When I Was Punk, the follow-up to No Never No More and second installment in Michael J. Malone’s Tompkins Trilogy, details the lives of two males living around Tompkins Square Park: homeless teen runaway Fluke and longtime Alphabet City resident Conrad D, who’s recently released from a year-long stint in drug treatment. Fluke steals Conrad’s messenger bag and finds his life story scribbled in a notebook; lonely, Fluke reads it start to finish, and finds peculiar coincidences in their lives that lead to their meeting.

 

Fluke’s time on the streets is threatened by a pair of terrifying gutter-punks he’s wronged in a caper involving a bogus street drug called Jackrabbit, a gullible lad mag editor and a seemingly feckless private detective.  With a colorful cast and catchy plot, When I Was Punk captures a vibrant neighborhood and the denizens who inhabit it.