PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

1

Since kindergarten you hated Kerry:

he was always so much of a girl

(with long curls and expressive eyes; and a

name that sounded feminine,

although the form of its spelling was masculine).

Your hatred, which began to seethe toward

him in kindergarten, was implaccable.  By

middle school, it evolved into minor assaults

(which were neither officially reported or

documented---most of the instructors agreed that

he brought it on himself with such

flagrant behavior).  Fearful of reprisals, he

never named his assailant, and often walked the

long ways to class, or from and to home.

He never screamed or pleaded for mercy; but

you often imagined that, late at night, he cried,

shedding cowardly tears, while the bruises

were still unfaded (you took some pride in

their lingering), dampness that fell upon the

threadbare Teddy Bear he kept as a decorative

fixture on his bed; ThreadyBear, he had named it.

2

"Fairy Kerry" was an epithet of your own construction that

plunged its venomoua fangs into his already suffering

reputation among the student body---that was in fifth

grade, if I remember correctly; you and the Dohmkopf

Brothers were the most vocal about it.  (Remember

Monday, February third of nineteen sixty-nine, how the

fairy burst into tears when someone reminded him of that

morning's news, that Boris Karloff had died in England the

day before?  That was in fifth grade, too.)  ThreadyBear was,

probably soaking wet, from the pansy's uncontrolled sorrow.

3

September of Senior Year, his death was announced, on a

Monday morning, during the principal's daily home-room address

over the PA.  Some people, mostly the popular ones, giggled,

drawing from the teachers some severely dirty looks (although in the

faculty lounge, some talk implied that he had brought the beating on to

himself).  He had been abducted, taken to one of the outlying rural

township roads; his face so battered that the bones beneath it had

shattered.  Found just barely alive, he never regained consciousness; and,

thus again, did not disclose who the perpetrators might have been.

No investigators found any trace of him in your very used car;

nor inquired how you lured him to climb into it; and

his shoes remain concealed in the back of your closet, a

surreptitious reminder of this final solution of your own.  You smirk at the

thought of his stripey socks, beneath the tattered cuffs of

his faded, baggy bell-bottoms:  no real man would have been

caught dead in such homo attire---but he was.

4

Strange stormy weather tonight:  no lightening or thunder, no

precipitation, no wind or even the noises of wind, yet the moon and

stars have vanished from the sky, and the air has become very

chilled---but only in your room, although you will not know that for

sure.  Your body caves, figuratively, to an overwhelming sense of

dread (and of all nights for your parents to be gone to one of their

inevitably extended card parties), but your pride prevents you from

telephoning, to anyone, for help; and your mounting, roiling,

palpitating fear has robbed your limbs of any ability to move.  From

that closet emerges the low but sustained sound of a growl---

ursine (but you will never be able to know that), and then in the

darkness (in terror, you are unable to reach the light switch),

your distending eyes discern the sudden motion of what appears to be,

itself, a shadow, springing---or shall we say---lunging into a pounce (as a

professional zoologist or some amateur taleteller might describe it).

Roars of rampant rage overcome the shrill squeals of your terror.

5

They will find the bully-body, mutilated almost beyond recognition;

certainly well past humane comprehension; although nothing 

else in the room had been damaged, not even toppled or 

knocked out of place.  At the same time this is being discovered, 

Fairy Kerry's purloined shoes are now placed neatly, where he

 usually kept them, at the foot of his bed.  And atop the neatly 

embroidered bedspread that he loved, sat ThreadyBear---

its plastic button eyes somehow aglow with the thrill of 

inflicted revenge; its mouth, which had been a straight line of 

stitching, was now a twisted and triumphantly vindictive smile.