Tarantula.

He sat out back with that look of bewildered lost so common to young hobos. That What The Fuck? face. I sat on the bench next to him - wood worn smooth as China plates from the asses of a million tramps offering a cigarette to this lost angel. He refused, don't smoke.

He wore your basic hip hop gear over a well built frame - his torso long and slightly lanky. A masculine jaw with classic movie star looks. But, his hair - that jet black mop atop his asymmetrical head - was styled into some goth quaff that resembled a dead tarantula. I was stunned by his looks, because he was so stunning - that is until he opened his mouth. Poor lad was nuttier than squirrel shit.

But, we hit it off - chatted the afternoon away. Walked the nearby park in the frozen night talking of pleasant things.

He confided how he was shacking up with some old troll and how he loathed said pervert. I nodded at intervals, agreeing, and giving advice of common sense in which the boy lacked. We walked to the convenience store and bought a few beers - returning to the park and guzzling that bounty.

A couple of hobo's sniffed out the booze and invited themselves to drink. Why not - more the merrier, right?

However, after finishing our beers (okay, the beers that I bought) we were asked by the two intruders if we wanted to go party at their camp. I said nah.Tarantula walks off into the night to El Stinko's and Old Squinty's camp under the freeway leaving me under that ominous moon.

Oh well, I thought, no big whoop. I just returned to the mish and lay on my bunk editing poems amid the cacophony of yelping obnoxious transients.

Two hours pass and down the hall there is all this commotion and yelling. Gossip spread that someone was stabbed.

I walked down the hall pass the back entrance, following drops of fresh vivid red blood to the front reception offices. Sitting in a chair was Tarantula - his face split on the right cheek -actually dangling off, exposing teeth and gore - he held his left side, a large red blotch under his white and yellow polo shirt.

"They fuckin' stabbed me!" He kept sobbing - his eyes bloodshot and shrink wrapped in tears.

I stare in cool apathy as moments later EMS and a shit load of cops arrive. Tarantula is whisked away - catatonic, in stupefied shock - as thuggish cops comb area and neighboring tramp camps.

I returned to my bunk and continued my editing...