“Demons they are on my trial
I’m standing at the crossroads of the hell”
-Tracey Chapman, Crossroads
Otis Jackson lacked certain qualities as a person—some might say all of those qualities that mattered. However, as a storyteller, he only lacked most of the necessary qualities and did his unlevel best to make up for those bardic deficiencies through the outrageous bric-a-brac of his knucklehead imagination. So, as the sound snake slithered down through the belly of the world on this crisp night of woe, Otis forged on in his convoluted way, black devil dolls hanging just above his head, a fifth of fine whisky half-gone in his hand, and an undiminished blue-flame joint yet smoking between his big meaty lips.
Halfway drunk and high as an Afghan kite, Otis decided to bring the audience into the story, a time-worn and not beyond the norm tradition among men who rest their bones on the Outskirts of The World.
He pointed alternately with the sloshing bottle of whisky to Simp then to Reggiemon, as he drew them into his tale with his singular brand of crass disdain:
“So, gap-toothed midget who do tell, en black as dooke nigga who do smell, you about to find the secret of you regret in the doings of the hollerin’ fools that did invest—en I don’t mean infest, I says invest with a purpose—Jew-Boy Babble’s vertical church. You see, even while Faroe playin’ poker in the lobby and Pilot usin’ dat new state-of-the-smart men’s room to wash his hands of the entire affair, that vertical church be piercin’ the sky!
“One day dis nigga John be sellin’ Jordans over by the casement pond that done dried up from all the construction. Then, he look up and see that vertical church piercing the clouds and he hollers, ‘The sky will burst, will drown us all, so you need to try these Jordans at half price and get them a little wet, to proof them against the flood that comes!’
“Then this ugly old bitch with bad skin they called Heretta screech, ‘Nigga, have you lost yo head!’
“And there it go, a no rent riot down by the casement pond. CNN is in the house with its news pigeons flying off this way and that and, lo en take hold, watchyougot out in the Suburbs but a bunch of nervous white folks and panicking house niցցers gettin’ all worried about the hollerin’ up down and aroun’ that vertical church. Then one of them gay white bitches—who wear a suit and work as the weatherman—a certain fellow by the name of Whitey Know-It-All—point to that vertical church and start talkin’ all kine-a shit about global warming, rising oceans, some nigga name Jonah gonna be up in yo living room drinking yo liquor wit Barney the Faggot Whale on Wednesday night, and there commence a general panic of sissy white and stupid black scurrying about.
“Whitey Know-It-All one a these college boys, huggin’ trees, savin’ purple faɡɡot whales, open a carwash for oily ducks stead-a cookin’ they asses, and working all year building his floating zoo: two of this critter, two of that critter, only one of this ugly motherfucker right here—extinct his ass please, and so on, and slow onnn.
“Finally, the sky split with lightning en it rains for days and nights and days and nights, to the point where ticket scalpers are selling floating zoo tickets for so much that the stock market sink like a stone and the housing market burst like a bubble, leaving old Babble King of the world—a rainy-ass world with Whitey Know-It-All sailing away from that mess and saying, ‘Fuck you, I’m globalizing my shit’—and there he go, off shore en out of the story…but leaving a gap, a notch to be filled on God’s gun belt, as Ole Babble look on the now empty Suburbs with greed and big-do-he-not-know, is the bastard boy he let loose on the world lo those many big butt years ago!”
Simp and Reggiemon were clapping to beat the band and the Waymaker had words of compliment.
“Big brotherz, despite the Hebrew-hating tone of your narrative, I must complement you on drawing in a surrogate Noah to honor the October reading of his story from the Torah according to the lunar calendar of that put upon folkz. Your compassion is a balanced wheelz.”
Simp chirped, “Really, how so?” as he looked to Otis for a clarification, to which Otis impatiently nodded to Reggiemon and said dismissively, “What he said, nigga.”
Wide spread the big legs on boat boots.
Blue glowed the flame of the undiminished joint, apparently stuck in the crease of that big meaty mouth.
Massive waxed the black pupils of the big man’s eyes.
Haunting was the echo of the sound snake as the dead dolls danced their rootless dance.
Up went the half empty fifth of whiskeeeeey.
Back went the medicine-ball sized head,
Out poured the mind-dumbing nectar of the Canadian polar bear gods, down into the wide open mouth of the giant…
And the blue flames licked the belly of the sinking night.
