9 

Couldn’t get him to listen anymore. Had to say things like “I bet I could beat your ass like a pussy”. Stand hovering over him drunk, until he hits you in the face with a pillow. Got blood shooting out of your nose. Covering the arm of the basement couch in blood and snot. Going upstairs to see yourself in a mirror and see how bad it was. Getting dizzy when you see how bad it was. Going back down into the basement to tell him you might have to go to a hospital. Him just telling you over and over again “but I just hit you with a pillow” 

He just kept behaving badly anyways. Slowly killing himself and anyone else near him. Coming to visit you already wobbling down the sidewalk as you see him coming. Yelling at Muslims from your porch to go back to their country. Spitting in his girlfriend's face to make his friends laugh. Threatening to burn your house down when you were asleep. Standing shirtless and screaming on your lawn until a neighbor he woke up comes outside with a blanket for him. Wraps him up as he keeps glaring at you, rigid with hate, waiting for you to tell him where the cab was taking his girlfriend. Why you called a cab? And where was Rory, that short piece of shit. 

When you finally get him to sit down you have to find a way to keep his interest. Or he might leave the house. Go somewhere he might cause even more trouble. Will only listen to stories about crimes. So you tell him all about how to scam a free pizza. Tell him about all the free pizza you ate in university. Don’t tell him it never actually worked for you, because at least he’s listening. Explain the trick in great detail. His eyes so black they can’t possibly be really listening. He’s not even there. But somehow remembering every bit of it. Eating free pizza  every night now. Calling the same place whenever he got drunk. Night after night after night.  

And now he’s hiding in the bushes. At first only one pizza delivery guy yelling at him. Chasing him across lawns and around the corner. But then a second one. Then another and another. Tires screeching and pizza delivery guys jumping out of cars. A dozen grown men in orange foam hats, chasing my brother back and forth across the street. Over his neighbor's fences.

And him just laughing and laughing and laughing anyways, even though he clearly wasn’t getting any dinner tonight. Telling you what a great brother you are. Whenever you can be bothered to visit. Not so often anymore. Can only make everything worse. 

THE MOTHER SNATCHERS  

(sound of a tape recorder being turned on) 

Me: So, have I told you about The Mother Snatchers yet? I can’t remember anything anymore. 

Interviewer: (indistinguishable mumbling) 

Me: The Nap Burgler? The Man of Arms? The little astronauts that live inside of you? Inside of everybody. 

Interviewer: (the sound of clicking and hissing) 

Me: I’m sure I’ve told you. I must have. I repeat myself a lot. When I was still living with my mother, these were the things you had to worry about. The Mother Snatchers. Other stuff like that. 

*a window can be heard being smashed in the distance* 

Me: Yeah, I’m sure they’re still out there somewhere. But what do I care anymore? 

Interviewer: (children giggling) 

Me: Maybe you’re not the one I should be talking to about this. 

(sound of tape recorder being turned off, followed by silence) 

3: The Man of Arms 

A trip for rice pudding nearly turns fatal. A young boy and his mother, after a late night visit to local hole-in-the-wall tavern The Orchard, soon came to realize they were being followed home by a strange looking man. 

The boy reports that it was his idea to go get the rice pudding at such an unorthodox hour. “I like rice pudding”, he says. “I’ve got to eat it. Sometimes it’s the only thing that can keep me alive” 

According to his mother, if not for the boy’s refusal to stop asking for his favorite treat, something he had done all day long, at times kicking the walls and threatening to strangle himself if he didn’t get any, the incident would have never happened in the first place. 

“I didn’t want to go”, she asserts, looking terribly tired and upset over everything that had transpired. “I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want to go nowhere. Make sure you remind him when he starts complaining to you how this wasn't my idea” 

It seems that it was after a couple of delicious bowls of rice pudding, and then a pleasant chat with the waitress as they paid their bill, the two soon found themselves followed by this most peculiar stranger. They were unsure how long he had been trailing them, or if maybe he had been dining in the same restaurant as them and followed them out. It would only be as they reached the darkest stretch of street on their way home that they became aware of him behind them, appearing almost as if out of nowhere. 

“My mother told me he was right behind us”, the boy explains, holding back tears as he recounts the shocking ordeal. “But I didn’t see him. She said not to look back. That he had a bunch of arms. And a pointy hat. And frizzy hair. It would have scared me too much so I just had to run” 

The mother claims the boy just walks too slowly. “I’ll tell you this. I’m almost glad some creep was behind us”, she states firmly. “It got my kid moving a little faster, didn’t it? Otherwise he'd still be dragging his feet out there. And I didn’t have all night. I’ve got things to do”. 

Only once they were safely back inside their tenth floor apartment, did the boy finally catch a glimpse of the strange man who had chased them. Pressing his face against the glass of an eastern facing window, looking down upon the street they had only just narrowly escaped, he says at first he couldn’t see anything. But after his mother pointed at the tops of trees and in the middle of intersetions and at the roofs of other apartment buildings, he could just about make him out in the shadows. Something truly terrifying.  

“He was everywhere”, he claims. “There were a bunch of him. Arms like an octopus, all wiggling and long” 

A terrifying thought for sure, but one which begs an important question for the adults left in the room: Is this just an incident of a childs imagination run amok, or are there truly monsters crawling on our once safe streets? Multi-limbed weirdos on the prowl for little boys who walk too slowly? Is it possible that monsters really and truly exist after all, and if so, who then can we trust? Are our friends and family truly who we believe them to be? Are we, maybe, the real monsters? 

Profound questions, to be sure. And, unfortunately, as your humble reporter, I offer no answers. Personally, I tend not to believe in such things as the boogeyman or any kind of ghost or ghoul who claims to have risen from the dead. But tonight I saw something in the eyes of this particular child that made me question what I believe in. Constantly casting suspicious glances towards a window he now fears to ever look out again, forever frightened he will still see a man with too many arms waiting down there for him. Or maybe even at that moment, climbing towards him, pulling itself from one balcony to the next, growing ever nearer to where he sits.  

What I believe though, I realize, hardly matters. It’s instead more important to consider what this boy has become convinced of tonight. How he can no longer trust those who tell him that such things as monsters don’t exist. Because he knows better. He’s seen one with his own two eyes. And so has his mother who, by the time I had finished my interview and quietly left their small one bedroom apartment, was already fast asleep at the end of her couch. Leaving a boy standing all by himself in the center of the room. The last thing I see as I close the door behind me.  

4: Green Teeth 

Somehow the boy brought monsters with him. Who knows how they got there. At first, Norma thought the suitcase his mother packed for him was too small to carry much. And considering he was never going back, a bit of an insult. A record player and that tiny suitcase and nothing else. Barely enough shirts inside for all the coathangers she had waiting for him. No need for the bookcase she put next to his bed. A closet that still smelled of his Aunt Andreas old toys that hadn’t been there for years. And this boy bringing nothing that would change any of that. A suitcase with almost nothing in it. 

But at least the closet would be kept nice and empty for all those monsters that came with him. Who didn’t smell of anything. Who were the only thing the boy would talk about with Norma in the mornings. Telling her about his nightmares in great detail. Describing what they looked like. Sometimes bald, sometimes frizzy haired, sometimes shirtless or completely naked. Certainly no one she had ever known and no one she had ever mentioned to him. More like the kinds of people his mother might talk about. Or let sleep on the couch. That could have followed the boy here. 

Norma listened as he told her their names. Strange names she didn’t like. That didn’t belong here and which didn’t leave enough room for her in his dreams. And so, putting the boy to bed one night, Norma thought to ask if she’d ever told him about the man she saw jump off a bridge. The Green Toothed Man. 

The boy's eyes widened, and he listened intently as she told him of how it had been a long time ago. About his age when she watched the man fall all the way down until he hit the ground. How she and her brother Bill went rushing towards where he’d landed. Finding him there still alive and gasping. Grass in his teeth. Wound around a tree like he’d been tied to it. 

Her grandson asked if she knew his real name and she told him that the next day the newspaper talked about him and this thing he had done and the time of his eventual death, but no one knew that about him. Carrying nothing on him outside of the twenty three cents they found in his pants pocket.

“And his teeth were green?” 

“Yes. And it was green all around his mouth too. And all of his teeth had fallen out and were on the grass” 

Then she told him to go to bed. It was getting late. They could talk about it in the morning. 

2 

You can completely disappear if you don’t want the ball. They won’t see you standing on the sidelines, watching them run back and forth. Flying through the air. Slam dunking and laughing with each other and slapping each others shoulders with horrible meaty sounds. Terrible sweaty sounds. Another reason for everyone to just keep their shirt on. 

They never saw me out there. Would only briefly be seen in the change room. That’s when they would stand very close and keep asking who I am. Can smell their breath on my name as they kept repeating it back to me. But feeling good with my shirt on as they try to get tough in their underwear. Know I can just leave and no one can follow me. 

In the changeroom, I am the star. No one faster than me. The only one with clothes on and my shoes already tied up as they stand around in their bare asses. Don’t see me for very long in here. Realize they are nothing to me in here. Start slowly looking around when I stop paying any attention to them. Looking at each others cocks. Looking at their clothes crumpled on the floor. 

But out in the gym they can get you. There is no escape here and if they see you you’re done. Must keep myself invisible. Something that is thankfully easy for me to do. Only need to keep myself in a corner. My hands clasped tight behind my back. Giving no one a reason to pass me the ball. Knowing that’s how you get seen.  

It’s only if I somehow mistakenly get my hands on their ball that I can even imagine them stopping and looking at me. Can see them frowning and squinty eyed. Watching to see what I would do with it. This ball that was too big for my hands. That I never wanted in the first place. Standing still, not sure how to give it back to them. Just letting them get nearer and nearer, hands reaching out to me. Starting to yell. Their fingers clutching at the air as if getting ready to grab hold of something. 

4 

Even though they weren’t good at it, the basketball kids would eventually get their shirts back on. Were allowed out of the gym and could be seen in the hallways behind me. Could end up anywhere. Sometimes in other classes I was in but now by themselves. Looking different alone but still wet from shower water so it had to be them.  

I could tell they were still angry about not being able to shoot a hundred more baskets, even if they didn’t quite recognize I was the one to blame. Never looked directly at me. Didn’t know who I was, but were angry about what I'd done even years later, I think.  

In time I would find myself surrounded in history class. Sitting at a desk in the middle of a bunch of them and having them look through me while trying to talk to each other. Mostly about sawing into the back of ankles with sharpened lacrosse sticks. How they’d nearly cut off the feet of the other team while they stared right at me. Looking into my eyes as they started laughing about how much fun this was. How anyone who stood between them and a net would be turned into a puddle of blood.  

I couldn't tell if they even saw me but began to wonder if it was possible to get one’s feet cut off in history class without the teacher somehow noticing. Began carrying a roll of quarters to class, just in case.

6 

Cowboy boots announce the coming of Shark Attack. Got my dads drunken heels on, worn down lopsided from his stumbling walk. Worn down further on my feet, which they flopped around on because they were too big. Hit the ground weird. Clattered even louder making everyone look up and realize Shark Attack was here.  

Painted Jim Morrison on my jean jacket too. Got his poetry written on the back. Webster’s definition of what a door is on the sleeves. The paint sometimes running in the rain. A lizard king's hairdo dripping into his eyes. 

My uniform is coming together. My protection. Tie a confederate flag bandana around my head to finish it off. Sweat into it and don’t think much about what any of it means other than get away from me. Some Filipino kids start calling me Stompin’ Tom, but that doesn’t catch on.  

Mostly though, I just sit there looking stupid. Everyone calling out my name. Everyone loving me. But mostly everyone hating me. Waiting for the next attack.Know it’s coming when some short kid in with a shaved head starts talking to me about skin flutes in geography class. Keeps asking if I played one. Turn my back on him while he shows me how he plays his.  

There is the sound of a chair being pushed out and suddenly his arm around my neck. Choking me in class when the teachers steps out. Squeezing my throat until I started squeaking. Squeaking instead of telling him that no one is supposed to touch me. Getting me frantic. Everyone looking as a very small skinhead starts strangling me.  

But not for long.  

Suddenly strong. Violence filling these skinny arms. Get my elbow pushed into his soft throat and was over top of him before either of us knew what had happened. Looking down into his eyes like I was about to kill him and his eyes recognizing what mine were telling him. My hate dripping down all over everything he can see. Getting him toppled over a desk. His feet going over his head, the white laces in his boots dangling in the air.  

I just stand there as he retreats back to his seat. Back behind his binder. Fuck Tha Police written on the cover in black marker and him telling me I’m dead. 

Telling me I’m dead over and over until the end of the class. Telling me I have no idea what I’ve just done. What he can do to me in the parking lot. What kind of treat he has for me in the trunk of his car. But by now only talking to Jim Morrisson. I'm not saying anything at all with my back turned. Filling a confederate flag with my sweat. My feet aching but not able to get myself to sit down. 

Rock wrote:

I finally bought a pair of cowboy boots last year. Love them. Only problem is they barely have any traction so are poor footwear choices in remotely adverse weather.

I wiped out in them many times since I would wear them in snowstorms. Walk across ice in them. Deadly footwear

The other problem is you can't go anywhere without people looking up at you. They always hear you coming. No fun if you prefer to be invisible.


 

Rock wrote:

lol yeah

Super loud unless you’re walking on carpet

It should be socially acceptable for cowboy boot enthusiasts to carry a little square of carpet around with them everywhere they go that they can lay down between footsteps.

Problem solved

Cowboy boots were never practical footwear for anything other than keeping sty-shit off your feet.  They used to fuck up dudes' feet something fierce - corns, bunyons, bleeding toenails and a bevy of blisters.  They were just tough enough to endure it along with all of that back and knee pain.

And that's really the allure of cowboy boots.  It's supposed to advertise how tough you are to ignore such deformating agony.