The Final Nail

by Kyle Decker

About the Author: Kyle Decker graduated from Drake University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. From 2013-2018 he lived in South Korea where he worked as an English teacher and freelance writer regularly contributing to the punk ‘zine bROKe in Korea, among other publications including The Korea Times. He has also had short fiction published in The Molotov Cocktail. While in Korea he fronted the multinational punk band Food for Worms from 2014-2018 and worked as a D.I.Y. concert promoter. His novel This Rancid Mill, which features the same characters, will be released by PM Press in the Spring of 2023.

Excerpt

As Katie tells me her story her shoulders fold in, her eyes transfixed on things I cannot see.

“If there’s any good left in people,” she says, “I’m too tired to find it.”

I’ve found that such broad statements refer to very specific things. For Katie it referred to her younger sister, Carrie, being beaten and raped in an alley during a show. Carrie disappeared shortly after and hadn’t been heard from in three days. Their dad had turned to drink after their mother’s death. He wouldn’t be looking for her. So Katie came to me. She was never going to give up on her sister; but humanity, it seemed, could go get fucked.

Katie’s mentality is common among punks. Nihilism is, after all, often seen as the heart of the movement. It’s why I keep tissues on my desk. I nudge them in her direction. She takes one and dabs the streaking makeup on her face. Of course, considering punk fashion in 1982, the makeup was streaked before she’d started crying. I scratch along the edge of my inch-high blue mohawk.

“Have you gone to the police yet?” I ask. This question, in our little world, is strictly taboo, but it’s crucial for me to ask it.

“Like they’d give a shit about some punk.” She’s not wrong. If you were to walk into a police station dressed like us they’d be more likely to take you in than take your statement. But it doesn’t answer my question; I alert her to this fact by widening my eyes and tilting my head.

“Please, don’t tell anyone,” she says.

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