Lights up. Crow saunters center stage. He’s wearing ripped up jeans with safety pins and a distressed CBGB’s t-shirt. Tight focus spotlight. With his beak, he scratches vigorously at something under his right wing. A nit? He raises his head, clears his throat, begins:

I went to New York once. After one of my parents’ fights. A week before I’d told them that if they got into another fight I’d run away from home and never come back. Well, they did, so I did. I was in seventh grade and smart for my age. Street smart, yeah, but also book smart. I was one of those kids who belonged to 5 different clubs and still managed to pull all A’s even though I had what teachers liked to call “a troubled home life.” I made up stories too, like once I seriously got a girl to believe my uncle was Eddy Vedder. I also had Mr. Valenti totally convinced that I fell asleep in his class all the time because I was narcoleptic. I think teachers liked me, but they were also kind of afraid of me. When I was a kid I told my mom that the neighbor girl made me pull down her pants and look at her, even though she hadn’t. So maybe that’s why my parents didn’t believe me when I said I was going to run away if they fought again. But I did. I totally did. I went to the bus station and bought myself a one-way to Penn Station. I considered flying, but I didn’t know how to get there. And it was the wrong time of year anyways.

Crow spreads his wings and glides over the audience, coasting lazy circles as the spotlight tracks him.

Blame it on Catholic school. Blame it on Methodist subdivisions. Blame it on NYPD Blue.

My first impression of New York was that it was cold; colder than I thought it would be. The wind tearing down 7th Avenue ripped right through my jean jacket. But I was here, so what now? I had a cousin who lived in the East Village, but I couldn’t remember where exactly, so I told the cab driver just to take me to the East Village. He dropped me off at what I’d later learn was Tompkins Square Park. It was full of punks and homeless people. Purple mohawks, baggy sweaters. Despite the weather, one man was wearing denim shorts, cut at thigh level, which showed off his calves and bubble butt. Even though this was the kind of thing I’d come to New York to see, I was still scared. Blame it on Catholic school. Blame it on Methodist subdivisions. Blame it on NYPD Blue.

The lighting rig descends, causing the pools of cobalt and amber light to widen across the stage. Crow lands on the rig. He retains the spotlight.

The sun had set hours ago. I was tired and hungry, and only had five bucks left. I hadn’t been in Manhattan an hour, and already my fate seemed clear. I was going to be one of those hoboes who sleeps under a newspaper. Or maybe since I was young and cute I would be forced into a life of prostitution by a predatory homosexual. But first things first, I decided. I set off in search of food. I hadn’t gone two blocks when I saw more of the kinds of people I’d come to New York to find descending a set of cement steps. I followed them, and found myself inside what looked like a basement. There were a few rows of metal folding chairs set up in front of a stage. I think it was a comedy club. I sat down in the back row, next to a girl wearing a spiked dog collar. There was a guy on stage saying “Knowledge comes from loss.” He was wearing what I’d call “bourgeois punk”—faded jeans and a Ramones t-shirt, a smallish hoop in his septum, hair dyed fluorescent red but styled unimaginatively. He was probably in his early 20s, but he seemed very old to me. The audience was caught up in everything he was saying. I got the sense they already knew what was about to happen. I was an outsider and that made me feel excited.

Crow descends from the lighting rig, touches down center stage.

“I learned that in high school,” the guy on stage continued. “People didn’t pay a lot of attention to me. I was inconsequential. Till one day, in shop class, I cut off my finger.” He raised his right hand, and true enough, he was missing his ring finger. “I cut it off with an exacto knife. It was sort of an accident. My hand slipped and the blade sliced right through my skin and tissue, like a knife through butter, and stopped at the bone. I didn’t feel anything at first. Shock, I guess. The blade was wedged in there really good. I remember thinking it would be hard and painful to pull it out. I could’ve called the teacher over, but instead I dug the sharp edge in deeper. I know this sounds stupid and embarrassing, but it just seemed to make the most sense. I mean, the job had been started, so why not finish it?”

Crow comes downstage until he’s out of his light. He sits at the edge of the stage, dangling his claws above the first row. It’s difficult to make him out now.

“Something in my head exploded. How do you describe the feel of metal on bone? Two hard substances, one sharp, the other blunt. Was it sexual? Kind of, but that would be an oversimplification. As I watched my finger come loose from the rest of my hand, I felt a sense of liberation. Yeah, like cumming, but more meaningful. Suddenly there was less of me, and that was a good thing.” He paused as if to let that sink in. “But it didn’t end there. The good stuff. After I got out of the hospital, I realized that I had been seeing everything wrong. People didn’t think I was inconsequential. They never had. That was just negative self-talk. How did cutting my finger off make me realize that? I don’t know, but it shook something loose in my brain and there was no going back.”

After I got out of the hospital, I realized that I had been seeing everything wrong. People didn’t think I was inconsequential. They never had.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, an image of a kitchen knife begins to appear on the back curtain, coming increasingly into focus throughout the following:

The guy went on to take off his left shoe and show us how he’d sawed off his little toe to help him understand why his father had abandoned the family when he was six. He popped out his right eye (glass) and said he could see much better ever since he’d gouged out the original. He took off his shirt so we could see his nipples had been excised. “I now understand why I used to get anxious over nothing,” he explained. Some wiseass in the audience asked if he’d cut off his ear to improve his painting abilities. He said he hadn’t, but it sounded like a great idea.

Thrust lights come up. Crow is visible again. He flutters his feathers as his head twitches side to side.

“It’s time for the grand finale,” he announced. Assistants who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere were handing out pencils and scraps of paper. The guy—we’ll call him “The Amputation Artist”—wanted us to vote on which body part he would cut off now. Live. In front of us. Did I vote? Of course I did, but I won’t tell you which part I voted for. The assistants collected our ballots and brought them to The Amputation Artist, who unfolded each one individually and read it out loud. There were a few timid votes for toes and fingers. Some were bolder and asked for an arm or a leg. We all laughed at the single vote for “hair.” Unsurprisingly, some folks wanted to see The Amputation Artist cut off his man bits. The most creative request by far was “knee cap.” There was a 3-way tie. It’s true, I swear it’s true. 8 votes for hand (either). 8 votes for leg (either). 5 votes for dick. 2 for cock. 1 for penis. I stayed. We all did. He used a hacksaw and a blowtorch.

Slowly, Crow begins to step back, receding bit by bit into the upstage darkness.

Later that night, by dumb luck, I bumped into my cousin, stumbling out of some bar called the Delancey. He took me to a diner and then to his place. We slept back-to-back on his futon. The next day I was on a bus back home.

"This dramatic monologue comes from a hybrid manuscript entitled Occult High School Revolution. Blending poetry, essay, and playwrighting, the book explores the goth, witchy, alt rock, suburban youth culture of the 1990s. Crow is one of two talking animal characters (the other is a pterodactyl).

In addition to my own adventurous teen years, the manuscript draws inspiration from writers like Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, Kevin Killian, and Dodie Bellamy. I actually studied the New Narrative movement at Goddard (MFA-W ’05), so I’m really thrilled to have this piece appearing in Duende."

Charlie Bondhus's books of poetry include Divining Bones (Sundress Publications, 2018) and All the Heat We Could Carry (Main Street Rag, 2013), winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Missouri Review, Columbia Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Nimrod, and Copper Nickel. He is associate professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College (NJ). More at http://charliebondhus.com.