GRUNGE GREMLINS, AN E.P..................................................................................................................JOE COSTAL

Grunge Gremlins, an E.P.

Poem by Joe Costal

Track 1.

I knew Kip Winger and Mötley Crüe were getting blow jobs even though I didn’t know what blow jobs were. When I first heard the phrase, I thought of hair dryers, the robot helmet-looking chairs inside my mom’s beauty parlor. Where the viejas called MTV “mierda,” but I couldn’t get enough. Heavy metal was my favorite, backstage footage in black and white, so it had to be real. Rockers who looked like girls surrounded by more girls. Indistinguishable. Make-up from the neck up. But the girl girls. Girls big-boobed and Aqua Netted blondes with toasted brown skin, lined up, hobbled like bruised peaches in halter tops, raising rail thin, downy haired arms in bangle bracelet unison. Yelling Woooooo at the camera, like it was all they knew how to say.

Track 2.

When Poison played live on Headbanger’s Ball, one of these girls lifted her “Open Up and Say Ahhh…” t-shirt, exposing white breasts. Bounced awake my insides. The camera caught it. Just a flash, but long enough. Long enough to hum electric in my mind’s eye buzzing red as the Coca-Cola light in our drug store’s window.

Track 3.

And I wanted to touch a boob. I decided one night, sweaty under Batman bedspread. I wanted to touch one so bad. Even though my Cuban grandfather called me a “fag” when I couldn’t catch a football while he was watching. I wanted to touch a boob. But I couldn’t play the recorder, let alone guitar. And I didn’t have money to buy a puffy ruffled pirate shirt or spandex. Nor the thigh width required for tight leather pants. No hair to style up and out. To tease. Mine was low and tight, combed over and back with Abuelo’s long black comb, licked fresh and unsheathed from his back pocket. When he was done my hair resembled Batista’s gelled helmet, not the curly chaos of Guevara’s guerrillas.

Track 4.

The 90s came to solve all our problems. Those pansy ass glam bands. Fuck them said 1992, ripping Jon Bon Jovi and Warrant off my wall. Nevermind, said 1992, in a ringer ree, naked baby cassette in hand, throwing away Hysteria and all those used GNR Illusions. Said 1992, “No one gives a fuck.” Not Nirvana, nor Mudhoney, nor Fugazi. Tool. And Pearl Jam pissed off Ticketmaster and nobody wanted seals clubbed. Or wars started. Or New Kids. Or videos. And the cool girls now wore overalls. And Abuelo’s closet was filled with all the flannel I needed. And I walked to high school washed in pre-soaked Old Spice and Pall Malls. My thighs the perfect width for denim.

Track 5.

That fall, Billy Mirabelli got a blow job in his bathroom while we watched Gremlins on HBO. His mother worked the dinner shift at Ground Round, so his house was where that kind of shit went down. Drugs. Sex. Billy went into the bathroom like a virgin, came out like a prayer. Hoping to be a man. I studied his gaze. He still looked like the rest of us, except dazed. Not older, as I’d suspected, from the way my brother talked about the girls who stood on Boulevard East, their pink lipstick and yellow teeth. Their frayed, waxy bodies a parable. Their jeans ripped down an entire thigh. Our girls only ripped at the knee. The denim threads, taut, like Venetian blinds. Wigwam socks rolled calf-high. Our girls wore beige lipstick and never smiled. Never talked. Always bored. Like the girl who blew Billy–she didn’t say a word, looked straight ahead while Phoebe Cates described her dead Santa dad, his neck snapped in bottled-up chimney. Crumpled forward in soot.

Track 6.

I stared at the blowjob girl in spite of myself. Though I knew enough to try not to. Her cheeks shiny as fruit skin, reflecting the dancing yellows and blacks of the movie. The gremlin death cries. The water and bright lights. The eating after midnight. Something in Billy’s eyes told me not to envy him, his new blowjob life. Not to trust the other boys when they clapped him on the back raising rail-thin, downy-haired arms in high-five unison, yelling Woooooo at each other, like it was all they knew how to say.