“I say the devil he a walking man”
-Crossroads, Tracy Chapman
Reggiemon had taken a tea pot away from the base of the burning barrel, set it between his feet, and said to his companions, “Any tea for youz?”
Otis belched, tossed aside an empty can, and popped the tab on another, answering, “None of that weak-ass piss for me.”
Reggiemon then looked to Simp, who chirped, “Sho brutha, sho—brew that magic fruit!”
With that eager note of agreement Reggiemon opened a can of Coconut Chai Black Tea with the picture of some dancing gypsy on it, and dropped a handful of tea bags into the pot. He then reached back behind his ear, pulled out a reefer, sooty with oil from his hair, said to it, “Steep for me bother weedz,” and dropped that in, to which Otis started, letting on that he was a country fellow, “What the hell!”
Simp, for his part cheered, “Hells yes!” and waited patiently as the magic reefer tea steeped and Reggiemon knocked the leaves from two clay mugs that had been secreted away beneath the couch cushions.
Otis was upset, “You didn’t say nothin’ about no joint!”
Reggiemon then blinked a blank stare at Otis, reached deep within his dreadlocks to the scalp, above his neck in the back, and produced a joint of considerable size, black as tar and ancient looking.
Otis was nonplussed, “Nigga, you expect me to smoke that nasty grease from your unwashed hair?”
Simp, a believer in magic, could not help himself, “Yo, Big Man, Reggiemon got magic in his blood. He is the walking pharmacy—smokes that mushroom patch in the woods, and that shit exudith from his scalp and impregnate the joint, making it a psychedelphic expedience. I smoke it all the time—even earned my G.E.D. on this shit!”
Otis then signaled to Reggiemon that he would try the joint, to which the Waymaker looped a length of bailing wire around the joint, and reached the dangling contraption into the burning bin where it caught light and then fed out the length of wire with the joint attached—one end smoldering—toward Otis, who exclaimed, “Shit shouldn’t just light without a puff on the other end.”
Simp spoke up, “It’s Holloween brutha, anything can happen.”
Otis snapped back, betraying his country origins for certain this time, “It ain’t nothin’ hollow about Hollerween—it’s spelled H, o, l, l, e, r, e, e, n.”
Simp quipped, “It ain’t a hollerin’ contest neither!”
Both of the lesser-minded men then looked to Reggiemon for his opinion. At first, he ignored them and nodded to the joint that Otis was greedily savoring. “Pass it a round brotherz.”
Otis was belligerent, “Fuck you and your tea too, niցցer. I ain’t passing shit.”
Reggiemon let that slide and aswered their unspoken question. “The Whiteman callz it Hallow –Ween, as in All Hallowed Eve, a polar bear cult of many dying godz. In my faith it is pronounced Hallaweenz, the pronunciation of which I carry proof for in my mindz. I have another joint for the man who tells the best story, by a two-to-one vote, in support of his spelling of the holiday.”
Simp blurted, “Ghost stories, I love ghost stories!”
Otis sneered, “Shit, I’m a real grown-ass country boy—tell a story that will make your weak-ass city story, and you nasty-haired island story look pale as a old white bitch’s ass!”
Reggiemon then reached out with one long arm and poured a mug full of tea for Simp, “Good health to you, little brutherz.”
He then poured the other mug of tea and reached over the flaming can from a crouch to extend the drink to Otis, not even noticing the flames licking up to singe the hairs from his arms. Otis received the drink that Reggiemon had seemingly been pouring for himself without a hint of gratitude.
“That’s right Island Boy, yer learnin’ now. By morning this will be called Camp Jawbreaker.”
Otis and Simp sipped their tea, which caused Simp to grin joyfully and Otis to scowl, as they nodded their approval. Then, Simp noticed the strangest thing. When Otis took another drag on his reefer, the end glowed not red, but blue, like the ghost fire in Reggiemon’s burn barrel.
Otis then sneered down over the can at Simp as he draped one apelike arm over the back of the brown couch and inhaled deeply, “Well City Boy, you first—let you just explain so it’s believable how the hollow got in Hollerween.”
Simp grinned with his rare smile of belonging and acceptance, feeling on top of the world to be part of such a trio—if only the third gimp leg—and set his tea aside, as he took the stage, being a hand talker loathe to spill sacred weed juice on account of an explanation mark shaped by the declarative hand.
As Simp stepped past the barrel of burning light to stand beneath the willow tree hung with near a hundred tortured dolls, and placed his back to the hood, he reached within for his story, and found it there, in possession of a small boy named Simpford Collier, cowering beneath the medicine man’s porch, way back in the day...
The sound snake emitted by the miles distant train sounded somewhat closer, sending a tingle up Simp’s spine as he placed his back to the much-feared hood woods that separated the hood from the camp and began to tell his tale.
