BUY MY BOOKS | HOME | FICTION | ESSAYS | ON-LINE DIARY | MARGINALIA | GALLERY | INTERACTIVE FEATURES | FAQ | SEARCH ENGINE | LINKS | CONTACT

www.ralphrobertmoore.com

the official website for the writings of
ralph robert moore

That's the Way Punks Think is copyright © 2000 by Ralph Robert Moore.

Print in HTML format.

Return to one-paragraph stories.





one-paragraph stories
that's the way punks think


That's the way punks think Raymond would say he was usually right it's hard sometimes not to think like a punk we wondered why he hung out with us so much black teenager with twelve year old white kids but we got used to his company even enjoyed it the stories he would tell the stuff he knew about the military the heat resistant skin behind the exhaust outlet is called the refractory sometimes one or the other of us would talk to him sitting on trash cans in the alley behind fat boy's general market if we were mad at our dad or worried about a bully sometimes one or the other of us would cry and he'd cheer us up talking real quiet smelling like cloves sometimes we'd go into a store together all of us Raymond real cheerful inside nodding at the man behind the cash register not using any contractions every sentence with a sir in it but on the sidewalk before going in we could see that look in his eyes I guess we kind of understood but didn't want to one time he took us up to his room he lived alone showed us his collection of salt a huge soft pile of white salt on the card table in the middle of his room so much salt you could smell it salt does have a smell when there's so much of it Raymond sitting at the side of the table watching us gawk at his huge pile of salt raising his eyebrows hard to see black eyebrows raise on a black face one time he mispronounced a word the word was euphoria we all looked at each other while he was looking at his big pile of salt and started thinking like punks again.



he dyed his part the same color as her hair