Different Beasts by J.R. McConvey

Author:J.R. McConvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781773101279
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2019-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

He remembers buying the first one.

Back then he was just Amir. He’d gone to Marché du Disque on Mont-Royal in search of Nirvana albums. He was combing the racks, cautiously fingering a Ministry CD, when the clerk, a scrawny white guy with thick-rimmed glasses, came over and gave him a look: I see potential here.

“Try this,” he said, handing over the plastic jewel case locked in an anti-theft sleeve, a nightmare wrapped in cellophane and stickered at $15.99. The effect was instant: that terrifying circus on the cover, temples and mausoleums, death’s heads and gargoyles, toxic yellow mountains in the background, the whole mad landscape overlaid with unhinged spider script — SkiNNy PUppy. Everything about it designed to make you squirm.

He thought back to the day at school the week before. He’d been walking down the hall of Académie de Roberval, thinking about the Habs game that night. Unprepared to see the word gouged into his locker with a pen knife — RAGhead. He felt it like a gut-punch. When he turned around, the kids were standing there. Older by a year. Arms crossed, leaning against the wall, glowering.

“Better watch out,” said one with a squared-off bowl cut. “Open season on camel jockeys.” He tossed a scrap of yellow ribbon that flitted down to rest at Amir’s feet.

He’d wanted, so badly, to rage back. Ram his fist into the metal of his locker until it buckled and the slur on it became unreadable. Ram his fist into bowl cut’s jaw until his teeth shattered. Instead, he went outside, shivering in the autumn cold. Saw the mouse dart out from a hole behind the door, scurry out into the light and freeze, its tiny nose twitching like a nubbin of black rice. It was a reflex more than anything — a place to throw his force, the heaving in him. He reached out and brought down his big black boot, grinding with a twist, feeling the mouse’s bone structure collapse.

Later, cleaning the fur and blood off his sole, he’d felt sick to his stomach about it all. How much it mattered. How little.

How common it was, to kill something.

“You’re gonna love it,” the clerk said, grinning down at Amir as he gaped at the Skinny Puppy CD. “Trust me.”

He knew, as he bought the record, what his father would think. Trash. Western garbage. Relished the blasphemy. Walked out feeling righteous and brave, in possession of a new stake in himself. On his way out the door, he spied the poster tacked to a corkboard by the exit: SKINNY PUPPY. Live at Le Spectrum, in just over a month’s time. Laughed to himself. Who would he go with? His elation wavered and he breathed in to try and hang on to it.

Before going home, he wrapped the disc in his sweatshirt and stuffed it into the back pocket of his knapsack. He knew he’d need a good hiding place. If he hid it outside — in a bag under the steps in

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