Sam Pink - Witch Piss

And on the night of the execution they’d send a boat for me and I’d have to go ashore and kill someone with a baseball bat.

Spider-Man discussed the treatment of certain kinds of criminals in prison — like rapists or pedophiles or punks.

The treatment was beatings, stabbings, burnings, rapes, and murder.

“Specially if you hurt them kids, bro,” he said, shaking his head with his eyes closed. “You hurt some kids they cold eat your ass, man.” He started laughing and made a saluting gesture with his hand. “They’a eat your fuckin ass. They say, ‘Ok, you want to hit some girls with a baseball bat? Ok. Alright.’”

He mimed raping someone with a broomstick or bat-like object, doing a motion with one hand like he was breaking a game of pool over and over again.

“Yeah motherfucker, run that shit,” he said, snarling and clamping his teeth. “Run, that, shit.”

He kept doing the motion.

I was laughing.

What a nice day.

A day to ask for forgiveness in advance, for whatever.

A day to quest for forgiveness.

I read a random line in the article about how the attacker made a ‘puppy-dog’ face to his family in court when the judge read the sentence.

“Tellin you, bro,” Spider-Man said, tapping the article again. “They better relocate his ass or he dead. Just like they did with Dahmer. Oohwee. Cold smashed his ass. Fuckin bananas.”

He did a little inhalation through his front teeth like ‘ssssssss.’

Then he explained how Dahmer died, resting his phone in his lap, dulling the quest music.

“A guard took his ass to ‘clean a bathroom,’” Spider-Man said, doing the quotes. “Then the guard left, and four dudes came in and smashed him. Cold smashed his ass. They don’t give a fuck. They all lifers anyway. What’s 45 more years? Who give a fuck? Fuckin fists, kicks, broomsticks, stompin his ass. Bashed his head against the toilet. Dahhh.”

He mimed slamming his own head into a toilet, hand on the back of his neck.

“Goosh goosh goosh, ahhhhh,” he yelled, making a cartoonish face.

He was sucking in the spit that came out over his lips, in between laughing and saying, “Goosh goosh.”

“Ayo yeah, man,” he said. “You kiddin me? Blood everywhere. On the toilets, the sinks, the mirrors. Blood on the fuckin ceiling, man. What!? Are you high?”

I was smiling.

Felt a painful excitement in my chest and stomach.

Like everything was perfect for me at that moment.

Blood all over the ceiling of my life.

Blood everywhere.

A quest for blood everywhere.

If not blood everywhere, then nowhere.

Keith walked by.

He came over and asked for a dime.

I gave him one.

“Yeah I jus woke up,” he said. “Man.” He stared at us for a second. “Went to sleep at like ten this morning, but no because I mean, this morning I got too fucked up, so. Hey but no, you going to Tony’s funeral tonight?”

“Nah man, hell nah,” Spider-Man said. “Not goin to that shit.”

Keith said, “No because, anyway, I have to go to sleep I guess. I’ll see ya.”

He walked away.

The door to the library opened and Janet came out.

Spider-Man said he refused to go to his friend Tony’s funeral because he wanted to remember him how he was, “…smiling, laughing, hugging, playing.”

Same with his mom, his brother, his sister.

“No,” he said, loud. “No way. I’m not going to that shit. Funerals are stupid. Man, just fuckin burn me. Don’t fuckin waste time on making me look fake, fuckin, makin my family sad, buyin an expensive box. Fuck allat. You don’t even have to make it special with the ashes. Thow em in the lake, the fuckin park, I don’t care.”

“Yeah, just pour me down the sewer,” I said, watching traffic for a second.

“Yeah, the sewer,” he said, shrugging, like ‘sure, why not.’

I said what if one or more of your relatives used your ashes to do a homemade tattoo.

And then when s/he died, same thing.

So in a thousand years, your great-great-great-whatever would have part of his great-great-great-whatever inside his/her body as a decoration.

Janet said she wanted to be cremated and worn in a necklace around Spider-Man’s neck.

It took her a long time to explain herself, which annoyed Spider-Man.

He kept referencing her ‘batteries.’

“Damn, ey, where the batteries at?” he said, checking around her wheelchair.

Or he’d try to unplug a plug of hers.

“Should I unplug this? Boop.”

Janet laughed a little.

“How about this?” he said. “Boop.”

“Stop, beb. Stop.”

A woman and child exited the library.

They walked up to the street, holding hands.

The child had a small head that looked bent down the middle, bowing outward. He yelled “Eh…eh,” pointing at the street with his free hand.

“Downs Syndrome,” Spider-Man said, looking from the kid to me, nodding. “He got Downs Syndrome.”

The kid with Downs Syndrome stood by the street, yelling, “Eh, eh”—pointing at cars.

Spider-Man watched.

“He got Downs Syndrome,” he said. “That’s ok though. Nothin wrong with that. That’s how he talks to the cars, right? He sayin, ‘Hey, let me cross.’ That’s how he talks to them.”

“Yeah,” I said.

I smelled s’mores.

I saw Spider-Man at his old spot beneath the train tracks tonight.

It was warm out and raining very hard, the night before Halloween.

Spider-Man was in his vest and pajama pants and black plush tophat — suitcases by his side and a 40 resting on the hood of a rental car.

He raised his arms and came up and hugged me, pressing his forehead into my forehead.

We were both soaked.

“I thought that’s you,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Oh man.”

His eyes were puffy and there were green plugs of mucus in the corners, paste around his mouth.

Told me he’d been kicked out of the library and couldn’t go back until it closed.

“Where’s Janet?” I said.

He didn’t know.

He shrugged and pinched his nose to clear some rain.

“Should we go find her?” I said.

“Nah,” he said. “She’a find me.” He shook his head. “I can’t ever find her ass, but she always find me. I go to fuckin Italy, fuckin Venice, hide under the docks, she come up knockin, doof doof doof, ‘Hell-ooooooo?’”

The rain was slowing.

I asked if he wanted beer or cigarettes or food.

“Yeah I need a fuckin square, man,” he said. He raised both fists to the train tracks and sky above, dripping water on him. “Need a square now motherfucker, what!?”

We went to the 7/11.

On the walk there, Spider-Man told me about these two kids who fucked with him last night out front of the library and how he chased them.

“Man, I will fuck you up,” he said — to the kids from last night — raising his chin up as we crossed the street. “I will break your motherfuckin ass. Make you my sandwich. No mayo, no nothing. White bread, rye bread, whatever. Just you in my motherfuckin sandwich.”

We entered the 7/11 and wiped our feet off on the rug — both of us soaked and smelling like dogs.

We went to the back of the store.

Spider-Man was still threatening the kids from last night, turning them into sandwiches.

“Nahhn,” he said, doing a biting motion with his teeth, pulling his head back. “Fuckin eat that shit up.”

I opened the glass door in front of him as he continued to mime a chewing motion.

I grabbed two 40s, feeling peace as the bottles behind them clinked forward.

Yes, hello.

I bought the 40s and a pack of cigarettes.