“All you folks think you own my life

But you never made any sacrifice

Demons they are on my trail”

-Tracy Chapman, Crossroads

“Confident that they would be given change, the boys had brought none. Simpton was penniless, without a coin to put into a pay phone. There was nothing to do but escape with Jamal, get the poleese, and come to Tealy’s rescue before he was killed and eaten by the evil white man. Simpton, compelled to take high action, grabbed the drugged Jamal under the arms and began to drag him forth from that hellish abode, only to pull Jamal, and the chair he was sitting in, over on himself!

“Flat on his back with a crash, Simpton tried to wiggle his narrow butt from under his friend, and get to some defensible position, only—to his horror-filled ears—hear the click of the heavy door latch and then the creak of it as the two white shoes appeared on the other side of the clawed table legs. His heart beating high in his throat, Simpton scrambled out from underneath Jamal and dived onto a couch as the angry white man plunged after him. Simpton then leaped over the couch and onto an end table where a lamp crashed, causing the lights to dim, making the place all the more frightening. Terrible hands closed on his patch of nappy hair and, thanks to the stress his mamma had been laying on him, near the entirety of his remaining head of hair was left behind in the white man’s hands as he ran screaming for the door, only to find it locked, the nasty white fiend coming up behind!

“Simpton, the fear of the devil inspiring his burst of frananticism, zoom-ducked under the Medicine Man’s outstretched hands and ran right out his window, falling five—nigh—ten—feet into the bushes! Crawling like a Jap-shot-at soldier in a movie, Simpton made his way to a bush beside the porch and hid there, while the man walked and mumbled on the wooden porch above, eventually going inside.

“When the lights went out in that evil house, Simpton looked for basement window lights and then noticed that there were no basement windows, their places having been bricked up by sinister hands! He resolved though, to keep vigil, and crept across the street to skuk in some neighbor bushes.

“Finally, around about midnight, Tealy, crying and whimpering, with Jamal leaning on him, came walking out the door with each holding a bag full of candy, a white shadow lurking behind the blind of the street window as they limped over to Simpton, who ran to assist with Jamal, who was never again right in the head after eating that chocolate bunny. The boys stopped off in the woods and dumped their candy, not wanting another taste. They went walking on back to the hood like true gray ghosts out of hell, never to speak to one another about anything, ever again.”

“And so the Medicine Man took they manhood away,

Even as children, way back in the day.

Jamal a living-in-mamma’s basement faɡɡot to this day,

Tealy straight up gay,

And ole Simp, neva known a woman even though he come all this long way.”

The two towering men, one hunched like a gargoyle on his black throne couch, the other lounging like the biggest panther in the world on the big brown couch, both clapped their approval. Reggiemon congratulated him, “A soul-felt tale it were, little brotherz.”

Otis broke wind with rude authority, sat up, knocked back the remainder of his tea, and then placed the as yet undiminished black joint—which burned cryptic blue on the end, still—in the corner of his mouth and sneered, “Good story, happening villain, but weak-ass characters. Shit, that Simpton fool so weak I’d be embarrassed to tax his ass for a bag of bank deposits!”

That was a statement meant to hurt. But Simp felt liberated by the telling of his story and stood proudly, slightly taller standing than the big man was sitting. “Big Man, this is story time, en how big your ass is makes no never mine—sing your song, Boy!”

Simp strategically walked to his couch as Otis stood his full six and a half feet and took a long drag of the reefer that would not die, regarding Simp now with what appeared to be new found respect. As he glanced menacingly at Reggiemon over the blue flames, and turned toward the story telling spot and turned about, Simp could not help but admire the big man and his pantherish movements, still vital and dangerous at such an age—near to sixty by the cracks around his eyes.

Returned now to his own cozy seat, and finding his tea still piping hot and full, never having noticed Reggiemon refill it as he had been so engrossed in telling his tale, Simp felt expanded, like a man that maybe could be—in his mind at least—as powerful as the big brute now taking the dirt stage with his country swagger.