DETROIT — Troubled teen Liam Coogan, 15, reportedly latched onto clueless middle-aged scene regular Craig Thompson as a father figure, slightly mortified sources confirm.
“I think he sees his younger self in me,” said Coogan, while smoking his second cigarette within ten minutes. “I mean, my dad walked out on us when I was four, so growing up I didn’t have that kind of male role model. But, y’know, punk is family, right, so pretty soon after I joined the scene, here’s Craig, full of hardened wisdom, life advice, and willing to buy booze for teens. Last week he told me all these stories about what the scene was like in the ‘90s. His band even opened up for Integrity once. I mean, he’s never said ‘I love you’ or anything like that. We don’t have that kind of relationship, it’s kind of a quiet, mutual respect. I think he’s really starting to see me as his equal. Craig’s just really taught me a lot about what it means to be a man, y’know?”
When reached out for comment on this beautiful example of scene unity and mutual care, Thompson responded effusively.
“Oh, yeah, Leon?” said Thompson, while picking stale gum off a nearby pole. “Yeah, cool kid, really great. Little clingy. He keeps giving me ties and asking me if I want to go fishing. He got arrested last week and used me as his one phone call. He was crying, asking me if I was mad at him- shit, man, I got nervous and I hung up before my boss saw me on my phone.”
Child psychologist Dana Hargrove weighed in with the troubling fact that Coogan’s case is far from unusual.
“In today’s world, teenage boys are starved for healthy male role models, so they tend to take what they can get,” said Hargrove. “Cool English teachers, down-to-earth YouTubers, the weird grown man that hangs out at high school parties and buys teenagers cigarettes-really, any readily available man over the age of 35 is a possible one-sided surrogate father figure.”
“Also, Craig’s band almost certainly never opened for Integrity,” she adds. “I’ve seen his band play, they fucking suck.”
At press time, Coogan is reportedly thrilled his weeks of subtly suggesting a game of catch have paid off, as Thompson is going to teach him how to throw Molotov cocktails.