Work Text
he followed me home again
and his eyes were watering
his eyes were watering
like a child
i made-believe for him
that my blood was dripping
my blood was dripping into
his mouth
Like a jackal in your periphery. Some kind of loping mangey predator of opportunity. A cowardly condor but not half as noble. Not part of an ecosystem, a beneficial reaper and cleaner of carcass, no. A bloated other-buzzard, gorged on nothingness, circling the edges of the blood. Watching with eyes flatbright in a moon shining face. In class, oh in class. Poor grades and wandering hands, quiet mindless spiders. Pale digits and the flat pads of gummy fingertips closed over a pencil coffin filled with flies. Those brown and grey and black dull drawings. To adults, mild, disturbing but not disruptive and so… left alone. Invisible as a noseeum, larval grown to pupal grown to….something else far worse. Liable to be allowed almost anything. Called to the blood, when did the soul of Jackal start skirting the edges of their lives and why by God did they let him in? Give a dog a name and it will be yours forever. Let a predator settle, silt and sly eyed meddle, show him life in metal blade and iron in flesh. Make him feel something real one time, only once, and you become his own until he deems you done and spends you. Flytrap paper of a human being, shape of almost man in clay and vagueness. Worse than adult because a child can not be stopped, not truly. Sticky, the essence of the creature, catching. Be it flat eyes sliding over and then in, so deep as to feel it. Be it hair, be it wrists or corners of clothes, groped at with pads catching. Hand walking slowly along flesh. Holding. To be loved by him is not really to be loved. Rather it is to be fondly eaten, slowly and without the force of fast brutality to trigger a response, to alert the mind or body of what is happening. But the eating, it is still there. Flytrap flower, seafoam look devour, the slough of froth, of all the dead ocean things come to grin and lap at the shore, dull in all other acts. Dingo running with the dogs. Mangy mutts lapping at reopening wounds, chasing boys and cats, pups and boys. Only He, ever catching them. Coaxing before the throttle. The quality of hands, of approach, steady calm. Queerly gentle if you don’t see the leer out of the corner of your eye right before the stroke of life comes rushing from your closed off sweet little dog-mutt throat. Yelp little puppy, yelp. --- Victor Criss does not like Patrick Hockstetter. No one really likes Patrick. He’s just there. Simply put, a slow grown fungus that has casually taken root, given space between the open and close of refrigerator door. Gifted dark and damp earth, feeding albino bamboo in the Barrens, and the neglect of time. Ground watered with blood, now he is widespread, too deep in the flesh to carve out. Before that summer he had existed to them as but a blip on the radar. Just another Derry kid, another pair of eyes and a beating heart among so many hearts that didn’t matter. Too tall to thrash, dull, scent muted but still smelling faintly of the familiar boredom a bully shares. No fun to be had from messing with him so they’d passed on by. Then suddenly came October of 1989 when he flickered into the margins of their lives. Samhain candlelight vigil of a pale creature so boy, so human, and yet off beyond measure. He came to them real natural, inserted himself relentlessly and smoothly into their trio. Patrick standing, staring, holding still at a distance that felt like something coming into focus. A fourth component added that made the now quartet feel solid, real. Loping closer with a smile, head cocked as if listening to a quiet call. They had all listened and maybe, even though it was crazy, there really had been something speaking that day. Climbed in Belch’s car with them, through the sunroof, settled right in the back. Hardly questioned, even by Henry. Not a single word between them. Vic stared while he took the two cartons of eggs from him and hooked a leg over Vic’s lap as if casual intimacy was nothing. He unfolded all about them like a spider resting. Very pleased, all smiles, eyes on them flat, yet real heavy. Vic had looked away out the window then, set to ignore it and the weight across his thighs as the engine revved to life and they tore off to wreak havoc on Derry the day before halloween. Temporary he’d thought, a one time thing, they would be back to a comfortable trio soon. Vic can't remember exactly when it started feeling normal, bringing him everywhere with them. When the habit outweighed the discomfort. No resistance, no fight. Following Henry’s lead, and he allowed Pat so Belch and Vic never challenged it. Never shaken Patrick since. Months later and Vic still doesn’t understand it, can’t properly wrap his head around the concept of Him plus Them. Belch sips a beer and tells Vic he thinks too hard, for his part Vic really tries not to. Not about anything they do lately because it makes him feel a little bad and more than a little unstable even as he thrives on the adrenaline of it, like he’s walking a widening crack in the ground. Better to enjoy the speed of the Trans Am, the shredding guitar solos ripping from the speakers, and the power, the larger-than-life elation of putting those Losers in their place. Better not dwell too long on the shape of Patrick imprinting himself ceaselessly into their lives and summer days. The sepia tint, the film of grime filtered over the entire town, making this year different than all the rest. They used to have fun, the three of them. They beat on some brats, they broke some things, ran wild and savage, howling and irreverent, but it pales in comparison to Pat’s hunger for entertainment. Everything is a game. A boredom killer, time vanisher. Nothing matters to him. Even things that should, and things that really aren’t funny. The cats for example...Vic kind of hates that. To Him, things and people simply aren’t consequential. Aren’t real. Not the bruise-tired blue clear for once in a moment bereft of rage. The shakes, the old tendency to flinch covered up with squared gait and savage bellow or a punching follow through. Henry childlike and innocent the way he could never really be, but in the split second just after Butch, docile and quiet. Neck bowed forward, just breathing. Time it right and you might chance to find the boy still alive behind the violence. Weighted to breaking by the wounds on the bone, the watercolor runoff red, purple, yellow, of mottled muscle under skin. If you have enough magic you might float the child back up through the blood. It’s important , and Patrick acts like it doesn’t mean anything at all. Vic and Belch could calm Henry down, last year. Deescalate, redirect. Talk about leaving, about a future outside of Derry. Drink beer and lay plans to travel the country, to work on farms in the summer and factories, maybe, in the winter. Patrick doesn’t know Henry like they do, he doesn’t even seem keen to learn. Still somehow they've started to orbit around each other, and things are changing. They break away from Vic and Belch to go off alone god knows where, or linger in the junkyard after Belch and a more reluctant Vic depart for home. Henry doesn’t talk about leaving Derry anymore, and it’s clear Patrick has no interest in de escalation. The summer has been bad, Butch is utterly liberal with his “discipline” and Henry won’t calm. Vic and Belch have been slugged too many times to keep on trying. These days Patrick is the only one who dares touch him. The key for Patrick, it seems, is that he just doesn’t care one way or another if he gets hit. So Persistent, like rejection has no meaning so long as he eventually gets his way. His roundabout weird, wierd way. He isn't trying to calm Henry anyways. Pale hand laid gentle over sunburnt skin and combusted capillaries just as soon presses down to aggravate the pain. A giggle, let out soft, just breath from parted lips. Henry usually leaps to his feet, hollerin, snarling, swatting. If he hits the mark the giggles turn to laughter. Pat’s flat eyes dance in his face like this is the most fun. Vic looks away because he can't stomach the waltz and the grin combined. But sometimes, sometimes. Henry inclines his head and just. Takes it. Lets it happen. He lets it happen and when he does this Patrick will make an expression of almost sweetness like Henry has given him a gift. His whole face glows, a dead white rock illuminated only by other people's light, the muddling of other people's life. Vic watches, clammy cold, feeling something ill swirl in his gut for the knowledge that it is too late, it’s already gone too far. Watches and thinks not for the first time, that the day they accepted the Jackal soul into themselves was the day they went ahead and truly erased any hope for a future with a happy end.
leave your bedroom light on
i live to watch you undress
and you know that I'm there
as you soak in my stare
with your right arm
-watering, big thief