The Tattoo Guy (MCR FIC)

Halloween Edition Part 2

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Halloween Edition Part 2

Age 15

I loved the dark. How it coated everything like a sheet, but from underneath it glowed with street lights and whistled from the wind. I had been dragged out to watch over Mikey yet he'd left with his friends a while ago to 'fuck up some houses' I swear he swore more than a sailor at the age of 13. It was my fault really, but indulging him in late night TV and movies that would make a grown man cry he had become wiser in his word choices which looked odd to his skinny geeky exterior.

I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets and slouched as I walked past all the kids giggling and playing as they didn't know any better. They weren't to know what life would be like in a couple of years.

The streets were coated in black, reds and oranges as well as a pumpkin in every window in every yard. As I got closer to the park the decorations began to decay and the rows of pumpkins turned into littered fragments torn up over the street. Abandoned parts of costumes lay discarded in the confines of the bushes and beer bottles lay in a heap under the trees.

I kept my head down, my hood up and my eyes cast in front of me. This had become routine, sure I'd gotten chubby over the last year and my music taste had begun to become independent along with singing ability- this just meant I had become used to avoiding public eye.

With a startling crash and the sound of shattering glass I flinch as I feel the glass freckles my sneakers as a bottle is thrown in my path followed by another, I don't dare look, I can hear the hollering and giggling as they threaten to try make me dance with the fear.

"Hey kid! You better stay on that side of the street you mother-f*cker or I will knock you out!" I hear a gruff voice cackle, how fitting on such a night where guys like him could get away with showcasing their true grotesque personalities without being judged. In the same way it was guys like me that could express the demons inside ourselves without being cast out for our differences. It was cool to like gothic art, watch horror movies and dress in more black than desired when there was such excuses as Halloween. I sometimes wondered if it was really fair- why not try be different and be like them for the night instead. I could see myself buying a surfer boy wig, a baby blue cotton prep polo shirt and khaki slacks, I’d put in some white casing for my teeth and puff myself with a tan that was far from pristine glow. For one night I could be Ken, whilst the people who criticised us daily for being different pranced around as exact carbon copies of themselves or pin up girls; as long as they were slutty enough, or as long as it was an excuse to show off part of the body that is most likely riddled with some form of disease.

I keep my head down and keep walking; my hands in the pockets of my black baggie hoodie and the feel of the skeleton costume stuck on my legs, it was like a baby grow that I would buy for a child, it was baggy and warm but I loved it. It made me look skin and bones against the black night. I put a sly smile on my face as I carried on walking, the idea of being skinny, of blending in seemed all too impossible. A fantasy.

Knowing that Mikey may need to find me I find the nearest and best seat in the park. The swing. It was in the centre, around me I could see the lake, the guys I had passed and hear the soft mumble of the kids from Mikey’s class just before the group of trees. The swing always used to be a place of competition as a kid. You used to fight to get on first, fight to get higher than the other, and see who would be brave enough to pull the biggest stunt. I chuckle to myself. Even back then we all knew what life would turn out like, who we would become once we got to high school; fighting over who kissed a girl first, boasting about who lost their V card first, competing to get drunk the quickest or get the lest high; showing off to stand out. It’s just one big game of ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ and even at my age I knew it was a fact of nature.