Sam Pink - Witch Piss

“They come up to the water — sip sip — hmmmm that’s good. Look around, make sure no lions around and shit — sip sip — hmm, that’s good. Hey guys, let’s go!”

He waved the other wildebeests forward over his shoulder.

He walked around the front entrance area of the library, saying, “Ohhh-wowo. Ohhhhh-wowo. That’s what they say, bro. Ohh-wowo.”

Janet kept trying to show him her score in the videogame but he ignored her.

“Trivia,” he said, clasping his hands together with both his forefingers to his lips. “Lobsters, crab, shrimp and krill: what are they?”

“Crustaceans?” I said.

“No, insects. Six legs. Fuckin exoskeleton. And they lay eggs.”

Spider-Man did an egg-laying motion.

He squatted down and put his hands on his hips, saying, “Pip pip pip.”

I was laughing.

He continued to do it, looking side to side.

He grabbed his 40 and drank the last of it in a few pulls.

Then he licked his lips, blinking his eyes. “Hmm, spicy!”

Janet laughed, slouching forward in her chair.

Spider-Man did the egg-laying motion again, extending his ass with his hands on his hips.

“Pip pip pip.” He stood up. “Shit bro, that’s like the motherfuckin tarantula hawk. You heard about this bitch?”

“Have I heard about the tarantula hawk?” I said.

He told me about the tarantula hawk.

“This some fuckin alien shit,” he said. “Gah be kiddin me! It’s a fucking wasp that attacks tarantulas man! Oohwee!” He made a face like he’d stubbed his toe. “That shit’s like four inches long bro”—gesturing with his fingers out, thumbs end-to-end. “You kiddin me?!” He started pacing a little, shaking his head. “Are you high !? Fucking tarantula hawk swoop down”—he motioned with his one hand like he was dive bombing, made the other hand into a crawling spider, “stings — shish, shish. Meanwhile this guy’s biting — narsh narsh — sting, bite, sting, bite, fuuuucckkk!! It’s bananas. That’s totally bananas, man. Tony bananas. After a few stings, that spider’s done, man. Fuckatta here. Then the tranchula hawk carries the motherfucker back to the nest, where there’s already a hole and drops that motherfucker in.” He chopped one hand into the other hand. “LAYS EGGS ON THE MOTHERFUCKER”—pauses, staring at me—“pip pip pip, then covers em back up and leaves. So when the eggs hatch they got something to eat before they climb out the ground and fly away.” He made a ‘twinkling’ motion with his fingers going up to the sky. “What!?” He paced away, pointing at me. “That’s nuts man. That’s some alien shit.” He turned around. “You wanna tell me we came here from a man and woman!? Hahhhh, nah du. Nah, that’s some outerspace shit. Some alien shit. Fuck that.”

Janet said, “Fock dat. Heh. Dayum.”

The front of her vest was dark with drool.

She took some lipstick out of her pocket, told me she stole it from a pharmacy.

“I, um, I only take, luh, little things.”

“She a klepto, man!” Spider-Man said. “She see something, she take it. She have to take it. Shit. That’s what a klepto is man!”

Janet applied some lipstick.

Spider-Man told her to rub her lips together, demonstrating himself with his hands on his hips.

Janet was looking at me, pushing her lips out with her eyes closed.

“Do — do it look, good?” she said.

“Yeah, it looks nice,” I said.

She laughed, opening her eyes.

Then she hiccupped, front teeth biting down over her bottom lip.

“Wait, why you puttin lipstick on?” Spider-Man said, folding his arms. “Who you tryna kiss?”

“Yuh, you beb!” she said. “Shit.”

Spider-Man danced up to her and they kissed.

He told me more about Janet’s crimes.

She was laughing the whole time.

He told me about how he and Janet and his friend Tony used to steal DVDs from video rental places.

Tony was also in a wheelchair.

Spider-Man would go into a videostore pushing him, acting like they didn’t know Janet, who’d go in a few minutes later.

Then Tony would knock over a display case and Spider-Man would apologize to the employees and help them clean it up while Janet put stacks of DVDs in her wheelchair and left — Spider-Man and Tony following soon after.

All in all they stole about 300 DVDs at different places.

I was laughing.

Spider-Man said, “Nah, but man, Tony, he was my best friend, man. I loved him. He just died like — shit — three days ago.”

His eyes got a little more red and watery.

When I asked what happened, Spider-Man just said Tony had gotten really sick, had sores on his legs all the way into the bone, couldn’t breathe.

“His body just didn’t wanna do it anymore,” he said. “But nah, he ok now.”

He explained how Tony was in a wheelchair since the age of 10, when he got shot in the head by a stray bullet.

Spider-Man looked at Janet. “He knew what it was like to walk, see? He remembers. You don’t. You couldn’t even dream about it because you never knew. See?”

Janet ignored him, playing blackjack on her phone again, the music loud.

I smelled s’mores.

She looked up and said, “Oh, shuh, shit. Fock dat.” She looked at me. “No, doe worry. Iss, muh, my problem. Shit.”

She backed into the wall a few times, made a few wrong turns, then used the automatic door and went inside the library.

Spider-Man sat in the woodchips and plugged in his phone, started playing a game.

The music was funny.

Quest music.

Made my heart beat harder.

Made me want to quest so bad.

Fuck yeah.

Any quest.

Me and whoever.

Me by myself.

I don’t care if I die.

If I go on a quest and it kills me, oh well, that’s how I want it.

I sat down in the woodchips next to Spider-Man.

“Love this game,” he said, sniffing a few times. “Called Blood Brothers . You gotta run through valleys and shit, fuckin fight monsters and snakes. Scrazy man. Fuckin bananas. I got this fuckin sword, you gotta be kiddin me! Fuckin crystal sword, dahhhh.”

He showed me the screen.

Couldn’t tell what I was looking at.

He started playing again and I listened as he detailed the plot of the game, including main bosses.

Many of the bosses sounded impossible to beat.

And yet, here he was, beating them.

I saw a day-old daily paper under the bushes.

I looked through it without reading anything — eventually just laying the paper open on my lap and staring at some birds on a powerline.

Fuck yeah.

Spider-Man tapped the paper, saying, “That’s some fucked-up shit, man. They finally sentenced his ass.”

It was a story from a few years ago when this guy in the neighborhood ran up behind two women and hit them both in the head with a baseball bat, damaging the one girl to where she’d never talk again.

The attacker was sentenced to 120 years.

“Oh yeah, I remember this,” I said.

“ Fuck that punk,” Spider-Man said, pointing down with his bent-up finger. There was snot coming out of his nose. “Fuck that motherfucker. That’s some bitch shit, du. Fuckin pussy! Man they better relocate his ass to a different state, du. If he serves around here, they’a kill his ass right away. Fucking pussy bitch. I wish he try that shit on me. Bring that bat here, motherfucker. You get one swing.” He held up one finger. “Then I fucking kill you.”

I imagined myself as a public executioner for the city of Chicago.

One who used a baseball bat to execute prisoners.

I’d live in a tower somewhere out in Lake Michigan, within a few miles of the city.