Sam Pink - Witch Piss

“Ohhhh, wha’s good man!” he said.

We hugged.

He kissed my cheek and said we should go meet up with Janet.

First we went to the 7/11 and got some King Cobras.

“What happened to your old spot?” I said, exiting the 7/11 and holding the door for him. “I haven’t seen you.”

“Dahhh. Man, I gave that shit up. We at Janet’s so long, you know, the car rental place, they cleaned it up. Shit, you kiddin me? Did me a favor! I couldn’t move them beds. Hell nah. You need some fuckin tools to clean that mess, nang! Needa fuckin crane, fuckin bulldozer.”

I pictured a bulldozer pushing his bed away as he sat on it, holding onto the sides yelling, “Gah be kiddin me!”—Janet speeding behind in her wheelchair.

“But nah, we over this way now,” he said, pointing somewhere.

We walked to a vacant lot near a different section of the Blue Line tracks.

The ground was mostly rocks and glass.

They were living up against a brick wall with a mural spraypainted on it.

Janet lay on her side in a sleeping bag, playing a game on her cellphone.

Ten feet away I saw an adult diaper stained with shit and blood, a pinched wad of bloody gauze next to it.

I sat on the rocks and glass, hands in my pockets to keep warm.

It was October and getting cold already.

“Yeah, we only stayin here like, two weeks though,” Spider-Man said.

He rested a piece of luggage up against the wall and sat on it.

They were moving to Las Vegas on Halloween.

They’d have Janet’s disability checks and Spider-Man would try to get his job back cleaning up hotels and casinos.

“Last time I’s there,” he said, “I had a job and an apartment the first day. First fucking day, du.”

He mimed unsheathing a sword from his back and went, “Shiiiiiiing…fuckatta here.”

He showed me the things they’d be taking with — two pieces of luggage, a reusable grocery bag, and two sleeping bags.

Without looking up from her game, Janet said, “Buh, beb. Ya bitch is hungry. Hehe. Shit. Dayum.”

Spider-Man reached into his hoodie pocket and took out a 7/11 deli sandwich, halved and stacked in cellophane.

“Ok,” he said, “but it’s just 7/11 sandwiches.”

Janet rolled over onto her stomach, reaching for the sandwich.

The sleeping bag unzipped a little.

She was naked from the waist down.

She moaned a little, “Ahh, beb, shit, fock. Ahhh. Hep, peez.”

Spider-Man took her hand and helped turn her over as he read the back of the sandwich package.

“They put so much shit innem now,” he said. “I don’t even know half this shit — fucking enzymes and shit. Fucking CO2 or some shit haha. The fuck!?”

I was looking at the mural spraypainted on the brick wall.

It had aliens wearing basketball jerseys DJing records that were pizzas, hearts with keyholes in them floating through outerspace, dinosaurs holding bow and arrows, floating hands dropping sand, the moon, rockets, swirls, cats.

Spider-Man told me about how he was there when the community helped artists paint the wall a few years ago.

Everybody set up a little camp in the lot, and they grilled and spent time with other families in the neighborhood.

“I mean yeah, we’re going to miss everybody,” he said. “Our first trip back probably won’t be for a long time, but — it’s whatever.”

Janet said some things about what Las Vegas would be like — as though repeating things Spider-Man had told her many times.

“Ey, there’s Keith,” Spider-Man said. He pointed to the alley across the lot. “KEITH! EY, KEITH!”

Keith was walking through the alley, trying to balance with his head down.

I’d heard Spider-Man and others talk about Keith.

Something about not smoking Keith’s weed.

Something about PCP.

Embalming fluid dipped joints.

Walking around talking to streetlights.

Something something.

Something about how he’s banned everywhere.

The 7/11, the liquor store, fucking outerspace.

Man, Keith banned from the fuckin galaxy!

“Keith!” Spider-Man yelled again. “Ey Keith!”

Keith kept walking.

“He got his headphones on,” Spider-Man said.

He threw some rocks.

Nothing.

“I’ma go get him,” Spider-Man said, ran off.

I asked Janet about the stuffed animals in the back pouch of her wheelchair — a blue bear and a little orange cat staring at me.

Janet said, “Wuh, one is called Bluey, and um, the other, Ms. Meow Meow.”

She formally introduced me to both, speaking for them.

I said hello, waving to each as they waved to me.

We had a short, polite conversation during which we discovered that everyone was having a nice day.

Janet apologized for them both being dirty and said they were going to get baths before they left, along with everything else they were bringing.

“Yeah,” I said, looking into the all-white eyes of Ms. Meow Meow. “Yeah.”

Spider-Man and Keith came back.

Keith was drunk as fuck, sipping liquor from a small plastic orange-juice container and laughing like ‘guh guh guh.’

He had slicked-back gray hair and a boiled-looking face with deep wrinkles.

He wore a leather coat, sweater, dress pants and dress shoes.

He had very small, perfectly straight teeth, except for one front tooth that looked like a drop of spit coming out of his gumline.

I kept expecting it to fall out.

He started talking like, “Yeah no…no yeah, I mean, no because….”

Eventually he told us about some tents he’d seen in a nearby alley, said we should go grab them.

“Yeah no, I mean I got these tents,” he said. “They’re in this one yard. No but I, see there was, shit I gotta go to sleep. But no, there’s tents, I got tents. I woke up too early though, and I gotta, I gotta go to sleep now.”

“How long they been there?” Spider-Man said.

“I mean no,” Keith said. “Onissly, I think yeah, maybe two or three nights or somethin.”

“Oh, what?” Spider-Man said, relighting the cigarette in his mouth. “They ain gonna be there then. Hellllll to the motherfuckin nah.”

I stared idly at the cherry on his cigarette before turning to look at Keith.

Keith had put in plastic vampire teeth.

He bit at me, opening his eyes real big.

And for a second, it genuinely scared me.

Like my heart beat faster and I almost jumped at him.

But then the teeth fell out a little.

Keith, you silly bastard.

I can see why you’re banned in outerspace!

…the fucking galaxy!

“Let’s go get the tents,” I said.

“Nah, they won’t be there,” Spider-Man said, shaking his head. “Shit.”

Keith still had the vampire teeth in, kind of.

He made a serious expression. “Hey but no, who knows, man. But onissly though, I have to go to sleep, so, let’s va-moose.”

Spider-Man and I left to go get the tents.

Keith gave us vague instructions, following far behind, trying to keep up.

At one point, we lost him.

But then he came out from behind a parked car and made a scary face at us with the plastic vampire fangs in his mouth — both hands up high over his head, walking wide-legged for some reason.

“He always cross the street in the middle,” Spider-Man said, laughing. “I’on’t know, he likes them thrills I guess.”

We went down an alley.

Keith showed us the backyard.

“They’re in, um — they’re over there,” he said.

He was laughing, trying to keep the vampire teeth in his mouth.

He walked down the alley, yelling something about needing to go to sleep.

Spider-Man went into the backyard and grabbed a duffle bag and a rolled-up tarp.

On the walk back, we discussed how nice the tent would be if we could get it set up, especially since it was going to rain.