Barbatos

painting by James Ryman 

Barbatos

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”

--Tennessee Williams.

By day, I am nearly invisible as I bus tables and

wash dishes at Denny’s. I live in my grandmother’s

basement--a nice little apartment with it’s own

entrance. Gramm is hard of hearing, and for me

that’s a blessing.

By night, I troll the bus station, back alleys and

the gay bars. I’m a big handsome Swede, with 

long blond hair & deep blue eyes--looking like

Thor and shit. Though for years my sexual

preferences were conflicted, I seem to attract

gay men, so it’s just easier to score with them.

My father used to get drunk and beat the hell out 

of me, before he was stabbed & killed in a bar fight.

My mother was a crack addict, and she died when

I was 14, just after an older homosexual had given

me a ride from school, and raped me in his garden

shed. I could have stopped him, but hell, I enjoyed

the attention.

Five years ago I discovered that I preferred to have

sex with young boys who agreed to be mute and

non-responsive. I had a part-time job in a mortuary,

and I developed a real taste for necrophilia; but

most of the lover boys still made noise & moved

about.

So I made the decision to start killing them, so 

that my sexual & emotional needs could be more

adequately satiated, I’m very strong, so strangling

them was the easiest & quietest solution. Soon I

became expert at cutting up their bodies in the 

bath tub, and dissolving them in barrels of strong

chemicals. Gramm noticed I burned a lot of incense.

I told her I was converting to Hinduism.

One bright day, I got to staring at the neatly sliced

up portions of meat, and out of nowhere, I fired up

my oven and made a delicious roast out of buttocks.

To date I have slain 37 young men, and eaten a 

dozen of them. The last seven of them as a lark, I

saved their heads in my refrigerator. As I sink deeper

into the darkness of depravity, murder, and sweet

cannibalism--I have no regrets. At some point I will

be caught, and that’s as it should be. I will probably

get 20 consecutive life sentences, and after a few 

months I will be cornered in the shower room by

several men & stabbed in the eyes.

I have become a

demon--every night is like

Halloween for me.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Halloween