FUCK Tampa. (part 2)
The bones of St. Pete have a lot character-- one might describe the architecture throughout as charming; the roads layout as a grid with Streets running east to west and Avenues south to north. The east side hits the waterfront where the piers reside, and to the far west are the beaches. From waterfront to beach is maybe about 20 miles, but downtown to the Grand Central District at 16th street is an easy walking distance. Everyone knows everyone in the scene, and for the most part everyone gets along. There are occasional minor spouts of drama, sure, but in general we’re united for good against our common enemy: ‘the Man’, Nazis, and anyone from Tampa.
Surrounding downtown are 15 distinctly historic neighborhoods fanning out on either side from Central Avenue, which divides the city down the middle into north and south. There’s Old Northeast, Roser Park, Jungle Prada, Crescent Lake and Snell Isle among others. Each whimsical neighborhood has a unique pulse, comprised of colorful craftsman houses, sprawling spanish style mansions with terracotta clay roofs, or little bungalows like my house in Historic Kenwood.
I purchased my house in 2004, a tiny pink tudor style built in 1941, with white shutters and a pointy grey roof located on 9th Avenue North at 28th Street. Originally constructed as vacation homes for snowbirds, little homes like this are super common in Kenwood. Inside my bungalow there are two teeny bedrooms on either side of the living room, dark hardwood floors throughout, and checkered ceramic tile in the kitchen. The bathroom’s shower faucet was dysfunctional, requiring a pipe wrench to turn the water on but in the five years I lived there, I never got around to fixing it. One winter we turned the Florida room in the front of the house into a makeshift bedroom where Faith lived before she got knocked up with her first baby Juliet.
My house becomes the hub for so many epic house parties; a revolving cast of roommates and couch crashers. An orphanage for wayward drunk girls and boys, at some point or another just about everyone close to me has lived there. The backyard, about 4 times the size of the house itself had a chain-length fence running the parameter so all my neighbors could witness the debauchery in real-time. The garage was separate. Early on, I turn this shed into a studio work space but eventually rent it out to a handful of people over the years who need a place to live despite the fact that the garage isn’t exactly what you’d call livable-- no bathroom, a/c or ceiling.
In the summertime, my backyard has a kitty pool, a slip-n-slide and a constant keg of Yuengling. I’d mow the lawn only after the City gave notice of an impending fine, so the yard was always overrun with grass up past your knees. Here I lived until 2009. During these years, my little pink house will go down in history as one of the great party houses this side of the Bay, the last of which saw three kegs killed. A local metal band played a show that night in my garage, their mosh pit busted a huge hole in the drywall and some assholes started an uncontrolled fire in the alley. The cops came to break it up but we still had people sleeping on couches hauled out into the backyard come morning amid the hundreds of red solo cups littered across my lawn.
But, I am not technically from there-- my closest friends and I did not grown up in St. Pete proper, a fact which sets us apart. We remain “new kids” to the scene for years, in contrast to the original crew of rabble-rousers-- generations upon generations of brothers and little sisters indoctrinated to punk from a young age who’d been kicking it together causing trouble and setting dumpsters on fire since they were prepubescent.
Quinn, Emily, Carolyn, Alex, Diane and I are all originally from Seminole, a suburban enclave to the Northwest. Seminole is a “good” area, which just meant that any crime occurring was happening behind closed doors. In Seminole there are residential neighborhoods with names like Bay Haven, Imperial Point, or Rustic Pines, and tract homes that span for miles. Our local mall was desolate-- anchored by a depressing food court and a K-Mart, frequented only by the residents of a neighboring nursing home who would sit on benches all day staring out into the nothing. On the main boulevard is the only restaurant in town, Joto’s, a “family friendly” pizza joint where suburban moms and dads would hang out amid the local high school jocks, reliving glory days over bud lights, televised football games and greasy food.
Anna grew up in nearby Pinellas Park, just to the east, best known for biker bars, white-trash trailer parks and an enduring meth epidemic. Anna lived in Seminole with her grandparents the years she attended middle school due to instabilities with her mom, stepdad and their ever-relapsing drug addictions. We met Anna back then but didn’t become good friends until years later when Emily and Anna will unknowingly be sleeping with the same guy. When the truth broke, they decided they liked one other better than they liked him anyway, and have been best friends ever since.
Quinn, Emily, Alex and I are Seminole High School class of 2002. Angsty outcasts, the rest of the school was all Abercrombie & Fitch; way too enthusiastic about attending and participating in sports related activities, pop music and having nice cars-- the four of us did not fit in. Surviving a fairly sheltered, very boring adolescence, our summer days were spent hanging out on John’s Pass-- an old fisherman’s wharf on the Gulf of Mexico where we would play board games or read books at a coffee shop located on the far East end of the docks. After nightfall we would hang out under a bridge where skater punks would use the uneven cement to facilitate flip tricks. While we’d watch them skate, they’d tell stories, cultivating for us an alluring mythology of downtown St. Pete: tales of out-of-control shows at State Theater and the Refugee a mission/music venue that fed the homeless population. The Refugee was run by a new-agey Christian man who fancied himself akin to a modern Jesus-- all walks were always welcome there.
There was the C.O.R.E., a radical bookstore on the far southside of town where you could buy extremist literature (even things that were government banned like the Anarchist’s Cookbook, prominently displayed on racks towards the front). They skaters would speak of long nights spent drinking quarts of malt liquor on dirty beach just east of the pier where you could look out across the Bay and watch the bright lights of Tampa on the other side.
The Globe had the best nachos. A buck would get you a cup of coffee, 50 cents more buys a few refills and because the Globe was open until 4am, it was an excellent place to stay out all night when your parents thought you were staying at a friends house. Josh Sullivan always worked the front counter, and was the coolest. Josh really loved ska music so he’d dance whenever it played on the stereo. He had a cat named Slap that he’d walk on a leash, and was the creator of JoshComics, an iconic local zine.
At the age of 17, we venture beyond the beaches and onto the streets of downtown. Overnight we go from good suburban girls to drinking Mickey’s at punk houses-- making out with older guys in studded jackets, bullet belts, mohawks and too many facial piercings. In 2002, when we turned 18, Quinn, Emily, and Alex all move into a house on 26th Street and 4th Avenue. I secure an apartment at 5th and 5th right next to the Coliseum. Soon after, Anna will move into a ground floor apartment in my complex. On Saturdays when she isn’t working, Anna and I will smoke pot on her big blue couch by the window discussing our plans-- when and how we will escape Florida; who was working that night at World Liquors, and if they would sell to us.
