Witch Piss

by Sam Pink

  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.

  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.

  SUNBEAM SWORD

  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.

  Spider-Man had a small electronic keycard thing on his necklace chain and he swiped it on a small display in front of the register.

  He got points with purchases.

  He checked his points on the screen, scrolling through what he could get for 70 points.

  At 100, he got a travel coffee container.

  He expressed interest in the travel container, but — as he showed me with more scrolling — for 15,000 points, he got 2 hours for him and 20 friends to ride around in the company van drinking Slushees.

  It was called ‘The Brain Freeze Package.’

  “Me, you — fuckin anybody,” he said. “We drive around drinking as many Slushees as we can handle man, shiiiit, you in?”

  “You’re never going to get 15,000 points,” I said, paying the cashier. “Never.”

  He laughed. “Fuckin A. Fuckin bananas.”

  He grabbed the cigarettes and started packing them.

  We walked back to the alley and leaned on the hoods of rental cars, drinking our 40s.

  There was a gang tag on a train track column.

  Spider-Man tapped it with his 40 and talked about how gangbangers were pussies now.

  “Straight bullshit, man, fuckatta here. Stealin and killin in your own neighborhood? What!? Are you high? Should be protecting your neighborhood — protecting your city.”

  He talked about how he gangbanged for the Insane Deuces when he was younger and how a rival in the Simon City Royals shot and killed three of his friends.

  “Little scrawny ass motherfucker with a gun, man,” he said. “We didn’t play that gun shit back in the day, man. Hayo nah.” He got off the car and paced around, waving his hand and shaking his head. He stopped and pointed at me, “That shit was pussy shit, man. You used your hands, or a bottle, or chain, bat, knife. No guns.” He grabbed his bent-up nose and said, “Where you think I got this? Or this”—lifting up his shirt and showing me some stab wounds.

  So he and two guys from different gangs — the Latin Kings and the Maniac Latin Disciples — got together and killed the guy who shot his friends.

  They found out where he lived and attacked him on his back porch.

  Spider-Man made punching and kicking motions.

  His tophat wobbled and swayed.

  A train was coming.

  He seemed to remember something.

  “Oh man,” he said, and touched his face, grimacing, “That shit….”

  He walked over to the concrete foundation of a train track column.

  As a train went by overhead — cancelling all sound — he made a motion as if pounding the guy’s face into the concrete over and over, yelling something.

  He bent down at the knees a little and motioned with both his hands.

  The train was gone.

  “Then I grabbed that motherfucker by the throat,” he said, teeth clenched. “I choked the shit out him. He was blue, totally blue, couldn’t fucking make a sound. You kiddin me? And I said, ‘You remember Buddy? Psycho? Cowboy? Huh?’ He kept tryna to breathe, but the blood was all over. And I said, ‘Fuck you.’”

  He made a motion like he was dropping the guy, kicking his head one last time.

  They left him dead on his back porch, strangled, his head smashed in.

  “Me and the other du’s, we hooked em up,” Spider-Man said, gesturing like him and two other people were making a triangle with their arms, “We made the triangle, bing bing, and everybody left.” He walked a few steps one way, pointing—“One guy went this way.” Then he walked a different direction, pointing. “Another guy went this way.” He pointed a different way, “I went this way. Never saw either of them again. And I don’t regret it, man. Hayo nah I don’t.”

  Janet rolled up right as her battery died.

  “Shit, dayum. Fock dat. Heh.”

  “Ey, there she is,” Spider-Man said.

  She was soaked, wearing a candy necklace.

  Said she’d been at Troy’s, and that Troy had given her the candy necklace.

  Spider-Man grabbed the necklace and kept trying to bite it but she slapped at his hand.

  “Shut up, beb,” she said. “Um, can I’ve a cigarette, peez?”

  Spider-Man put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it for her.

  I watched Janet smoke her cigarette, her head wobbling — saying, “Shit, damn, fock dat” on repeat as Spider-Man bit off pieces of her necklace and made suggestions about what he’d do to Troy if Troy stole her from him.

  Things with scissors.

  Things with bricks.

  Look out, Troy!

  Janet kept saying, “Ok, ok. Shut up, beb.”

  She went to flick her cigarette and it fell into her lap, burning her sweatpants.

  Spider-Man told her to drop her cigarettes off to the side and not try any ‘fancy flickin things.’

  He kept grabbing her hand.

  “Over here, ok!?” he said. “Over here!”

  “Ok, ok,” she said, trying to pull her hand back.

  We stood around drinking, listening to the swish of rush hour traffic in the rain.

  The trains above, more frequent, each time sending down older rainwater off the tracks onto my head and neck and back.

  An ambulance and firetruck passed with sirens on.

  Spider-Man jogged out to the edge of the alley and checked their identifying numbers.

  “Both of them #3,” he said. “That’s over on Shakespeare and California. Right by where my mom used to live.”

  He talked about how his mom used to make cookies every Sunday for the firemen and policemen.

  Firemen and policemen would line up at her house on Sunday to get a cookie.

  “She’d draw em like pigeons,” Spider-Man said. “Man, one time—”

  But then he started crying.

  He walked away a little, pinching his eyes.

  Then he came back and told a story about firemen stopping traffic when he and his mom were walking home from the grocery store, to get out and hug him and his mom.

  Janet said how they used to live with Spider-Man’s mom, and how much they loved each other.

  “She, um, change my diaper. I say, ‘You no have to do it, Janny be back soon.’ But she, didda for me. I, wuh was embarrass, because no one see my, my privates. My, um, vu
h—”

  She looked at Spider-Man.

  “Vagina,” he said, sniffing. “Yes, that’s what you have.”

  Janet looked back and me. “Um, yeah, my vagina. Heh. Shit.”

  Spider-Man was still crying, looking to the side and shaking his head.

  But then he ate a few more pieces off Janet’s candy necklace and seemed to feel better.

  He checked the time on his phone and asked if I could push Janet to the library.

  He wanted to go to the library to charge all their stuff before they left the next day.

  I handed Janet my 40 and tucked her stuffed animals more securely into the back pouch of her wheelchair.

  I pushed her out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

  It was raining hard again.

  We were completely wet in seconds.

  Janet joked about stealing my drink.

  “I gonna, heh, I gonna, steal it,” she said, holding the 40 closer to herself.

  “Don’t steal it,” I said.

  She laughed and said, “I luh, luff you.”

  I pinched rain out of my nose. “Yeah?”

  She quietly said, “No, I mean it. I do.”

  When we got to the library, I parked her underneath the front entrance overhang.

  Spider-Man came running up, wheeling the luggage.

  “Oohweee,” he said, shaking off.

  He took off his tophat and slapped it a few times.

  He put their luggage beneath some bushes, setting the sleepingbags under the overhang.

  I sat down crosslegged and drank my 40.

  Janet took out her stuffed animals and petted them.

  We hung out drinking until really late, talking about what they had to do when they got to Las Vegas, playing trivia, yelling at people who walked by in costumes, trying to throw our bottlecaps against each other, pissing in the bushes, laughing.

  I told Spider-Man and Janet I would miss them and to call me whenever they came back.

  Eventually they went to sleep in their sleeping bags.

  I sat there for a little bit then got up and walked home.

  By the time I got near my place, it was getting light out.

  Sunbeams were coming down from the bottom of the cloud-cover, pointing to different areas of Chicago.

  And I wanted to break off a sunbeam right where it met with the clouds and use it as a sword to protect the city.