The Blackstock Butcher

It feels powerful to slice things with a razor blade. All humans rightfully fear such an instrument of carnage. With no coat of armor, you’re defenseless against the ghastly drag that a blade can promise. There’s just something about the power trip. The ability to alter.

I’m twelve years old and the sixth grade school day is waning. As the teacher scrapes chalk across the board, I’ve got a project under way, shrouded in secrecy inside the confines of my flip top desk. I’m working the blade out of a little plastic pencil sharpener; prying up the metal rivet which fastens the blade into the contraption. There are several factors at play contributing to my adrenalin. First, and most obvious, I’m not supposed to be playing with razor blades at school. Second, some of the other students are peeking over, curious about what nefarious deed I’m up to. And third, my mind is lit up like a projector, playing out the scenes of carnage I will soon be able to inflict.

The final class bell clanged, freeing herds of backpacked students toward the parking lot. I boarded the bus with a strange confidence. My left hand rested upon my left pocket as a subconscious guardian to the secret I carried. The bus pulled out with each kid hunkered in their sardine row.

Homebound, I gazed out my window at the scrolling shapes and structures as the sun pierced holes in the tree tops. I followed the passing telephone wires above; fixing my vision into one place as each wire cascaded downward toward its hanging center before rising again to meet the next pole.

The bus made its final turn into our neighborhood and I felt a sudden thrust of anxiety at the center of my chest. We were soon to disembark and my left pocket warned of something deeply mischievous.

We sprung from the bus and headed up Blackstock Road in separate flocks of youth. As late autumn in North Jersey was no stranger to brisk winds, many of the neighborhood kids were beginning to don their winter garb. It was then, I spotted Jesse Waldron. He was my age, lived directly behind our house and no doubt I considered him a friend. But on this particular day, I marked him as a target. The object of my blade’s desire. Not him specifically; his jacket.

What particularly caught my eye was the swath of nylon sheen billowing off Jesse’s back; his winter coat may have been a recent hand-me-down and the oversize nature of the garment was unfurling in the Jersey wind. I became deeply fixated on what it might feel like to plunge my new found Excalibur into Jesse’s coat and pull violently downward á la Jack the Ripper. As we rounded the top of Blackstock Road, the urge kept growing inside me.

I began to gain on Jesse. My guts churned with guilt and shame at what I might be about to inflict. Was I some kind of monster? I was twelve years old, for Christ’s sake. This is anything but normal. And yet, the adrenaline could not be unborn. I was all in.

As I entered Jesse’s wake, I fished the blade from my pocket. He was oblivious to my presence. It was over before I knew it.

In one insidious slash, I had whipped the blade on a downward diagonal, searing the razor edge clean through the nylon. The visual filled me with rush of power, not to mention the accompanying aural hiss as euphoric as any high level narcotic.

Time seemed to hesitate before Jesse realized something horrific had just happened to him. He whipped around to witness the face of a confused criminal. My world went on mute.

Simply.

Guilty.

In a panic, Jesse tore off his coat, flipped it over and gazed aghast at the butchered material. His sudden wail of grief broke through the sound barrier and stiffened me with terror. I ran immediately away, toward home. My head boiled with regret. And with a troublesome new reality… destruction was intoxicating.