"the boy fights hard," they
say about
him.
he's very proud of
this, and often
continues
to fight
long after the other guy's
fallen
down. he keeps hitting
them sometimes until his
knuckles are bleeding and sometimes
still after that until they scab up.
the boy's got smoke in his voice.
and he can't breathe no more.
he puts on sunglasses and leans against
the wall outside under the street-
light, lights
a match
on his knuckles
watches it burn
and puts it out
with his tongue.
there are scars nobody knows about on
various areas of his body. he's raped a few women
but none of 'em ever did
anything about it.
he's cruelest to himself, though, despite
what it sounds like.
every time he punches a guy or slaps a woman he
tries to kill himself the next day, or maybe the next day.
this one time it was worst - at least,
worst that anybody ever knew about.
he almost killed this guy, beat him until there
were two teeth actually
STUCK
in his fists.
next day they found him in a cardboard box in
the alley, all wet and smelly, bare naked,
and he was sitting back inside smoking a
huge
cigar, puffing away, and all
around him the ground was wet.
they thought maybe oil puddles but
actually he'd cut himself up - all over, like
a road map up and down his legs, across
his ass, around his back to his belly, both
nipples cut off, armpits to fingertips in long spiderweb
strings, his face was smeared with the blood like
a war mask - and he'd rubbed himself down
with a gallon of gasoline he'd gotten
from the garage at the corner.
then he lit the cigar and started puffing. threw
the match on the ground, a miracle it didn't light
the gasoline.
at least, that's how WE saw it.
Back.