Middle School DIck Flash Magnum

I have never know the name of the third person I ever wanted to kill.  There is no way for me to know how common homicidal urges are in other people (given that most people will never reveal their true feelings about mundane things, much less murder), but they are pretty rare in me.  I'd estimate that there have been five to seven people whom I wanted dead. Anyway, I didn't and don't  know this piece of shit's name.

 I was in eigth grade at LeRoy Martin Middle School in Raleigh, NC in 1983. I threw discus and shot on the track team with little success, but I had lots of friends on the team and it was fun.  Track practice was after school and I would wait with the other kids to get picked up by our respective adults in the parking lot.  It was an overcast and chilly early spring day.  My friends and I waited in our ever diminishing group, cutting up, talking about the bullshit that middle school kids talk about.  I remember a brilliant discussion about how Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel The Noize" was about sex given that the word come had been spelled cum.  My fundamentalist Christian friend JJ was bright red in the face during that discussion and was visibly relieved when the popular kid with the checkerboard Vans who was bent on the discussion of cum was picked up.

JJ and I were the last kids in the lot.  There might have been two or three teacher's cars left, maybe a few more but the school was emptying out fast.  My friend's dad pulled up in his faded green Matador, and while getting into the car JJ asked if I wanted to ride as it was unlike my step-dad to be so late to pick me up.  I couldn't accept since my step-dad would've freaked out if he showed up and I wasn't there.  I couldn't call him, there were no cell phones.  Without real worry I found myself alone in the parking lot.

Waiting around for rides always sucks, and this day was no different.  I suppose another more driven student would've pulled a bit of carpe diem and done some home work while waiting, but I was far from that kind of student.  I was barely passing many of my classes and only doing that well to maintain my eligibility for sports.  My biggest worries at the time were whether my father thought I was a good football player, whether the cute blonde girl I asked to "go with me" really thought I was a fag (as her best friend said), and whether anyone would find out that I masturbated.  There was a kid that had been caught spanking it by his friends and he absolutely never heard the end of it.  He was THAT kid.  I didn't want to be that kid.

So there I stood, worrying my tiny little worries, waiting for my ride, hoping that I'd get home in time to get to the TV before my sisters claimed the remote for the night.  A man was jogging up into the parking lot.  He has a  Magnum PI mustache and hair to match.  A veritable 80s cliche of a head.  He's wore a navy zip front hoodie with no shirt underneath exposing a shag area rug of chest hair.  The puzzling part of his jogging outfit was that he was running in a speedo.  I've never been a jogger so I didn't know how unusual this was, but it was certainly beyond my experience.  Had there been a few more kids there I'm sure he would've been heckled, but it was just me, and he was running right up to me.

Magnum ballsack jogged up and ran in place in front of me as I stood on the curb avoiding eye contact with him.  "Do you know what time it is," he asked me.

"Sure don't."

"Are there clocks in the school?"

"Yeah, of course."

"OK"

He trotted away towards the woodworking shop where I made simple little weed pipes for the fake surfer kids who wore Dr. Zog's Sex Wax t-shirts, the punk kids who had strange haircuts that were dyed brightly, and the early burnouts who invariably had on old army surplus coats. I didn't fit into any of those cliques and didn't know how to go about procuring weed for myself, but I desperately wanted to be cool.  Making pipes for the cool kids gave me access to the cool.  Like having a nice BMX bike didn't make me cool since I didn't know how to do anything on it but pedal, but the bike was cool, so I could've been cool by possession.

All I wanted in the world was to be a cool kid.  I wanted to be popular and put my finger into a girl's vagina like everybody else seemed to be doing.  I wasn't cool though.  I was a pale ginger, with a bad temper and an obsession with The Who.  I had discovered Quadrophenia that year and didn't pull my head out of it until high school had been going on for a while. I either wanted to be cool, or invisible so as to avoid ridicule, and being nearly six feet tall, ghostly pale and flamingly ginger in eighth grade seemed to preclude both of those possibilities.  So I stood there, relieved that the weird jogging dude had gone, looking down the street for my step-father's 1970 Ford Galaxy XL.

Magnum banana hammock reappeared from the school and was again approaching me.  Fucker ran right up to me again and said, "You know what they told me in there?"

I just looked at him, like why in the world do you think I give a slight damn what you are about to say to me. Practiced teen indifference. "They told me that my ATTIRE was INAPPROPRIATE for school grounds.  You believe that shit?"

Actually, yes you fucking freak that crossed my mind as well.  "You know what I should've done?"

Magnum then pulled down his speedo and exposed his dick and balls to my 12 year old eyes.  He was smiling at me in a way I can only describe as filthy.  His eyes studied me, memorizing my reaction for later use.  I looked away and said, "WHAT THE FUCK" and walked toward the cafeteria.  Magnum turned and ran down the street.  He was gone.  I had no idea what to do.  Freaked.  That guy showed me his cock, why did he think I wanted to see his cock?  What about me looks like I would be happy to see that?  Ten minutes later my step-dad picked me up.

I told my family what happened at dinner.  They asked me why I didn't go tell an adult in the school, they asked me why I didn't go to a pay phone and call the police, they asked me a million more questions I can't remember.  I had no idea what the protocol was for such a situation.  I knew to run from certain situations, I knew to scream in certain situations, and I knew to fight in certain situations.  Flashing was never covered.  Without telling me she was going to do so, my mom called the school and told them everything.

Very quickly the entire school knew about what happened.  I had become the kid who got flashed and did nothing about it.  The coaching staff asked me why I didn't run and get them as they would've apprehended the creep and most likely beat him to death, being the Real Men that they were.  The Principal (who went on to become the Superintendent) was cool and talked to me for a while about what I was going to go through. He confided that there had been a predator flashing kids around the school for several years and that my description might help catch him.  They never did catch him.  I wanted to kill fucking  Magnum dick flash.

I thought I saw him at Crabtree Valley Mall a year later, but couldn't be sure it was him and didn't want to tell my new High School friends what had happened so that we could beat him to death in the parking lot.  I was no longer the dick flash kid.  I was just an awkward ginger freshman, which was great comparatively.  I never killed anyone, and statistics show that if you make it to be as old as I am you probably won't cross that threshold so I have that going for me.  I just can't help but feel, outside of public discussion, outside of fear of consequence, some people deserve to be killed.  I won't be the killer though, that's not in me (thankfully).

spotification

my favorite music makes me emotional
inappropriately sad
happily angry
these days my favorite music is that
which i am hearing for the first time.
it never ends
new words
new tunes
filling my head with it
i feel so very alone
but i know i'm not alone in the lonely
me and my dog and a billion or so others
semi quietly waiting for the end of it all
emotionally
listening

Midnight mover
always have been
can you dig it
i knew that you could
when i'm gone
i'm gone
i'm so gone
you can hate me from a distance
a long one
some won't forget me
some will
I won't forget
I will regret
I ever played football

Rather Die

I can tie a noose like a motherfucker

from a silk tie 

hemp rope

nylon cord 

what the fuck ever.

Never was a boy scout

quit at Cubs 

but I taught myself to tie a noose

so I could do it right 

when I need to.

No lynching,

love my melanistic folk

unless I'm driving 

or waiting tables 

regardless

not klanning.

If I were to hang

I'd wear boots 

so as to catch all the piss

Id wear a turtle neck

to prevent the Claret from staining the wood.

Easy clean up 

I know how put upon you feel domestically

But god damn it, you'd find me.

Purple of face

tongue swollen

lolling

You'd find me.

Then you might have a real reason to hate me.

I'd be beyond caring

The dream had ceased

died or so I thought

Fantasy end

I'm back baybay

Forget the woods and forget waiting

it'snot about y'all

What holds me back now

is kids that will never be mine

because of some massengill motherfucker't and easy abortions

Babies for him, never for me.

Can't understate that

not ever.

Never mine

Nevermind.

I didn't do it

Embrace

Tell a gay man to eat a dick
you haven't insulted  him.
Cocksucker,
huge percentage of the census is ok with the idea
Liar.
Fuck you.
Your lies are not an issue
mine kill.
Die motherfucker die
as I blasted,
eat a dick fucking fag
I'll outlast you
Long run
Out gun
Hostility
nothing but
Haterhateyou don't give a handjob
much less a fuck
Most offensive.
That's something I can deal with.
Embrace.

Ash is but Ash

Change your life and see

whether you can outlive or outrun your past

good luck to you my friend, 

keep that cardio in top condition

you're going to need it.

You will never ever neverever nevernever everever

win that race. 

Best practice may be to move on

pull up stakes and go,

certainly the easiest practice.

You are what you did,

not necessarily what you do.

Although what you do is nice,

thank you for the effort

you are still that guy

who did that thing

or those things.

You are not a phoenix

ash is but ash.

Forgive and forget 

a lie built on a landfill

ground shifts.

Never was never will be I reckon.

Yeah, I'm cryptic

unless you know me 

and if you do,

If you really know

you detest.

I give reasons

or maybe I gave them.

Fuck it

potato potahto

french fries bitch.

Vitriol

Pain is amorphous and fairly hard to describe
sciatic pain is no joke, but clearly not bone graft pain
either way,  it really hurts.
My employer couldn't give a fuck
I expected that
Welcomed it really.
What I didn't anticipate is my family not giving  fuck.
Makes me want to spew venom.
So I try to quit drinking and then pinch my sciatic nerve
thus can't sit stand lie down
can't BE without pain.
So I have had a few,
not an alcoholic's few
two beers.
Still cant sleep.
Slept eight hours in three days
want to die.
Fuck everybody and everything
I'm still going to work in the morning at 5:45 am
rent don't wait
groceries to let go bad.
damn goddamn