Graffiti Boy vs Chicken Massive: Part I

Graffiti Boy vs Chicken Massive (Part I)

Graffiti Boy was born at 3am on Tuesday, December the 12th, 1981. Disco was in its death throes, and Graffiti Boy’s creator, a young man by the name of Roger Malfeasance (the third) was out alone, walking the steets of downtown Chicago, eyes downcast, eyes on the hems of his flared white disco pants, scuffing the sidewalk, gathering dirt. He was The Disco King, was Roger Malfeasance (the third) and, like any king watching over the slow demise of his kingdom, he was feeling a little glum, a little out of sorts, a little suicidal.

He came to the end of the sidewalk, and eyed the curb, and eyed the 3 inch drop to the street. His palms grew sweaty. He lips grew dry. He knew that he had finally come to it, after a six month slide into oblivion, dance floors emptying out, jocks in Camaros hurling insults at him as he sat waiting for the stoplight to turn in his hot pink Discomobile, P-Funk nowhere to be seen, hitless for months and months. This was the moment of truth. This was the question: whether to die now, at the height of his powers, a flaming motorcycle streaking headlong into a brick wall, not shuffling off this mortal coil - NO! - but diving triumphantly off of it, leaping into the maw of the abyss with joy in his eyes, followed by streamers and confetti and the shouts and adulation of what remained of his loyal subjects; or whether to turn around and walk away, and hang on to the shadow of a life that his life would become, lurch wearily into the dull workaday routine of simple existence, breathing only for the sake of breathing.

In his heart of hearts, Roger Malfeasance knew that this decision wasn’t a decision at all. No. There was only one possible course of action. He drew his disco cape tightly about his body, and slid his sequined disco shoes right up to the edge of the sidewalk. He struggled to think of something appropriate to say. “Goodbye,” he began, and stopped, thinking the words that were to follow a little cliched. “I love you,” he began, and stopped, remembering that the Disco King loved only disco, and to profess love for the person to which he was about to profess love would therefore be blasphemy. “I think that I shall never see,” he began, and stopped, worried that the next line of the only verse he could remember might be a poem lovely as a tree, and knowing that to utter such words just before his death would be gay beyond measure.

He jumped.

The impact of his landing (0.00005 seconds later) sent a vibration thrumming up his legs, into his abdomen, up through his throat and into his mind. The vibration leapt synapses and spanned lobes until it found the very core of everything that was Roger Malfeasance (the third), and blasted it to pieces.

The Disco King was dead.

The Man Who Was The Disco King blinked slowly, mounted the sidewalk, and walked back the way he had come, because he had to get home, he had a paper due tomorrow, and there was band practice of course, and after band practice there was some hanging out at the mall. Somewhere, in the cavity where Disco King had once lived, something screamed. But it was barely audible, the soft breath of a dying breeze, and so no one heard it.

Graffiti Boy watched Roger retreat, his red eyes moving along the two-dimensional plane of his perfectly round head. The Disco King had scrawled Graffiti Boy on the wall of this tenament, using three cans of spraypaint, just before his death. Graffiti Boy knew that he was all that was left of The Disco King, all that was left of the Spirit of Disco.

He slid down the wall and leaked into the sidewalk, and began his journey. By tomorrow, he would be on the outskirts of the city. And the next day, Disco willing, he would be on the doorstep of the creature he must destroy, the creature that was the author of Disco’s untimely demise.

The creature named Chicken Massive.