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    Joshua Springs
    Joshua Springs
    Joshua Springs
    Ebook123 pages1 hour

    Joshua Springs

    By Julian Gallo

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Sometime between President Carter’s ‘Malaise’ and the dawn of the Reagan era, Queens, New York. A generation of mostly ‘latch key kids’ find themselves on their own, indulging in every vice available to them. Drugs, music, sex, it’s all there for the taking, since no one is looking. It is a forgotten generation, left to its own devices, exposed to the crumbling aftermath of the ‘Age of Aquarius’ their elders left in their wake. Two boys in particular — the unnamed narrator and his friend Tad — navigate these changing times through drugs, sex, music, comic books, and taking a long hiatus from the nightmare of junior high school. Each morning they hang out in the woods near the local park getting high and playing games as they wait for Tad’s mother to go to work so they can have the house to themselves. One morning they discover something that will terrify them and make them question the very nature of those around them. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJulian Gallo
    Release dateFeb 28, 2018
    ISBN9781386063049
    Joshua Springs
    Author

    Julian Gallo

    Julian Gallo lives and works in New York City. His poetry has appeared in over 40 journals throughout the Unites States, Canada and Europe. He is the author of 9 poetry books, "Standing on Lorimer Street Awaiting Crucifixion" (Alpha Beat Press 1996), "The Terror of Your Cunt is the Beauty of Your Face" (Black Spring Press 1999), "Street Gospel Mystical Intellectual Survival Codes" (Budget Press 2000), "Scrape That Violin More Darkly Then Hover Like Smoke in the Air" (Black Spring Press 2001), "Existential Labyrinths" (Black Spring Press 2003), "My Arrival is Marked by Illuminating Stains" (Beat Corrida, 2007), "Window Shopping For a New Crown of Thorns" (Beat Corrida, 2007), "A Symphony of Olives" (Propaganda Press 2009) and "Divertimiento" (Propaganda Press 2009). He is also the author of 6 novels, "November Rust (Beat Corrida, 2007), "Naderia" (Beat Corrida, 2011), "Be Still and Know That I Am" (Beat Corrida, 2011), "Mediterraneo" (Beat Corrida, 2012), "Europa" (Beat Corrida, 2013), the short story collection "Rapid Eye Movements" (Beat Corrida 2014) and "Rhombus Denied" (Beat Corrida, 2015)

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      Book preview

      Joshua Springs - Julian Gallo

      We’re running on the spot, always have and always will

      We’re just the next generation of the emotionally crippled 

      Paul Weller

      Queens, New York 1979

      Teenage Wasteland

      1

      All around you are the faces of the wasted generation.

      The oldest of the crew is fourteen — fourteen and already venturing into The Zero, the stoned teenage galaxy of post-pubescent play things. 

      A playground for the spiritual fetus.

      Faces of despair and self hatred, affected rebellion and blossoming nihilism.

      A den of thieves for the upcoming hormonal convergence and first taste of sexual ecstasy.

      There it is, on the wall, in black spray paint, in letters taller than we are:

      ‘Teenage Wasteland’.

      2

      You look up at the night sky, watch the stars disappear behind fast moving clouds. No one is saying anything.

      The music is loud. Tad reaches for another beer.

      You’re lost in a mind warp, bowing to the Gods of excess, kneeling before the altar of madness and puking your guts up in the name of adolescence. Tad already has, at least once. 

      We are a small circle of friends, acquaintances. Kids from Queens with lofty ideals. We exist in the shadow of a post-Vietnam era America, coming to grips with the ‘Me Decade’, drugs, booze and sex.

      We are already caught in the jet stream towards adulthood, propelling us further and faster along before it’s supposed to. Teenage angst immersed in music, pot and dreams that seem out of reach, endless light years away on the outer edge of The Zero.

      We march like soldiers on a battlefield not knowing exactly what the war is about but we know there’s one being waged, a war on our spirits and our place in the world.

      Our nights are filled with hedonism, music; a druid dance under the stars, tumbling endlessly into the vortex of a nightmare which will forever stain us.

      3

      You drift into your teenage years already scarred from a psychopathic disciplinarian who masqueraded as a school teacher and from a disappointing outcome of his first crush. This is the year where you step off the plank of childhood and plunge head first into the post-pubescent waters already rollicking from those who had been there before you. ‘Come on in!’ they urge. ‘The water’s fine’. 

      You meet up with Tad outside the wasteland. The plan is to hang out all night. Both of you survive your sixth grade torment and even manage to get through your first traumatic year of junior high. You’ve been waiting for summer to arrive so you can escape the pressures of school and having to deal with your classmates, most of whom are losers. Night has not yet fallen and the wasteland is teeming with kids listening to the radio, smoking pot, and drinking to excess. You wander into the back of the park, towards the chess tables where you hang out most of the time. Our sanctuary. 

      Fat Bass is there. So is Irish Ed. Two thugs who have already been to the Zero. Tad takes a seat on the back of the bench, plants his dirty Pumas on the seat. You sit next to him. You both assume ‘the pose’ — slouching forward, your long unruly mops covering your eyes, your skinny, awkward arms resting on your knees. We look like two emaciated scarecrows, our stretched out concert jerseys billowing around our skinny frames. 

      You dig a crushed pack of cigarettes from your pocket and fire one up, hand the pack over Tad. Fat Bass is rolling a joint. He looks around the wasteland for the presence of cops as he moistens the seal. He places the joint between his lips and sets fire to it, takes a long toke before passing it over to Irish Ed, who already put away four bottles of Budweiser. Irish Ed passes it over to Tad, who takes two quick tokes for himself before handing it over to you.

      You know what pot is but you’d never tried it. You don’t feel pressure to try it, you just want to see what the fuss is all about. You take a long toke off the joint, then another, then hand it back to Fat Bass. Tad tilts his head back, allows the summer wind caress his peach fuzz covered face. He looks at you, smiles under the marijuana haze, holds out his hand ‘soul brother’ style. You clap his hand into his and wonder what the big deal is. You aren’t feeling anything. Nothing at all. It’s no different than a cigarette as far as you’re concerned. You’re standing on the outside of The Zero observing, wonder what it’s all about. Tad has already entered. He told you about it, made a big deal of it. You thought it would be cool to check out the scenery for yourself. As of now, you’re still outside looking in.

      Fat Bass passes the beer around. You and Tad each down a bottle. By nightfall the circus begins. More kids enter the wasteland, a campground of waste beneath the flickering stars. None of us know what we’re doing. It’s more a tribal gathering. Thirteen years old and we know it all. We are an indestructible force blasting our way through the universe. A teenage army armed with limited intellect but plenty of pot, beer and music. Teen angels in black, our broken wings flapping erratically into an uncertain future. A future clouded by the bomb.

      We're all going to die anyway, so what the fuck?

      Fools in a king's court. Thirteen year old prophets wandering the desert in search of an answer and finding it in the lyrics of Jim Morrison and in the music of Led Zeppelin.

      Fuck the World!

      We are numbed by the pain of leaving childhood behind only to enter a world of violence, hate and self-destruction.

      Everyone feels something ominous lurking in the shadows. It’s something different for each of us, our own personal nightmare waiting to leap out of the shadows and grab us by the throat, choke us to death. We deal with it the best we can. Drugs are now our pacifiers. Alcohol is now our security blanket. We are a generation destined to become losers, taking our cues from those who walked these streets before us, the ones who stand in front of the bar, staggering home night after night, throwing up on street corners, breaking into the local shops for

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