After it became clear that Gaddi had been behind the attack, Biggi challenged him to a fight. It was decided that the combat would take place in the courtyard behind Grímsbæ. Several kids went to watch, but I didn’t dare on my life be seen there. It was the biggest fight most had ever witnessed. Gaddi fought bravely, but Biggi had physical advantages over him, and despite the fact that Gaddi had been able to get some good shots in, it ended with Biggi totally beating the shit out of him. Gaddi was taken away, unconscious, by ambulance. And, as a result, I completely stopped turning up at school, at Bústaðir, Ingaskýli, all those places. I just went down to the bus station at Hlemmur. It was the only place I could be safe. I waited continually for Mom to realize that I had stopped attending school, but it never happened. It was like there was never a complaint about attendance. I never saw Biggi again. I don’t know if he ever searched for me, but I was always on guard. When I went to Bústaðir or down to Hallærisplan or anywhere kids were gathered, I always took great care. I was like a deer in a documentary on television. The deer were never safe, always looking around and ready to run away if they caught wind of any wildlife.
IN PARADISE
Just take a look around you
What do you see
Kids with feelings like you and me
Understand him he’ll understand you
For you are him and he is you
If the kids are united then we’ll never be divided
After what happened that winter, I broke more and more away from studying and turned up less and less often. It wasn’t important to me to attend school. They didn’t teach me anything I wanted to learn. For me, school was nothing more than a place of humiliation and injustice where harassment and persecution steadily increased. I was surrounded on school grounds, pushed when trying to walk, chased home. The violence was gradual. First, I was only knocked over and kicked in the ass. Then kids started to punch me in the stomach and back. I feared that the day would come when I would be beaten to a pulp. I’d be kicked in the balls and punched in the face and kicked in the head. The kids, at least, seemed to hate me so much that it might happen. They clearly wanted to hurt me. It didn’t much bother the teachers that I would hardly show up at all. I think some of them even didn’t make a note of my absence from their class so that I would not be compelled to show up in the future. They were happy to be rid of me. When I turned up, I tried to maintain constant questioning and joking until I got thrown out. The only reason I came to school was Mom. Because I couldn’t be home during the day, there was no other option but school. I went to school because I had no other place to hang. Until, that is, I was introduced to the bus station, Hlemmur.
When I had money and didn’t feel like going to, or was too afraid to go to, school I went around on the bus. I’d run about and examine Reykjavík out the window. Sometimes I met kids I knew and even made new friends on the bus. I befriended one of the drivers who drove the Eleven — Route 11. I never had to pay when he was driving. He was called Stjáni and was a young guy who had just started driving. When he was behind the wheel, I’d sometimes go on many loops with him and talk to him the whole time. We talked about everything between heaven and earth. Stjáni had a lot to say and seemed interested in what I had to contribute. He had been at sea and traveled around the world. I enjoyed listening to him talk about that. In exchange, I told him about my speculations on punk and anarchism. Stjáni had fixed political views and was a communist. There were elections coming up, and we were both in agreement about the need for revolution. We were both dog-tired of society as it was, for different reasons. Much of what Stjáni talked about I didn’t understand, but I had never let on. He sometimes talked about some men and assumed that obviously I knew who he was speaking about. I had no idea but figured that they were politicians. Stjáni often complained about his salary and felt it was way too low. I asked what he got each month, and he told me. I thought it was a good salary. He got more money in one month than I’d had my whole life. But he also had a sweetheart and child to provide for. I thought Stjáni was awesome. He complained to me a lot about his girlfriend. He called her either the crone or the missus. I couldn’t help but envy him that he had a girlfriend. It was definitely a long way off before I’d get a girlfriend, if I ever managed at some future point to have a girlfriend. I didn’t believe there was any girl who would think I’d make a cute and interesting boyfriend, and who I’d think was fun. Stjáni wasn’t a ginger and didn’t have glasses. He was cool. When it was very bright out, he put on dark sunglasses. Driving a bus, was in my mind, the most beautiful job there was. To be a bus driver was like being a pilot, in uniform, responsible, traveling. In my opinion, Stjáni had seized happiness. I was confident that if I were Stjáni I’d be the happiest person in the world, with a flashy job, a girlfriend, and lots of money. But I wasn’t Stjáni, and Stjáni thought his life sucked.
Stjáni printed out transfers for me when I wanted and put times down that suited me best. That way I could travel even more. Over time, I learned his shifts, so I knew when he would be driving. The Eleven drove from Breiðholt down to Hlemmur, where it terminated. Then Stjáni went for coffee. I always enjoyed coming to Hlemmur, and I met other punks there. Hlemmur was a meeting spot where punks, bums, mental patients, and oddballs came and went around the clock. Some even hung out there all day. It really got going, though, at evenings and weekends. There were often fifteen to twenty punks at once. I don’t know what happened to make Hlemmur the punk headquarters. Maybe there wasn’t much else to choose from. Hlemmur was centrally located, and there were chairs to sit on and always something going on, people coming and going. When the weather was good, you could walk into town. There weren’t many places that could offer such luxury. Usually we were left in peace and weren’t always being thrown out like at the shops. And maybe we all had some unconscious need to be seen and to be noticed by each other.
I made it my custom to go to Hlemmur at night, especially on Friday and Saturday. I had been there a few times with Siggi the Punk, and he introduced me to other punks. Because Siggi was the main punk, the other punks accepted me immediately.
I felt much better in Hlemmur than at school and started going there every day. Sometimes, I even got the first bus in the morning and hung out there all day, from when it opened in the morning until the evening when it closed. Day after day.
The punks were mostly the same age as me. Some, however, were older or really young. The oldest were sixteen and seventeen years old, and the youngest as low as ten or eleven. We divided into two age groups, little kids and big. Little kids were ten to fourteen and older kids fifteen to seventeen years. But the age difference did not matter because punk united us all. Older kids generally treated the younger ones with respect and consideration. We were connected by the invisible threads of punk. It was our harmony. It wasn’t just outfits and music, it was the mentality. All of us had in common the fact that we were in one way or another at odds with our environment. Most had difficult home lives to wrestle with, drunken parents, or even domestic violence. Many lived with single mothers who worked away from home and had little time for them. All of us were excluded from the school system.