The Device

The year was 1984 in exactly half an hour it will be 1985. I am standing in the corner of a basement at a party, the celebration being New Years Eve of course.  In the past 3 hours 30 minutes and 4 seconds. Two girls have come up to me asking if I want to go somewhere quiet to “talk”, three macho idiots have offered me a goon bag to chug and called me gay for declining and a five year old boy asked me where his brother was. The boy was in an overall that had red cars all over it, he was clutching a teddy bear with one eye missing and a tear in the arm.  A big guy who has “Gangster” shaven into the side of his head shouted at the boy.

“Toby, get back to bed, stop being a wuss”. So Big Guy must be his brother, he looks like a major tool and two bimbos are sitting beside him, doating over every move he makes. Poor Toby, why do kids have to be exposed to such wankers? Toby looked at me; I could see the confusion and loneliness in his eyes.

“Don’t worry mate”, I said to Big Guy, “I’ll sort him out”.  He acknowledged my favour by grunting at me and saying whatever “Gaylord”, and on queue the two bimbos giggled, batted their eyelashes, and pushed their chests out more. I kid you not; the arch in their backs had to be 180 degrees. Why can’t all girls have large breasts, then they won’t have to through all the trouble and pain of arching their backs to make them look bigger.

I took Toby’s hand and he led me upstairs and too his bedroom. Big Guy is so dumb, he should know about stranger danger; you never let a little kid go off with a stranger, especially your kid brother.  God, Toby’s future is going to be one pile of shit after the other, if those are the people taking care of him. Toby jumped onto his bed. “Can you please tuck me in, my brother, Thor didn’t and I can’t get to sleep”. Oh my god, Big Guy has the name of a tool as well.

“Sure thing little guy”, I pulled the covers up to his neck and put his teddy beside his head, “Where are your parents Toby?

“Their dead”, Toby replied with sadness in his voice. Oh god, so clearly dick face take’s care of him.

“That’s a shame, my mum died giving birth to me and my dad left me with my grandparents when I was eight”, Toby clearly had trouble understanding, I should’ve known better not to tell a kid something like that. Oh well, too late now. “Good night,” I said to Toby.

“Good night……….uumm……….”

“My name is Alistair”. I smiled back at him.

“Good night Alistair”. I switched his light off and closed the door. I could feel the base of the music pounding through the floor. I looked at my watch, shit, thirteen minutes till 1985. I left the house in a hurry and made my way to my destination. I ran through the streets of New York and the alleyways, I passed several bums and some weird guy taking a wee in a shoe.

I entered a small shop on 54th street and made my way to the back room. And there he was, the guy I was warned about, the guy with the device in his hand. He eyed me off; I looked at my watch, SHIT! 12 seconds until 1985. I lunged for him but he was too quick and I ended up hitting my head on the corner of a shelf. I felt the blood trickle down the nape of my neck. He looked at me, smirked and pressed the button.  I heard the shouts of joy and the fireworks go off HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Not for long.