbo. He sucked in a deep breath and pushed his way out into the wet ignorance.

He was looking down, with his hoodie up over his face, hoping that they wouldn't notice him. But they were always on the lookout for other squatter kids. It would be impossible to escape notice. And sure enough, as he walked quickly down the sidewalk, the cries of 'Oy, you!' And 'Hey faggot!' were raised. Knees chased him down and peered under the hood.

"It's Punk!" he shouted back to his gang.

"He's in with them!" Chainsaw.

"He sent the FBI on us!" Fag-ass.

"He fucked me once!" Crystal. Never mind she was willing.

Punk knew what came next. He ran. As fast as he possibly could with half a boner, slipping and sliding on the oily wet concrete. The gutter punks followed in half-hearted pursuit.

PART 5


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