Part One

I am the whispers in the corridors, a rumour in the classroom. I am the writing on the wall. A garish reminder of what was, what is, and what shall be. My very existence resides in the hearts of my congregation, for their fear keeps me alive. To deny my existence will bring the wrath of suffering upon you, an exquisite rapture where pain and pleasure shall burn and sting with the torture of time. The torture inflicted on those who offer sweets for the sweet. Be my victim, for what is blood if not for shedding?

I have come for you, and in your darkest hour the light of life shall reflect coldly through the sting of death. Do not fear the agonies, for they shall be granted in ecstasy. My words fall like honey upon your ears, heed them. This legend must never die.

Part Two

Candy, the honey of life, sweet yet deadly. Razorblades beneath sugary essences, cutting with each delicate bite. Imbibing death, welcoming it as if taking sweets from a strange. Such is the beginning of each Candyman. The genesis of legend. Its cause and it's necessity. Hope in the absence of hope, false promises defined in context through each era. A whisper in the darkness, but these are not the legends indigenous to campgrounds, they are not told over burning fires.

These legends echo in the hearts and minds of those who need to remember. Hushed tones, for to speak of them attracts the very monsters created through monstrous action and discourse. I am one legend, but my tale has been replicated across time and space. We are one in our suffering. My congregations fear reminds them why they should tremble at the constructs of others.

I was a free man in a world that wanted so very badly to quell my liberty, for freedom was but an illusion. A bee circling the hornets’ nest, the hornets ever waiting to crush the unique creature. Yet they still wanted his honey. My honey came from easel and brush. An artist, educated as a free man, my nectar sought but my history never forgotten. Patronage offered and patronization ensured. A rare commodity, one to be flaunted and encouraged, fashionable yet still an outcast. Trapped between two worlds, both filled with disdain. Such is the genesis of this tale, such is the beginning of The Candyman.

Part Three

What is love if not the binary opposition of hate? For the one cannot exist without the other. For meaning lies in contrast, but there lies a fine line between love and hate. It is not the vast chasm depicted in nomenclature. Too simple it would be. Love is the essence that drives us, the motivation that goals us. It is desire for that which is aesthetically pleasing. It is the reflection of beauty as scribed or reminisced on paper. The immeasurable understanding between two beings. What is hate if not both the opposite and the same?

From love stems envy and wrath, and there after those blackened emotions spiral into hate, an understanding between souls. I loved her, my muse. My soul. She tamed my desire and fulfilled my yearning. Caroline Sullivan, the subject of my art. Aesthetically pleasing. Our coupling the story of legends. Forbidden for timeless reasons. Yet unrelenting, for she saw the beauty within. She would suffer watching that beauty torn and shredded before her very eyes. Our love burned in passionate flames, for passion is to be found in love and hate.

Part Four

Our love was doomed, for history created the narrative. History determined that we were not meant to be. Slowing the strokes of my brush to ensure spending longer hours with my beloved Caroline. Dark evenings overshadowing hot, passionate days. But the writing was on the wall. My future nothing more than history repeating itself, love and hate entwined as the yarn spins about itself. The yarn of disdain, the falsehood of freedom. No true freedom is possible under the evil eye of prejudice's stare. That watchful eye.

An eye that forbids love between lovers when one is deemed unworthy. Different. Unique. Shallow hearts and minds, instead of celebrating our union, and the divine gem born from it, they wreaked a furious vengeance. It was inevitable, it was my destiny. Daniel Robitaille, his fate carved. Who I once was, no longer who I am. They came for me. Those still entrenched in a world of domination and subjugation. Those who fashionably sought my craft but deemed me unfit. Her father, the town. Angered by love, triggered by hate.

Vengeance prepared.

Part Five

Heyward was destined to discover our secretive love. Caroline's father, Heyward Sullivan. His patronage of my work a contradiction born of hypocrisy and cruelty. Caroline's portrait barely complete, scarcely capturing her beauty. Her swelling belly visible, her father's growing lynch mob approach. Our love countered by the hate of the masses, darkened by a grotesque attitude. As I run through the valley of the shadow of death they follow. Drive me forth, a lamb to the slaughter.

Fearful, not just for my own life but for Caroline, my beloved, abandoned to their despicable loathing. The mob catches me, severs my arm and inserts a hook.

They smear my body with honey from a nearby apiary. Sweets for the sweet. Nectar for the bees' callous sting. Hideously soaked in wounds I lay as Heyward casts my reflection eternally into Caroline's mirror. There the Candyman hides. There the Candyman waits. Caroline's mirror, a glimpse into her world for the entrapped soul. Whisked beyond as the mob burn my body, cleansed by fire, but not gone. Forever waiting.

Part Six

Education, a right and privilege, does not stem purely from the mindset of the masses. Knowledge lays embedded in history's aesthetics and terrors. It is understanding whether using words of science, philosophy or art. Each offers an avenue of understanding. Swarms follow the paths trodden by the masses, sheltered under the protection of a cultural sword. Other schools of thought imparted only on the few, only on those who's minds are open to it. The brush, a commodity. Belief, a heritage.

Belief from another world, across oceans. Lost to modern man's shallow mind. Offering incomprehensible lore and metaphysics another name, such is the power of the mind. Vodun, sprung from the streams of another world, trickled into a new one. Carried from generation to generation and mixed with the seeds of other ideologies. Songs sung, traditions and rituals followed, words engraved on the soul. Caroline, open to my words, accepted this other path just as she accepted me. Anticipating the inevitable, she prepared. Belief is a powerful magic, and she believed.

Her mirror prepared in readiness; another world reflected. Awaiting my cursed soul, and predicting her father's actions she beheld it, and he held it, casting my soul into the beyond. Ever forlorn she could see my reflection, as I waited for my magic to grow. Waited for my soul to be released. Eternally tied to Caroline, to the world beyond the glass. An essence, desperate to be remembered, aching to be released. As word spread from generation to generation, my congregation grew. As did my passion. As did my wrath. As did my vengeance.

Part Seven

Lake Arthur, Louisiana 1896

Marie Philomene Glapion, daughter of Marie Laveaux, she who was accused of sacrilegious practise and thereafter obliged to seek forgiveness and conform, stares into the lake's beloved mist. She sighs. Her congregation gathers. Their ruse: a gathering of artists determined to daub their canvas with the lake's compelling image. Steadily they convene, checking their environment, for strangers lurk in the shadows.

Preparing for the sermon to begin.

'They call us 'Creole,' because it is comforting to label all that is not understood, and thus use words to give understanding. Creole, wrongly applied, but normalized in nomenclature. They have called us 'witches' because our comprehension of mysticism departs from their own. We hide behind a red, gold and green cloak to appease their demands. But we gather here because we do not forget our own beliefs, nor our own heritage. We shall not be moulded from the clay of another ideology nor expectations. Scribes are not needed; we have a traditional of passing our legends from generation to generation by word of mouth. That is why we meet surreptitiously, avoiding the watchful eye of those who may judge us.

‘Judgment has been passed before and shall be again. We are not truly free, merely free to conform to a world that is not ours. Let us today remember our sadly departed brother, the free man. The artist, Daniel Robitaille. Judged and executed beyond any law, yet no punishment was offered, for we are not free. No mercy was shown, for we are not free. Retribution comes from our belief, our conviction in him offers life. Sweets for our sweet, our Candyman. Vengeance is his just as it is ours. Cast into the mirrored world, his release and their suffering come from looking into the reflection and saying his name five times.

‘Candyman. Baptised once again in depth. Spread the word, spread the whisper. Let his mythologies grow, he is part of our history. Their disbelief will force them to believe. They will dig, they will find, and they will obsess until they call upon him. And he will come.

Go now, go and TELL EVERYONE.'

Part Eight

CANDYMAN

Whispers of a nightmarish dream, the tortured man risen, spread. His demise 1890, trapped in the glass. Resurrected through the power of the word in 1896, but he waits until 1992 to take Helen Lyle, Caroline reincarnated, into his legend.

CANDYMAN

In the electric chair George Stinney is placed. Starved and bribed into a false confession. He is no murderer, could not have killed the two women, it is 1944. A bleak war-torn year. Falsefully and forcefully indicted.

Worn, exhausted, he surrenders to the chair pulses.

CANDYMAN

Cabrini Green, the housing projects, 1977. Designed ghettos, an eye sore to the architects. Family unity in an impoverished world. Sherman Fields offers sweets to the sweet, candy to the children. Razor blades appear im candy after the authorities wrongly end his life.

CANDYMAN

James Byrd Jr, contrasting with his Texan neighbours, accepts a lift. Supremely cruel. He is spray painted, tortured and tied to a truck. Dragged alive on the asphalt until his body is abandoned at the unwelcome gospel Church. As late as 1998. History on a loop.

CANDYMAN

Anthony McCoy, Cabrini Green, 2021. RIP. Projects turned to dust, unwelcome locally. A new world, allegedly. A new world, on the surface. Social mobility, possible. Relationships, diverse. Until fear drives the hatred to the surface, and the trigger is pulled.

Part Nine

Dedicated to the memory of Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts who served 191 days on the battlefields of WWI as part of the 369th infantry regiment.

Drafted from his fields in Elaine, Arkansas, Henry

Roberts found himself entrenched within the Harlem Hellfighters. Whilst his peers in other regiments adopted servile rolls scrubbing latrines, Henry trained in combat. The 369th regiment, loaned to France, treated as equals. Their boots held the greatest shine, for the battleground was not level. 'I serve to show my country that we are worthy and deserving of the equality not freely offered in our liberated world. Woodrow would not object to the valiant courage and determination in support of democracy.

‘I stand side by side with my fellow man, as one, willing my life to remove the rocks from the terrain and level the field.' Officers stood in awe at his words, and for more than 6 months he braved hell for both cause and country. Thereafter awarded La Croix de la Guerre. Honoured. The hero's welcome did not last.

Returning to his home he found land's stolen, learned of the abuses endured by comrades serving in other divisions. Fighting for his country, fighting for an even landscape, fighting for his property. And life as the lynch mob hauled him through Elaine. Such is the uneven ground on which he stood. Such was the harsh reality of the waiting noose.

'As a man who once fought for his country, I accept my fate. Grant me one dying wish. To see my own image.' So, the looking glass was permitted. So, he did stare deep within. Candyman, just in his cause.

'Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman.'

'What you say? What is that? Candyman?'

….

'And so, I answer the call, another drop of honey enriching my history. Those who live by hate shall die by it. Those who dig the soil, & spill the stones just as they spill blood… Those keeping the battlegrounds rugged and uneven, they shall learn the exquisite

agonies of the suffering they cause.'

My reflection manifests in reality, and with strained moans the forgetful antagonists are ripped from stomach to throat. I turn to the newest member of my congregation, 'Go North, do not permit lies in our history. Tell everyone!'

Part Ten

She sits by the Bayou as the jazz age ends. Meticulous in her dealings, such fortune. Such elevation. Barely a shadow in her youth, domestic worker, woven into the fabric of the furnishings. Unhindered in her attention, unobserved and unnoticeable. Utilising her invisibility to her advantage. Attuned to the ramblings of the wealthy, the direction of their investments. The greed of the upper echelons. A few dollars strategically placed, a few more invested, a rapidly developing portfolio. In time independent, wealthy, or independently wealthy. Ellie May, toast of New Orleans, as money trumps attitude.

Some voices call my name seeking compassion. As the eulogy of her business partner was read, his widow cried for his share. Her share. Such is the ties that bind. Rumours abound, spawned of a greedy soul. Much lost, as the court averts their eyes from the evidence. Open their ears to the tall tales of solicitation and witchcraft. Rattling the bones by the bayou. An easy fish to catch. Isolated for years, until the markets crash. 1929, debts called in, investments lost.

Crumbs of her riches scattered about the rambling plantation. The little that is left ready for the taking. Alligators approach snapping hungry teeth. Memories of a legend flood, as she sits by the stillness of the bayou. Her worn eyes, fatigued by life, peer into the waters. Willingly they offer a crystal reflection, her mirror image. A single tear drops into the swamp, scattering into a ripple, until the ripples melt into stagnation. Locking eyes with herself, she delves deeply into the watery vision, 'Candyman, Candyman,' she whispers. Hesitates.

'Candyman,' her life flashes before her fixated gaze.

'Candyman,' she blinks, sighing. Prepares, secretly pleads for a compassionate release. 'Candyman!' The bayou trembles, she draws from her reflection and turns as the heavy breathing fills her ears. There he stands, arms outstretched, offering salvation. She steps into his embrace, accepts eternal purgatory.

The hook strokes her body, 'I have come for you,' he whispers as the hook penetrates her belly and tears into her soul. Her mouth opens, but the scream is silent, his embrace tightens against the morbid agony. Soothes as he inflicts suffering, calms as he releases her spirit from its incarceration. The blood flows, crimson soils, scarlet waters. He takes her beyond, a broken prisoner subject to his sympathetic legend.

Part Eleven

Folk tale, passed from generation to generation, an idea. An abstract, hidden in the world of reflections. I remind you of that which is etched in history's hall of horrors. Cries in the darkness. Calls on the wind. A myth, or reminder. Seven years of bad luck, as the mirror shatters. For when his mirror, my mirror, the mirror of the others shatters, then we are removed.

Then the rot sets in.

Stare longingly, for I shall not come to the call, the heart must desire it. Must not forsake it. For that is the cycle. I am that which was and cannot be changed. Falsify the fairy-tale, spin webs of deceit, but you shall not succeed. Once the word was cast, just as my reflection was cast and chained, there was no halting the bus. No preventing us from occupying the front thrones. Wheels in motion. And the word spread further, across the globe. Ancestry unforgotten, traditions retained. Even in the throttling face of aversity. Even in the burning pyres of hostility. Across lines and oceans. Across darkness and light. So were the words spoken. Remembered. My legend.

Our legend. Reflections live on. Sharpen your gaze, relish your mirrors. Cracks define all, an unwillingness to believe and recall. Remember me in your dreams, do not let the legend die. For I will come for you, I will remind my congregation from desert to forest. I live on.

Part Twelve

Haiti, Hispaniola 1950

Centuries ago, taken from the shores of Africa, my congregation came. Accepting and open, carrying their own traditions and own beliefs to faraway lands. Without liberty, without land, yet they persevered. For freedom came but steadily, and not without its hardships. As time wandered forth, and the hardships progressed, so too were those beliefs smelted and given a new hilt. Mother spirit calls, living through nature, just as the Lord chimes in with the drumming of an initial prayer.

In duck's shelter, feet embedded in the sands, they dance and praise her. Erzuli, Mother Spirit.

Possessive, feeding from the energies of those that call upon her, and of their sacrifices. Loa, spirit. Dancing continues, drumming continues. Subject to the auspices of Baron Samedi and Mambo Mamaloi,

Priest and priestess. Father and mother. Just as I am father to my flock. Folk traditions drifted west, the homeland long (and forcefully) abandoned, but the spirits live on.

Our connection, our history, our heritage. These must be maintained. Traditions emanating from Benin. 6000 years the dance has continued, often misjudged, or misunderstood. Secretly when required, but never forsaken.

April 2003

Jean-Bertrand Aristide officially sanctioned Voodoo as a recognised religion in Haiti.

Part Thirteen

Cabrini-Green Chicago 1964

The last of the furniture in place, Lou Jackson looks about her new home. A much better environment for her son Joe. Just turned 13, the slums of Chicago doused him with a negativity. Poverty induced melancholy that infected the school environment. Chicago Council, seeing the plight of many trapped in an endless cycle of impoverished doldrums, developed a plan. Expand existing housing projects. Herd those struggling into box upon box of apartments. Miniscule investment, social housing. Poorly planned, thoughtlessly constructed, but no doubt hope's dream was the intention.

Not necessarily a good intention, more convenience for other echelons of society. But for Lou the offer of a new life, a new school and some economic improvement was more than she could have hoped for. Those fragile walls enclose with the lock of her door. Fourteen floors high, family stacked upon family. Penury removed, reformed and regurgitated. Those fragile walls shake with the false salvation of destitution. Those fragile walls hum with paper thin folktales.

Sharing in their plight, communities form. Families stand side by side, but fear of outsiders rises, fear driven by experience. Driven by alienation. My congregation's voices slowly merge until a single word forms on its silent lips. 'Candyman.'

Part Fourteen

Civil planning, creation of the ghetto. Home to Lou Jackson, and the wider community. An unnecessary segregation deemed necessary by the deliberate catches within a blind infrastructure. Repetition of an origin tale steeped in history's wake.

Benin, 1798, The Blues and Beyond

Fear of difference, subjugation based on ignorance and segregation. Even home loses its security, for the land is deemed free for the taking, as are its people. Commodities, their own worth unrealised. Their own turf tainted by those entitled strangers, and their fears. So, the people are taken, separated from families and loved ones. Their homes forgotten, ploughed back into the Earth, as the people are herded onto the ships. Crushed together, forced to work for their own incarceration. Their very lives at the mercy of armed crew. Tempers fray.

The stolen suffer, thrown overboard or laced with bullets. Mutinies quashed quickly. No care for the terror growing within the prisoners. Sailing into the unknown, domineered by the callous and the bias.

Diseases carried, and shared. Victims tossed into the depths, like disposable garbage.

A taste of what lies ahead. The abuses of slavery, the abuses after abolition. Even a free person can be chained by legislation, segregation, apartheid in education. Discrimination in employment. Refusal to investigate burning pyres. But joy sang through the blues. A new age, but the tides beneath the ships never quite wash away. An undercurrent swells into a maelstrom. Them and us. Their classrooms, and ours.

Their jobs, and ours. Their transport, and ours.

Always offering my congregation leftovers, scraps.

Ability meaningless. A carefully crafted economy, graft meaningless, and the slums grow whilst landlords thrive. Until the architects of infrastructure find it distasteful, draw up new plans. Clean up the towns, such is their vision. But the fight rallies on. For King and culture. The projects rise.

And once again our history stays close to our hearts. We cherish the songs of our past, the tales of our heritage. We forge communities, but the architecture is poor, and the cracks grind through. Behind the mirror, I wait. Always answering the hymns and blues of my congregation.

Lou Jackson, her faith waivers. She has hope and faith in the architects. Doubts, forgets. And so, I am obliged to come…

Part Fifteen

New Orleans, 1934

'Come closer now chi'l, let granny take a good look at you. It's been so long since I seen you, moving up North like our family hasn't moved enough. Big fancy towns, fancy worlds. Your mama, she grew up here by the Bayou. She grew up with learning about life, and God in their hearts. She knew our songs, and our tales. Passed down from mother to chi'l for long a year. We didn't have no books to look at, no radios to hear voices on.

‘What we had was community. You remember that, because family and community is everything, 'specially when the world ain't offering what's right or fair. It's just as it is, and what is is what must be. We had each other. Those times seem gone, but they ain't. They're out there, waiting. That's when he comes. We don't mention his name, that's not fear.

‘That's respect. Granny grew up with respect, in the old ways. Granny remembers. My own Granny remembered freedom *laughs* they're ain't no such thing as freedom, not really, not for any of us. Or them. Slaves to the ways of the world, those that makes then ways well they're slaves to the shiny things. The money. Freedom is a word, don't be putting much faith in it. Put your faith in God.

‘Losing hope is bad, losing faith, worse. This is why we don't say his name, but we know it. We share it. Sweets for the sweet. Candyman, utter it rarely and only once, let his congregation grow through your own chi'l. Your grandchi'l. He wants to be remembered, and we remember him as a whisper. There are those that wanna test him. Stare in the mirror they do, say his name five times, then he comes. He comes as he is called, as he is doubted.

‘A reminder of who we are, where we came from, and those who will never treat us right. There's always those, nothin' changes that much. That's when we need our community, our family, our tribe. It don't matter what part of the world we live in, we have each other. Don't ever forget that. That's what make us strong. That's why we still here. You take them words, use them carefully.

‘Whispers chi'l. One person to the next, no more because we don't say his name unless we have ta. But that don't mean he don't need his congregation, and his congregation they need each other. Now go, tell one person. Let the legend grow, until the congregation tell everyone. Whispers chi'l, always in

whispers. My lovely Lou. Remember, Granny loves you.'

Part Sixteen

Cabrini-Green, 1965

Lou Jackson stares through her window, her eyes cast down at the communal park below. Her son, lost in his games. Happy with friends. Community spirit haunts the projects, sealing the open wounds. She barely notices the shadow as it flicks across the glass. Fleeting, perhaps not there at all. Though not paradise, it is home.

She watches for a while, awash with pride, as her son plays carelessly. Swaddled in the purity of innocence. Paper thin walls allow her ears to glimpse the movements and occasional chatter that sails past her door. She resumes her cleaning, though there is not much. Just the two of them in a small apartment.

None the less she makes it a comfortable home.

Her radio sings in the background. Finally, she collapses on the sofa. Her eyes close and she inhales deeply. Time passes. She barely notices the radio as it crackles and then falls into silence. It is something else that startles her. Something else that wakes her from her daydreams. A noise, metal thudding against porcelain. She stands, confused. Follows the sound.

Seeks out its origin. She passes her son's tiny room. The open door revealing its emptiness, and heads to the bathroom. Another clatter.

'Hello,' she calls, the shake in her voice relaying her fears. 'Is somebody in there?' She pushes the door. Nothing. Again, the sound echoes. A calling perhaps. She steps towards the shower curtain, takes a breath and wrenches it back. Her sigh of relief filling the air. Another clatter. She turns and faces the cabinet, the mirror. Her eyes lock on those of her reflection as the door creaks shut.

A shiver stings her spine. Her breathing quickens and she throws open the cabinet mirror. Nothing. She closes her eyes, as she does a light flashes within her own mind. An unwelcome image forces its way in. Blood soaking the shower curtain, blood soaking the mirror. Then it is gone. Trembling, she pulls the cabinet from the wall. A loose fitting swivels and it is easily lifted. There, in the safety of her abode, she sees it. The hole. A route into the next apartment. The empty apartment, the one no one talks about.

She thinks of Old Man Willy. A drifter known for roaming the block, drink in hand, stopping the residents and telling tales of he who shall not be named. He who hides in that very apartment waiting to be called. His tales reminiscent of those told by her granny years ago. Wild folk tales to frighten children. Yet those tales, ingrained in her mind, contribute to her reluctance to look beyond the veil. Steadily she places one knee on the basin and forces her head through the hole. Lou blinks, jumps back and tumbles to the floor. 'Do my eyes deceive me?' She mutters over and over whilst hurriedly replacing the cabinet.

Part Seventeen

How does it feel? Always to be the outcast, the outsider? Always to hope for a family that understands, or friends to complete you but you never quite fit in? Is it an act of God or science? To be so lonely in such a full world. Nothing quite explains the pain, nor does it take it away. For there is no remedy to isolation. It is neither self-imposed nor justified. For how can there be justification in a world where freedom is but a word? Nomenclature, that is all there is. Those that others swarm to. The Hive. The bees. And those of us that eternally live alone, by virtue of skin or persona.

It matters not. Are we mistakes? Are we a cruel hand of fate's cards? Or are we neither? Simply the taunts of others. To give their lives meaning. For that is what society says they are worth. Even advancement makes no difference. For one will never be judged by achievement, but by description. That is the way of the world. There is no freedom from pain or its binds. They are eternal, and we live in purgatory. Or at least I do. I live in purgatory. Each time you wake me from my slumber I am cursed. Broken. This shall not change. For my wrath is such, my torment is such, I wish I should not wake anymore. I wish I should not wake anymore.

Part Eighteen

Cabrini-Green 1966

'I bought you a present Joe,' Lou Whispers to her son. The growing lad lowers his comic book, Tales to Astonish. Fiction that inspires his young mind. 'Where is it Mama?' He asks, a rising excitement glowing in his voice. Lou walks to the window. 'It's out there. In the playground, sitting on the bench waiting for you.' Joe stares at his mother, already taller than her. 'But you gotta go out and get it.' Joe scans the playground as his peers hang listlessly about the equipment.

'Guess I do,' he replies sullenly, sliding his feet into some worn shoes.

The elevator is broken, nothing unusual about that. Joe sprints down the endless stairs, by passing the growing graffiti and ignoring the strong acidic smell. Slings about the corner and ignores the rowdy teens loitering at the entrance. As he veers towards the park he hears their mocking tones, 'where you goin' in such a hurry?' Joe continues his marathon until finally locating his target, a new comic book nicely wrapped.

He collapses on the bench and discards the paper.

Instantly he is absorbed into another world. Lost in the heroic world of superheroes.

'Good to see the young readin'. Good to see them seein' another world.' Joe lowers his book. Old Willy stands before him, swigging whisky from a poorly disguised bottle. 'Open minds!' Willy snaps cryptically, placing his drink in an inside pocket. He reaches deep within another pocket and pulls out an open palm brightened with candy wrappers. Joe frowns but takes one none the less. 'Tall tales in them books,' Willy continues, 'but those tales, they ain't for us.' He staggers slightly.

‘Some tales ain't gonna be found in no comic books.' He raises the sleeve on his other arm, 'some tales they run deep,' revealing a hook. Joe flinches, but Willy's ailment is common knowledge. 'He had one two, the one who's writing is on these walls. It was punishment you see. Those others, those architects what built this place, they don't believe. They don't believe in him, they don't wanna believe in us. He made something of his life. Folks didn't like it. He couldn't have what they had, but he tried so they killed him.'

Willy withdraws his arm and reaches for another swig of his drink and leans uncomfortably close to Joe's ear. 'They called him 'Candyman.' Death couldn't hold him; some hurts we can't forget.' Joe stands, 'Mama told me about the Candyman. It's a myth to scare kids is all.' 'You don't believe?'

'Na, I don't believe. Crazy ole man!' Joe barks, barging Willy aside. As he strides irately back to his apartment

Willy shouts after him,

'He hears you; he knows you don't believe. Call him, I dare you. Call the Candyman. CALL THE CANDYMAN!!' Joe sweeps into the block and up the stairs, barely noticing the gang of boys surrounding Willy. Rounding on him with a furious melody of laughter. *****

Lights flicker as Joe brushes his teeth, a night-time routine. Flicker and dim. He locks on his own reflection. The lights buzz and dim. Spitting out the last of his mouth foam, Joe utters the first calling, 'Candyman.' He rinses his toothbrush and drops it back in its cup. 'Candyman!' The light flicks off and on, masking the advancing figure locked in the mists of the glass. 'Candyman.' A slight shudder echoes up the lad's spine. 'Candyman.' The light hums with a powerful buzzing. Darken further. He closes his eyes. The figure in the mirror flashes. Taking a deep breath,

Joe opens his eyes whilst muttering the final call,

'Candyman.'

The light switch flicks darkening the room. His reflection incoherent as Candyman's reflection merges with his own. Drifts across the shine in the shower curtain rail. Seeps into the cup's metallic decor. Lights flicker and raise to their former glory highlighting the emptiness of the room. Joe shakes his head mocking the legend. He turns and leaves. Behind him the residue of a gritty whisper reverberates, 'You doubted me, so now I am obliged to come…'

Part Nineteen

'Othello was blinded, unable to see the serpent that grew within Iago. Unable to comprehend jealousy. Misplaced trust reflecting misplaced perception. His love for Desdemona bordering obsessive, yet Desdemona has insight but like Cassandra, the Greek seer, she does not act fully on it. Torn between her lover and her father she states, 'I do perceive here a divided duty.' In the binds of her desire, she also foresees her own death and Othello's destruction. If you will read this section for us Joe…Joe!'

'Miss Rainier!' Joe jumps as if woken from a garish dream. A dream fogged by the mists of the slumbering mind, Othello smothering his beloved. Holding her fast, until a hook tore her asunder. 'Sorry Miss Rainier. I don't feel so good!' Elise lowers her book and fumbles in her desk drawer.

'Take this pass, go to the office and have them call your mother.' Joe leaves the classroom quietly closing the door behind him.

The hall is quiet, empty, as if abandoned eons ago. Blinds smother classroom windows, and the one working light barely illuminates his path. He passes lockers suffocated by the colouring of graffiti. Joe stops dead. The graffiti shifts motionless, marring the corridor with a new phrase, 'sweets to the sweet.' And then the sound comes; metal screeching down the lockers, purposefully, meticulously…

The invisible hook rises and delves into the walls, carving forgotten legends into a new generation. The single light dims, unable to breathe. Envious of the other sleeping candles. Smothered, suffocated, until the sadness takes form. My figure dominates the shadows, forms in the smog of indifference. 'You called Joe; you did not believe in me. Your generation sows the seeds of doubt in my

congregation. So, I must come…'

'Joe, Joe,' a hand slaps at his face. 'You passed out there. Your mother is on her way.' Joe groggily opens his eyes.

'Thanks Miss Rainier!'

****

Comic reader or comic artist. Is there a difference? Joe does not care to question his new obsession. Paint hits the canvas; his hands move furiously just as Othello's furious hands moved on Desdemona. Painting after painting, figures or dreams? The Candymen rise.

Part Twenty

Slumber within, sleeping Joe finds himself in a dream within a dream, as the storm batters at the fragile glass. That which makes the world beyond transparent, allows it to manifest and come to life.

Portcullis to all that is beyond.

Heavy with fatigue, Joe envisages an inhuman somnolence; heavy, weighted. Deeper he falls until the nightmare creeps in. A hum at first, then a tune; whirring, buzzing. Swarms gather about his listless soul, but he cannot move. Writhing bodies flock about him as he rests between worlds.

Internally he screams, cries out for salvation, but it does not come. The bees' fervour continues. They dance upon his skin; he can almost feel the stings penetrating his flesh. Internal cries reach a hysteria until the peak of fear is conquered, and they dissipate. Ebb into muted sobs. The sea of insects parts, his perception is enlightened, and before him the stripped bones of the Candyman arch and stretch.

'I am obliged to come…' The words start as a whisper, a phrase that repeats, overlays and merges, until a storm of whispers chant within and the melody ultimately reaches a crescendo.

He wakes with a start. Beads of sweat drip from his forehead, tainted with fear, succulent in the relief that comes from knowing it was but a dream. The storm still howls, rattles at the glass. Lightning flashes as Joe wipes the sweat from his brow. Candyman's reflection, my reflection, echoes distantly in the poorly dressed glass. Unseen as hands mask the boy's eyes. He clambers from his bed, the heaviness still raw, the imagined bee stings still thrumming, and softly treads to the bathroom. Cold water pours from the tap. Joe drops his head, gathering the fluid in his palms and splashing it over a weary face. Only the lightening illuminates the darkened room as he tries not to disturb his mother. The same lightening blasts my powerful reflection through the mirror. Unseen as Joe washes the terror away, washes the legendary essence from his own macabre, yet cynical, curiosity.

His feet pad from the bathroom to the kitchen, and he pours himself some juice. Light from the fridge sprays about the room.

'Joe!' The boy jumps, his stomach pounds as he grabs his heart. 'It's late, what are you doing out of bed?' Joe turns to his mother,

'I was just getting a drink. I was thirs…' His words trail away, the form behind Lou grows, takes shape. Candyman’s form, my form. A hooked hand reaches about her waist…

Part Twenty-One

Suffer little children who do not believe in me. Suffer your existence and succumb.

'Joe, have you ever been diagnosed with an illness of the mind?' Joe remains silent. 'Have you ever been arrested or charged for a criminal offence?' Joe casts his gaze about the room, from the barred windows to the glass of the internal door. All is bland, pale and reeks with layers of filth tainted by financial constraints. 'Joe!' The doctor repeats, 'can you tell me where your mother is?' The doctor waits, but the wait proves futile, 'your neighbours called the police. There was blood everywhere. Tell me where your mother is.'

The doctor sighs with despondent irritation. 'I cannot help you unless you help me.' Joe turns his head rapidly in the doctor's direction,

'You don't wanna help me! You want me to lie to you, admit something that ain't true and put it down as just another ghetto crime. Truth is I don't know where she is, I told that to the police, and I told that to you, so why you gotta be asking again?' He hesitates as the silhouette of a child roams the corridor, wanders backwards and forwards, barefoot. Joe's eyebrows knit, he focuses, then blinks, and the apparition fades. 'You ask again because you don't believe me. I'm

telling you there was a man in our apartment.'

The doctor clicks his pen, 'the evidence does not support your version of the stor…' 'What you mean my version? I told you as it is.' Joe tuts and looks through the window, locking his eyes on the residential wing across the gardens. It seems empty from his distance. Devoid of life, until an old man appears, shuffling between the beds.

'Joe, you leave me no choice. I am afraid that, with your interests in mind, I am obliged to section you. You are clearly dangerous, and worryingly unaware of your own actions. It is the recommendation of this facility that you are admitted and restrained in a confined ward until further notice. A treatment plan will be administered, and it is most likely that you will undergo shock therapy until such a time as you are stable. Trust me son, this is for your own good.' Joe's brow furrows,

'I ain't your son!'

Part Twenty-Two

Administration, state, architects, they build the structures of confinement, the estates and cells. Prisons and asylums. Refuse and debris swept from sight, the illusion of an innocent landscape, where the fields rest uneven. Fresh from the torture administered, pulsating electricity still tracing through his blood, Joe opens his eyes. Sees what is, his isolation from society. He, and others, ever living on the cusps, liberty infringed upon by the jacket that binds. Straps that dig deep, and sting.

Home from home. He peers at the door, within the reflection of the safety glass, a frame too small to warrant precautions and housing bars of equal metaphorical implication, Joe sees the weapon of his dreams. The hook. Symbol of stratification, punishment, and weapon. A reminder to the congregation of their past, present and future. Tell everyone. Never forget. Whisper my name.

The words plague Joe's mind, reverberate, grow. An internal earthquake that spills into audible perception,

'You doubted, so I had to come!' Joe blinks and looks about the room, finally casting his gaze upwards to the haunting apparition that floats before his eyes.

'Remember…'

Night-time. Nightmare. Drinking. His mother… And Candyman. As the hook reaches about her body she panics, well versed in the legend, throws herself from him knocking a Compact mirror from her bag on the kitchen side. It shatters, she reaches for a knife. Knife and hook drive in opposite directions, and blood splatters upon the glass.

Joe jumps at the vision, I hold my aerial position and utter those haunting words,

'Be my victim…'

Part Twenty-Three

Light after flickering light float overhead, the fizzing electricity combines with the thunderous wheels of the trolley to create a melancholic storm in Joe's ears. The downpour dampened by the screams emanating from his own mouth,

'he's here! I'm telling you he's here.' Another nurse joins the rumbling caravan and new voices greet the cacophony.

'What happened sister?'

'He started screaming, fighting his restraints. Paranoid delusions. He was unresponsive to all medication!' 'ECT room. Stat.'

'I don't need it!' Joe protests. 'I don't need it!'

His cries fall on deaf ears. Porters lift him from trolley to trolley. Dampness soaks his temples.

'Bite down on this!' Someone commands as his lips are silenced. He braces as the shock explodes throughout his blood, a veritable tidal wave. And then all fades.

Joe clambers from the trolley, and gazes about the empty room. Derelict in appearance, the abandoned hospital looms over him. Night imposes, and through the cracked glass of the windows a voice whispers on the breeze,

'Jj-o-oe, Jj-o-oe…' He turns from the dampened call, and heads into the dilapidated corridors. Not a soul remains, even the architecture seems devoid of a heartbeat. Graffiti stains the innocent walls, 'Sweets to the Sweet.' Joe's feet involuntarily hasten, trying to escape his impending destiny.

The mutter of the breeze rescinds, replaced by a humming. Instinctively Joe looks about him. A soft brush scrapes his forearm. He flinches, the sudden movement causing the bee to sting. One swipe from his other hand seals the insects fate, and his own. Its carcass falls to the floor. Joe presses on.

At the far end of the corridor, the passage dims. Light escapes the confines of the asylum, he squints noting a gap in the wall. Fearful, though compelled, he climbs through it. Candles glow. He turns and faces the wall, the mouth of his predator. There, daubed in deference and glory, the likeness of the Candyman stares down at Joe. He peers back through the gaping crevice, into the bathroom of his own apartment.

Part Twenty-Four

Without hesitation, like a bee to the honey, Joe climbs through the crevice into his own apartment. Night locks in about him. He turns back to look into the room of his origin, but sees only glass, the mirror, though his own reflection is notably absent. He peers closer, eyebrows furrowed. A noise startles him, he sees himself wandering aimlessly into the same room, and steps back. Though his former self shows no signs of observance or recognition. Instead, he lowers his head and washes his face. Joe looks above the lowered head and locks eyes with his new reflection as a Candyman.

He startles just as his former self leaves the bathroom. Joe moves closer to the mirror, the Candyman follows suit. He raises his hand, and the reflection obliges. He peers closer, and closer. Until his mother's voice breaks his line of thought. The reflection, the Candyman, side glances in the direction of his mother, and offers an amused, cruel smile. Joe steps forth, but curiosity drives him back. As he slides back so too does the image of the Candyman. Joe shakes his head and hurries to the kitchen.

Glass from his mother's mirror lays shattered. He hears her voice and turns back towards the door, disjointed, disorientated. Joe stands behind her, his stung arm swollen, a hook hanging between his fingers. Candyman stands behind her, I stand behind her, my stung body buzzing, moving. A hook replacing my arm.

Joe stares into a shard of glass laying on the floor, unable to tell if I am Candyman or if Joe is. His mother grabs a kitchen knife, lunges towards the phantasm; deranged or confused. Joe pushes her away as the knife slices into him. He stares into the glass again; Candyman or Joe? The reflection raises its hook, and brings it down with a furious vengeance, 'You denied my existence, banished the tale. I had to come.' Joe watches as his lips move in the mirror, looks up as the Candyman speaks from them. Blood soaks the room. Former Joe freezes and faints. Joe runs instinctively to the bathroom, glares angrily into the mirror, into the face of the Candyman.

His scream wakes him, restrained in his hospital room, the ECT complete.

Part Twenty-Five

Joe pulls against his binds, cries out into the unheeding atmosphere. Disinfectant fills his nostrils leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth. Echoes reflect his tumultuous screams as other patients roar in response. He sees beyond…

Granny sits in the empty church, the remains of a once faithful congregation that met by the depths of a Louisiana bayou. Their faith squandered; their hearts turned to ash. Literally. Each victim to an unnatural, anguished demise. Granny weeps knowing that she has failed.

Lou wakes up, scarred, blood laden and pained. Her living corpse supine on the altar of his hive. He stands over her, opens his coat, and the bees swarm from his body. The buzzing hum roars from his mouth and glides into her own. She struggles, somewhere a baby wails.

Joe's arm swells and blisters, a reaction to the bee sting of his reverie, perhaps? Or perhaps the mark of fate, an indication of the future, symbolic of history repeating itself. In his deranged mind he sees his mother, he sees his granny, but I unable to help. 'Come, it is time!' The words whisper in the winds that enter the church, call to Granny from the mists of the bayou. Granny acquiesces to the enchantment, tired of waiting and tired of living in fear and isolation. She leaves the church and makes her way to the shore.

My arms wrap about her, acknowledge the wisdom of her age, offer respect. She reaches up touching my wrist. No longer afraid, surrendering, and ready. I link my arm through hers and stretch my hook before her guiding her into the murky waters. Gently taking her beneath the surface. She accepts my morbid invitation willingly, holding me as much as I hold her. Embracing her fate, she sinks into the swamp. Water fills her lungs, but she does not resist. Her eyes close, and she inhales death as the hook caresses her skin and penetrates her ribs.

Joe rubs the blisters against his straps, infuriated at his granny's death. The blisters burst and burn, preternatural and premature sepsis pervades. He envisions his mother.

Lou rises from the alter, follows the sound of the baby's cries to the window. Beyond she witnesses the pyre. The funeral pyre of a living sacrifice. Without hesitation she hurries down the stairwell and crawls into the stacked wood. She hears the whispers, 'Candyman…Candyman…' They do not see her as she clambers through the flames. Wood cracks and falls. There in the centre she salvages the child, uses her body as a shield.

The burning sears into exquisite ice, a thousand pins driving acid into her flesh, but still, she drags the child to safety. Her life for his.

'They shall sing songs to remember us!' I thunder as she ejects the unharmed child from her burning tomb. My hooked arm comes, wraps about her and drags her back into her mausoleum.

Fire and water.

Fire and ice.

Joe's skin rips into necrosis, he watches helplessly as his limb dies.

Part Twenty-Six

'Joe, Joe.' Joe looks up as if pulled from a dream or nightmare. His mother's burning or his grandmother's drowning, both etched on his heart. Confusion, locked in a nightmarish battle and fighting for sanity. His perceptions unhinged.

'I am Dr Dwyer, a specialist. I am sorry that we have failed you so far, I am here to break you free from your delusions and in doing so you should be able to regain your grip on reality.' The doctor shuffles through some papers, 'according to these records you

believe that some phantom, a figure from your urban legends…'

'What do you mean 'your'?'

'Well Joe, I mean…'

'I know exactly what you mean!' Joe shakes his head and twitches his swollen arm.

'How is your injury?' The doctor asks. Joe turns his head.

'Accidents happen!'

'This look like any accident you ever seen?' Joe asks peeling back the bandages and revealing his necrotizing skin.

Dwyer raises an eyebrow.

'This legend, the Candyman. I can prove to you he does not exist. You stated in one of your previous sessions that if you say his name five times whilst looking in the mirror he will appear.'

'Mama told me don't do that, I didn't listen, I'm telling you, but you won't listen either.' Dwyer tuts and pulls a mirror from his drawer.

'We will break the delusion. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman…'

'Don't!' Joe protests.

'CANDYMAN!' Joe rocks against the straps that restrain him.

'Don't do it!'

'CANDYMAN!' 'See, no….' The expression on Dwyer's face changes, contorts. He plunges forward, his eyes wide. The hook protrudes through his belly and wrenches upwards. Dwyer's body drops forward, and blood gurgles through his last breath.

'Robitaille!' Joe mutters, 'Candyman!'

'I am one of many,' my voice echoes in a dream like state as the binds rip from Joe's wrists. 'Part of the whole, as are you! Children in the playground, sweets for my sweet. Save them Joe. Be my victim.' I leap backwards, shatter through the window and its bars, opening the path of destiny, beckoning Joe to step upon it.

Part Twenty-Seven

Cabrini-Green, 1977.

'Mama, who that man?' Aliyah asks as her mother pushes her on the swing. The little girl clings to the rusty chains that support it, soiling her cold hands.

Brianna looks up and draws in a sharp breath.

'That ain't nobody you need to be talking to!' She exclaims. 'He's trouble, best stay away.' Beyond the confines of the playground a dishevelled Joe staggers about, his gait clumsy and his shoulder slightly hunched to compensate for whatever damage afflicts the arm hidden beneath his grubby jacket. Aliyah swings for a while, her eyes fixated on the man. 'Is he sick Mama?' She asks at length. Brianna tuts, realising her child has no intention of dropping the current line of questioning.

'He's sick alright, but not the kind of sickness no doctor can help! He's spiritually sick, like when you go to church on a Sunday, and you believe in something well that makes you spiritually well. Joe there, his spirit is sick. He's a bad man Aliyah so stay away!'

'Bri,' a voice calls from the entrance to the apartments. 'Bri!' Her friend repeats. 'Now what she want? We best go see!'

'Can I stay here just a little bit more? Please mama.' 'Well OK,' Bri huffs, 'you wait right there though. No wandering off, you hear?' Aliyah nods as her mother shuffles off. Her humming fills the crisp air, accompanied only by the screeching of the swing frame.

A little boy rushes around the outside of the playground tormenting Aliyah with silly faces. He stops at the gate and climbs on the creaking lump of iron. Paint chips fall away in his hand. 'You, you want some candy?' A voice sings from behind. The little boy turns, his frightened mouth agape. 'I ain't gonna hurt ya none, you want some candy?' Joe holds out his good hand and unwraps his fingers to reveal much sought after sweets. 'Mister,

I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers!'

'Name's Joe, so now we ain't strangers.'

'I guess not.’ The little boy replies taking the sweets. Joe nods, and hums a tune to reflect Aliyah's song as he saunters off. The little boy waves the candy at Aliyah taunting her. She sticks out her tongue as he unwraps the sweets and makes an exhibition of chewing.

Another figure passes the playground, rounds on the child, and engages him briefly. Aliyah cannot see his face as it is covered by a hood. She cannot hear the words that pass between them, quickly the figure moves on. The boy resumes his taunting and places another candy on his tongue. Aliyah jumps from the swing and marches over to him, preparing her onslaught. As she nears the boy falls from the gate. He chokes and splutters. Blood seeps from his mouth.

'Mama! Mama!' Aliyah screams. Bri and her friend rush over followed by other residents. The boy collapses on the ground choking furiously, blood vomiting from his throat.

'Someone get an ambulance!' Bri cries. 'Hurry!' He writhes against that which ails him, his body convulsing, drowning, until all movement ceases.

****

As the ambulance departs only bloodied frost remains, a small reminder of what came to pass. Around the apartments and row houses another threat arrives, blue locusts, searching for someone to blame. Eager for retribution, but not in the line of justice.

Part Twenty-Eight

Cabrini-Green, 1977

Sirens thunder about the estate, lightening marring the frosts and dusk laden sky. Rumours pass from mouth to mouth and door to door. They have come for him. Joe hobbles up the stairwells. His arm covered. He chokes as if dust fills his lungs instead of air. Each flight laborious, but he persists, knowing that his history will implicate him in a murder that he did not commit. His history, the circumstances. Just history.

He reaches his floor and climbs across the landing, shaking with keys in hand. He flings open the apartment door, his home a shell of its former self. Derelict. Unkempt. Just like his body, the rotting shell beneath his jacket. He stumbles over to the window and watches as the squad cars pour foot soldiers into the complex. In panic he recalls an exit.

The bathroom cabinet is easily lifted, the hole to the lost apartment still gaping wide, summoning him. He Chambers through and pulls the cabinet back into place. Beyond lies another world, a shrine to the memory of Candyman. Joe takes in the wall art, the sublime depictions of Daniel's life and death. 'He's been waiting!' A voice interrupts. Joe rubs his eyes and looks around. An old man sits in the corner staring into an imaginary distance. 'I've been waiting too.' Joe brushes past him and stares between the boards that sit where glass once was.

'They're coming for me!' Joe observes.

'Why, yes, they are. That's what they do!' The old man laughs.

'I didn't hurt the kid!'

'Course you didn't, couldn't have been you, some folks are just born with hate in their heart. They see what they don't understand and go out of their way to destroy it. That's how architecture is. That's how it's always been.'

'They just bought back the death penalty!' Joe starts to shake and his coat slips as he sits next to the old man revealing hive-like holes boring through his flesh. 'They'll fry you for sure. But there's a better way. The right way.

‘Folks think you're dangerous, think you're different, but what if you could give them something back. A piece of history, a reminder that our lands aren't sacred.'

'What you talking about?' Joe responds, trying to sound like his irate younger self. 'I'm talking about reminding people. Reminding them what they must never forget, Candymen!'

'The Candyman?' Joe queries as a shiver runs up his spine.

'Candymen!' The old man repeats. 'I bet what's left of your arm is rotting, like me just sitting here waiting. Waiting and rotting.' Joe slowly peels his coat off to reveal the putrid flesh hanging from his limb. 'Show me that arm rightly.' The old man instructs. Shouts reverberate from the floor below, blue bottles buzzing with profuse excitement. Joe holds out his hand. 'You keep still now!'

Joe’s wizened friend pulls a cleaver from a tatty pocket, 'this near went rusty waiting!' He states nonchalantly as the blade slams down severing limb from torso. Joe hardly makes a sound. The silence is deafening as his old shadow drives a hook into the stump. 'People need Candyman!' He wipes the blood from his blade. 'I'm just about ready!' He states as the blood pours from the wound and smothers the hook.

Joe's pupils fix. A sigh leaves his body.

The old man looks into the blade. 'Candyman,' footsteps crash across the landing. 'Candyman!' Joe's door is busted down. 'Candyman!' Furniture is turned and dropped. 'Candyman!' The bathroom cabinet smashes to the floor.

'CANNNNDDDDYYYYMAAANNNN!' The hook glints in the glow of the torches, a gun goes off.

The old man sees the reflection in his blade, it drowns out the shouts of the trespassers. The reflection clears, he feels the hook as it plunges through his belly. Relieved, his duty done, he slides to the floor and a slight smile glimmers across his face as his body slumps. 'Candyman,' he whispers, and the apartments echo with the same sound, the same whisper. The same name.

Part Twenty-Nine

Chicago State University, 1992 It was always you Helen. The graduate student veers out of the lecture hall and across a quad with a water featured epicentre. She dodges undergrads as they hurry to their respective seminars. It was always you.

Clouds thunder across the skies and stifle the suns burning stare. The rain starts to fall, a drizzle at first and then a downpour. She hurries along the lawns and ducks into the carpark, her hair already soaked from the onslaught. Her heels click as she totters towards her waiting vehicle. It was always you Helen. Whispers trickle through wind and rain. They meet her ears, nonsensical waves of nature at first, but they take form and shape. The carpark is eerily desolate, she finds herself alone.

A breeze washes about her and those words enter her mind once again. It was always you Helen. A thought or stirring, a bleak ghost story. She does not know. Perhaps an inner voice luring her psyche to deep introspection. There is a calm in the storm, but the storm caused her to shiver, and fear drenches her very soul. She delves through her bag and panic-stricken fights to locate her keys.

‘It was always you!’ The words greet her ears as a tempest kisses lost islands. Her keys fall and her eyes fix on the man that stands before her. ‘Come to me,’ ‘I, I have to go home,’ her voice fades as she drowns in his stare.

‘Nooo,’ I growl, ‘you have no home, your time has come.’ Our proximity narrows even though I barely seem to move. Her mind drowns in the painted pool of my vision. ‘We shall become legends, come.’ Overwhelmed and over awed she collapses in my waiting arms. A stranger so familiar, too familiar, a character from a story that she has heard over and over again. Yet, she did not believe. ‘Helen, it was always you!’

Part Thirty

Chicago State University, 6 weeks prior to the disappearance of Helen Lyle

Helen takes her seat in the auditorium, her notebook prepared and her mind eager. ‘Today our lecture focuses on the urban legend.’ The theatre dims and the slideshow illuminates. Professor Wexler takes to the stage in his usual dramatic fashion, ‘did any of you,’ he sweeps his arm across the room, ‘ever hear about the lady who found a lump on her head. Visited the doctor and upon incision a herd of baby spiders scuttled out?’

‘That happened to a friend of my aunt’s,’ a student voice returns, ‘only it was the hairdressers and the comb caught in the wound.’

‘Did it indeed?’ Dr Wexler responds with an air of selfsatisfaction.

‘Why should you never visit the sewers in New York?’ ‘Alligators!’ A more feminine voice shouts out. ‘People used to win pet alligators and when they grew too big released them in the sewers. They mutated!’ ‘I heard that was Philadelphia!’ Someone interjects. ‘And of course,’ Professor Wexler continues, mindful of the ensuing disturbance, ‘the tale of the babysitter. All alone, late at night. She hears the ominous sound of scratching…’ He waits for the inevitable retort. ‘It was an escaped convict with a hook for a hand!’

‘I heard he put a pet in the microwave,’

‘No, he tied the boyfriend to the roof of the car…’

The room erupts with ever more complex and unbelievable theories until the Professor raises his hands as a request for silence. ‘Ms Lyle, would you come up here?’ Helen awkwardly lowers her pen and strolls to the stage. Professor Wexler offers her a mento mint. She takes it and he watches as she chews. He chews one himself and once both are swallowed, he pulls some Diet Coke from his bag, ‘drink?’ ‘No thank you!’ Helen replies.

‘I insist, have a drink!’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘May I ask why?’ He pushes.

‘The combination of mentos and soda cause the stomach to rupture!’

‘Do they now?’ Wexler asks taking a big mouthful.

Instantly he convulses, foam drips from his mouth and he falls to the floor. Once his audience’s discord reaches a hysterical level he jumps to his feet and wipes the false foam from his lips. ‘None of these stories are true. Not one. They are urban folklore, tales made up from town to town and generation to generation. These stories are nothing but urban legends.’ He turns to Helen and lowers his glasses, ‘and you would do well to remember that Ms Lyle!’

Part Thirty-One

As the lecture ends Helen approaches Professor Wexler.

‘You promised not to do urban legends until I had finished my research elements next semester!’ ‘Ms Lyle,’ the belligerent man replies with an evil grin, ‘I cannot hold up, nor be expected to hold up the students’ education. That’s unrealistic.’

‘I think I have stumbled upon a legend where the facts and the myth are closely related. This afternoon I am visiting Cabrini-Green…’

‘Ah, Candyman country,’ Wexler rudely interrupts, ‘Daniel Robitaille. Yes, he fell in love with someone quite beyond his reach, her father had his arm removed and a hook inserted, honey smeared upon his body to attract bees and what was left was burned.

Now his ghost haunts Cabrini-Green!’

‘I think that there is some truth…’

‘Helen, stay objective. Don’t be drawn into the ghosts of scapegoats and scapegoat ghosts. The history is the spine of the book, nothing more. People maintain these narratives in the same manner as folk tales; they seek a meaning, an underpinning to existence and all of the injustices that society brings.’ Helen sighs despondently, ‘and Helen, don’t go out there alone please. Now,’ Wexler looks at his watch, ‘if you will excuse me!’

Once alone and in the comfort of his office the inquisitive and sceptical Professor pulls out his cigarette box. He flicks it open and stares into the glare catching his own reflection. ‘Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman…’ He hesitates, then sighs and rolls his eyes at the remnants of social superstition that rest imprinted within his own cognitive development. ‘Candyman!’ He places a cigarette between his lips. He feels the heaving presence rise behind him just as the hook enters his back and tears him from sternum to gullet. The smoke drops into his blood-soaked lap and his eyes bulge with horror as I guide him to a plane of existence beyond this realm.

****

Helen dreams of a professor who disappeared, she dreams of another life, a simple one in which she studied fables and visited the keepers of these fables. She dreams of death, and of swarming insects poised to inject her with their toxic nectar. Her eyes open and her body adjusts to my grip. My voice whispers her name in deep, cruel tones that she cannot touch. From my mouth the bees sing, from my bones they gather, and pour over her willingly open mouth. Another nightmare, perhaps, her half-opened eyes gaze upon the walls as fear and panic rise within. Graffiti, a gallery composed entirely of graffiti, conveys the Candyman’s humble beginnings. She gasps suddenly, her own reflection cast upon the wall, her image painted, our love reborn.

Part Thirty-Two

Cabrini-Green, Chicago 2005

In the playground beyond the apartments a group of children dressed in winter coats jump rope whilst singing a rhyme.

‘Helen woke from sleep so deep,

Humming like the bees,

And from that sleep she heard a cry, A mother’s screaming pleas!

Helen woke from sleep so deep,

Returned to him from death,

That pounding sound,

Sticks on the ground, His everlasting breath!

To the window Helen ran,

She heard the child’s cries, All a part of his plan,

To ensure poor Helen dies!

To the window Helen ran, As the fires were soon lit, a part of his plan, through the boarded slit!

Down the stairs, into the night,

She ran without second thought,

Down the stairs, into his sight,

A soul eternally sought.

And into the pyre his love does climb,

Heeding the baby’s cry, Together for the rest of time, Like him she must now die!

With last breath she took the child,

And crawled through the flames so high, Protecting his body from the fire so wild, Knowing that she would die.

To her grave they all did head,

Words read from a book,

Coffin lowered with one last drop,

And on it fell the hook!’

Part Thirty-Three

River North (Cosmopolitan district built on the

foundations of Cabrini-Green), 2022

The architects returned, reassessed and reformed. Swept away the dust, scattered pebbles and stones, they have no soil to call their own. A new world attempts to hide the past, bury it, but it will not stay buried, for what is history if not an example of sobriety. Instructors lecture the words without the feeling. Echo the picture without oils. Reap rewards of intellect without the crushing rationale of wisdom. The architects look upon the new era, their new creation, and deem it just, relishing the exhibition of equity and beauty.

From the rubble cries a hook. It scuffles through the splinters of all that is, all that was, and all that shall be. Forces its way through the pyre, and he follows. I follow. Cosmopolitan, a metropolis of windows glazed in the fog of myopia. Glass cracking from within. A reflective world indifferent to the reverberations that quake every pane. There in they stand, waiting. Watching. Polish the exterior, scrub the glass, but this is no two-way mirror. It shines for the architects, reeks the stale infusion of success. Utopia unbound. Scratches appear, scathing the surface. Fine, hairline fractures.

Beneath the Elysium old roots still grow, entangle and rise. Ancient apprehensions from a bygone era, their consciousness unmoved by the concepts above. Each window lists with an abstract essence. Invisible ivy climbs from beneath. The appellation justified in wistful dreams, ‘Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.’

Fin.