Pornography

     Duo sat on the curb outside of a nightclub, his face between his wide hands.  Compacted dust snuggled deeply underneath his fingernails, gathered there after a long night shift at Kroger moving boxes and stocking shelves.  It is amazing how dirty one's nails could get merely stocking shelves.  Duo suspected it was the boxes which were dirty, dirty from jostling against each other and the walls of a dirty truck.
    When he thought of the idea of the dirt which dug its way under his nails and around the cuticle, he was amused.  He relished in the thought that this was not dirt from Houston, but dirt carried in from other parts of the country, beautiful soil from Virginia or Washington, the dirt of the farmer, good honest dirt, with good moral fiber.  
     He might have washed the dirt from under his fingernails save that he would have not been able to go home, take a shower, and be back to see the Dirty Little Pleasures perform, a punk band from the Valley, loud ruckess, with sweat dripping from every pore.  He was turned on to the band by his friend Skids he knew all about punk bands, read the magazines religiously, and spread the word like a preacher on a mission.  
     In fact, it was not uncommon for Duo to find Skids in the parking lot of the high school they both attended, a bulbous portable stereo sitting in the trunk of Skids beat-up truck blasting saw blade guitars and a drumbeat like a machine gun piercing through the number of students walking by whose pained looks suggesting they had been shot.   
     And Skids would stand on the back of his truck so that he could stand above the persons walking by, and with a the passion of a missionary to speak of the evils of modern pop music, the illegitimate child of Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake, the grandchild of Madonna.  'Every note, lacking texture, shallow, depthless, thoughtless.  Every lyric an after thought of a moist pre-pubescent girl's crusade.  A whore house of commercialism lining the pathway to hell.'  
     Duo had been attracted to Skids's passion, his unswerving dedication to true, honest music, written not with dollar signs, but with integrity.  DIY was his ralleying cry, a motto he wore proudly on his shoulder, which he would display only when he took off his shirt at the numerous concerts he attended.  
   If Skids was the preacher, the building outside of which Duo now sat was his church, a dirty dank hall, painted black, inside and out, so that no one could detect how much of a hovel it was at night.  Music blaring hot blew out from the entrance underneath purple blue neon, showering a conical in front of a ticket window display.  It was so hot inside, with the writhing, sweaty bodies swimming through a mixture of cigarette smoke and manufactured stage mist, dancing on a mixture of beer and body fluids.  
     Duo allowed the cool air outside to caress his neck and to kiss his flushed cheeks.  He grabbed his shirt sitting next to him and wiped the sweat from his short hair.  Some punk rock girls with midnight black hair, catholic girl skirts, and ripped t-shirts leaned up against a wall, blathering away, as if each word was cheap, thrown away, discarded with no regard.  
    Duo had hoped that he would have seen Gretchen here, a girl in his Biology class.  Gretchen was a plain girl, never wore much make-up, never spoke to loudly, wasn't terribly smart, wasn't terribly popular.  She was honest, or so her appearance indicated.  She never wore shirts with words, bever carried a purse, never talking about shopping or boys or that kinds of thing.  She had friends that were girls just like she had friends that were guys.  
     In Biology that morning, he had found her at her desk chatting with her friend, seemingly in a pleasant mood.  He walked past her, slipping carelessly into the desk behind her, from which he observed her day after day.  His stomach churned endlessly.  She turned in her chair and smiled at him.  "S'up?"  She asked, the words slippling from her lips.
     "Nothin'" he said, trying not to reveal the burn he felt in his stomach.  "I think I may be goin' to a concert tonight."
     "Really, who's playing?"
     "Dirty Little Secrets."  Duo had been impressed when Skids had said the band's name, as if each word in the name, had its own import, as if the name was a piece of bread for the starving meant to be gobbled up and used as sustenance.  When Duo repeated the name, it sounded hollow and fake.  It sounded made-up.
     "Cool.  What kind of music do they play?"
     "Punk."  The word sounded even more clunky than the band's name.  "You wanna come?"
     "I dunno.  Where are they playing?"
     "The Cavern."  He looked at her while she thought, trying to read the words like a banner in her mind.  "I get off at ten and then I am headed straight over there.  I'll meet you there if you decide to come."
     And so he found himself here on the curb in front of the Cavern, wondering if Gretchen had shown up already, had found some one else in side, some jackass with huge punk rock spikes jutting from his head, a silver chain hanging from a ring inside her nose.  Maybe it was to much to hope that she would come tonight; maybe she was locked up behind closed doors, shut-in by her evil parents with no time for the time foolery of the youth.  
    Just then, the band who had been playing so loud and for so long struck their last note, the lead screamer yelling out a gracious "Fuck you!" and throwing the microphone to the stage floor, reverb humming through the floors and the walls.  Suddenly, a flood of people flowed out from the building, pooling in small pockets at various places on the sidewalk.  Cigarettes were porduced and lit.