When I was a kid, me and my crew of pimply, cracked-voice, ripper-rat buddies used to go to the magazine store after school and loiter. One of my little pals at the time, Justin, would only be able to peruse magazines with us for a short time because the smell of the glossies made him want to shit.
He’d sidle up to you, lightly moving his weight from foot to foot, and whisper “I have to go. Can we go? The smell is making me want to go to the toilet.” We’d tell him to go wait outside, we’d only be a couple more minutes. So he’d go out on the street and sort of jog on the spot to keep from loading his pants up, occasionally getting up on his tip-toes to squint in at us like a meerkat. Naturally we’d take forever and then he’d come back into the store with his hand over his nose announcing that he was going home, we were taking too long.
One time he actually got a turtle’s head and had to run round the corner to use the bathroom at the public library.
At the public library there was this dude we called ‘Poker-Machine’ because he only had one arm. Apparently he and his brother, who we named ‘Wombat’, had been playing on the train lines when they were kids and Pokey got hit.
Poker-Machine never wore shoes. It could be below 30 and you’d see him tearing down the main street with bare feet and a scowl. He was always scowling. Scowling and reading in the far corner of the public library. He broke my heart, did Poker-Machine, I felt bad for him. He was, and remains, the most outcast person I’d ever encountered.
Pokey and Wombat lived in a white brick house surrounded by lush, waist-high grass. They never mowed their lawn. Ever. They had a nice looking cat that you’d always see slinking around on their roof, stalking birds and passers by. He was a tabby and sometimes I’d catch Poke petting him on their porch. He wouldn’t scowl then, he’d smile.
Eventually we caught that cat and beat it to death with hockey sticks. Then we stuffed it in Pokey’s mailbox.

Not true.

Week till NUMBER SIX!!!!!
Ten days max.

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