Tag: punk girls

Short Fiction — I Am a Cliché

Debra rounded the side of the school just as the skies opened up. She shifted boxes of snacks as she struggled with her umbrella and rushed over to the visiting team’s bench.

She was only ten minutes late but this part of the city confounded her with its labyrinth of tiny narrow streets. She hoped Melanie would forgive her. She made a big deal of waving frantically when her daughter looked up and noticed her as she settled into a spot on the bleachers with the other parents from the visiting school.

They were a conservative-looking bunch under their umbrellas and hooded jackets; polo shirts and khakis for the very occasional dad, with the mothers dolled up in their upper middle-class finery of cropped pants, ballet flats and pretty cashmere sweaters. Debra cheered enthusiastically when Melanie’s team got control of the ball.

On the next set of bleachers, the home team parents were a rougher-looking bunch.

“Goodness, it’s all very ‘urban’, isn’t it?” asked Ginny Wilson, the goalie’s mother, as the home team parents erupted in a raucous cheer when one of theirs scored a goal.

Debra tried to ignore the racist insinuation in Ginny’s comment. They came from a very white suburb and this was obviously a very mixed community; kids and parents were clearly from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, represented by everything from blue dreadlocks and tattoos to hijabs, turbans and door-knocker earrings.

“It’s good for the kids to meet new and different people,” she replied, trying to sound open-minded without triggering a debate. Debra liked the folks in her community well enough but found some of them excessively narrow in their views on other cultures. She hated debating with them, and made a point of avoiding discussions on anything resembling differences. It wasn’t that she agreed with Ginny but she’d rather not have to defend her point of view.

Ginny sniffed with disdain. “I guess, but there are some people I’d rather my kids not interact with, you know?”

At that moment the home team scored another goal and a bunch of parents stood up to cheer. One women in particular was louder than the others, her distinctive voice echoing across the field.

“That’s it Katy, kick ’em in the bleedin’ arse!!”

The visiting parents uttered a collective gasp at the swear word, loud enough to be heard, and the woman turned to look at them with a wide grin on her face as she twirled her umbrella. “Oi, you bunch of pearl-clutchers! Get over yourselves!”

It was then that Debra paired the woman’s distinctive voice with her wild, curly hair, big eyes and sarcastic smile. Patty Smash. THE Patty Smash. At her daughter’s football game.

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Short Fiction – The Black Cat and the Prince of Darkness

We would walk for miles most nights.

First we would smoke a big joint, purchased from the dealer who hung out at the Quoc Thé, the basement Vietnamese karaoke bar up the street with the dirty glassware and the overwhelming incense. Then, in search of munchies, we would head north to the 7-11, the only place in Kensington Market open after dark, other than the Portuguese billiards hall where I, a young woman of the Goth persuasion, was most definitely not welcome.

On nights when we didn’t load up with every form of chocolate then return to the flat to eat and pass out, we would walk around the city for hours. We walked because we were skint most of the time, or would rather save our money to buy drugs than pay for transit, but also because everything was within walking distance. Sort of. We thought nothing of leaving a club at 2am and walking three or four miles home, even in the freezing cold. Most stuff was closer. But on those nights when we intentionally went for a walk, we would just wander for hours. Sometimes it was down into the empty financial district, other times up to the posh enclaves of old mansions in the Annex or Yorkville where we peered curiously into windows to see people’s fancy decor.

We would come home after these walks, or any night we were out clubbing, staggering into the Market past the nausea-inducing stink of trucks full of live chickens parked and awaiting slaughter in the morning, to be greeted by a small black cat that sat at the end of the alleyway we traversed to get to our door. It would always run away before we got close to it, and over the months it never seemed to get any larger. But it was there every night, regardless of the weather, seemingly waiting for us.

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Short Fiction – The Cherry Beach Express

Shannon walked out of Nuts and Bolts just before last call expecting the air outside to be cool, or at least cooler than the soup of humidity that hung over the dance floor. But the early-August night offered no respite; no breeze with the heady scent of summer blooms, no drop in temperature from the sweltering heat of the daytime. It was hard to breathe, but she shrugged her leather jacket back on, the collection of buttons and badges of her favourite punk and industrial bands carefully arranged on the lapels clinking together as the heavy garment settled on her shoulders.

Her white t-shirt was soaked with sweat, and she hadn’t worn a bra. Usually it didn’t matter but this old shirt with The Smiths on the front had been worn so often it was getting faded and thin and while it hadn’t bothered her in the darkness of the club, on the street she felt self-conscious about the sheerness of the fabric.

Between the exertion of dancing and the temperature inside the club, what little make-up she had bothered to wear had mostly melted off her face, leaving her with only a messy smudge of black eyeliner under each eye.

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