“Meak_Mill, nigga, Meak_Mill is the shit. I don’t want to hear about no Drake!” espoused Wantross Johnson as he banked off of Old Philadelphia Road onto Route Forty, vaguely recalling that this was how you got across the river to Northeast Maryland if you wanted to get to Camden, Wilmington or Philly—the states in which these cities were located somewhat more fuzzy in his mind. He did, certainly, blame New Jersey for the bulk of it. Why going to New Jersey was just plain bad luck and this trip, with this dumb nigga next to him had been the worst in a while.

Terry, in the passenger seat, slight and pensive, grumbled, “It’s a fool’s errand anyhow, yo. I mean, we driving up the East Coast promoting Lille Man’s shit, en we arguing about the real talent out there.”

“What you sayin’, son?” Montross, snapped as he grilled his cousin.

Terry settled down, “Look, just pull over and chill for a few then we back up the way to infamy and misfortune.”

He was right, so Montross calmed down and eased off the gas, pulling over on the shoulder and—“Oh, shit, Terry—oh, man, a fucking State cop. I changed lanes without signaling. We already lost money on this trip if I get a ticket.”

Terry was dumping his weed out through a slight crack in the door and Montross was terrified he was going to open the door—“Stay cool, Terry, there two police in that cruiser—what the fuck…”

Terry blurted, “Hands on the dash, show hands—these redneck police be trigger happy.”

Not even realizing he had cut the Camry off—Mom’s beloved Camry—Montross had his hands on the dash, then disaster struck, the shadow of a cop stopped next to his window—which was rolled up, and he was afraid to take his hands off the dash and the cop was tapping. Calming himself, Montross decided to make eye-contact with the State cop and plead without moving his hands, and then he saw that this was no State cop, but a fucking Confederate bank robber out of some ancient white boy movie, holding two old-ass revolvers on him and Terry, one of them breaking the glass out of the window as the scar-choked voice of the skelator-looking skinhead in the State cop hat and the trench coat, rasped like Death, “Okay, fat boy, slide your big ass over on that skinny weed-head’s lap.”

Montross complained as Terry groaned in pain, “Son, you are crushing my narrow ass!”

“Shut up, Terry, this is some serial killer shit, here!”

Having forgotten the keys, which were now dangling from the fingers of the hand holding the gun that was stuck in his face, Montross listened up as Skelator spoke, “Be quite, stay calm, and do as I say and you will remain unharmed. I am walking around to your side. Make no moves.”

In what seemed like the longest beat his heart had ever taken, the man was standing before them, Terry smashed under his bulk, one gun trained on them as the cop hat was tossed and a gigantic golden earring was taken from around the man’s neck and dropped on the ground right where Terry’s baggie of weed was. Skelator then spoke.

“Pocket that weed, negro. We’ll smoke it later. Both of you crawl out and sit cross legged with your back to the car, facing the hoop.”

They hurriedly complied, their being something cold and menacing about this man that made him seem to be in the worst kind of hurry.

Racist and Nazi tattoos were showing on his neck and hands as he indicated the hoop with his pistol barrel and spoke, like someone who smoked five packs a day, “I am a time traveler. Before you sits my device. I don’t like to travel light. I need weight and you qualify. Weedhead, slide open the panel opposite the dial on the hoop.”

Terry did so, revealing what looked like wires and tweezers of gold.

Take the tweezers and a wire—they are short—and draw them out.’

Terry did so, hands shaking.

Take the tweezers and score your friend’s wrist an inch below the hand.

With hands shaking, Terrence seemed incapable, so Montross said, “I’ll do it,” looking up into the cold grey eyes and getting a go ahead nod.

“Like that?” Montross asked as he scrapped but did not cut his wrist.

“Yes, now place the fat end of the wire at the mark. Do not panic. It will not hurt you. It is a medical implant.”

Montross placed the head of the wire, which looked like the eye of a needle, on the scrape mark and the wire came to life, like a little golden worm, burrowing under his skin—“Oh shit, you, are you fucking kidding me!”

Skelator rasped, “Stay calm and you will soon be a member of an elite league of interloping assholes. It’s a lot of fun…” and the world swam as his head hit the doorframe of Mom’s Camry…

Montross felt light-headed as Terry shook him awake, “Montrose, Montrose, here the man said we can smoke some weed right in front of that State cop he has duct-taped next to that car. This is seriously bad-ass fo-real shit, Montross. Here, take a drag—dude even walks with blunts. We’re like in a Star Trek episode with Jonah Hex—wake the fuck up!”

As the smoke coursed through his lungs and he woke and relaxed in one sublime moment, Montross looked to his right and saw a big State cop duct-taped like a pig ready for slaughter, eyes as big as anything.

To his left was Terry, who had somehow become good friends with this racist white fiend based solely on their shared appreciation of smoking pot.

Feeling kind of weak over passing out and feeling like a bitch too, Montross looked their abductor in the eye as the sound of police sirens came to his ears. The man had holstered both of is guns, had the hoop in his hands as he smoked a blunt, and said, like Clint Eastwood as a pothead with cancer,

“You can stay here caught in the crossfire, or grab a hold and ride a bitch called Time.”

With those words the man dropped the golden hoop and it did not fall—not far—but crackled like thunder and made a womp-womp-wompeded sound that brought them to their feet in a kind of shock as it hovered at waist level. The man had drawn a pistol in response to the blaring police cruisers screeching to a halt behind them, then grabbed the hoop, his gun trained on the approaching cops, saying, “Now or never, Montross.”

With that Terry seized the hoop at one in the same time as Montross and they began shaking like iron filings in a magnetic field. He wanted to let go when he felt the charge in him building but could not. He did have time to say some smart ass shit, so he took it, saying smartass shit to men holding guns being something he had always wanted to do. “So, Skelator, why you taking us instead of that cop?”

The answer never came, only a widening grin as car windows exploded and the hoop gaped open like a great snake with a timeless yearning to swallow Montross—who had the sinking feeling that he was too damned big to fit…