Chapter 6

Besides pissing in cars, it was around this time I began to stay up later at night, watch horror movies. “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th” instant favorites of mine. There was something so thrilling yet comforting about watching people chased and slashed to death. Horror movies, like heavy metal, have always been soothing to me, comforting me in times of distress.

I’d seen the movie “Firestarter” and then read the book. It was the first adult type of book I’d ever read. And oh, how it enthralled me! I was obsessed with fires for a short time, and I began to set things on fire. Mostly newspapers, in the back alley near my house. I loved to watch the paper burn and crumble. I even burned “Firestarter,” the book, to see if it would give me telekinetic powers, like maybe I could steal, harness energy from the book.

Fuck, how I loved to see the orange flames dancing and moving about from the book’s pages. The power and movement of the fire was so hypnotic!

Sadly, I didn’t inherit the superpowers I wanted, so then, for a while, I wished I had a flamethrower and could shoot it people I didn’t like or things I wanted to get out of my way.

After my fire phase, I got more into knives. I’d fantasize stabbing people, slashing them, decapitating or chopping people up like I’d see in the late-night horror films.

Often in movie theaters, I had these thoughts. Often about people whose head or hair was too big and blocked the screen. I’d imagine beheading them, hacking off their heads with an axe and then sitting back down and enjoying the film, eating my popcorn.

Fortunately, I kept these urges to myself, finding release in watching the horror movies and playing violent video games. Though I did continue physically attacking people, with my hands or feet, occasionally. Nasty sneak attacks...

Like a kid whose name I forgot, who was bending over to tie his shoe, in the hallway, outside our homeroom class. No one else was in the hallway, so, again being a hallway bandit, a berserker, I took it as a cue...

The kid had never done anything wrong to me. I didn’t dislike him. But he was in a position of weakness, vulnerability. So I decided to attack him. I crept up behind him, clenched my hands together, again, like I was holding an axe, and I smashed his spine, as hard as possible, and ran away. He cried, “argh!” as I took off running. I didn’t get caught for it.

I’d also chase cats. Every cat I saw, my own included, we had three, and all of them, I chased.