#heartless devil

[dicktoo]

jus’ a couple really old guys, hanging  – photo Terry Kennedy 

[dicktoo]

one hundred and twenty-five

look.    down through the trees that line the street.    there.    the boy running out of that shop.    do you see what’s in his hand.    some can of food.    and there.    the man chasing after.    close.    tossing a green apron aside.    already uncinching his belt as he runs.    spitting guttural expletives in an unfamiliar tongue

look.    the boy turns and throws the can.    you see that it grazes the man’s head.     the red mouse rising just above the temple.    but the man keeps coming.    keeps spitting.    he closes ground.    he catches the boy too easily don’t you think.    pushes him to the ground.    the boy becomes fetal as he’s whipped.    that sound you’re hearing.    it’s the leather-toothed snap of the belt when it bites bare skin.    notice the gathering crowd  

look.   the man whips until he can whip no more.    he drops the belt.    his hands are on his knees.    chest heaving.    you can sense that things have turned can’t you.    the boy stands and laughs.    he spits a guttural expletive in an unfamiliar tongue.    and runs away.    that boy is Heartless

look.    down at the crowd that has gathered.    no.    the one back over in front of the store.    do you see the fluttering disturbance by the door.    a towhead is exiting with a burlap sack slung over his shoulder.    navigating through the jungle of legs.    there.    now he’s in the alley.    he’s clear.    limping away as fast as he can.    it’s the weight of the sack.    that sound is the cans banging together.    peaches peas potatoes.    turnips meats beets beans.    and jellied cranberries.    the boy will be thumped for this.    Heartless does not like jellied cranberries.    Of all the cans appropriated Heartless will thump the boy for this one.    that boy is me

[dicktoo]

one hundred and twenty-four

When I look back over this blog for posts about Heartless (aka Heartless Devil, aka Harteloze Duivel) I'm finding far fewer than I had thought I’d posted. So in an attempt to provide a little mortar to the bricks that is my story lest they tumblr down, (ha, see what I did there.), this is the first in a series of posts to fill in some of the gaps.

When I ran away from my original foster mother, I found myself on the streets of Rotterdam. It was late spring – a bit chilly at times but life was good. A modern civilized European city was no match for a hunter gatherer even an adolescent hunter gatherer. I was just one of many though. Each of us had our own special talents. Some of us were fast. Some of us were seductive. Some of us were duplicitous. But we were all invisible. Heartless was all of these. Whenever I come across the names Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, an image of Heartless comes to mind. He was the lord of Lord of the Flies.

I’ll admit that I have come to mythologize him. It’s going on something like 53 years since I tried to steal from him and he laid me low with a piece of brick at about 30 feet but I have always firmly believed if that brick had missed, if I had continued running, I would never survived that first year. 

Yes, I could kill a rat at 50 paces with a sharpened stick. But winter was coming and it was to be a winter like none that I could have ever imagined.

[dicktoo]

one hundred and twenty-one

I am at the age now when I am beginning to lose the names of things. If you were still here I know you would think it funny – you who scoffed at all things frail. I guess I can see where it might be humorous. I often feel like the drunk who grabs at a wall for support but misses.You couldn’t have handled it though – you who crumbled under the white noise of life’s mundanity. (How fucking frail is that?) 

We were different – different at the core. You, you needed to be the rocket’s red glare while I was happy just to suck the marrow from the bone – or whatever it’s called.