Teen runaway Fluke Crowley is fast on his feet-key to surviving Alphabet City's cruel streets in 2001. Fluke steals a messenger bag from a guy in an Avenue A restaurant, which holds the crude manuscript of the man's peculiar life story: Conrad D's descent into drug treatment, his stormy relation-ship, his love for Jack Kerouac's books and lifestyle. As he reads, Fluke notes the strange coincidences in their vastly different lives. Fluke's and Conrad's paths eventually, inevitably and unforgettably cross-as they learn about each other, themselves, and the kaleidoscopic and wholly unique Tompkins Square Park neighborhood they share. Fluke is attempting to survive a year on the New York streets, but those he's wronged with his various schemes, including a pair of fearsome gutter-punk thugs, have him hustling for his life. Tapping Tompkins Square's rich history of squatting, punk rock and protest, When I Was Punk is at turns humorous, harrowing and heartbreaking. It is the second novel in Michael J. Malone's Tompkins Trilogy.