What Happened To The Gutter Punks?

“I used to live in the stairwells because winter in Northern cities is cold as f*ck.

In the early 2000s, I lived my life as a gutter punk. I was sixteen, and my boyfriend *George at the time got me into the lifestyle. We weren’t homeless, but most of us were searching for something in the crowded yet lonesome city. We found it in each other, and in punk rock.

Drinking came with the lifestyle, but graffiti was our form of existence in the city. We left a piece of us behind wherever we went. Owning it one wall at a time. And the city would be on our heels, trying to cover us up, denying our presence.

There are always gaps inside the skyscraper. Between offices and locked doors, those dark little corners were my home. I was still in school back then, but I learned that you can pack all your belongings in a backpack. You really don’t need a suitcase to survive. No. Your suitcase would be lying under a bed at your friend’s home.

‘Do you know how much food goes to waste in the city every day?’ my then-boyfriend asked me. ‘If you go to a restaurant and stay there for thirty minutes, the leftovers can feed the both of us. As for whether people want or do not want to feed us, that’s a different issue. It seems to me that most of the time, they rather throw it into the dumpster.”

Not paying for food wasn’t so much about money. It was us making a statement on consumerism.

It all went swiftly until we couldn’t find food. That was when we ended up stealing hot dogs from a 711. But I had never stolen a thing. I couldn’t even beg for food. I was all for the lifestyle, but there were lines that I just couldn’t cross, so George instead had to do it for the both of us.

Not taking more than what we needed was his rule, also sharing what we had with people who needed it.

In George’s way of thinking, what comes around goes around. The whole world was a big storm of exchange. There’s no need to hold onto anything. Have some trust in the process. Maybe you don’t have a place to go at night, but you’ll always find one by the end of the day. Maybe you don’t know what your next meal will be, but life always finds a way.

For about a year, we lived in extreme instability, hopping on trains and not knowing where we’d go. But we’d always find somewhere to camp at the end of the day. It’d be our temporary home, and tomorrow was another day. We had to search for food, utilizing everything we had: charm, tools we picked up on the side of the road, compassion of kind-hearted people, promise of a good time…but things always worked out like George promised.

Eventually, I went home to the house that I grew up in and the people who raised me after three years of living nowhere.

I figured that life had more to offer. Gutter punk was no longer a choice between teenage rebellion or going to school, but homelessness for life or something else. Our little rebellious show was an insult to people in real desperate situations.

At the end of the day, I realized we were just a bunch of kids who ran off so that we didn’t have to face the problems growing up. Some of us didn’t know who we were. Some of us didn’t want to be an average 9-to-5 Joe. Some of us thought that half of this world was a lie. Many died in the gutter.

I got to go on with my life, have kids, and worry about paying bills and stuff. If anything I learned from that time, it was privilege. Having a choice is privilege. Some are hard earned by previous generations, and the others are a given.

From there was a long road back to society. I quit smoking and stopped drinking. But I still had demons to face. You see, none of us would drift that far if we felt belonged in the society. Still, I had to figure out who I was and how to get money.

Nowadays, I’m an underpaid writer, ready to jump at the next best offer. George remained a punk musician and earned his living as a businessman. I heard he joined the force in recent years. Lucky to us, none of our friends are dead. Most of them work in the film industry.”

*name changed for anonymity.