What Punk Is, by Jim Ross
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Mama says, “Punk is what you got between your toes. It creeps in when your feet get hot and can’t breathe, like when you keep your shoes and socks on for too long and your feet get clammy. It’s their way of saying, ‘Give me some air.’”
Once punk gets a groove, it invites its friends, and soon enough there’s a whole gang of punks, and they settle in to stay. If they stay long enough, they wrap around your toes and your feet look like bear feet, and I don’t mean bare feet. Of course, you’re less likely to get punk when you’re wearing bare feet.
That’s why Mama says, “If your toes get all full of punk, it’s time for you to soak in the tub.” And even if you’re going foot-naked and you think, I don’t have lots of punk so I don’t need a bath, Mama says, “You’ve still got to soak every Saturday night, rain or shine, drought or flood, and even before Saturday if your feet get so caked in dirt that you can hardly find them.” And, believe me, that does happen, especially to children.
Saturday night, when I take a bath to soak the punks out and find my feet again, is about the only time all week I’m guaranteed to see myself naked. And even then, I don’t exactly see myself, certainly not eye to eye. Nobody sees me naked. And I don’t see anybody else naked. I never see Mama and Papa naked. Only my brothers, and them, hardly. We’re not a family for going around undressed, not even foot-naked, not even in summer, because that would cause distress. Mama says, “You’ll catch a death of cold if you don’t keep your shoes on.”
From taking a bath, the punks don’t float. They don’t sink either. If you just lie there and let the water surround your feet, the punk just dissolves. With a little encouragement from finger flicks, I launch the punks like little grenades that explode KABOOM! as they hit the water. Instead of a milk bath, which I’ve heard of but never known anyone to take, when the punks dissolve, they produce a punk tea, which is known for its soothing qualities. People who observe your naked punky feet might call them ugly, but after your feet are deprived of punk and you feel soothed out, people will say your punk-less feet are things of beauty.
***
I meet someone who I get to be naked in front of, and vice versa. My girl has lots of ideas. As for punk, she says, “You got it all wrong, those aren’t punks.”
“What might they be?” I ask.
My girl says, “My Mama says, those are toe cheese.” What, I say, are toe cheese? How can what my Mama calls punks be what your Mama calls toe cheese? Did they grow up on two different planets?
My girl says, “Mama says, you shut your eyes and smell your toes insulated with what you call punks, and you tell me, what do you smell? You ever smell limburger cheese? Or what’s the smelliest cheese you ever sniffed?”
I say, rotten Camembert that’s running and oozing and if you try to eat it, it probably runs down your chin.
And my girl says, “You take the smelliest Camembert you ever sniffed and multiply that by seven and you know what your imagination smells?” I say, I think I know where you’re headed.
And my girl says, “It’s toe cheese. There nothing else it could be. Ain’t nothing stinkier than toe cheese.”
I say, “I love cheese. My Papa loves cheese. You’re calling punk ‘toe cheese’ insults cheese. It makes cheese sound stinky, gross, and unworthy of being eaten.”
My girl says, “Then you understand me.”
I say, “No, cheese if a gift of the Gods. My Papa loves nothing more than stinky cheese washed down with a glass of port before he goes to bed.”
My girl says, “Okay, if you want it that way, your toes attract punk. My toes grow toe cheese. I love punk rock and won’t be offended if you grow punk between your toes. I hope you and your Papa can relax about me calling what grows between my toes ‘toe cheese.’ Nobody’s asking you to spread it on a cracker and eat it. Can you live with that?”
I say, “I’m okay with that. We don’t have to see everything the same way. But what about the kids? What’re we gonna tell them? Punk or toe cheese, which is it?”
My girl says, “If we can resolve this question, you think we can agree on how we raise our kids?”
I say, “Teach them how to love and give them the freedom to explore and learn. They’ll derive what they need to know from the results of their actions.”
My girl says, “We need to set clear limits and give prompt correction when they go off course.”
I say, “I think we’re saying two different things.”
My girl says, “Go take a good soak before dinner.”
I say, “I prefer a shower. You know that.”
***
I tell this story to our adult son and daughter who have little ones of their own. Our daughter says, “I feel like I remember having this conversation as a kid sitting just under the calendar at the old house.”
I say, “The question is, what did you call them growing up? And what do you call them now with your own kids?”
She says, “We called them punks and I still do. And my kids sure get stinky ones.”
Our son says, “I haven’t seen a punk in a long time. Socks don’t punk anymore. Plus, my kids take baths every day and go barefoot around the house.”
Our daughter says, “You don’t need socks to punk. When you’re roughing it, your feet punk. It’s nature’s smoke alarm.”
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding research career. He’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, plays, hybrid, and interviews in Hippocampus, Kestrel, Lunch Ticket, The Atlantic, Typehouse, and many others. A Best of the Net nominee in nonfiction and art, Jim also wrote/acted in a one-act play and appeared in a documentary limited series broadcast internationally. Jim’s family splits time between city and mountains.