ET woke up cold and damp. He was shivering and was revolted to feel hands ruffling inside his pockets. He was too terrified to move but managed to make a squeak that was answered by a heavy plastic radio smashing him in the mouth and eye socket over and over until he was out cold again. He remembers feeling more offended about the boom box tape cassette breaking, landing pieces of broken plastic in his mouth than when they crushed his nose. Covering him in magnetic tape and pieces of the turning spindle.
He had a half memory of the rude asian girl from school and the crazy blonde wino in the industrial shirt being the ones doing it. He remembered evil grins and cold eyes willing to stab him to death if he made any fuss but he couldn’t. Like a black silk curtain leaching his spirit from reality, he passed out. He remembers feeling hot and like he was being whipped but was so deep in a black dreamless sleep he couldn’t make sense of it.
ET’s whole body felt scalded, his injuries boiled with intensity. Muscles twisting violently in charlie horses but also so cold. His nose and lips felt frozen with an undercurrent of strangled blood vessels screaming for some respite to the cruel night. His eyes echoed blows with phantom shapes of ghosts and taunting devils only those hit hard in the eye know about.
Waking again to the warm sun in his eyes but something was wrong! He couldn’t breathe out of his nose and his eyes were totally swollen shut. He could feel his teeth ache and a biting cold when he breathed. His arm might be broken and his shoes where gone. Leaving his toes so cold they felt broken.
His tongue found chipped teeth, the inside of his cheek was busted open almost to the outside of his face, which was likely broken under the pulsating swelling his could feel pieces of bone floating around his cheek bone and eye socket. His ribs cracked when he tried to breathe and his mouth felt like it was full of frozen sand and broken glass, shocking his whole body every time he tried to take a breath.
He tried to cry out for help but couldn’t. His broken nose felt like it was on fire and raw throat swollen shut and so dry it felt like ripping a bandaid off every time her took a painful breath and choke up a gout of thick purple phlegm. Furiously picking at the dried blood on his eyes and nose he was able to gasp air. He tried to open his mouth but he couldn’t, his jaw was broken and when he could finally peek to see who was there, all the old winos had abandoned him. Not their fight he guesses. He feels so humiliated. This was the safe place, where he build tree houses and caught strange insects as a kid.
Now he was assaulted on his own turf by some out some out of towners. His first clear thought was revenge. He wanted to get a gun and catch these fucks out in the ferns. Puncturing their skulls like watermelons, popping their eyes and lungs. Leaving their bodies to turn black and burst in the brackish water.
Trying to crawl he felt unimaginable pain in his feet like they had been poked with nails. ET wiggled like a worm trying to get away from the blackness of the incoming tide, already sending cold waves of splashes over him. Sending more pain up his spine and back of his head.
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ET makes it to his knees, resting his forehead on the wet soil. He feels wet like he pissed and shit him self. Totally soaked, shivering and likely in shock he managed to make it back to the amusement park where it was paved. He was fading in and out of consciousness, shivering, whimpering, growling.
Pounding the freezing mud with his fists, trying to pull him self forward on sharp grass and thorny bushes. Trying his hardest to not start screaming and bawling. He found a big iron bar and used it to pull him self up in a sitting position. He thought back to the middle of the night. Somebody was rummaging through his pockets, a female voice seemed to be giving directions and giggling.
They had pulled his pants down, stole his shoes and took every thing of value, some pictures, coins, his school ID. The way his clothes were falling off him was like they had set him on fire with vodka. His skin was shades of pink and purple you only see in a fish store or a burn ward. Coming to a fun house mirror he sees in horror they had carved graffiti into his chest and back. DIE-EYE-FLY in cruel stripes of an x-acto knife.
On his cheek were big slice marks and one dug deep into his nose. He cried and couldn’t believe how they had disrespected him. He always acted cool, knew all the sick bands and foreign video games. He had no idea why they would do this to him. It was like something college kids did, burning bums, beating up nerds or bashing fags. He had no reason to have a target on his back. They just did it because they could. He was too fucked up to defend him self from midnight marauders.
Making it to the entrance he found a bike with 2 flat tires he used like a crutch to limp back into town. He couldn’t sit on the seat, he had a sharp pain in his tailbone and his balls felt like they had been hit over and over with a tire iron or poked with needles. He had jarred his back, just walking was too much, he had to hunch over like a 90 year old with a cane. When he got to the deserted part of town he collapsed again. He knew with head injuries you weren’t supposed to sleep but he was willing to risk it.
Part of him didn’t want to wake up. All afternoon loud sounds like sonic booms from fighter jets, car alarms and screams invaded his dreams. He was lying on a sidewalk in an industrial area long past its use to any one. Waking up again to the rain.
There was a shrill metal on metal sound like a rusted shut industrial fan highjacked by a storm, screaming mercy as the blades slide like a star football player forced to play one more game on a broken foot. Like nails on a chalk board every tin sign banging, chain swinging and train horn in the distance made him feel like he was having an aneurysm. He felt watched, looking around he sees an owl glaring at him. Making sounds that sound like “Fuck You.”
The wind was picking up and all around him the sounds of cranes leaning on rusted girders, sheet metal tearing free in the wind, old doors slamming on boats and broken windows howled. Hellish moans coming from broken factory windows made his skin crawl. This whole town was known for unseasonal weather.
He was alone among the debris of the military industrial complex. Shipyards and steel mills falling down in condemned miles of endless lonely roads and urban havens for wild animals. He was moving in autopilot. Despite ungodly pain everywhere he made it home just to find he was locked out. Now his knee and ankles felt dislocated from walking on a sprain, secondary stress on tired bones.
His dry face had new tears running down scabs and throbbing welts. No one was home and he had no idea what time or what day it was. There was no Hide-A-Key but he knew the back windows were open. He tried climbing on an old washing machine near the gate and with only one good arm and both legs too weak to brace his weight, he fell down again really hurting him self. He was too tired to scream. He just laid on his face, rocks poking his eyes, cold blood pooling around his face.
He tried to open his eyes to the smell of acrid smoke and a orange glow in the windows and like a nefarious ghost he sees the crazy bum and asian girl from school open the gate. They were robbing his house! He passed out again and awoke to police lights and his father carrying him to his bed. He thinks he hears voices of his grandmother singing to him while wiping down his face with a warm cloth. He wanted to spend time with her but he was too exhausted.