Wave-making teen is full of surprises
It's an education to see how people react to John Griffin. Middle-aged people frown
at him. Older people avoid him. Younger people smile, or laugh, or make catcalls. Mostly, he just smiles back.
Griffin, 16, is what the rest of us call punk.
He might balk at the name, hating easy labels. But only geniuses can see without classifying, and the mediocre must pigeonhole.
Griffin is a punk.
The first time I met him, he wore jeans bleached white
and ripped to shreds, so that his knees poked through. "Sid Vicious was innocent" and other garffitti was scrawled on his
pants. He wore an old green jacket that was pierced by at least two dozen safety pins of various sizes, a cross, ad a dozen
pins featuring pictures mostly of punk bands, with one showing the Queen of England with a safety pin through her nose.
He wore a T-shirt, also torn to shreds, a padlock
and chain around his neck, and in his left ear and earring that was a small dangling revolver. A patch of his head over his
left ear was shaved to the scalp and in his brown curly hair was a streak of red dye.
Griffin is a student at Holy Name High School. He
has a part-time job at Book People on Franklin Street, and spends most of his spare time hanging out with friends at the Galleria.
"A lot of people look at us and think we must be on
drugs, but that's not it at all," he said, "They just don't know what to make of us."
Tense Moment
The second time I met Griffin there was something
of a tense moment as he was glowered at by a group of teenagers in the more orthodox teen uniform of blue jeans and T-shirts.
They had made a remark about Griffin's girlfriend, who dresses in much the same fashion as he. Griffin, who is soft-spoken,
polite and slightly built, had threatened to punch them out. "I don't mind them making fun of me, but not her," he said as
the group approached. "And I hate violence, but if I have to, I have to." Still, he didn't look as if her was gleefully awaiting
the confrontation, so it was fortunate that honor was satisfied by a brief staring match between Griffin and the group, after
which everyone went about his business.
This time Griffin was wearing a black overcoat filled
with silver studs, pins, and a red label reading "RING ON MEAT". His Bon Jovi T-shirt was ripped and the words "I hate" were
inked in over the group's name. He wore a safety pin in his ear and a colored kerchief on his head. Black crosses were
inked on the back of his hands, a symbol, Griffin said, of a youth movement known as "Straight Edge", which disapproves of
drinking, smoking, drug use and casual sex.
FULL OF SURPRISES
And if that surprises you, Griffin is full of
such surprises. Notwithstanding his appearance, he is an enormously polite young man. He makes a point of holding open doors
of the mall for others to pass through. He says hello to everyone he makes eye contact with. He says please and thank-you. "It's
just the way I am," he said. "I was brought up to be like this."
As Griffin walks through the mall, you see that his
dress elicits two responses - strong approval or strong disapproval. Friends ask him about the different things he is wearing.
Others literally snarl at him.
"Mostly it's kind of fun, but I've got to admit that
sometimes I hate the attention," he said.
Griffin started dressing as a punk at the beginning
of the summer, he said, after he was introduced to "hardcore" punk rock music. "The way I used to dress was mostly preppy,
I guess - sneakers, T-shirt, jeans - like someone who just wanted to blend in.
"If there is a message in the way I dress, it is that
I'm against conforming to the way people want me to dress. My clothes are also a way of dislocating myself from society, because
I feel that a lot of societ is really negative. There is some positive stuff, but it's mostly negative.
NOT DROP-OUT
"Not that I'm a dropout.
In the 70's, punks said, 'No future.' I need the future, and I think there is a future, but you have to look for it." Griffin
wants to study psychology, and hopes to eventually become a counselor.
It takes only a few minutes of talking to Griffin
to see that he is an intelligent, polite, thoughtful young man who really enjoys life. But it does take an effort to get past
the clothes.
Maybe, though, that's part of what he's doing - making
us see that when we dress, we make a choice. And even when we dress so as not to alarm anyone, so as not to make waves, we
are still making a choice.
For the moment, Griffin has chosen the other way.
He dresses to make waves. And he's doing a pretty good job of it.
