THE LURKER UPSTAIRS by JULIA C. HART OMAR BARRY EYSMAN

I am hooked. I remember the opening of a novel by Jean Genet, though it's the opening of a chapter midway through the book. The summer, a hot one God. Yet it was pleasing to be in the blazing attic like this. It was an eerie summer day as a kid, all thick air, bleeding hot sweaty blood air. The old rocking chair, no longer little boy.' s rocket ship.

Now, broken down spring broken, dusty blue old friend, by the attic window of broken glass, and masking tape on it to heal the cut summer gave it a long time ago. The sunlight coming through the dirty windows was yellowish orange. The light looked ancient. Used to pretend so much. I hate summer, and the heat. Then what am I doing here in the attic every summer day for hours? I've just been to Kroger's and sit in this chair, new comic books in my lap. I think of suicide again today. It keeps me going.

So something happening now. I put the Superman comic book in my lap with the others. I feel of course, chills of fear, but something else, something that has to do with those hours of solitude. I had fried green tomatoes for lunch . At the kitchen table in front of the small fan blowing on my face. Quickly, someone said behind my chair, as I froze, I'm here to give you the deadliest wish of all.

As I turned, the dust flakes in the strange light began to assimilate into a form with a large pulsing mass in the center. Although there was no sound as such, the air seemed to be whispering along with the gradual building of dust upon dust. The word, "deadliest" was the one word I felt I could hear the plainest and the word "wish" was slurred a bit in the movement of the air. Ever found yourself afraid to blink? I stared in rapt astonishment, as the air continued to build the shape with no thought to the time, day or smell of grease in the kitchen.

The mist congealed, and my twelve-year-old eyes focused on the strangest thing-a little old man with laughing, angry gray eyes. I don't know if you know the kind of eyes I mean, it was truly the most heart-chilling thing I'd ever seen. Eyes shouldn't do that sort of thing, be laughing and murderously cold at the same time. I mean, either one I could take. God knows I've had my share of neighborhood dogs want to eat me for lunch, and once in a while I'd actually seen a happy person (always when they thought I wasn't looking, of course), but never at the same time. The rest of his face was worn, tattered luggage, and his teeth were...well. An abomination. I couldn't tell you if he was wearing a tweed suit and top hat, like some fashionable old devil from the nineteenth-century, or if he had cloven hooves and black wings.

Because all I could see were those eyes. Eyes that made my insides jangle like a grand piano that just took a ten-story swan dive. "Seeeaaarrrcchhh," he slithering crooned, jabbing a twisted nub-finger toward my little heart. "What is your deadliest wish?" A foul, yellowed tongue snaked across his lips. "If you can tell me what it is, I'll keep it from coming true . But if you're wrong...there'll be nothing you can do!" And he laughed in his own amusement, a seasick, raspy spasm. Vulture chortle. Pig orgasm. I searched the darkest, most malicious recesses of my soul. I trod among a hundred different things that should never be mentioned. I picked them up, one by one, and studied the soot they were made of, passing one up for the next, blacker desire. Finally, I squeaked out, "To see everyone dead.

" "No...," he murmured, and stumbled through another laughing fit. "I'm afraid that wouldn't be it." His voice trailed off in a crackling hiss, and his body returned to the dusty nebula it had been. All he left behind was one phrase, lingering between the glowering particles that had been him: "Know the truth..." I kept saying, I can do it and do it now. It's a story. I can see it happening. I can fight. Don't wimp out now kid. This is your moment to shine. My mind was broken to pieces. My whole body was of running water, melting glaciers, seascapes. It was still trembling, falling to the cheap wood floor. Come out of me, I screamed. I scream ice cream, make it come today. The ice cream cart. The I scream cart. Make summer stay. I looked at the windows. at the disturbing bright light coming through. Light somehow so ancient, so wise. The eyes kept hunting me. The dancing laugh, the furious, the madness, his face seeming to eat it up in rapture. I had to remember his face, twisted, gnarled. His teeth, it just hit me out of the blue, his teeth were electric green and stunted and crooked, like trees in a fairytale woods of words. The ancient light from an origin of the unknown, through the glass, was not the summer sunshine of a golden afternoon.. The light seemed to have old man wrinkles in it. I crawled to the broken down rocker. I lay my head on the seat. The dust made me sneeze. I was sweating like crazy. I thought Lizzie. I thought Spring heel Jack. I reached for my comic books, one cover, adhering to my sweaty face. I looked at the light as it got darker and deeper in brightness. It was like the old man's face, and made no sense, a conflict in terms and look. Heavy and angry murderous. And happy about it. The light is on me. I am Lizzie Borden. I am Jack the Ripper. I'm 12 years old. I'm a scared little boy. I have no purpose in this life. I am a killer. I killed my stepmother and my father. I axed them to death. I loved the stories of her. The books about her. The movies. I am Jack the Ripper, and my left hand says kill and I sliced it down and sideways on the seat. It hurt. Which? Swirls of dust rose. I want some ice cream. I want some I scream. The summer waves, the green of trees in my front yard under the blue sky. Below me, the seed of it, the sea of it.

I looked at the book on the floor, the one I'd been reading, before I got the new comic books. The sentence in the book that disturbed me so much, and seemed to start this... no... this is real. It read," I think I'm falling in love with her. If I am, I shall simply have to kill her." I was wringing wet. I wanted to go downstairs, to the air conditioning in the dark. I couldn't. My throat, I was so thirsty, I could barely swallow. I had to see this through. For once in my life I had to see something through. My skin prickled as something touched my left shoulder, as I was still on my knees, leaning over the chair. And I thought a monstrous thought, all those people that I had wanted dead? That was no secret anymore. Had the old man told him after all? My God, I feel the slime on my shoulder. And 1 million claws digging in. It seemed on fire. They broke bones. I certainly was aware of the definition of lunacy.

Gibbering horror and I were on personal terms now.. And off in the distance, buried under 1 million Summers, the sound of the ice cream cart getting closer. Children, clutching sweaty quarters, ready. I kept saying, I can do it and do it now. It's a story. I can see it happening. I can fight. Don't wimp out now kid. This is your moment to shine. My mind was broken to pieces. My whole body was of running water, melting glaciers, seascapes. It was still trembling, falling to the cheap wood floor. Come out of me, I screamed. I scream ice cream, make it come today. The ice cream cart. The I scream cart. Make summer stay. I looked at the windows. at the disturbing bright light coming through. Light somehow so ancient, so wise. The eyes kept hunting me. The dancing laugh, the furious, the madness, his face seeming to eat it up in rapture. I had to remember his face, twisted, gnarled. His teeth, it just hit me out of the blue, his teeth were electric green and stunted and crooked, like trees in a fairytale woods of words.

The ancient light from an origin of the unknown, through the glass, was not the summer sunshine of a golden afternoon.. The light seemed to have old man wrinkles in it. I crawled to the broken down rocker. I lay my head on the seat. The dust made me sneeze. I was sweating like crazy. I thought Lizzie. I thought Spring heel Jack. I reached for my comic books, one cover, adhering to my sweaty face. I looked at the light as it got darker and deeper in brightness. It was like the old man's face, and made no sense, a conflict in terms and look. Heavy and angry murderous. And happy about it. The light is on me. I am Lizzie Borden. I am Jack the Ripper. I'm a scared little boy. I have no purpose in this life. I am a killer. I killed my stepmother and my father. I axed them to death. I loved the stories of her. The books about her. The movies. I am Jack the Ripper, and my left hand says kill and I sliced it down and sideways on the seat. It hurt. Which? Swirls of dust rose. I want some ice cream. I want some I scream. The summer waves, the green of trees in my front yard under the blue sky. Below me, the seed of it, the sea of it. I looked at the book on the floor, the one I'd been reading, before I got the new comic books. The sentence in the book that disturbed me so much, and seemed to start this... no... this is real. It read," I think I'm falling in love with her. If I am, I shall simply have to kill her." I was wringing wet. I wanted to go downstairs, to the air conditioning in the dark. I couldn't. My throat, I was so thirsty, I could barely swallow. I had to see this through. For once in my life I had to see something through. My skin prickled as something touched my left shoulder, as I was still on my knees, leaning over the chair. And I thought a monstrous thought, all those people that I had wanted dead? That was no secret anymore. Had the old man told him after all? My God, I feel the slime on my shoulder. And 1 million claws digging

in. It seemed on fire. They broke bones. I certainly was aware of the definition of lunacy. Gibbering horror and I were on personal terms now.. And off in the distance, buried under 1 million Summers, the sound of the ice cream cart getting closer. Children, clutching sweaty quarters, ready. Then the haunting memory of the tiny music and the wizened face of the ice cream pusher brought together the elements. The ancestor to elevator music rang in my head bursting all of the random thoughts with the plunk, tonal, tune of "Turkey in the Straw" over and over again. remember think Ice scream for the heat of the summer delivered in misshapen hearts with distracting music. The summer the Salmonella came to town in the shape of happy wagons emulating clowns to humans. Children died all over from the cold frost death handed to them by one man for one quarter and yet the wagon keeps moving, playing its music box, and killing hungry hot children in its wake. They will never be hot again and I am chilled as well. The ancient, furious, laughing eyes plopped into the ice cream cone that the little girl held in her hand, as the ice cream cart drove away, it's tiny music was soft and jingly and scary.

The girl screamed in the summer heat furnace afternoon, and she dropped the cone, as its insane eyes, in the melting vanilla, stared up at her. And her 10-year-old face became that of the ax murderer, Lizzie Borden. As she looked at the boy in the attic, as he fear painted the blue rocker in an ancient old air that he barely could breathe. Lizzie held the ax heavy in her hands of bone and gristle. Her face was mostly skull with a few pieces of meat on it, though not hers. As Jack Ripper finally took her skull off at long last, in medical precision. As Jack's clothes fell, from which emerged Jean Genet, famous nihilist, writer, amoral patron of the arts.

Parisian word painter of shadows in jails and the lowest form of life. In pure evil, he saw impure beauty that flowed into and flowered in his eyes. Ancient, mean, angry, laughing. Then Genet threw the boy into the chair, bent over, plucked out the screaming boy's eyes, and inserted his own in their place, the mad ancient laughing ones. He didn't need them. Stygian darkness was his closest friend. Genet, hulking body, eye pits a thousand miles deep to hell, judgmental creased hard as leather and made of same, face, mean and cruel as the most demented rabid rat in ancient Paris, carrying the plague all by himself. said in biting whipsaw voice, French, but the boy understood every word. "I do not love you. Therefore, I will let you live." Then the man in heavy body, a rope for a belt, graveyard loam smelling, old clothes, his white hair thin on his head, bushy white eyebrows, turned from the boy, stumped away on his short thick legs, waving his heavy thick hands and arms, as he unknowingly stepped on his own book, mashing it to the floor. The boy was alone. He was primal. The air was hot, sweating, thirsty. Those curious air particles and dust surrounded him. Plucked at him. He waited. The secret was close at hand.

The humid, stifling, unbeatable air coalesced around him. He pulled himself, exhausted, panting, into the spring sprung blue rocker. He picked up his comic books from the floor. He put them in his lap. The boy wiped sweat from his face with his hands. He took out from his jeans pocket, a switchblade that he always kept perfectly honed. He tested it against the skin of his thumb, drew blood, watery red drops plopping on Aquaman's face. He looked at the blood, curiously. He thought movie blood always looked much more real, richer finer and thicker. He always tried to be as good as Borden, Genet, the Ripper. He was never to attain anywhere close to their Majesty. He could only do his best. Mother said, always do your best. It's all they can expect of you. He sucked the blood from his thumb. He communed with those legends, make no mistake, they are quite real. They are the dust around him, ancient and sparkly and sunset and soon night would fall. The last thing his victims saw were his eyes, mad red and raw with fury, and yet laughing and happy at the same time, almost innocent and sublime.

The contradiction that the soon dead carried with them, in their pain and horror, to the grave. The murders were quite grotesque and filled with gore. He was in eighth grade next year. He had one friend in the entire world. His friend kept him around for laughs, to be superior to, an invisible friend, Jimmy thought, not knowing that his invisible, imaginary friend was also quite real. And quite insane. Tonight, Jimmy and he would have a knife fight. One would live. Somehow, without the other. The invisible boy lay his head back on the chair cushion. He heard stirring downstairs.

Jimmy was getting ready. So was the murderer. Who clicked his knife shut. He put it in his pocket. He waited for Jimmy's voice calling him up the now dark and brooding stairwell. His alien eyes saw what no one else did. He smiled. In the early evening, somewhere he heard the tin-y bells of an ice cream cart spreading plague, wherever it went. He thought, call me plague. He thought, call me Legion. He had found and now fully accepted his most monstrous desire. It would come true , over and again. After all, every boy needs an invisible friend. For a little while. After the night, this one would be available.