Sam Pink - Witch Piss

He started laughing too.

It was chaos.

When we got to Speedy’s place there was no wife or son out front!

Just a small house with a gate and staircase and some signs about not having a dog on the premises.

“Pull up here, pull up here,” Speedy said, pointing to a utility van out front his house. “Don’t hit my van, it has a security system, ya fung bussy.”

I laughed.

Every time I laughed, Speedy’d laugh and look at me.

Felt like we were both 8 years old, at a sleepover.

Speedy told the cabby to back into the alley a little to line up his door with the sidewalk. “Pull up, pull up,” he kept saying.

Cabby kept saying, “Yes yes, pay here, pay here.”

Speedy handed the cabby a handful of bills.

He offered to pay for my ride back but I said I’d walk, lying about how I knew some people who lived nearby — the old “I know people” routine.

Oh brother!!!

The cabby got out and opened the door for us then stood back while I got Speedy out myself.

I almost dropped him at first because my arms weren’t securely around him, all the weight on my fingers and wrists.

But then I adjusted.

“Put me onna steps,” he said, looking over my shoulder at his house.

I carried him down the cab’s ramp and onto the sidewalk.

Looking at the cabby over my shoulder, he said, “Heece a bussy anway.”

I laughed.

The cabby laughed. “Is ok?”

I said yeah.

He got in his cab and drove away.

I carried Speedy up the front steps, set him down so he had space to lean back.

“Anks,” he said. “I’n sit here and smoke a square. Shh, I mean a joint, nehe.”

I laughed and nodded, said goodbye.

He said, “Ok, I see you Friday,” and fell asleep on the stairs.

It was a really long walk back.

There was already a blister covering my entire left heel, from not wearing socks with my boots.

The blister came off the heel immediately, squishing with each step.

The fucking squishes.

Lord Almighty, the fucking squishes.

Up above, the moonlit clouds looked rippled, like the ribcage of some giant thing digesting me.

And I wondered if the direction I was going went down into the digestive system or up out of it.

Wondered what difference it made.

There was a bug hovering over a small pool of ice cream on the sidewalk.

Like a firefly, but it wasn’t a firefly.

And I could’ve stepped on it and killed it.

But I didn’t.

Be thankful, little bug.

For in my world, you are just a little bug.

I passed by Spider-Man’s alley this afternoon and saw Face pissing on a dumpster.

“Whattup cous?” he said, zipping up.

He started walking down the alley and motioned for me to follow.

Spider-Man and Janet still weren’t there, but there were two other guys — Larry and Craig — sharing a 40.

Larry was sitting on an overturned bucket.

I shook hands with him and sat on a parking block.

He smiled, clasping his hands between his knees.

He was overweight, wearing this big stretched-out T-shirt.

“Hoowee, namn,” he said.

Craig sat on the ground with his back against a column of the train tracks, holding a crackpipe and a lighter.

He had no shirt on, baggy jeans tied off with a belt, and unlaced peanut-butter-colored work boots — eyes hyped and yellow.

He said, “Hey, we uh, doing some choice activities here.”

Face said, “Don’t worry. This cat coo as shit.”

I said hi.

Craig looked at me for a second.

Then he smiled, holding out his hand.

“Craig Williams,” he said.

I thought it’d be funny to kiss his hand and say, “Nice to meet you.”

But instead we shook hands and locked thumbs.

“Craig Williams,” he said again. “Thass British, but I’m talkin bout I’m become Chinese to my kids if I stay out here too long. Talkin bout ‘One Gone Too Long.’”

He took a huge hit off the crackpipe, turning it slow and watching with his eyes crossed.

He exhaled.

“Yizzir,” Face said, then cleared his throat.

“Hoowee, namn,” Larry said, his hands still clasped between his knees.

Another guy came walking down the alley.

Troy.

I’d seen him around but never really talked to him because he was always too drunk to remember me.

He came up and said, “Ey, hassa goin erybody?”

Skinny, sunburned, and bald.

He wore an oversized white tanktop and long wide-legged shorts with the brand name ‘spraypainted’ on one of the legs.

There was a foam flower behind his ear.

Face said, “Nice petunia, Petunia.”

Troy said, “Anks”—poking through a handful of cigarette butts he’d collected.

His hands were gray and dry like elephant skin, bleeding through cracks.

“Troy, fuck you been?” Craig said, holding up his hands. “You get that ice?”

“Huh?” Troy said. “I’s?”

“Yeah, you suppose’a get ice. I gave you that dollar before. We tryna ice this beer, man.”

Troy barked through some mucus. “Nah man, I never got any dollar.”

Craig laughed. “What? Man, bullshit you didn’t.”

He started to stand up.

Troy just shook his head and said, “Hol on, be right back”—holding the petunia in place with one hand, cigarette butts with the other as he walked away.

There was a strip of hair along his neck where he’d missed shaving.

Troy.

“Man, fuck that motherfucker,” Craig said, resting back against the brick wall behind him, looking at the crackpipe.

He touched an area on his ribs, lightly scratching.

He lifted his arm and pinched the area a little, showed me some scarring on his ribcage.

“Man,” Craig said, smiling. “This shit from this one bitch I used to date, Suzie. Bitch was Canadian, Spanish, and something else. You member her, Face? Face, I done told you this story.”

Face was staring at the ground. He looked up and said, “Huh? Nah man.”

Craig said, “Yeah jo, Suzie — when she, you know.”

He waited for Face to respond.

When Face didn’t respond, Craig turned to me and said, “Bitch lit me on fire while I’s sleeping.”

“Oh shit,” I said, trying not to smile.

But then Craig smiled, so whatever.

“So it’s like this,” he said, licking his lips. “Man, one time she thought she caught me cheatin, and she locked herself in the bathroom. I’s poundin, yelling, ‘Let me in let me in.’ She kept saying, ‘One second, one second.’ So I broke open the door and she in the bathtub cuttin her arm up with a motherfuckin razor. I told her, ‘Baby, I’m not cheatin.’ I told her, I said baby, get mad at the person cheating when that happens. Then shit, one night I pass out drunk, ok. And she found a number and a name in my pants pocket. Calls the bitch up. My ass wake up to something cold and wet. She pouring rubbing alcohol on me. She talkin bout, ‘You said hurt the person cheating on you, not yourself.’ So she lit my ass on fire, jo. And my dumbass, hah, instead of rolling around, I run to the bathroom. Got my dumbass burnt. Second-degree burns, jo.”

Face was laughing like ‘Hik’ik’ik’—his shoulders going up and down.

Larry said, “Hoowee, namn.”

He’d mostly been sitting there with his hands clasped between his knees, saying, “Hoowee, namn” and sometimes grabbing at the small floating things blowing off nearby trees.

A butterfly flew by.

Face turned to Craig and backhanded him on the chest. “Ey, you see that butterfly, cous?”

Craig said, “Yeah, uh huh, that orange one. What’s that? It’s a—”

“A monarch,” Face said.