the biscuit years
uncle fraser
was bat shit crazy
his wife was a jehovah’s witness
I never
understood
what
she’d seen
but fraser
scared
me
loud, white haired: thief beater
he only
ever
asked
me one question:
‘what’s in the bag?’
and his wife,
the
witness,
made
me sandwiches
with
tomato
sauce
at night the cabin boy hid in the shadows
they told me
that
I
was going to a school for
“bad boys”
where there were
no
chocolate biscuits
or
fizzy drinks,
I
sat on the edge
of single figures
and
thought
about
this,
no chocolate biscuits?
no fizzy drinks?
this was my first deal breaker
so
I
put down the
knife
and
went to bed.
I had captain pugwash wallpaper to look at
hill primary blues
andrew spittal
was
known
as the bad Andrew
he
was
in the other class
with
another
bad person/boy/pestiferous fumarole
I
once
saw him
spit on another boy’s back
and
laugh.
but
he grew up to be
a very
nice
man
with good taste
in
music