1: Double Feature
We were the c—c-cool kids,
P-poking fun at the L-l-losers!
What fun we had,
ruling the school, terrifying the teachers, punching the babies!
But our position soon changed,
from princes to paupers.
Popcorn in his curls, soda down his neck,
yelling insults, blasphemous verbal explosions:
cawing, crowing, belching,
just like the animal he was.
He was
the picture of ridicule;
something for those Losers to giggle at.
Although he was at the cinema —
creature feature, double feature time!
— what he really wanted was blood.
With his man-hands clenching my biker jacket,
what he really dreamed of was vengeance.
Disguised as loyalty,
fierce, dogmatic devotion,
he worshipped Bowers like a God;
He provided fresh sacrifices,
eleven-year old children,
scared out of their wits,
blood trickling from their noses.
Smell the fear in their sweat-drenched vests;
Reginald’s spidery long legs would chase them to their deaths,
into the sewers, into Hell or Heaven.
The old terror’s continual cry
echoed out through the corrugated iron surroundings.
That child, simple boy, trapped in the body of a grown man.
To the very end he was brave.
He died standing up to the beast.
The parting of head from shoulders
was sickening to say the least,
as his vacant chocolate eyes stared up at me,
Life’s light flickering for a fraction of a second before extinguishing completely.
And I followed suit, a sheep until the final grain of sand fell to the bottom of the hourglass.
In life after death we were brother Frankensteins;
A grim retrospective from the double feature.
Only the damp and repulsive dark air kept us together forever.
Two boys ripped apart in the sewers.
2: Trick or Treat
“Trick or Treat?” asked the boy,
sickly sweet.
His eyes glinted devilishly in the pumpkin’s glow,
and yet his complexion suggested that he was a ghost.
“What are you dressed as, honey?” somebody would ask, blissfully unknowing.
“My brother, Avery, ma’am!”
Beside him, another boy stood,
hunched, although brooding on something disturbing.
His eyes were glued on the moon above,
a giant, shining, glistening, mesmerising sphere high above the mansions.
Whole days and nights in bed, screeching at the sky, begging,
pleading for IT to GO AWAY!
Snarling, he bit sharply awake.
“Give me that tootsie roll”
he commanded.
God’s word.
Teeth clenched, she complied.
“Happy Halloween, bitch”
came his word of thanks.
With hands entwined they departed, two monsters enveloped in darkness.
At the dumpster they split the loot.
One third for Patrick, two thirds for Henry.
Fair game.
Indeed, to him it was justice
for babysitting a goddamn pansy.
Candy corn rained down like artificially-dyed snow,
seemingly sent from high above
as both boys gorged themselves like
award-winning pigs.
Two more youths arrived,
one swathed in toilet paper and the other drowning in what appeared to be novelty blood.
Eyes alight with mischief,
they promised to make the night one to remember;
swimming gleefully in a rainbow of candy,
smoking daddy’s cigars, stolen from the drawer,
furtively finding little phantom children to punish:
tonight, that was what little boys were made of.
3: Voices
Richie was his name,
voices were his game.
Silly towering boy of twelve summers,
aimed to be a comedian,
yet always had his head underground;
constantly we were in trouble
for something that was never my fault.
Some days, that energising, impish,
charming smile could send
all the wrong messages.
Danger always looked his way
but he took it all as a way to live, something to grin about;
foul-mouthed, explosive Trashmouth Tozier,
blood running from his lips,
his eye blackening, glasses splintered into his white face,
and yet he continued to beam.
Beep-Beep Richie!
Instantly
he could switch into somebody else
altogether.
Instantly,
effortlessly, he had all the Losers
singing his praises.
They thought the world of him,
that auburn-haired, spectacled, freckled, sinewy,
boy of many identities —
Irish cop, Kinky Briefcase Sexual Accountant —
he could be anything!
Eat your heart out, Bowers!
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