Love and Skate

The Punk and the Baker's Daughter

1991: The Punk and the Baker's Daughter

It was the beginning of summer, September 1991 in Newtown. Nirvana's new album, Nevermind was released.

Punk rockers and grunge fans flooded the music store. Each was lined up to purchase the new record. Behind the music store is Newtown Public High School. It was a quiet afternoon. Teenagers were in class.

Except for Cade Kirkwood. He was a junior. Instead of him being present in English period, he was one of the kids who were lined up at the store.

Cade never had any friends at school. He was a skater. He made friends who weren't his age. Skaters as well. He has brushed up jet black hair. It was messy. He liked it that way. His skin was pale like he had never eaten his vegetables when he was younger. He wore an oversized Slowdive t-shirt and extra large Dickies cargo pants. His shoes were worn out. It was his only pair. It was a black 1970 Chuck Taylor's which he got from a thrift store.

He was holding his skateboard in one hand, and a crumpled $20 cash in the other. He couldn't wait to get his hands on the new release.

He had been a fan of rock bands since he was 9 years old. His father was a drug abuser. Ever since he was young, he'd been hearing his father's Beatles records while he injected heroin. He initially thought his father was sick. Because he used syringes.

Nevertheless, he cleared his mind off of that because his mother was on her deathbed, and he always brought her meds. Cade never had his feelings organized. He always felt different in situations wherein for instance involved crying over the death of someone he loved. Cade did otherwise.

Although he loved his mother dearly, he hadn't practiced the process of sympathy. He was always distracted by his father's immorality and carelessness. If only Cade's father acknowledged more about why his wife was dying, she could have lived for another three years. But Cade never thought of that.

His father was a mechanic at a famous tire shop in Newtown, and he makes enough money. He could have been paying rent for an apartment. But instead, they lived in his old trailer and uses half of the money he earned on drugs.

Cade sometimes finds his father OD'd. What he does is he spills him with freezing cold water, rolls him over to his side, and pats his back. He figured that it worked that way but he never was sure if it was the right thing to do.

People from their town knew his father did drugs. But they couldn't prove it since Hop was always in denial of it, and he always knew what to answer if someone would ask him if he did drugs. Hophead is what they call him. Hop for short. He didn't mind if he was called that. His real name was Ben.

Hop became protective of Cade when his mother died. He used drugs infrequently. He had a schedule that he follows. Once or twice a week that is. If he overdoses, Cade would complain about it the next day and lock up his vials and syringe in a cupboard with a key. Then Hop would break a beer bottle and threaten Cade that if he ever tried to hide his drugs again he'd beat him up.

When Cade turned 14, he was bullied. It was rumored in town that his father was a drug addict, which he was. Two boys from school called him many names like 'baby junkie', 'punk', or 'stoner moaner'. One time he went home with a bruise on his face.