Category: Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter One

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Inside the bar was smoky and slow like a steamed cigarette. Thumper White got there just past five o’clock, and the jawn was quiet. He worked the door at the strip club Lipsweet. Outside, it looked like it might rain. Thumper hoped it did, as he wanna feel rain upon his brow. He spent thirty-four years in prison, where the screws canceled outside time if it might rain — they thinks rain might help a nigga escape — or “abscond” if you a prison guard. He bin waiting to get rained on.
But his dome stayed dry all night as he worked the door alongside this statue-shape nigga Davon. They mostly checked idees, but Thumper saw some nice titties too. After so much time without women, that was a perk that got Thumper reeling.
The lead-up to Thumper’s release was intense. His world opened up again and seemed as limitless as the teeming night sky. A nigga don’t see many stars in prison. But now he was out, and he relied on the club’s owner Mr. Gregarian for a cheapy-deapy place to sleep above the bar and for the job he needed to keep his parole — he gotsta work forty hours or go back to prison, even if he ain’t need all that to pay the bills. He got mandatory therapist appointments and narcotics anonymous meetings even though he never been a mental nor did he ever get accused of using narcotics anonymously. He gotta answer his goddamn phone anytime day or night in case his parole officer called. No excuses. Fucking phone was like a manacle.
A manacle that beeped unscrutable-like. If anybody reading this know how to make a whoopy-doopy-whoop beep stop, let a nigga know. Any nigga wearing red will do. Word’ll get back to Thumper.
His schedule was just as determined on the outside as it was on the inside. He got more privacy on the outside, and his apartment was nicer. But he had homies and choices and free backrubs from the reverend at chapel every Sunday on the inside.
Out here, homies was scarce. Every nigga he knew before his arrest was outta his life now. World was never smaller than now that he was free to walk it alone. Shoulda “absconded” when he was young enough that living free was worth it. Now he ain’t even allowed to leave the state of Maine, so he couldn’t go home to Baltimore and dip his toes in the mighty Chesapeake again.
Thumper was sposedta start bouncering tomorrow night, but the bouncer who was scheduled for tonight done bounce without telling nobody. They was surmising he quit cuz he ain’t show up. Just gone, like a ghost. Maybe he was dead, ain’t nobody check. Cuz he wasn’t around, Mr. Gregarian brought Thumper in tonight to work alongside Davon, who was the head bouncer.
“A’ight, old nigga, we comin’ up on the night proper,” Davon said around nine o’clock, shattering Thumper’s nod. Davon grinned ear to ear. “They be bustling in now. You ready?” A foursome of cars was pulling into the parking lot, each of ’em plum with hipstering honkies lashing on liquidishly like they done start they drinking back home.

Folks did that now. It was trash-high behavior back before, but nowadays every whombody did it. Drinks was expensive for real.

“Hell yeah, Davon, I bin waitin’ for this day for thirty-four years.”
Davon nodded, with a smirky grin like he ain’t get why Thumper said that but ain’t wanna listen to any clarification. He knew Thumper was a ex-con, he just don’t care enough to think about it. Davon was a Blood, same as Thumper. Unlike Thumper, Davon was also a mud-color darkskin prettyboy with teeth like a skeleton and lips made for kissing buttflaps. He was a jubilous talkalot who pretended to pal with people like a pushy puppy. Already he be pimping palms with honkies and addressing ’em like he knew ’em. “There you is, welcome back! Love to see ya, sohn! You keepin’ it real… Scott.” He got they names off they idees as he checked ’em, but he pretended he remembered ’em. In return, they all pretended to be charmed by him. Thumper done hung out with farts that was more interesting than that nothing-muffin. His forgettable six-pack and baby-clean name-brand jeans stretched a teaspoon of charismatic gravy over two hundred fifty pounds of that nigga’s salisbury steak. If niggas was books, Davon’d be a romance novel that was ten pages long but fulla correctly spelled words. Davon was a sea of smiles and dimples, the velveeta of niggas, like a cushion and a cloud didn’t bake a cake, and that cake was sugar-free, fat-free, declawed, defanged and stuffed with puffs of nothingness. That nigga gladhanded every one them no-hoot pecker-toters who lined up to exercise they stiffies in Lipsweet.
The difference between Thumper and Davon — aside from the obvious ones — was that Davon got no problem saying all the fool-ass shit the world want him to say. He do stick to the lines he been given, and he wanna be nice to everyone in case they got more lines to give him in the future. Thumper got no choice to follow Davon.
Well, not true. He could beat that handsome nigga into a ugly stain. Doing so might be preferable one night to pushing obedience at a smooth sac like Davon.
But for now, he do what Davon say, at least as it relates to bouncering.
Not much happened, even when the club filled up. Thumper was hoping for more excitement. Prison was buncha boredom, but at least there was chances to stab a Mexican. The one time a trio of numptious niggas nipped at a dancer’s derriere without proffering payment, it was Davon who brung them a basket of dimple-fried smiles to tell ’em to lay off — nigga was smiling! Seemed nuggety to Thumper, but it worked. Davon smiled more than every nigga Thumper met in prison combined.
Eventually, as time do be doing, it went on, and night’s close drew near. This was it. Thumper was a free nigga, and he got a job, and here it was. This was freedom. He bin imagined hisself living like he did when he was nineteen and a champion boxer and got a coach and high-quality knees and a posse of niggas with plans and he couldn’t swing his dick around without knocking down a white bitch flinging her pussy at him. Now, he gotta speak up to get any fool to pay him mind. He was just another nigga, not in charge of shit, not even within earshot of being in charge.
And, as Teddy the bartender did his last-call bit and Davon began hustling drunks and skunks out the bar like it was his job, Thumper ain’t like it that he was the low soul on the totem pole here. He was twice the age of Davon and Teddy, but they was calling his shots. Shit’s bullshit, nigga.
In prison, Thumper was the nigga who did and everybody knew it. Here, he was just the creepy old head, the new nigga, nobody’s uncle, the graybeard whoever over there.
Ain’t neither of ’em, Davon or Teddy, pick up any what Thumper was putting out. That was good, cuz Thumper need this job. He be simmering though.
He was still simmering when Lipsweet finally closed, and Teddy locked the door. Davon told Thumper to take this unconscious ruddynut to the alley out back and slap the drunkness outta him. Thumper just dropped him by the dumpster and went back in, more outta desire to be disobedient than cuzza mercy. The door back into Lipsweet done lock when it slammed shut, so Thumper gotta rattle his key in the knob to open it up. He ain’t tell Davon he left the ruddynut drunk unsmacked. Davon’s prettyboy mug was putting on a show for the girlies, who watched him tell a story like they worshipped him. Thumper wanna make a shiv, stab his bitch-ass and rip the smirk off his face.
But thirty-four years of prison ran through his old-nigga mind. Thumper fights mean, but he fights clean. So he ain’t do jack shit to Davon. He helped Teddy put the chairs on the tables, so the janitor Ernie could quit spinning his wheels in the backcorridor like a haunted car and come up front to mop.
While Ernie pretended not to steal drinks from behind the bar, Davon disappeared, so Thumper escorted the dancers out to they cars by hisself. When Thumper saw him later, he got the impression Davon got sucked off by one the dancers. Prolly this fiery chowder-white Cherry. None the dancers gave Thumper a second look. Half them ain’t give him a first look.
Looks is scarce for a old nigga outsidea prison.
Thumper overheard the dancers whisper about him as the uncool old nigga, as out-of-touch as a frozen caveman. Davon too, he was joking earlier with Bud the club deejay that Thumper was “old-school but not the cool kind of old-school, he’s old-school like an abandoned orphanage”. They all looked at him like a car nobody makes parts for anymore. Thumper pretended not to hear all them all badmouthing him. That was easy cuz they thought he got old-nigga ears.
When the strippers was all gone home to they coke dealers and/or the highest bidder — they gots expectations to fill, and they fills ’em good — Davon and Teddy dipped. Thumper went upstairs. The apartment Mr. Gregarian gave him was on the second floor.
This whole jawn, the Gregarian building, was a ratmaze of renovated hallways and uncomprehendable architecture, hallways to nowhere, lor tumor-like spaces that done pop up in corridors, scatterings of solitary steps and three-stair staircases. It prolly started off as a mansion. But it done got scrambled and scattered since then, and Thumper got lost when he went looking for the laundry room or Rajesh’s office (Rajesh was the computer man for the club, and he fixed Thumper’s phone when he got a undismissable storm about a missing Spanish girl named Kia Sorento).
He stopped short at a ruffle of fabric, a off-white like light bone, billowing just outta sight to the right atoppa the stairs. “Who’s’at? Yo, uh… ma’am?”
A old-fashioned dress, he thunk, but its tail was all he saw. No way, nothing the strippers at Lipsweet would wear. Them’s the only women he got a expectation to see here now. But outfronts was all over the block in this building, so getting lost and wandering up here was plausibility for a female.
Mind ain’t working right? Wonderment on whether he was having a stroke tolled within Thumper’s mind.
The ruffling sound stopped like a timeless clock. From bottom to top, Thumper got blocked. “You — ain’t — s’posed-ta — be — up — here…” Stumbling short to cork his lungs, Thumper de-posed and unbeckoned like a unloaded weapon, unable to reckon the undead howls afronta his face and bowels.
Beneath a lacy hood like a owl’s head, battle-spike leather and satellite dish feathers surrounded around her mask. A porcelain corpse, she stood like a goblin, in a necklace of coffins, dress waffling in a breeze Thumper ain’t feel. Buggy-mugging, Thumper’s stout mouth and burnt tongue crowded about curtly, but no words emerged to be heard. She silently brayed like birds and bees. Fabric faded like a murky wheeze, silent as a lady’s pleas, lined with lace from rusty seas, the musty dress must be dusty like shaker cheese. Her flaky bust squeezing together with the mask and the ghastly dress made up a way Thumper’s brain couldn’t grasp.
She slid like dead flowers fading fast past showers of parchment in this petrified hall of broken doors in rows run nigga run dead light flowing like salted moths. His boots got rooted soft, and his broth froze awful in the cold wafting off her. He wanna go run leave flee sprint depart, but he couldn’t start, stuck tucked in to unlucky skin. Something missing within, felt like prison again, boxed in like a outfoxed hen, a would-be has-been with a fist-free tin chin who spent his ever-lasting hell in a thin cell of superlative sin. He be dropping nocked wins and bleeding blistered insight.
“Indeed, Mister White,” she said kiss-tight, voice skin-deep and slight, flinty as blight and thick as grout. “I done lost my route in this labyrinth of drought.”
At a standstill-turnt-rout, Thumper was cloudy and stout like a landfill of doubt, crowded with the devout, and his will filled without tingles at all, leaving him small and unshingled. His brain dewrinkled. Self-caging, Thumper felt hisself aging. “Wha… What’cha lookin’ for…?” Enraging in stages, Thumper face to face with her, her lacy grace hurt like a basic church.
A racing lurch under that mask was, like a bug on her face, scuttling like gutter butter into her gullet. Thumper bugged up bullets, agasp at last, after thirty-four years of crafting sass at white crap.
Her voice done did clasp tight as a flask, highly muffled and slightly rasped. “My vast dear, I did dash here to bask in the theatre of fat and fear.” Her mask skittered still as her head cocked aside like a lizard in a rancorous blizzard. Her words set off one and two thoughtful missiles. “You a actor? You come new to the Bangor official, yes?”
“I just moved in. There.” His regret at saying that rumbled soon as spores of doom, but that score was all he got in store. His point was one finger at the door above the floor. He got wishes galore he ain’t spill which apartment was his. This was one white bitch he don’t want dropping by. “The theatre — the movie theatre is closed down. It’s on the other side of the building. It outfronts on Stranger. It’s down those stairs I think.”
“No, Mister White, it ain’t closed, but thank yo’ bones.” She spoke dank as hoes.
“Who… is you?”
“I’s only the bereft wedge of empty woes,” she said, after laughter bounced her dulcet hair. “But you may call me Delsinerr.” A blot of a nod did crest her croney pall, and her blunt cunt glid smooth as a fall down the hall as though she floated above the floor, yet the clogs she wore clicked like clomps on blocks of gore. A stompy rhythm bore her stepless tour, and the wetness of her necklace did clink more and more in sync with the swirling squall of her furious footfalls, hauling gall down Thumper’s maw, for She is They, a slay-bent cabal that shall rend and maul to the end of it all.

When she was gone, Thumper’s mind cleared swift as bisquick, and he breathed normal again. Reality reordered.

Thumper scurried into his apartment and locked the door. He dragged the couch to block the door too. Only then did he start pacing and peeping through his peephole until dawn.
He was lucky the next night was a night off, cuz he ain’t sleep a nickel. He decided to move out, to go to the homeless shelter until he could find a new apartment. He ain’t wanna spend another night in that building where She might come by again, and he sat by the window until daylight flooded his room.
Seeing the sun rise made him think of prison and getting up early as roosters to start work detail, him and bunchesa niggas and Aryans bleary-eyed watching the horizon from the prison bus. He liked seeing the sun rise. Makes a nigga feel human, and watching it now made that crazy Woman in White feel like a dream.
So, in the warm light of day, Thumper decided he musta hallucinated. That was some crazy nightmare or something. She weren’t real. He peered in the window of the movie theater that afternoon, the one on Stranger Street, and it was dusty as a sneeze, unused in years, just a empty lobby and ticket window, one overturnt chair the only furniture. Scatterings of tarnished pennies dotted the counter where the concession-stand register woulda been.
It was just a dream. Thumper weren’t gonna tell nobody about it, cuz if he did, they’d make him for a notiony nigga telling tales. Maybe they would be right.
Somehow, after a full day of sunlight, he did sleep that eve. He thought he’d lay awake again, trying not to think of that masked woman whose presence broke his mind. But he did eventually drift into a fitless sleep and awoke even more tired than the night before.
Then Davon came by after noon, arriving without warning, like a bland tornado. He came to take Thumper to the private gym in the building, outfronting near that movie theater on Stranger. Thumper bin meaning to get down to the gym, but he ain’t do it till Davon brung him there. Davon gave him a doodad to wave around another doodad on the door to make it open. Doodad magic, look it up.
Inside was battle ropes, dumbbells and medicine balls, plus treadmills and one them home bowflex sets. Davon went right to the bowflex and got to flexing, while Thumper walked slow and steady on the treadmill. Felt good to exercise his lungs — not lotta chances to ambulate in prison. The sunnyskin prison doc said to go easy on his heart though, cuz he got a rhythm, so Thumper kept the treadmill turtley.
“Man, my girl sucked me off last night so much my dick hurts,” Davon said between sets. He bin talking about his girl like he expected Thumper to care and be jealous and wanna know the details, but Thumper weren’t gonna give him the satisfaction. Davon done pause his lifting as he raised his eyebrows at Thumper. He was muscled, but he was polished like glass — you could tell he never used them muscles for nothing but impressing females. If a nigga gonna lift, he oughta lift proper. Be the nigga you is pretending to be. Davon said, with a snorty laugh, “Nutted like a dozen times. She got down to the root.”
“Which one?” Thumper asked. “A dancer?”
“Not a dancer. Got sucked off by a dancer too, the other day, but Cherry ain’t my girl. She just a side thang,” Davon said with a laugh. “That side thang keeps it real too, on the downlow. She know what she is.” He resumed lifting intermittent-like, stopping every couple words to look dreamy like a disney stallion. “Shit, my girlfriend is white. Not trashy neither. She nice white, and her mama got a hunk of butt.”
While Davon bothered on about his girl, Thumper got off the treadmill. His old-nigga meat was flopping up and down as he ran, and he wanna put on a jockstrap before he got back on there. Imagineering Davon’s female made Thumper wanna bust a nut, so he took his dick out and gave it a stroke.
In prison, that weren’t no thing. Nobody complained when Thumper let his pecker swing free. That’s cuz Thumper was the complaints department for his cell block, and he do regulate complainers. No room for whining, cells are too cramped. A nigga gots to maintain.
When Davon saw Thumper’s plonker plonking in the cold light of day, he wrinkled his nose — which you could tell never done got broke. If you never broke your nose, you never said nothing pointy, so you either never noticed nothing or you did but kept your pussywillow shut about it. Either way is bad news for a nigga. Both prolly apply to Davon’s buttery mug.
“Shit, you ain’t in prison no mo’, old man. Outside niggas don’t drop dong,” Davon said. “Put’cha drawers on.”
“Nah. You ain’t the boss of me, nigga,” Thumper said. Davon bin acting like he thought maybe he was the boss, and perhaps he was — in the club. But the world outside Lipsweet was vast, and Davon was nothing in it. Thumper let his dingadingdoo jiggle near Davon’s face.
“Man, Thump-“
“Shut up when a old nigga is talking to you. You is in charge of the bouncers, Davon. You tell me how to bounce, you tell me how to clock in at the pill-” That made Davon suck on his teeth — the time-clock for the bar was on a “tablet” — which was a big phone — Thumper don’t like phones and he don’t like tablets — but a tablet was also a pill, so Thumper called the tablet a pill — Davon was too cute for wordplay. “But you don’t tell me how to do nothing else. Is there any female back here? Or kiddies?”
“No.”
“Then I’mma take my dick out when I feel like it. Get to liftin’, nigga. You ain’t big enough yet.” Thumper gently pushed Davon to lay down and do some bench-presses.
Davon turned up that perfect nose that never got broke. “Don’chu — this is a Gregarian gym, nigga. I work for Mr. Gregarian.”
Thumper scoffed. “Mistuh Gregarian work for the Bloods.” He pretend-rammed his dick at Davon’s face, but he ain’t touch Davon’s lips. Yet. Davon did look sickly at the smell of Thumper’s sweaty old-nigga balls dangling in the direction of his handsomeness. “And I did thirty-four years for the Bloods. You ain’t been alive thirty-four years. Lift, nigga. Use them muscles.” Davon did a benchpress, but he did it with a snort like he weren’t doing it cuz Thumper said so.
Looming large as a barge, Thumper remained overtop Davon’s crotch, straddling him now like a conquering colossus and slapping his stick on Davon’s six-pack. Davon kept his too-good face stoic as he lifted. Thumper pulled down Davon’s shorts.
“Whatchoo doin’, nigga?”
“Just playin’, don’t be squeamish,” Thumper said. Davon’s smooth cock spilled out, and Thumper gave it a stroke. Davon kept doing his bench presses like a smile-hard nigga who wouldn’t never challenge nothing. So he just lifted weights and let Thumper frot they wigwams together.
A hard sigh came from Davon, and Thumper felt the sigh rattle up and down Davon’s smooth shaft. Davon rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a freak, Thump. Get with the times,” he said softly, like he don’t expect Thumper to respond. Thumper got no response to that. He was getting with the times. He stepped outta time for thirty-four years, that was all. Thumper weren’t sure yet he even wanna catch up.
Thumper liked the feel of Davon’s prettyboy meat, limp as lips, rubbing on his shaft. Soon enough Thumper was firming up. He humped his erect cock onto Davon’s softness. Felt good to touch tugboats with another nigga again. Thumper ain’t done that since prison. Davon ain’t never been locked up, so he weren’t used to it and he ain’t get hard. That was fine. Made his dingaling squishy and moist and warm and fun to rub up against, like humping pudding.
“Yo, Davon, you know a masked woman? You seen her around this building?” Thumper asked. Davon looked at him like a crazy old fool, and Thumper added, “She like… wearin’ a dress, got a mask like a owl. She… weird. Weird as hell, nigga.”
Davon shrugged. “Maryanne wear a mask when she dance sometimes.”
“I met Maryanne. It weren’t Maryanne,” Thumper said. Precum oozed outta his cocktip and soaked Davon’s shaft. “Does that theater ever do plays?”
“The theater? On Stranger? That’s a movie theater,” Davon said. He stopped doing bench presses. “And it don’t even do movies no more. Shut down years ago. Nothing in there.” He looked down his body at his own cock, which was fat and juicy, glistening with Thumper’s precum. Thumper be stabbing his own manhood atop Davon’s over and over, like he was fucking a invisible pussy.
Thumper nodded. “Thought so, nigga,” he said like that was the answer he was expecting. He threw his head back as he orgasmed all over Davon’s limp meat. Thumper do love frotting with a squeamish nigga like Davon, who screwed up his face like a screwdriver, as a long flow of jizz sprayed atop his chest.
He got them perky chest muscles that girls love, pecs that’s big but never see no use aside from flexing to impress the females. Thumper’s first jizz was a big-ass splat of nut that went all the way from Davon’s shoulders to his glamorous six-pack — shit, don’t that nigga ever eat a carb? Then it puddled in his sternum, and Thumper scooted forward to aim his spasming pecker for Davon’s mouth.
That jizz only reached to his chin and lower lip though. It was enough to make Davon sour up, and Thumper shot yet another burst of cream onto Davon’s soap-opera jawline. Davon’s eyes wrinkled. Cum roped over his cheeks and nose.
“Ewwhhh, ni-hha!” Davon clenched his mouth shut.
All that cum lay congealing in a soup on Davon’s stomach and face. Big creamy wads of jism kept on coming out, until Davon’s entire face gleamed in the dim gym light. Davon twitched and writhed like he ain’t never before struggle to show off his nonchalance. Thumper chuckled and kept on humping Davon’s shaved cum-splattered chest till Thumper’s dick was just as soft and spongy as Davon’s.
That nigga weren’t so clean no more. That was good to see. Thumper do enjoy making clean niggas dirty.
Thumper got off him, and Davon sat up. He wiped nut off his nose. “You is one nasty old nigga-” He stopped to gag cuz some salty cum slipped into his mouth. “Be cool-” Another gag rippled through him, and he spat up jizz like a burping baby. “Nigga, be cool, shit, Thump…”
“Never forget, Davon, that you is only in charge of my bouncering,” Thumper said. He flicked his dick in Davon’s direction, making a few drops of jizz splatter over Davon’s shoulder. “In e’rrything else, this nasty old nigga do pave his own road.”

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Two

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper recognized the humpty-dumpty nigga who came into Lipsweet late on Thursday night. It was only a half-hour till close. The sky done gone dark like it might rain, but it never did. The stars hid like shy cockroaches.
“Yo, Thumper? That you?! Aw, hell!” said that nod-happy nigga who approached the door. His name was Rashid Jenkins. He was cold-shouldering the couple niggas he lined up with, and he gave Thumper a pip and a dap when they gazes met.
“Oh, shit nigga!” Thumper’s eyes opened wide, as him and Rashid hugged it out. Thumper stacked lips at them other niggas waiting in line. Back inside, couple years ago, him and Rashid was in the same cell for awhile. Rashid was a top-heavy nigga, squishy and dense like overstuffed pillows. Thumper ain’t see him in years, and he recollected hard with his arms around Rashid. His fingers gripped that nigga’s thickness. “Goddamn, I ain’t know you was still kickin’ around Bangor. What’choo bin up to, Rashid?”
Rashid scoffed and sucked on his teeth. “J’st keepin’ it real, holdin’ it down, Thumper. You know how a nigga do.” He sucked on his teeth again. “That’s all. You ain’t go back to Baltimore?”
Thumper shook his head. “Parole officer won’t lemme leave the state.”
A harsh air spilled between Rashid and his niggas, plus the dozen or so lippy whiteboys and one Asian impatient-waiting in line behind Rashid. They all finna see some dancers in the club, and they dim-eyed Rashid and Thumper chopping it up. They mumbled on the underhush that Rashid shouldn’t be slowing the line down and that Thumper was a doddery old nigga who dresses like a fossil. Thumper woulda told them to spit and sit, and he’da flurried up a couplea fisty cuffs if they ain’t show the proper respect with a quickness. If Thumper was in prison still and some young cats fussed at him to hurry, he’d correct them kittens sans mercy. Sans mercy as hell.
But the owner Mr. Gregarian was in the club tonight. He was at the bar drinking something tasteful and tasteless. He want Thumper to behave, and Thumper gotta do what he say. So Thumper gave Rashid a hug and a shrug and said he’d talk to him later. Rashid got entranced by a tangerine-cream bitch with tits like sharks. He floated after her like a tasty surfer, and Thumper proceeded to check the idees of them dour niggas, whiteboys and that one sunnyskin in line.
When the tide of hungry horndogs dwindled well into the early morn, Thumper took a break and let Davon watch the door, while he rushed off to piss. He went up to the floor his apartment was on though, rather than use the club’s bathroom. He was self-conscious of how long it took to get a flow going. The prison doctor said he got that old-nigga bladder. His “bladder neck” be bugging. He don’t want Davon to know it took him awhile.
But he ain’t dawdle in the bathroom. He wanna get back down there so Davon don’t fuss. Thumper ain’t trust hisself to react like a outside nigga if that young-body pretty-face jive-white smile-hard nigga Davon tried to correct him.
Davon wore a lor band-aid on his cheekbones. Nigga musta got a rainbow of band-aids cuz he steady wore one to match the drawers he displayed under his sagging jeans — Mr. Gregarian was mad on the “trousers” trip and curled his lip at sagging, but Davon could smile through any of Mr. Gregarian’s tut-tuts. So Davon rumped pink drawers tonight and a pink band-aid to match. Thumper ain’t even got the words to call that out.
When his old-nigga bladder done empty, Thumper hustled to the stairwell.
A glossy piece of paper was on the floor on the stairs. It caught Thumper’s eye cuz it couldn’t-a been there when he went up the stairs. He woulda noticed it for sure. He prolly woulda done slip on it.
He picked it up. It was a playbill for a show called “The Invocation”, and the picture on it featured a familiar woman wearing a barn owl mask.
It was that woman, Delsinerr. That woman he dreamed of, with the dress of screams and beaming tresses of horrid hair. He was gonna recognize her forever.

He ain’t know how long he stood there, eyes agogging that playbill. He was roused only when he heard some hubbubery in Lipsweet. He hustled hisself down and stalked into the backa the bar. He hushed up a heap of honkies, and he made sure to do it loud so Davon would hear. That way it looked like he be working, not shirking.


But before Thumper made it back to the front door, a storm of shouting kicked up. Couple clumps of niggas was standing off at each other, and Rashid was involved. Rashid done step to some slimfire kitkat, and both him and he got posses at they back. Both niggas and both they posses was fronting and saying all the shit niggas and they posses do say.
“Fuck this shit, nigguh!”
“You wanna step?”
“Come at me then-“
“Shit, nigga, I will end you-“
“Fuck that, fuck — fuck — fuck this shit, nigga-“
“I’ll go backta prison, I don’t care-“
“Who the bitch now?!”
Classic nigga shit. Ain’t even much point in saying it out loud. Might as well skip straight to holding a gun sideways and firing into a crowd. Thumper was glad he was a nigga with class. If everybody knows your lines, you might as well leave ’em unsaid.
“C’mon at me, nigguh!”
“Step to me then!”
“You best come correct-!”
Thumper put the fight down before it began. He slipped between them chin-to-chin niggas, finna slap the belligerence off they faces. “Simmuh down, you two-“
Before Thumper could finish, Rashid threw a fist at the slimfire kitkat, knocking him down like a disrespectful domino. Gravity hit him hard too, and the kitkat staggered around on the floor doing his best impression of a spreading piss-stain.
“Settle yaselfs, niggas, why you gotta act like that?!” Davon said, smiling handsomely into the club, laughing all along like he was a joke-a-day nigga and ain’t nothing in the world really matter. He ain’t risk his precious mug by getting between Rashid and the kitkat though.
“You can’t be like that,” Thumper said, pulling Rashid away with his shankin’ hands on Rashid’s jelly. Rashid do be like that though, always was. Thumper hugged Rashid close and talked straight into his ear. Rashid stiffed up like he ain’t notice Thumper, but he ain’t fight against him neither. He kept eye contact with that slimfire nigga and his posse until Thumper had him out the backdoor and into the corridor behind the club proper. “Nigga, slow yo’ roll!”
He pulled down Rashid’s pants and drawers in one quick motion. Rashid got a big pair of juicy brown orbs. Thumper recollected slamming into them on the regular while inside — Rashid got self-control troubles, and he put hisself in big-time debt throwing dice, drinking hooch and smoking cigarettes he couldn’t afford. Thumper ain’t mind forgiving that debt in exchange for breaking a nut off.
“Ah, shit, Thump, you into that booty bandit trip, we ain’t inside no mo’. E’rrybody alway knew you was gonna stay a ramrod, old head. That ain’t how a modern nigga act-“
“Shut up, nigga,” Thumper said. His hands ran up Rashid’s back and front, underneath his shirt. Rashid was one them niggas who get chunky in prison — he ain’t got the will to work out on the regular or to stop scarfing down commissary honey buns. He do buy what the candy folk sell him on. Now that he was out though, he be dropping his dollars on calorie-free blunts and nibble-size sluts. Tale as old as time. Even slimmed down, he was still thick as alfredo though, and you know Thumper love a high-carb booty.
Now that they stood in the cool and the still of the corridor, Rashid stayed calm. He was mad on a reluctant front, all lifting hisself up and sucking on his teeth like he was too good to let a old head knock on his backdoor. He weren’t too good for nothing though, and under his gotta-fight shell, Rashid was cool as hot oatmeal. “Shit, Thump, shit…”
“Why you gotta go after that slimfire nigga in there?” Thumper asked with a cluck of his tongue. “Mistuh Gregarian curl lip at niggas who start fights. City council expect him to keep peace.”
He scoffed. “Mistuh Gregarian — that that cracker who own this place? He a damn fool, Thump, he was steppin’ to me couple weeks back. I was ’bout to lay him out like Thanksgiving dinner, somebody gotta do it, shit…”
“You bettuh not, nigga. He keep it real,” Thumper said. “He will dig you a very shallow hole to lay down in, and he won’t think twice about it. Might make me dig it, and I dunno if my back can take that, nigga.” Thumper weren’t sure how much he was exaggerating that honky’s proclivities, but he ain’t want Rashid testing his ire. Mr. Gregarian got a gangster in his mind to live up to, and he seen some violent gangster movies. “Don’t go ruckusin’ in his club.”
“Aw, shit, Thump, shit…” Rashid bristled, as Thumper’s hands spread his buttcheeks. Thumper kissed his meaty shoulders too, over the shirt and then under it when he took Rashid’s shirt off. Rashid stood there with a glumness, pants around his ankles, his jelly browns jiggling beneath Thumper’s firm fingers.
“You ain’t in prison no mo’, you can’t be actin’ like a cast-iron nigga,” Thumper said. “How long you been out?”
“Like six months,” Rashid said. His head hung weary on them shoulders. Rashid stay submitory when he got to. He know how to say ‘yes, nigga’ when the proper kind of nigga was behind him.
“You havin’ trouble cividatin’?”
Rashid shrugged. “Don’t go up my backdoor, Thumper. Be cool,” he said. “C’mon, nigga. You can just stick it ‘tween my thighs. Do that, feels damn good. That’s what-“
Thumper chuckled. “Nah, nah, nigga. I’ll use buncha spit. You know I got good spit. Know that!” He spat on the palm of his hand, then resumed stroking hisself off. One finger on his other hand jammed into Rashid’s asshole. “You done tighten, nigga. I like that.”
“Ain’t nobody do that booty bandit shit on the outside, Thumper,” Rashid said. “You on the ramrod trip, that’s whack, that’s crackerjack-“, then he sucked his breath in as he felt Thumper’s knob touch his asshole. Rashid bent forward and leaned against the wall.
Thumper rammed his cock into that paira roundnesses behind Rashid. His buttcheeks dimpled bright despite the dim light of the back hall. Rashid threw his head back and looked this way and that, his hands fluttering fast behind hisself. Rashid winced and grimaced, but he ain’t struggle. Even when Thumper’s cock slipped outta Rashid’s hole, he ain’t try to get away. He let Thumper jam it right back in.
“Sssh, take yo’ dickload, nigga,” Thumper said. “Don’t play wit’ me.” He pushed it in deeper, and Rashid’s butthole spread open like a wedding invitation. It sucked Thumper’s shaft right back in, like his booty and Thumper’s manhood was best friends.
“Ow, shit, Thump, c’mon, go gentle…” Rashid gulped.
“Relax, I’mma nut real quick, relax, nigga.” Thumper clucked his tongue and plowed hard. His orgasm was coming on swift — something about the smell of Rashid’s backsweat gave him fond memories of prison, and it got his motor going good, like Thumper made a turn and was now driving on a road he recognized. Rashid was a well-trodded road, with little resistance left in his butthole, so Thumper could drive in and out with powerful thrusts. “Aaah, shit, see, already done…”
A fat load of cum sprayed into Rashid’s booty. He hung his head low but took every bit, wincing only when Thumper rammed his meat in deep. A long hot flow of jizz filled Rashid up, while Thumper’s moans echoed in his ear.
“C’mon, Thump…” Rashid muttered. He leaned his face against the wall. He shuddered and shimmied like a shameful snake.
When Thumper was done, he ain’t pull out right away. He let his wang marinate in the warmth of Rashid’s guts. His breath condensed on the backa Rashid’s neck.
Finally, his dick plopped out like a greasy sausage. Thumper swang it between his legs and rubbed the goo off in Rashid’s buttcrack. The last couple drops of cum dripped there between his cheeks. “Hmm, lemme see ya gape, nigga,” Thumper murmured. Rashid’s asshole did gape, whether that was cuz Thumper told him to or if it just happened, Thumper ain’t know. It was a satisfying sight regardless.
When Rashid pulled his jeans up, Thumper was still playing with them buttcheeks. Then he wiped his dick off with paper towels from the janitor’s closet, and they both went back out to the club. Davon was shooing niggas out the door, so Rashid went out to the parking lot too. Thumper helped Teddy shut down the bar and watched Davon get in one the dancer’s cars, then Thumper went up to his apartment on the second floor.
He got a shower and a snack. Thumper microwaved a brick of frozen broccoli and cheese, cuz he was pretending to like broccoli, cuz the world was like that these days, cuz Obama ain’t do nothing! Then he laid his weary head down on his bed. Moonlight shined through the window, and Thumper was glad to bask in the nighttime’s rays without trying to slumber.

The door to his apartment opened with a slow creak, and Thumper rose to stand upon his old feet. He wanna take a shank and shiv whichever nitwit just did strid into his crib unbid.

But no more sound was to be found, and Thumper done dumbfound, dumb as a mute tongue or a brainless hound in a pound of sin.
With thin skin, his breath sucked in and ceaselessly spinned, cuz the air did unfold, as dead and cold as a mortician’s walk-in. That Bitch in White Delsinerr, it must be, cuz of the grim air and his mind behampering, she do be doing that to a nigga. His pot of cheese got the unfriendly gollygees.
“I wholeheartedly offer the sincerest of apologies, Mister White,” she said at her best, looking unlined in a new right-fright dress. She took Thumper’s find, the glossy flier, from his pants pocket. Her dashing socket then faced his dismay like a twist of fate. “This got mislaid, I’m afraid.” Her words clotted and clogged her wave, hobbling wakes and gobbling up meaning.
Thumper nodded, agoggling at that fiend steaming, his noggin beboggling by notions dropped in, misbegotten, stuck in a war he forgot to have foughten in. Layers of bog, his thoughts was tucked in, like befuddled puddles fog goggles — shit! — he was too rotten-hot fried to toggle his hide-or-fight side or even to think and blink when she pried and whitened his wrinkles, too lightened to abide.
She did ride astride his brain a-sprinkling pain, and she tightened her ugly head. “You ain’t frightened of me,” she said.
Thumper again slightened a nod. “I… I… can’t think when you’s around.”
“My words finely decline, making humankind ruint like by fumes, by the tombs of time, by the climb of crime, by a broken rhyme, by plumes of foul weather. Y’all’s cries is all mine.” The gray owl feathers that lined her scowl splayed out like a rainspout, as she peered fears and doubt into him deep as a well. “I hope to see you in hell when you die. Or before, for I like a bride will wait forevermore in store.”
“Why do you talk like that?” he asked like a unironed sheet.
“I don’t speak,” she spoke like a freak. Her mask’s beetley bug scuttled sleek as a sulfury lugnut in the sea of time. “I hammer seeds into yo’ mind. The grammar is your’n that you cling to like a daft raft in a slammer of slime.” The leathery feathers of her mask then did retract, unfit, and drift together into a rift. “I wish to give you a gift, He Who Thumps, a token of hope unsunk.”
Thumper was stumped as oaks. What kinda gift would a goat like this rhyme a nigga like him?
“The gift I chime is time. You had thirty-four years to deplore, but now, with the price of gore, you can go back to before. Be a young nigga again,” she said, her words singing bigger than laws or figures.
A long pause came up like the claws of riffing wiggers rilling open flaws upon prison lawns. Thumper narrowed his paws and stiffened ’em into fists like kisses by his side. “What?”
Looking snide, she unsheathed mist for miles beneath that mask of denial. “Just a fact to flout and file, Mister White. I do offer to undo yo’ last bout in style. You can tout thirty-four vile years of bother and clout. Fear not a rout.” She slipped out like a fatherless shout, leaving Thumper aloner than ever to ramble and pout and fail at draining the heeby-jeebies all the way out.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Three

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Mr. Perry stood over Thumper like a pagan idol, aiming his frowns down at Thumper’s mug. Thumper ain’t let it shake him, which was what Mr. Perry wanted. In prison, he stood down honkies who coulda, woulda, gonna, loveta and done did eat a dozen workface sumbitches like Mr. Perry for lunch, and they’d follow it up with meatloaf straight out the prison mess! Thumper bin telling Mr. Perry he worked for Bangor Night Security, and Mr. Perry only just now realized that meant bouncering at Lipsweet.
Soon as Thumper said the names ‘Lipsweet’ and ‘Mr. Gregarian’, Mr. Perry started inquisiting. All Thumper did at Lipsweet was check idees and make sure men don’t nip at ladies. Mr. Perry got a hankering that bouncers was gang enforcers and drug dealers.
Technicably, Thumper was a enforcer for the Bloods still — since Thumper got parole breathing down his neck, the Bloods wasn’t assigning him tasks right now — but Mr. Gregarian got nothing to do with that. Bouncering was a real job with a paycheck they take taxes out of.
Mr. Perry seemed unlikely to give Thumper permission to visit Baltimore. He was gonna axe today, but he thought better of that plan. Best to wait until he might say yes.

“I’d appreciate it if you got a better job, Wendell,” Mr. Perry said. He called him ‘Wendell’ cuz he thought ‘Thumper’ was a gang name. It wasn’t, it was a boxing name. Back in Thumper’s day, he did thump bunchesa niggas and a nickname popped outta ’em. “Bouncering at a strip club is practically gangsterism, and don’t think for a second I accept Mr. Gregarian as a law-abiding citizen — he’s a gangster, and you do what he says. That makes you a gangster.”

Thumper shrugged. “You said I gotta have a job. I got a job. It ain’t illegal. I do what I is told. I pay taxes, got a bank account and e’rrything.” He phoned out to show Mr. Perry the bank app. “The bank is on my phone, swear to God, Mistuh Perry, it’s real. Rajesh showed me how. You just tap on it. Paychecks is on the phone too. Tap, zoooooop, boom, there it goes, paycheck gets emailed to the bank, taxes go out, money all gone. You don’t even gotta spend it. You know strippers get paid by phone too? You can text a eggplant to a pussy. Modern world is bullshit, suh.
“You better take this seriously,” Mr. Perry said. Him and Thumper was in his office at the parole board’s building downtown. His office was a rinky-dinky closet that was mostly fulla desk. The laptop on it be looking creaky, like it ain’t got turned on in years. Mr. Perry was a analog honky. That was his best quality.
“I’s stickin’ with the rightness of the law, suh,” Thumper said. “Don’t seem fair to say I gotta-“
“I will tell you what’s fair. I can tell you to quit any job I think isn’t conducive to your rehabilitation,” he said. “It means ‘helpful to-“
“I know what it means!” Thumper said with a snapdown. Mr. Perry was stacking lips at Thumper, like Thumper was a retard, but he lived beyond Mr. Perry’s expectations of a ex-con. “You said to work full-time. I’s workin’ full-time. Ain’t do nothin’ wrong, nothin’.” He sat and glowered in the chair. “Lipsweet is propuh, suh.”
Mr. Perry was quiet for a long time. As if on cue, he stood up and looked down his nose like Thumper was in the backstage of his mind plotting against him. Thumper be stone-facing and pitching flatness at Mr. Perry’s dreamy-owl eyes. “Lipsweet still got that blonde? Caitlin?”
“Caitlin Smiles, suh. Yes, yeah, she still there,” Thumper said. Mr. Perry was looking misty now. Thumper kept his mug still. “She pretty as a pumpkin, suh. Tits like a ol’ country buffet.” He didn’t mention that, when he talked to Caitlin Smiles the other day, she done snicker the whole time like she was too perfect to talk to a uncool old man who smell like a laundromat.
That was Thumper, but it was Mr. Perry too.
“Hmmm-hmm…” Mr. Perry murmured soft-like. He put one hand on Thumper’s shoulder. “I don’t go to Lipsweet no mo’, mind you. I got a wife. But I do recall her from back when I was letting my stiffies guide me, insteada Jesus.”
“Yessuh,” Thumper said.
He cleared his throat. “The problem I have with this, with you working at Lipsweet… It don’t show no dedication to cidivism. It suggests you’s tryin’ to dance on the edges of the law. I have a hard time believin’ Mr. Gregarian never asks you to do nothing illegal.”
Thumper shook his head. “It ain’t like that, suh,” he said. “Mr. Gregarian don’t want his bouncers gettin’ in trouble — city council, he said, they got rules for him, they ridin’ his ass ’bout crime and shit, had a bartender caught selling coke couple months ago, he don’t want the heat. He say bouncers gotta stay squeaky-clean, and he a righteous honky, suh. He go to a ethnic chuhch.”
“Hmmm-hmm…” Mr. Perry said, standing tall next to the seated Thumper. Mr. Perry stayed deep in his ponders, maybe wondering if Thumper was telling the truth or could be he was still on that Caitlin Smiles train. “You willin’ to prove to me that you got dedication in ya heart, Wendell?”
Thumper nodded. “Yessuh.”
Mr. Perry unzipped his fly and let his cock plop out. It jabbed Thumper in the forehead. It was spongy and soft still, and it had that familiar clammy-skin texture. Thumper done taste a tog or two in his time. He ignored it. Mr. Perry prolly wanted him to react like a inside-nigga, so Mr. Perry could treat him like one.
Thumper weren’t gonna give him the satisfaction. He did learn in prison that a nigga who do what’s expected of him gonna end up in low places cuz folks got low expectations of niggas. Thumper ain’t a default nigga.
He kept his mouth shut, like he ain’t notice Mr. Perry’s dick ramming his nose and teasing his upper lip. The taste hit his tongue, but Thumper bit back his revulsion. Mr. Perry grabbed Thumper’s hand and dragged it to his cocktip. Thumper gripped it, but he ain’t stroke it. Mr. Perry ain’t even told him to, so Thumper sat there like a topaz.
Thumper winced when he heard Mr. Perry moaning, and his cock thwacked Thumper on his lips and teeth. His meat firmed up in Thumper’s hand. It was kinda lor but not small enough to laugh about it. It was a normal honky-sized dingle, and you know Thumper know his way around them.
Still don’t wanna taste it.
Neverthelessly, Thumper ain’t gonna complain, cuz that was what Mr. Perry wanted. Mr. Perry ain’t even demand he open his mouth or slurp on the knob or nothing. Pussy-ass honky. If Thumper gonna throat a nigga down, you best believe that nigga is gonna gape his gullet.
But all he gotta do for Mr. Perry’s chowder-white dingdong was not bite it off, and anyway, crackers all taste crackery. Thumper ain’t close his eyes neither, so Mr. Perry wouldn’t think he was shook.
Soon enough Thumper’s mouth was open enough for Mr. Perry to stick his worm in and out, and it hit Thumper in the backa his mouth but not deep enough to make him gag too hard. He did retch a couple times when it rammed him deeper in there. Mr. Perry weren’t trying-a get all the way down though, he was just humping the tip on Thumper’s tongue.
Precum flowed like a river and coated Thumper’s gums. He felt it oozing into his mouth. Thumper hadta hold back a cringe, cuz he ain’t wanna look submissive. The taste was salty and intense.
He squeezed his lips around the shaft to give some friction — Thumper don’t wanna drag this out, after all — and that made Mr. Perry break out in baritone walrusy moans, rabbit-daggering his bunny into Thumper’s mouth. The precum be flowing plentiful now. Thumper knew better than to wipe it off his lips — it’d seem like it’d reduce the taste, but it would just smear it all over — so he kept his hands down.
Then, without a word of warning, Mr. Perry shot a fat load into Thumper’s throat. He pulled out to finish his self off with his hands — that’s some weak-knee honky shit — a nigga do finish inside. Great big gobs of goo coated Thumper’s nose and cheeks, and it dripped down to his chin and shoulders.
Not a huge cumload. Thumper done took more bigger ones than that from uglier honkies than Mr. Perry. Ain’t fun though. He let Mr. Perry jack off right on his face. At least he ain’t make Thumper open up again and swallow. He was content to get his own self off onto Thumper’s face, and when his dingdong done ding its last dong, he let it flop afronta Thumper’s mouth.
Thumper sat there stony, his face dripping with cum. He weren’t gonna gasp to wipe it off like some fresh fish whiteboy. Mr. Perry was watching him for a reaction.

“Good. I’m glad you’ve developed some self-control. You can go,” Mr. Perry said. He leaned against his desk with his dingle dangling out the fly of his workaday khakhis.
Thumper walked out and wiped his face off as soon as Mr. Perry couldn’t see. He spat up all the salty cum he could get outta his mouth, and he wiped his tongue off with a paper towel from the shitter in the parole and probation building.
Damn, the taste of jizz do stick to a nigga tongue. Thumper gotta smoke a fug to get rid of it.
He went home, walking like a nigga who ain’t just take a honky hullabaloo in his mouth. Walking with a low-hanging expression was begging a nigga to lay you out, so Thumper kept it real. His chin stayed high. The sky stayed higher, sun beating down, no clouds to block its rays.
Despite keeping his chin up, he felt low, even after he got home and took a shower. At least he felt clean then, and eventually, Thumper drifted to sleep on the couch..

A brilliant bulb awoke him, and Thumper stumbled in place as his face braced to smite. An array of bright lights at height laced into him like some kinds of whites might. His mind now did kite upon a stage that stank of shite and shame. Thumper was tight, lame as a sudden name, and he did fight to awaken his bacon.


Shaking his fakest of flanks, Thumper’s noodle be baking, making the opposite of bank. He dim as done beats took in a lake of empty seats, aching his knees right. The blinding lights be lining his sight with nothing but ruinous white like luminous bricks. Lurching right, a-twitch with fright, he done slipt, like a zombie out a crypt.
A script. In his mitt. One piece of paper, to wit. Words that bit, in a font that fits and that tapers fine to the tightest of tips.
It was a script with lines for a nigga to sip, highlighted in white — a dialogue to rip. The script had lines between so many lips of nigga-amigos named Thumper and Rico.
Thumper don’t know no Rico or the words the script do speak of.
Then like a leaky glove, she shoved into sight, reeking of the weakness of love — the Woman in White, whose skin flowed together with her multi-folded dress and the owl-like feathers surrounding her horrible mask. Before him she stood like a conquering avenging murdering invading angel of odd angles, and Thumper spiraled like bells into bangles, while her mask from hell returned him to that mousy cell, where he couldn’t run or fly or hide or ride.
“Mister White,” she said like a lie without pride, and once again, the movements of her mug and the motion of her mouth like tides behind her mask of flowing whys ain’t match the scurrilous fly that crawled out the sides. “Glad to sight yo’ eyes.”
“You again… Delsinerr.” Amid sighs, Thumper meant to go on, but he was dumb-struck like by a dumptruck. Again he be stuck in the muck of her pityless pluck and his debonair suck, and her foul air made him slouch and tear, his thoughts nowhere, not a wrinkle unspared. “Where am I?”
“On stage. You see the pages in yo’ face?” she asked like facts.
“Why… ? It — am I dreaming? Is this real? I-“
“Yes, and yes,” she said unpressed in a voice from pursed bony lips cursed with toney tints. “First, look at the script.”
“I see it.” He squinted his old-nigga asians to unblur the words outta they evasions. Drying to raisins like dark violence, Thumper endured her invasions and did cry in brazen silence, as he read the script of the minute. In it, ‘Thumper’ piloted ‘Rico’ into killing and raping ‘Cherry’ like a torpedo of daring.
“Enact this squarely,” she said, “If you want the treasure I’m fairly giving, to audition for my vision for this play.”
“I ain’t a actor.”
“Needless to say. We don’t cast actors for this chapter’s phase. With blue and white grace, we raptors prefer a more true-to-life gaze,” she said in line with a maze, bleeding fine baffling laughter from her mouth’s rafters, meting rhymes like a captor casting after feeding time. “Reading lines is what but one part of the custom to start for you to drum through. Yo’ audition may yet come true.” Her blunderous wig was chewed asunder quick by the bug under it. “You must mug a ho through a young’in to steal a soul and be made whole so so long ago.” Her words feeled faux yet as real as reality goes.
Then Thumper awoke, feeling old, skin hot and yet cold.
But that was it. She was gone. His mind worked fine now, or fine as it had since he got old. He sat up in bed, sweat streaming down his neck despite his shivering with an icy chill. Pain twanged his chest, and it felt like he was infarcting. But when the sensation soon dwindled, he took a deep breath.
Even after he felt better, it was a long time before he could get back to sleep.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Four

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

The Bloods meeting was at the barbershop on the same street as Lipsweet. The Gregarian building was built around the barbershop, a forgotten story of bricks whose backyard done sprout that monstrosity that grew to take over the resta the block. Thumper’s bladder neck be bugging when he got there, so he first went to take a piss, the sound of niggas gathering in the barbershop growing louder as they arrived in small groups. All the hoopdey-hoos in the Bloods came to the meeting.
He ain’t understand why Carson wanted him — Carson was the head nigga in the Bloods of Bangor. Thumper was a Blood, but he wasn’t involved in any Blood business, and he was on parole, so he couldn’t do much. His parole officer be riding his tail for real, and parolees got no constitutionals against being recorded, followed or searched.
So putting a parolee on anything important was foolish as tossing beans.
Still, it felt good to be surrounded by real-time niggas again, just like in lockup. He got to the barbershop early, so he got nothing to do. That was just like lockup too. He ain’t know none the niggas who gathered, which was unlike lockup, except for Davon, who showed up like a smooth sac of pointless dimples, smiling at everything but responding to nothing, like he ran outta reality, looking like a charred koala bear, shit, he just sat there, like a boatload of cuteness collided with a glacier of too-good-for-this and went down in a sea of swooning females. He got on a shiny shirt with like Chinese letters or some shit all over it, like Davon was too handsome for the English alphabet. He wore a white band-aid on his cheek too. As if he’d ever risk letting his cheekbone get cut.
Them niggas Thumper don’t know was milling and filling the air through with gab and daps and hairdos, but Thumper sat alone. They all avoided watching him brood like a bothered tiger. That’s what Thumper woulda thunk too, thirty-some years ago, if he saw a cast-iron nigga sitting on his lonesome surrounded by young cats he ain’t talk to. He ain’t put out menace, but they all picked it up. Outgoing ex-cons get a million nosey questions from numptious niggas, so Thumper was glad to scare ’em off. If they all got to chatting at him like lightbulby poppa-rot-seas, he’d-a most likely dropped one or maybe all. So he gloomed around like a ex-con who pretty niggas should stay away from, and they did so, wise as newspapers.
A young nigga named Rico came in just before Carson got to talking. That grabbed Thumper’s attention — Rico was the other nigga from that script Delsinerr gave him. The name sounded omens to Thumper.
Rico also attracted Thumper’s eye cuz he was young and high yellow, cool as a pear and dimpley like a golf ball, dimpley like Davon — but Rico’s dimples was less arrogant. Rico was the kinda young nigga Thumper woulda got to know real good in prison. Thumper woulda shared a bunk with Rico, and he’d-a bin got Rico to feel some love deep in his heart, deep enough to make Rico bend over and spread his cheeks. Rico was handsome as a kangaroo, handsome enough to make Thumper forget about women during the cold of a empty night. Thumper would teach Rico how to get a nut off without women, and Rico would teach Thumper all the cool modern lingo that handsome young niggas say.
Doing time for the Bloods meant Thumper still got respect here. Frightened respect, but that still counts. When Thumper told Rico to come sit by him, Rico got no choice but to fulfill every one of Thumper’s expectations. Namely, to sit next to him so Thumper could go grope-a-dope during the meeting. Rico and Thumper got naked as noodles too — all the niggas in the meeting got naked, as Carson requisited. That was to ensure nobody got no recording devices and so nobody could palm no heroin when they weighed it out into lor baggies later.
Not a matter of trust. If it’s a rule you enforce every time, it’s no big deal. If you only make a nigga do it when you don’t trust him, then every time you do it, it’s a big deal, it’s telling a nigga he ain’t trusted and prolly won’t never be. So Carson made ’em do it every time, and no nigga felt singled out.

Thumper did feel singled out due to his out-of-fashion clothes. All the niggas snuck secret snickers at his old-school jeans, which he bought at a thrift store cuz he couldn’t find a normal men’s clothing store. They looked at him like a accidental dinosaur.

Naked, Davon looked like modern music sounded. Goddamn Thumper do hate him. He held Rico close like it would protect Thumper from Davon being a tubba shit. Rico was high on his frowns when they all took they clothes off. He was bitsy and cute like a baby snapping turtle, both skinny and muscular, and he carried hisself like he ain’t realize he was young and pretty and short. Once he stripped outta his fancy shirt and his pokeymon shoes, he was looking even littler and handsomer. He sat down afront Thumper, who wrapped his arms around his back. Thumper’s hot crotch touched Rico on his spine, which felt good as candy to Thumper.
“Hmm-“
“Nigga…” Rico bristled, but he ain’t fight. He let Thumper hug him from behind. Lotta niggas was touching muchly in they nakedness during the meeting, as Carson went on about the need to send niggas to the college campus. That was untapped territory, Carson said. But it was a men’s college. Nobody wanna do it cuz a nigga never gonna get pussy on campus, and Carson bin telling them for months to sling there.
“Ssssh…” Thumper said soft as a teddy bear into Rico’s ear. Rico’s muscles rippled beneath his touch, as Thumper’s hands drifted up and down Rico’s arms. Rico stayed tense. His head looked around frantic as a llama like he hoped the touch-police noticed Thumper’s fingers. Not a nigga noticed cuz him and Thumper sat in the back. Carson musta seen, but Carson let Thumper do his thing — Thumper’s current thing was Rico. Thumper done his time for the Bloods, and he was allowed to take liberties with a nigga when he need to.
Finally Carson ordered some bangers to sling heroin at the college campus. He told ’em he’d send some hos they way if they did good enough, and that was enough to quiet they rumbles of discontent. Carson wanted the gang to take every inch of this city, cuz otherwise the Crips or the Latin Kings or somebody else would take it.
Or the Seventh Street Playas. They was some rap-eyed niggas who done peel off from the Crips. That was good. They ain’t join up with the Bloods though. That was bad. They was “gramming” videos in a instant, and in ’em, they claimed Bangor was all Seventh Street Playas territory. Thumper ain’t wanna axe what gramming is, less he confirm he was a out-of-touch old head. If they wanna claim a whole city, why’d they name theyselves after one street? Dumbass niggas doing dumbass nigga shit. Mention of ’em caused the naked niggas all around to erupt in naysays and whoops. It got the whole room worked up enough for they dinkydoos to jiggle like excited baseball bats.
“We need some niggas to strike at the Seventh Street Playas. They a buncha triflin’ niggas, they ain’t shit. We know where they got they HQ,” Carson said. “We know they schedule. You can hit ’em when they ain’t barely got nobody there. Might have to shoot some niggas, and you’ll come away with weight for sure.”
Ain’t not a nigga say a word.
The silence grew taut as a wire, and Thumper reckoned that Carson expected him to volunteer hisself. Thumper done time for the Bloods, so they was obligationed toward him. But duties went both ways. Thumper could still get gived a assignment.
Still, he kept both hands around Rico’s waist and kept his lips shut, despite Rico standing up on his frowns. Then some other nigga spoke up, and he said he could do something, but from the murmurs hushing under and the unconfident look on Carson’s face, Thumper gathered that that other nigga wasn’t regarded as capable of doing what it took.
But Carson ain’t say peep to Thumper. He just moved on without a solution to the Seventh Street Playas problem. They finished up Bloods business, and then they all got to weighing out heroin. Thumper ain’t weigh much, he focused on rubbing Rico all over. Rico focused on frowning and scooting away, you know how a young nigga do! All them other ugly niggas focused on not looking at Rico or hearing him protest. Nobody wanna see where Thumper’s hands went.
Davon ain’t stick around, cuz he gotta go home and polish his dimples. He prolly got honkies to suck up to and women to agree with. Or maybe he worked at Lipsweet tonight. Anyway, Thumper still be hating on him till he walked out the door. His drawers was plain white tonight, as was his band-aid, but you could tell them drawers was some name-brand, prolly something Italian, bet they cost a pretty penny and he’d throw ’em away if they ever get a skidmark, goddamn, he too good to fart. Thumper ain’t gonna fixate on that nigga though. Not when he got a young pretty thing like Rico to touch all over. Rico be mad on that frown train, choo choo! His frown made his muscles pucker and ripple and shine! Davon wouldn’t never allure a nigga, that was the difference between him and Rico.
“Rico, Thumper, you two stay behind fo’ a second,” Carson said when the weighing was done. He told the rest them niggas to put they clothes on and bounce.
They all did as told, while Rico tensed up like a bossy tambourine. Thumper hugged tight on Rico’s shoulders from behind him, and his hands roamed up and down Rico’s chest. Rico be bugging. All the other niggas whisked off into the rainless night, and the now-dressed Carson looked at Thumper and Rico — who stayed naked — like he ain’t notice Thumper’s hands running up and down Rico’s tight body.
Carson done met a booty bandit, so he weren’t shook up. All them niggas was prolly laughing about it soon as they left the barbershop. Thumper looked silly to young eyes. Rico was just eighteen, and he ain’t know a booty bandit was a real thing, he thought it was the nigga equivalent of a werewolf, something to be afraid of but not believe in. Rico pouted like a teapot beneath Thumper’s leathery hands. His dick throbbed where it lay hot as a rocket against Rico’s back.
It wasn’t erect, but if Thumper moved it, it prolly would be. So Thumper kept his stick still as a statue while his hands did they exploratories.
Then Carson said, with a wrinkle of his wide nose, “Rico, Thumper, glad you two met. Rico, you gonna be livin’ ‘bove the bar, in Thumper’s place.”
That sounded fine as fuck to Thumper. He ain’t live alone for a long time, so a roommate would be nice. He liked the idea of having a prettyboy nigga around to touch bunches. Rico got a nice shiny booty too, and you know Thumper love a shiny nigga.
Rico got less love for that idea. “What? C’mon, Carson, I don’t wanna live with old nigga! He lame! He could be my grandpa! Be cool, nigga!”
“Shut up, pup,” Thumper said, still hugging Rico from behind. Rico’s perfectly seductive muscles stayed as firm as his frown. Thumper wondered what Rico was gonna do if he met Delsinerr — prolly run away screaming and live the resta his life in a asylum. That was how almost everyone responded, Thumper was pretty sure. He was different cuzza his time in prison. He lost the flight part of his fight or flight instinct, but he was smart enough not to fight Delsinerr. Rico would flight and lose touch with reality. Prolly wouldn’t be pretty no more.
“You said you’d get me a place to live, not a spot on old nigga’s couch-“
“I got a bed, nigga!” Thumper wagged a finger at Rico.
“Old nigga smell like a band-aid! He prolly watch the news! Drinkin’ tea and shit, damn, Carson, I can’t bring bitches ovuh wit’ him there-” Rico shrank back when Thumper shot a dirty look down at him.
“Yes, you can,” Thumper said. “You got a female, bring her ovuh! We can double-team her. Go dick to dick in her pussy if she loose enough. Or you can lick her clit while I fuck her. You can slurp my jizz out her asshole, nigga. Shluurp! Hmm-hmm, yummy-“
“Step off, old nigga!”
Carson held out one hand and scrunched his face into a discomfitted mug. “Shut the fuck up, Rico. You needed a place to live. I got you one. Quit yo’ bitchin’, nigguh,” he said. “Go get settled in, Rico. I’ll come by later.”
They moved to get dressed as Carson left. Rico was conducting the frown train that whole time. Looking like he’s owed the world, damn did that nigga have a cute frown. Thumper wanna stick a dress on his frown and marry it.
After grabbing a duffel bag he done left in the barbershop, Rico walked with heavy steps up to the Gregarian building and then up to the apartment. Thumper was more eager. He felt like a lor boy having a sleepover back in Baltimore again.
“C’mon, nigga, we go’n have fun, swear to God. You go’n love livin’ wit’ me.”
But Rico clucked his tongue against his teeth, and he ain’t say nothing. He was still sullen as a stew when they got into the apartment, and Rico aimed his frown at that solo bed. Rico weren’t a share-a-bed kinda nigga, it seemed.
“You only got one bed,” Rico said.
Thumper nodded. “You some kinda mathematician or something?”
“No, I just… You said you had a bed for me.”
“I said I had a bed. It’s right there. We go’n be snug as a hug, my nigga.”
Rico looked like he was brainstorming a way outta this, as Thumper pulled down Rico’s pants. Rico was took unawares. He was one them niggas with dimples so perfect on his face that they spread to his asscheeks too. Shiny as wine! Thumper licked his lips. Rico was pretty like Davon, but Davon was easygoing, while Rico go some bite in his back. And Rico was a decade younger than Davon. Maybe in ten years, Rico be smiling like Davon, but for now he was frowning like a faggot of sultry sticks.
“Hey, old nigga, whatchoo doin’?” Rico threw his eyebrows back, and he shuffled off the best he could with his pants around his ankles. Thumper ain’t pay his guff no mind. He pulled down his own pants and took off his shirt. Rico be facing the other way. Fool-ass nigga aiming his pretty ass at Thumper’s old-ass nigga face. Lotta ass in that apartment.
Thumper’s fingers kneaded Rico’s plump buttcheeks, which made Rico turn around finally and see that Thumper was naked too. Rico frowned so hard he liketa grow a second mouth just for frowning.
“C’mon, nigga, watchoo doin’? Quit playin’,” Rico said. Thumper pulled him closer, planted his lips on Rico’s and stuck his tongue right in that prettyboy mouth. He tasted like a daffodil, or whatever flower got the sexiest frown, Thumper ain’t a florist. Rico sputtered and pulled away. “Quit playin’, old nigga! Whatchoo doin’?”
“Shush. You go’n be my nighttime female,” Thumper said. He grabbed Rico’s shoulders before he could get far away, and he gripped Rico by the tit — Rico got nice lor apple-sized pecs, too firm to be tits, but Thumper could pretend. Thumper got a great imagination for women’s bodyparts. “C’mon, make sounds like a female. We go’n get hot and dirty, Rico, dirty like rice, hot like spice-“
“Get off me-“
But Thumper kissed him again to make Rico stop his complaining. He kept going, but Thumper swallowed them protestations up. Rico got lost in Thumper’s massive arms. Thumper’s hands kept at Rico’s titless pecs.
In prison, Thumper woulda put a padded bra on Rico, plus makeup and a wig and these big-girl panties with a life-size pussy printed on both the front and the back. Thumper don’t need that to pretend, but it was fun to do anyway, and once Rico was used up, Thumper could pimp him out to all the ugliest niggas in that place.
Eventually he’d get to begging Thumper to be the only one to make love to him, and Thumper would oblige.
Out here in the real world though, Thumper couldn’t do that. Not enough ugly niggas. All the ugly niggas was in prison, doing they part to turn handsome men like Rico into uglier niggas.
Anyway, when Thumper had enough playing games, he bent Rico over the bed they was gonna share. He slammed Rico’s face into the mattress, keeping Rico’s ass high enough to spread them buttcheeks. He got them beautiful dimples dimpling like dumplings on Rico’s dumptruck, like his asshole was smiling at Thumper.
Thumper returned a smile to Rico’s ass with interest — “interest” being Thumper’s tongue, which he slammed in there to open him up. Thumper don’t got lube handy, so he used his spit. Rico howled.
“Old nigga, what-?” Rico sucked in his breath. Thumper lapped at Rico’s asshole with plentya spit. It tasted pretty as a petunia, or whichever flower got the tastiest butthole, Thumper ain’t a botanist. Thumper rammed his tongue in there deep as steeping tea! He be tasting all the unexplored flavor of that nigga asshole, and Rico’s ripe apple-cheeks swelled and jiggled like tits around Thumper’s face. Rico tried to get up, but Thumper punched him hard in the side.
“Stay still.” Thumper’s tongue ran all the way from Rico’s taint up to the small of his back, and Thumper’s sausagey fingers teased his tight hole. Rico’s back curved up like a seductive arch.
Kisses running up Rico’s smooth spine, Thumper groaned and moaned and slathered spit on his scalp. Then he rammed his dick at Rico’s butthole. Rico cried out, and he clenched hard. Thumper ain’t mind. He knew how to break a nigga open. Just the tip went in. Rico sucked on his breath.
“Shit! Nigga!” Rico howled. He panted and clawed at the bed.
“Ssssshhhh…” Thumper said. He ain’t need Rico to shush. He kinda liked hearing that prettyboy voice ring out like a girlish bell. But Thumper was used to hiding the sounds from the guards and from the Aryans — who do tease a nigga for being a booty bandit. Thumper don’t like being teased by Aryans, ‘specially when they got factual accuracy on they side.
He wrapped one arm around Rico’s neck, and he squeezed just enough to make him stop clenching. His asshole opened. Thumper’s dick slid in. A shiver of intense pleasure ran up Thumper’s spine.
“C’mon, c’mon! You can’t! Carson ain’t — Carson ain’t-“
Thumper laughed. “Whatd’ya think Carson sent you to me fo’, nigga? He knew I wanna bust a nut,” he said. He sighed like Rico’s butthole was scratcing a itch Thumper couldn’t reach. “Shit, nigga-“
“Ow, c’mon! Quit playin’!” Rico said.
Thumper’s moan intensified in Rico’s ears, making him wriggle and jiggle like a seductive dolphin. That made his booty squeeze Thumper’s dingdong most pleasant-like indeed. Thumper leggo his neck, and Rico’s ass loosened enough for Thumper to ram in deeper. “Damn!”
“C’mon, old nigga-“
“I love you, nigga,” Thumper said with a chuckle. He be working his dick in and out, and Rico’s tightness gripped it the whole time — that’s what was so nice about a intact nigga. His guts don’t wanna let a nigga meat go.
Stopping moving, Thumper let out another moan. He be getting close now. He stopped moving with his manhood all the way up there, throbbing in Rico’s guts. Thumper got a foot-long dick, plus some to spare, and Rico’s whole body be writhing and massaging it, as Rico panted and heaved.
“Shit, nigga, shit, nigga, shit, nigga-” Rico be broken.
It did get Thumper going though. He stayed motionless to make this last longer, cuz he could tell any motion on his part gonna make his balls explode. Rico be writhing enough anyway. “Hey, nigga, tomorruh go to the store and buy some hog fat.”
“Shit, nigga, shit, nigga… What?”
“Hog fat.” Thumper frowned like Rico. From the silence, he gathered Rico don’t know what hog fat is. That’s the best lube in prison, maybe the best in the world. Outside niggas don’t know. “Hog fat, nigga! Lard. Get lard.”
“What?”
“Get lard! It’s at the store!” Thumper said. “Damn, a modern nigga is stupid!”
Through his clenched teeth, Rico said, “Why?”
“Cuz then I can ramrod you more easy,” Thumper said, and his voice broke. Rico squirmed, and that was enough to send him over the edge. His moan turned into a deep-chambered sigh of relief, as his first spurt of jizz filled up Rico’s guts.
That was Thumper’s cue to get back to humping his butthole, which he did, using powerful thrusts. The movement got Thumper’s muscles tensing up, and Rico’s too, as Rico clawed at the bed beneath him and tried to crawl away.
With a grunt, Thumper lay atop him, shifting his weight left and right in lieu of back and forth. Cum sprayed into Rico’s backside, great big creamy gobs of it that kept coming and coming. Rico shuddered, and the movement awakened a wave of pain.
“Shit… You a good nigga,” Thumper said into Rico’s ear, pulling his chest off Rico’s prettyboy back. He lifted up Rico too, so he could kiss Rico on the side of his cheek, square on the sexier of his two dimples. “Now go clean up.” Rico’s scream of pain was swallowed up by the mattress as Thumper withdrew his manhood, every inch of cum-marinated dickmeat sending another wave of sensations through both them. Rico’s till-now-intact asshole held onto Thumper’s dick and made his orgasm last until the tip popped out, and Thumper’s final jizz dribbled out into a puddle in the small of Rico’s back.
“Owwww, fuck, old nigga!” Rico cried out, then jumped up. All that creamy goo spilled out his gaping asshole and down his legs. “Shit!”
With a mummy-like chuckle, Thumper grabbed Rico’s underwear and wiped his dick off with it, while Rico frowned and cursed and moved around the apartment like he thought the old-nigga lifeguards was gonna come rescue him if he kicked up enough fuss.
“Go’n and take a shower,” Thumper said. He gotta say it a couple times cuz Rico was stuck on transmit.
“Shit, old nigga! C’mon! What the fuck?! Shit, old nigga! Quit playin’! Shit, old nigga, c’mon! What the fuck?!” He stalked in a lor circle stretching his frown out. “What the fuck?!”
“Go’n take a shower,” Thumper said again and again, in between Rico’s whatevering. Thumper gripped his cock and balls to get his attention. Thumper’s callused fingers was like a sandpaper purse, and Rico sucked up his breath and clenched his teeth again. Rico trembled when Thumper licked his face from his chin to his forehead. “Go’n take a shower, nigga. If you wanna shower alone, do it now, or I’mma shower wit’cha later. Wit’cha and inside ya.”
His frown turning to open-mouthed surprise, Rico went to the showers to scrub himself for what felt like forever.
Thumper waited for him. He fully intended to ram that boy again. That was why Thumper don’t shower now. He wanna let Rico get clean and give his ass a couple hours to recover. Then he gonna wake Rico in the night with a bootyfull of dickmeat. Then he’d let Rico shower again, and if his old-nigga dick could get hard once more, he’d shower with him and plow Rico for a third time when he dropped the soap. That’d be funny as hell.
It’d make Thumper’s dick hurt, but it’d be worth it. Thumper was too old to be busting nuts multiple times a night. It don’t stop him, of course. Thumper was too old to do alotta the things he do. A nigga is only as old as he feels.
Before Rico returned from his shower, there came a knock at the door. It was Carson. He stood there in the doorway with a long look in his eyes and a bag of fast food in one hand. Then Carson came in without Thumper telling him to. Thumper couldn’t complain much, as Carson and the Bloods was paying for this apartment, but he ain’t like it anyway. In prison a nigga’d get shanked for that.
He put the fast food down. “I got some chow for Rico. And you,” he said. “Burgers and hot cherry pies from the Ruby Pearl’s on Broad.”
“Hell yeah,” Thumper said. He opened the bag. “I’mma take both the cherry pies from that Rico nigga. I sent him off to shower anyway.” He put the cherry pies aside. “What’d you come here for, Carson? I know it ain’t just to drop off hamburguhs and cherry pies. This nigga connects dots easy, so if you want something from me, come right out and say it.”
Carson nodded. “I said someone gotta rob the Seventh Street niggas,” he said. “You heard that, right? In the meeting?”
Thumper nodded. He cross his arms over his chest.
“I was expectin’ you to volunteer for that.” Carson cleared his throat. “You done time for this organization, Thumper, and I know prison ain’t make you soft. I got mad respec’ for you. You know I do.”
Actually Thumper ain’t know that. Thumper only met Carson after his release. He gave him the apartment, but that was a rule. He got to. He ain’t gotto have respect for a nigga. Ain’t no way to force respect into a nigga. All the honky judges and parole officers in the world couldn’t shove respect into a nigga.
“But I need you to hit the Seventh Street niggas and hit ’em hard. They got a safehouse on Broad,” Carson said. “Go in on a Monday afternoon. I know they schedule, it’s when they got a minimum of niggas there. I’ll get you guns. You can take Rico.”
“He know his way around a gun?”
Carson nodded. Then he leaned in and said, “It would be fine if Rico ain’t come back from this. That would be… ideal. I’d love it if you returned but he didn’t.”
“What? Why?”
“You don’t need to know the details, just… He’s not gonna be parta this organization fo’ long,” Carson said. “So I’m organizin’ the easiest, cleanest exit for him.” He mimed shooting a gun at a imaginary nigga. “Pow, pow.” He chuckled. “You gonna ramrod his booty, right?”
Thumper wrinkled his nose. He ain’t wanna say he done do it. “Come by around midnight tonight and see,” Thumper said with a shrug. “Bring lube and a clothespin to shut yo’ nose with.”
That made Carson frown like Rico! It was contagious, it seemed. Carson got a plumpbody nigga body though, and he wasn’t handsome. He was ugly as a cumrag and dark as a used-up barbecue. Carson be darkskin, but he talk like he was lightskin, like nobody told him how dark he was. He wore glasses too, and they shifted up and down when he wrinkled his nose. “Nah, nah, I’ll let you handle that.”
He nodded at Carson, but they was interrupted then by Rico bursting his frowny face back into the apartment. Rico froze in surprise at seeing Carson. He looked down behind hisself like he was making sure there wasn’t a nigga dick sticking outta his booty. Then he widewalked in, his ass no doubt smarting, holding his towel around his waist.
“Rico, Thumper has the plan for you two,” Carson said. “Don’t disappoint me again.”
Rico nodded. Thumper clasped him on the back, lifted up his towel and held his naked body close as Carson left. He liked the moist heat coming off Rico’s smooth back.
But Carson’s words lingered in Thumper’s mind: don’t disappoint me again. That meant Rico done mess up. Rico was a fuck-up already. Thumper gonna hafta get the whole story outta that pretty nigga’s insides. That story must be why Carson wanted Rico gone.
“I don’t like how niggas come and go on the outside,” Thumper said with a sigh. He went to the window and watched Carson leave the building, scurrying through the cold city streets to his SUV. “Ain’t nothing permanent.” He sniffled. “We go’n to church on Sunday, Rico. Be ready.”
“You been locked up too long, you notiony nigga,” Rico said. He hurried to his duffel bag and found some clothes to put on, which he labored to do without taking off the towel around his waist. “You gone crazy.”
Them words made Thumper’s blood run cold. He recognized that snippet of dialogue.
That was in the script Delsinerr gave him. Them exact words.
Thumper’s next line felt natural as rain. “Shut up, nigga. If you got a girlfriend, bring her over.” That made the apartment quiet, cuz Thumper said it weird and Rico sensed that. Thumper ain’t say it like he meant it, though he did mean it, he said it like a actor reading his lines. “We can double-tap her.”
Rico sucked on his teeth. Thumper mouthed along with him, as Rico said his next line. “You know that bitch Cherry? The dancer? I bin seeing her on the side. She got tight booty. She won’t get double-teamed though, not even for coke. She don’t like it.”
Thumper knew his next line clear as a cloudless sky. He ain’t wanna say it. He wanted it to be said, but it ain’t feel right — he was sposedta tell Rico to drag that bitch here by her hair. A nigga shouldn’t let his female boss him around. If Rico want her to get double-teamed, she shoulda both bent over and spread her legs. She was a stripper, not a angel.
If he wanna accept Delsinerr’s gift, he knew how to do it.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Five

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper awoke in the night needing to piss on the urgent. Felt like his lower half finna explode. He got that bladder neck serious! He lumbered outta bed like a sloppy sasquatch, and he sleepyfooted outta his apartment. The hallway was cold enough to alert him into wakefulness on the way to the bathroom on this floor.
A underhushing of voices could be heard. Someone was in Lipsweet on the first floor, he thunk, as he stumbled down the hall to the bathroom.
Carson wanted him to kill Rico, but Thumper done resist — when he cased out the Seventh Street Playas, he saw a unmarked cop car surveiling the jawn. It’d be no good to strike at ’em now. Carson said to hold off for the time being.
Thumper told Carson he got a plan — hide out and wait for Rico’s mama to report him missing, then have him show up. That way if Thumper killed him later, his mama won’t be believed at first.
Plus it let Thumper think. He spent a long time as the head nigga in charge in his cell, and now Carson — a young pup — kinda young anyway — was telling him what to do. Thumper wanna buck. Rico was a brat, but he was pretty and he was young, and Thumper ain’t wanna bring the prison along with hisself to the outside.

On the other hand, Rico disappointed Thumper this weekend. Thumper done told him — and Carson did too — that the apartment him and Thumper shared was a safehouse. Ain’t no place to bring a female. Carson and Mr. Gregarian declared the apartment unlivable some time ago, so the county got no record of it as a address.

And then Rico gone and got his bitch Cherry to come upstairs and see him! Damn fool-ass nigga hiding out in a safehouse, and he got a goddamn stripper to come suck his prettyboy pickle.
Young niggas is dumb!
Goddamn stripper brung her dog! A Saint Bernard! It’s like a bus that drools!
Doing foolish shit like that? It’s no wonder Carson wanted Rico outta the Bloods. A nigga that dumb is gonna get caught and let his knowledge slip sooner or later. Cherry got sexy lips and enough ass for a white girl, and her dog was great, and both she and the dog promised not to tell nobody about the safehouse. She don’t even know no Crips, supposably, and she don’t mess with cops. Still foolish to bring a female in on it. Females got loose lips, a nigga can’t trust even the best of ’em to keep they mouth shut.
That Cherry was who Rico was sposedta rape and kill. If Thumper done read his lines from that script, that’s what woulda happened. Thumper woulda got to go back thirty-four years ago and not join up with that underground boxing league — that was how he got arrested; the nigga he fought in a unlicensed bout died, and Thumper caught a murder charge for it. He ain’t roll over on the Bloods, who put on the fight.
He coulda not joined in. He was in a legal league then, he hadn’t gotta fight unlicensed. But he could convince hisself to say no back then. He could now. He could live his adulthood with all the wisdom of a old nigga.
Rico don’t deserve shit. Let’s face it, Rico gonna get his dumb ass killed sooner or later, prolly sooner. He either gonna get killed cuz handsome niggas don’t last long or he gonna live long enough to turn into a pointless bump on a rump like Davon. Thumper kinda hoped that, when they robbed the Seventh Street Playas, Rico got killed by some other nigga. That way Thumper ain’t gotta do it. But there was no telling when that was gonna happen, and Rico prolly wouldn’t get killed during it. Thumper planned on hitting ’em quick and by surprise, so they won’t have time to fight back.
Thumper could do so much if he was Rico’s age. Rico be wasting his youth.
Buncha people was waggling down in Lipsweet. The more Thumper awokened as he pissed, the more he heard it.
Who was there? Lipsweet was closed.
“-the rehearsal-“
That was all he made out. Nobody should be in Lipsweet right now. Five o’clock in the morning of the a.m on a Tuesday. It was closed as buttoned clothes. There ain’t nobody there, not that should be there.
With his python tucked away, Thumper went downstairs. His brown hazed, mind blazed, heart and soul re-fazed. Fuck off, stay down, go out and back up, nigga, mind yo’ own business. Not a note gets paid for a nigga to poke his nose in unholy demon nonsense. And yet Thumper stayed.
Chanting emanated like lemonade from Lipsweet, and that urge to fade and stay stuck its gavel in. As reality do unravel, he be staggering, his perceptions scattering, deepness battering on the universe like bifocals shattering. Through the backdoor, he be rambling, behind dabs of gabbing voices in the bar proper.
Popping in like a spying copper, Thumper eyed a flight of hooded men, not robbers. They aura got Thumper to pant and slobber.
From they bothersome stance, Thumper chanced upon none they unhandsome pants. Flat rants came through they chants and they slow-circling dance. Thumper’s tramp ears couldn’t say dear outta the dark splendor he heared — a weak speech that sounded, not like English, another speak, like the howls of the damned in heat.
He bin sensing Delsinerr’s rowling beats, though he ain’t yet see the rays of her pitiless gaze. His grays thickened like lazy days, his blood thinned like sad spays, and his hackles got mad raised.
There she was, gliding like madness in waves through those men of sinister ways. They splayed out as if to lay down and kiss her gown like good sisters. One the hooded misters recited excitement from the script of the day, and Thumper glimpsed his face — Mr. Chambreux, a vig-swigging bigwig in Bangor, known for capitalist vapor and catapulting our savior.
“Greetings, Mister White,” she said, unwavered.
“You…” Thumper savored the rousing flavors of her thousand unspeakable sayers. “I ain’t do it. I ain’t say my lines.”
She spoke without talking, clocking his might and making him piss the kittenest of frights. “This I know,” she said in speak of her fill. “You have yet the taboo of free will.”
“What is this?” Thumper tapped his till toward the chanting pipsqueaks in Lipsweet.
“A big-meat rehearsal of curses,” she said, with heat and a guttery scutter of the bug out from under. From Lipsweet, that chant leaked in asunder like a grim fleet of blunders and blow. “You know him, no? Mister Chambreux? His words never stammer, only flow, like his riches through stealth grow.”
“I, uh… I never met him.”
“His wealth did flow from this show like snitches snow outta sour bitches. His power comes ultimately from this hour of witches,” she said. “His role is that which I did pitch him. Through ethical flinches over the torture of bitches, he sped to yes like wrecks done bled red in ditches and fed hits into misses.”
“You still want me to get Rico to kill that girl?”
“Of course,” she said without remorse. “Him and you together like mates of a feather shoulda forced Heather to gape forever and cleverly bed her to shreds the color of grapes using tethers and girders and levers to rape and murder that redhead on tape, convert her to dead, in a shape unwed, by stabbing her nape and her blurter, never let go, grab her fate and do hurt her. I could forever heave-ho on the soul of Rico and his triflin’ sac, and yo’ dearest life would come crawling right back.”
“Heather?”
The quiet she stacked spurted fast like deathbed confessions from a hearse on a rack. For the first time in this rap, Thumper felt her in his verses — she inserted herself in his gaps, searching his bellweathers for what he used to mean ‘Heather’. Then she said to boot, “The one he brung over, who you call ‘small sweet red fruit’. Currant? Raspberry?”
“You mean Cherry?”
“Yes. Her.” Laughter tarried and burst in the vastness of that mask, blasting like a train into the blackness of the rasps on his brain. Her face bug flickered and flung verbal flame at his lame mug. “Or any snack-size lady to roll like a log, if you ain’t wanna orphan her dog, you sentimental beast of a hog.” She scoffed with a start. “I can de-fog that parta yo’ heart, you know.”
“I like that dog!” Foolish indeed to naysay cuzza the stray. Thumper’s face shamed, as his mind exploded with a salad of nos. Like a salsa sans pico, he refused to kill Rico, his refusal infused with rejections of evil and upheavals of importance.
But a tournament of fortune swirled within, and Thumper want a win. He could assuredly sin. Rico don’t deserve nothing. A man deserves only what he is strong enough to pin, and Rico wrestled as weak as tin.

“Think about it,” she said like a foe and clucked her tongue of woes. “Consider it well, my biggest of niggas.” Then she bid off past his vigor, doffed the door like a broken ticker and returned to the bar. Her confusion went across with her.


Thumper went upstairs. He ain’t like getting tremorous. He wasn’t that kinda nigga, but he couldn’t deny he was shook. He sat on his bed and tried to stop thinking about That Woman and her weird-ass words. He thought he’d be unable to sleep, but he drifted right off, drenched in moonlight and craving rain.
He dreamt of prison and the cozy confines of his niggas, a place where everything made sense and there weren’t no crazy ladies noodling around his brain. All he gotta do is fight from time to time, and that felt good as grandpa’s grip to Thumper.
He dreamed about limping, badly injured after a fight he remembered well cuz he got stabbed by some Aryan in the thigh. He arrived at his cell with blood streaming down his leg. The Bloods steady sent him out to fight — he was a enforcer, that was his job in the cell block. He ain’t never apply for it, he ain’t never say that’s the job he want. When you look like Thumper, with a face like a catcher’s mitt and hands like battering rams, you best believe every nigga gonna front like you is a enforcer, so you gonna hafta enforce something. Niggas do be stepping.
A lor nigga Zeke Lampman reenacted the fight, which he done watch from the sidelines — Zeke’s role was to be the lookie-lou, keeping an eye out for the screws. Zeke done told Thumper when the guards was coming, so Thumper could stop fighting back and look like the victim.
“Damn, nigga, you fucked that mothuh up!” Zeke said with a cackling laugh. Thumper smiled, but he was in too much pain to be entertained. It took all his concentration to shield the pain from all them cellbodies looking at him. He got a reputation that nothing shook him, and he gotta uphold it. Last time he fought, he got stabbed and had trouble walking back to the cell, they all said he be slipping and some nigga stepped to him. Thumper hadta regulate with eighty stitches on his side. So now he ain’t show that he even felt the little slit on his cheek.
“C’mon, nigga, lemme stitch you up,” said Bradley Smalls. He done start sterilizing a needle with a grill lighter soon as Thumper walked in. He got the job of stitching niggas up cuz his sister was a nurse.
Thumper gritted his teeth and sat down. Smalls wasted no time in getting the needle in. Some other nigga wiped the blood off Thumper’s face, cuz that was his role in the cell — blood wiper-offer — and he did it right. The blood wiper-offer was prolly lor and got no skills, that was why he got such a picayune role. Nothing wrong with that. A useless lor nigga who know he be useless and lor and who behave proper cuzza it is fine, Thumper got no problem with that nigga. Somebody gotta be the blood wiper-offer.
While Smalls did the stitching, Thumper cleared his mind. He thought about nothing but the needle going in and outta his skin, like his flesh was made of sweater getting knitted. He let hisself take in the cloying-nigga warmth of the overcrowded cell. His skin sheened with sweat. The pain of the needle might as well be happening to some other nigga.
That was when Zeke again caught his eye. He done took off his shirt and pants to play-act Thumper stabbing that Aryan — the Aryan was in his drawers, so Zeke stripped down to play the part of the Aryan getting stabbed.
“C’m’ere,” he said to Zeke, just as Smalls finished stitching him up. Zeke was daffy-laughing with couple niggas still, cuz he was lor and cellbodies assumed lor niggas gotta be funny. If Zeke wasn’t funny, maybe he’d be a blood wiper-offer or a warm body getting shanked in the meat of life. In prison, niggas got a way of rising to or falling down upon they correct level. Only tragic thing is when a outside nigga don’t know his level of competence. Sometimes niggas learn quick in prison. Sometimes they learn slow outsidea prison.
Anyway, the cell niggas all stopped laughing when Zeke came to Thumper, who got tunnel vision and ain’t none them other niggas exist in his notions. All that mattered was him being alive right now, heart thumping, meat bumping, flesh rubbing, mess spilling.
“Whatchoo want, Thump?” Zeke said. The hubbub over Thumper’s injuries be dwindling, so Zeke’s jump-and-jive act died down. Zeke ain’t funny without a audience.
Thumper gripped his shoulders firm, and Zeke quaked a little. All them niggas in the cell turned away with a quickness, and even Bradley Smalls fucked off to clean his needle. They all sensed where this was going. They knew how Thumper do, and they knew what was expected of ’em. When Thumper first got locked up, any nigga who never ramrodded got teased for it. A real man do need to blow a nut. Young niggas see that as unfashioned now.
Smears of blood still clung to Thumper, but that ain’t slow him down none. Tunnel vision, remember. Only this moment do matter.
He pulled down Zeke’s prison boxers, revealing a fine brown booty. Thumper whistled slightly. The other niggas in the cell was getting involved in a craps game, and they all stayed facing away like polished butlers. “Sssh, Zeke, you might wanna go grab the hog fat.”
“Aww, shit, Thump, c’mon, don’t be a ramrod, a nigga, that’s old-ass uncool shit… Be my nigga, nigga… Don’t stick it in me…” Zeke said. He got no compinktions about being loud, it seemed, cuz he ain’t lower his voice none. He slipped away from Thumper, who held onto his shoulders so he gotta squirm like a earthquake to get out from under. Then he scurried off to grab the tub of hog fat they kept in the cell.
“Shush. Pretend you like it,” Thumper said. As Zeke returned and smeared lard on his buttcrack, Thumper pulled him close and kissed him on the lips. “Make some girly sounds. Pretend like you a bitch wit’ a Baltimore accent, nigga.”
Zeke did play the part the best he could, quiet as possible. Thumper ain’t mind the quiet tone to his flirty moans, as that was a lot like a female. But he sounded reluctant moaning around Thumper’s tongue invading his mouth, and that made it harder for Thumper to pretend he was a girl. Thumper pulled off his gentle-nigga lips. “C’mon, sound into it, nigga. I’ll give you a reacharound.” Thumper stroked hisself into full erection, as Zeke’s whining turned feminine.
Then Thumper stuck his dick into Zeke’s asshole, just the tip at first, but that pushed some of the lard in too. It squeezed Thumper’s meat, while Zeke sucked in his breath. Thumper did too, cuz it felt good as candy, and he let out the moan shuddering up his chest and out his throat.
“Shit, nigga — gimme a sec, gimme a sec-” Zeke scrunched his eyes shut.
“Sssssh, don’t talk like that, nigga,” Thumper said. He ain’t hold on to Zeke no more. Thumper preferred to make a nigga choose to stay. Zeke hyperventilated like a woman in labor. Thumper clucked his tongue. “Make sounds like you like it,” Thumper said, as he reached around Zeke to grab his cock. “You makin’ sounds like a woman bein’ raped. I don’t like them sounds.”
“Man, nigga, Thump, c’mon…” Zeke said. He sucked in his breath and stood on his toes. His cock was going flop-a-flop in Thumper’s hand, but it felt good there — it felt like a moment, like this moment.
There was a time decades ago when a nigga could plow any nigga he want, and that other nigga ain’t allowed to fight back so long as the first nigga give him a reacharound. This one warden instituted that rule. Ain’t barely a single nigga who like it, and it was hard for the screws to enforce. Thumper did like it very much, and he did enforce it in his cell.
That was why Thumper kept on rubbing off Zeke, who ain’t get hard, while Thumper stabbed his dick in and outta his asshole. He don’t care about giving him a reacharound, it just felt good to feel Zeke’s manhood throbbing in Thumper’s grip. A young nigga’s dingdong feels good. Maybe it reminds a nigga of when his own dingdong felt like that. Anyway he played with Zeke’s limpness like clay, while Zeke’s tight ass squeezed and massaged a nut outta Thumper’s balls.
“Here I go, nigga, you good, you good, almost done…” Thumper moaned into Zeke’s ear, making him shudder. That caused a wave of tightness and pleasure to rocket through Thumper, bringing him over the edge. He shot his first cumwad into Zeke’s guts, then he backed up and humped his dick in and outta Zeke’s sensitive bootyhole as an orgasm wracked Thumper’s body.
A vast wave of cum filled Zeke up, making him grimace but also sigh, grateful that this was finally over. His whole body tensed up while Thumper’s relaxed, and the jism flowing into his butthole continued for what felt like forever.
Thumper lay back, satisfied, his pain having vanished. His cock plopped out amid his flow of jizz, and he smirked at the sight of cum pouring from Zeke’s ass. More and more kept spurting out, coating Thumper’s crotch and wettening his pubes. Thumper grinned at sight of Zeke’s twitch of pain, as he spread his buttcheeks apart and stood on his toes.
“Shit, nigga, that hurt!” Zeke said. He glared at Thumper like Thumper should be wiping Zeke’s ass clean. That was technically correct. Niggas was required to clean off a nigga’s butthole when he rammed him, but Thumper was a head nigga around here. He ain’t clean shit. So Zeke limped off to clean it his own damn self.
Thumper plopped down on his bed. Now that the adrenaline from the fight done wore off, he was sleepy as a sunset. The sound of the other cell somebodies roared back into his belltower. They was all doing they shit — lifting weights, conversating, pattycake, whatever, all that shit a nigga do, filling the air with behavior. It felt good to hear it. He lay there listening. Niggas wiggled on about the weather for tomorrow’s trash pick-up — it might rain, which meant the guards was gonna cancel it. Guards don’t wanna get wet. Niggas in prison do. Thumper don’t remember what the rain felt like, but he knew it was good.
Before he fell asleep, he eyed this muscley nigga named Ruck. “Hey, Ruck,” Thumper said from his bunk. He yawned as Ruck came to him. “When you go to bed tonight, come sleep wit’ me. We doublin’ up tonight.” Thumper ain’t wanna sleep beside Zeke cuz he was too bony, like cuddling with a coathanger, but Ruck got muscles and meat and plump bits to grab onto, and he used deodorant. That made him a grade-A nigga.
Ruck wrinkled his too-ugly-to-love nose. “Yes, Thump.” Once he got outta the light, it ain’t matter that Ruck looked like a portapotty exploded. He got a ugly face, but in the dark that don’t matter. Only the moment matters.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Six

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper held a towel around his waist when he walked from the shower to his apartment. It was right down the hall, no turns, no curves, no stairs. But somehow he got lost.
His sandals flip-flopped on the mildewy rug. Soon as he stepped onto the soggy carpet of the corridor, Thumper sensed unease. Something felt wrong. He stopped short.
His apartment was there, or it should be. Ain’t nobody use none the rooms on this level, ‘cept for him. So why done his belly gone wibbly?
Something was wrong. Something done change, maybe. The peeling wallpaper was the same, the smell of the decrepit wood and crumblesome brick of the building remained. But Thumper still felt wrong.

He padded to the left. That was correct, wasn’t it? Thumper couldn’t remember. It ain’t feel right. None these rooms looked right. There was numbers on a placard on the door. His apartment ain’t have a number placard, it had separate numbers, like on a mailbox.

And none these doors looked right — the frames had changed, maybe, the color, the peepholes, something he couldn’t quite place. Awful sounds boomed outta the shut doors he passed. Screams, whimpering, the whir of some motor, a moist splash like blood splattering on the wall.
That Woman in White popped up in his mind, but Thumper dismissed that. She made it hard to think — he ain’t struggle to think right now, he thought fine. What he saw looked wrong. He stopped outside the door closest to where his apartment should be.
But growling emanated through the door, some kinda simmery growl more human than animal. It was fierce, and it sounded like viscous goo dripped from the teeth of whatever was there, so Thumper left the door shut.
Then to his left, Thumper saw a big-ass powerhouse nigga, as high yellow as sunshine.
It was him — Thumper recognized that young cat, it was Thumper hisself, Thumper from thirty-four years ago. He got a handsome mug and just a couplea tats. His skin was taut, and his bladder neck ain’t gone batty yet — couldn’t see that, but Thumper could tell. This nigga, this cheekbone-laden young-nigga Wendell, he got the swagger of a man who do piss a reasonable number of times a day.
Thumper could tell from the tattoos that that young-nigga Wendell was from right before his prison sentence. He got them dice on double sixes on his shoulder. Thumper got that tat couplea days before the unlicensed boxing match that led to his arrest. Young-nigga Wendell ain’t got none the prison tats that present-day old-nigga Thumper got.
“Hey, nigga, hey!” he called out, but that young-nigga Wendell ain’t pay him no mind. He walked down the stairs, the stairs that shoulda led to Lipsweet. “Hey, Wendell! Wendell, hey! Hey, nigga!”
His voice ain’t seem to carry though, and Thumper weren’t sure if he was making noise at all. Young-nigga Wendell ain’t respond. He went down the stairs, and Thumper followed.
Ain’t none of it made sense, but Thumper weren’t cogitating upon reason right now. Young-nigga Wendell was from Before. Back when the world ran proper, before Thumper jumped outta the progression of time and sat in a box getting old, watching his bladder neck go buggy. Young-nigga Wendell was basking in glorious ignorance, and he don’t even know it.
At the bottom of the stairs shoulda been the backrooms behind Lipsweet. When Thumper got down there though, the back corridor was wrong — a hard marble floor, not the grimy linoleum that he recollected. There was paintings hung on the wall, ain’t no paintings in Lipsweet. They was awful abstractions of things but you could tell what they was, like one was a car, kinda, a tortured twisted car that looked haunted in every meaning of the word, like if a car could have a thousand-yard stare, this was it, even without eyes. Looking at it depressed Thumper, who forced hisself to look away.
Young-nigga Wendell done gone through the double doors into Lipsweet proper, or the place that shoulda been Lipsweet. But before old-nigga Thumper could follow, some thing walked past like it ain’t see him.
It was a horrid stack of flesh — arms and legs like flayed limbs, flaps of skin flopping as it moved, and its center was a wheel-shape, like a man mated with a rack — the torture device — as it moved, the wheel turned. The turning of the wheel caused a horrid grinding, squishing the flesh of the wheel itself and the limbs and the headless neck into a bloody paste. The wheel seemed to be what powered it too, rolling atop its legs to force them up and down.
Thumper was glad it ignored him, and he waited for it to pass. When he followed far behind through the doors into Lipsweet, the bloody-wheel fiend went to the bar and furtively swiped a bottle of liquor.
On the other side of the room stood young-nigga Wendell, addressing a crowd of reporters with microphones and cameras and notepads. They was notating every damn thing he said. Thumper recollected doing press conferences from back in his boxing days, but this weren’t one of them. This was later. He never did a press conference after getting the dice tat. It was just two days afterwards that he went to the underground boxing match, and it was only two days after that that he got arrested.
This was a press conference that ain’t happen cuz Thumper was in prison.
“Uh, yeah, yeah,” young-nigga Wendell was saying to one them reporters, who just asked some dumbass reporter question. “I been the Chesapeake champion for three years in a row, and nobody go’n take that crown away from me.”
“Do you have a strategy for tonight’s match?” asked a paltry honky with a tape recorder and a snooty nose.
In the real world, tape recorders and cameras and cameramen and microphones and boom mics and sound guys and producers and tittyfucking and factcheckers and journalists all done got replaced by a phone. But this was Before, when all them things existed.
“Uh-huh, sure do, strategy is to punch hard and punch far, baby!” Wendell pointed at the crowd of reporters who all went laughy-taffy. Youngish-nigga Wendell was like that. Thumper missed it. Everybody made fun of him now for saying that kinda shit. When you’re young and handsome, you can be silly and everyone assumes you making a joke and they sposedta laugh. When you’re old and got rickets in your knees, they assume you gone daft and they sposedta issue a corrective statement about your comments — seriously, that Davon nigga done “say a corrective about Thumper’s comments” during a all-bouncer meeting the other day, cuz Thumper said something about planking knuckly niggas out.
“Do you have a comment about the underground boxing ring broken up in Baltimore this week?” asked one the reporters. “Did you know about it?”
“Uh, I heard rumors, that’s all,” young-nigga Wendell said. He flexed a bicep, which stretched the sleeve of his button-down shirt. “They ain’t invite me cuz they knew there’d be no contest.” A tittering of polite laughter underhushed the crowd of reporters. He flexed the other bicep, and he laughed out loud like a charismatic donkey.
A long plonderous sigh came from Thumper. He wanna be this young nigga so bad he could taste it. Shit, if only young-nigga Wendell knew how good he had it. Thumper got lost in his notions until he saw young-nigga Wendell getting hot under his collar at some numptious honky.
“He don’t wanna say that to my face though, do he, you lor bitch?!” Young-nigga Wendell said. “Come up at me and say it, don’t pretend you concerned ’bout some Russian boxer, bullshit, bullshit, nigga, bullshit! I will rock that Bent-Dick Ovaltine honky any day of the week and twice on Sunday-“
“I’m just reporting on the comments, Benedikt Olvyntilvich said you will fold like an accordion-” the journalist was quaking like shake-n-bake, and maybe that was what set young-nigga Wendell off. He punched the fear offa that journalist’s mug.
The whole crowd of them burst into gasps and clicking cameras, as some couple of ’em ran off to find a phone — this was before cell phones, mind you. Blood poured from the journalist’s fist-snack of a nose.
Thumper stood in the back of the crowd, still holding a towel around his waist, shower water evaporating off them double-size shoulders he shared with young-nigga Wendell. His heart sank like this was happening to him, and it was, even if it was a different him, and he could feel that young-nigga Wendell’s world darkening as the cops arrived and put him in handcuffs. They dragged him outta the room, and again Thumper followed. The journalist with an eternal smear where his face usedta be lay on a stretcher, paramedics buzzing around him like officious bees.
In his bones lingered the same feelings as young-nigga Wendell — not just the dark ones about getting arrested but the victorious ones too, the feelings that told him he gots to punch out a journalist, that ain’t nobody gonna talk shit without getting that shit knocked outta him. Ain’t none the journalists or the cops or the paramedics act surprised. None them knew Thumper, but they expected it of him. Hell, Thumper expected it of himself. Young-nigga Wendell was default as hell.
That was the same part of him that signed up for that underground boxing ring. He couldn’t stand the fact that somebody else might win — would win obviously, if he ain’t fight in it — and then Thumper wouldn’t be the undisputed champion no more. There’d be somebody disputing. Thumper gotta be the toughest nigga around.
In prison, it’s easy to be the toughest nigga around. Easy for a tough nigga anyway. There’s a limited pool in the first place, and guards mostly keep him and his from them and theirs.
The door outside led to a parking lot spilling forth with the sound and smell of rain — actual rain! Thumper eager as a beaver followed the journalist on a stretcher and the squad of paramedics accompanying him outside.
But when he passed the doorway, he weren’t in no rainy parking lot. He was in Lipsweet, or a hellish copy of it. The layout was right, the bar, doors, tables, chairs, all that looked right. But it was filled with more of them horrid creatures, like that wheel-of-flesh thing he done saw. In fact that wheel of flesh was right over there, drinking from the bottle of bourbon it stole, the liquor dripping visibly down its open tract and lubricating the wheel grinding its flesh into loosemeat.
The fiends looked at him, or at least they shifted bits of theyselves so as to aim in his direction, since most of ’em ain’t have apparent eyes. Aside from the wheel of flesh, there was a pair of skeletons — not hollywood skeletons neither, these had rotting bits of organs attached, shattered teeth and discolored bones — some kinda reddish dragony thing and a cartoonish vampire straight offa cereal box. All them stared at Thumper like he was the weird one.
There was a young nigga Wendell again, sitting free — no cops to be seen — at one of the tables, like he ain’t notice the demons all around.
This youngish-nigga Wendell was older than the one at the press conference. He got lines on his face and one streak of gray on his temple. He was still younger than Thumper though. He swigged outta a bottle of beer, then murmured something at one hideous creature walking by. She gurgled, blood splattering out her mouth like she was chewing on glass, and then she mounted youngish-nigga Wendell’s lap so that her bare tits dangled afronta his face. Them tits was long and saggy and steada nipples at the end they both got jaws with double rows of sharp teeth, and they snapped at youngish-nigga Wendell who kept playing like he gonna suck on ’em.
Old-nigga Thumper watched for awhile. His young self laughed and flirted like he ain’t see the tit-jaws or the blood spilling outta that female’s throat. Thumper came up closer to him then, but youngish-nigga Wendell paid him no mind at first.
You know those posters that look like nothing but if you unfocus on ’em, you see a picture? Thumper saw that on youngish-nigga Wendell — he looked like the young handsome nigga he was when Thumper looked at him, but when he looked beyond him, at the demonic lady behind him, then outta the corner of his eye, Youngish-nigga Wendell looked different.
He looked like Rico.
He was wearing Rico’s soul like a suit, that was why. Youngish-nigga Wendell done will have murdered Rico thirty-four years from now. Rico weren’t even born yet.
Youngish-nigga Wendell noticed Thumper eventually and scoffed like he don’t talk to old niggas. “Whatchoo want, old man? I’m mackin’ on this female, don’chu see?”
“Yeah, yeah, I see.” Old-nigga Thumper wanna say so much more, but the demon woman made him wrinkle his nose, and her tits aimed they sharks in his direction. He wanna tell his young self to stay away, that his demon woman was trouble.
But youngish-nigga Wendell wouldn’t never listen. Never could tell that nigga nothing. Not like Thumper now, who takes in feedback and adapts to change readily. That’s on the parole checklist.
A tear-streaked young woman came in then, a real human — stall-blonde, pretty as pink but sob-a-lobbing out loud. She was followed by couple cops in plainclothes — detectives — and she pointed at youngish-nigga Wendell. “There he is! That one!”
Youngish-nigga Wendell jumped to his feet. “That bitch — you can’t trust that bitch!” Youngish-nigga Wendell squared up at the cops, and the demon-tits lady slinked off. “That bitch threw herself at me, she was into it the whole time, swear to God!” He ain’t fight back, but he ain’t cooperate neither, as the cops put him in handcuffs.
Again, old-nigga Thumper felt his heart sinking. Youngish-nigga Wendell was going to prison for sure. The plainclothes detectives said they was arresting him, and he struggled hard like a nigga should, but they got him, sure as sugar is sweet. They dragged him out the door, to what shoulda been the parking lot.
Thumper had enough of this. He ain’t need to watch hisself get arrested bunchesa times. Maybe that was his fate. Delsinerr said she could make him young again, let him live a life without being arrested that time thirty-four years ago, but what if that only lasted a couple months? What if Thumper got arrested again?
He went into the backroom and upstairs to where his apartment shoulda been. He ain’t need none this. Just got him upsetted.
You could keep your nose clean. Just follow the law. Stop wilding out. You don’t needta act that way.
But Wendell of all ages ain’t never see it like that. All-ages Wendell don’t like folks telling him what to do. He don’t like journalists and they bitch-nigga questions. He don’t like teasing young bitches who get him hard and then fuck off, leaving him with a angry dick and hyperactive fists.
Old-nigga Thumper do plow a nigga up the booty when he get a hardon that won’t go soft. Young niggas ain’t learn how to do that yet.
Since Thumper’s release, he bin focusing on how flawed the world was. Ain’t nothing work right, niggas was all tapping and dapping on they phones steada doing real nigga shit, and females was basically phones with tits attached, damn, they can’t stop facebooking long enough to suck a nigga dick.
But maybe it was Thumper that was flawed. He was flawed when he was young but was too strong and too handsome for anyone to tell him. He gotta learn that by stepping outta the world for a couple decades.
When he went upstairs, Thumper walked into a unmarked room, not the hallway he was expecting. This ain’t right at all.
In the unmarked room sat not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell — he was maybe late thirties now. Across from the table was a white man in a cheap suit. Another cop. Actually the same cop who arrested him downstairs, same hunk of honey shithead. Older now though, couple wrinkles on his jaws. Looked like he bin couching down, on the feud with the missus.
“You’re badly in debt, aren’t you? Is that why you needed money? The boxing money dried up, so you decided to rob a couple drug dealers, right? The Seventh Street Playas have gone to war with the Bloods anyway, so you might as well go in guns blasting, right?”
Not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell scoffed. “Boxing money ain’t dry up, jackass! I — I — I got surgery on my knees — my knees is rickety, but in a couple months I’ll be back in the ring-“
“So you just needed some cash to tide you over?” the detective said.
“Nah, bitch, nah, nah, I ain’t shoot no nigga,” not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell said. It ain’t sound believable though. Sounded like he was putting on a show for the detective and the camera and the inevitable judge and jury, and old-nigga Thumper could already tell where this was going.
Boxing don’t last forever. Not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell was kidding hisself if he thought he was still a contender at fortyish-years-old. What else was he gonna do? Coach some younger, handsomer boxer? Do a color commentary for some cutrate teevee channel? (or internet channel, whatever, old-nigga Thumper got no time for “streaming teevee”) After so many years boxing, not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell prolly got concussions on the brain and would make a fool of hisself getting on teevee.
So it made sense to rob some drug dealers. Coulda made enough to retire on. Instead, not-so-young-nigga Wendell was gonna go to prison and turn into old-nigga Thumper, who want nothing to do with this.
When he turned around to leave, there was the door to his apartment, right afronta him, like he done walk past it before. He opened it and scurried in before he could lose it again.
Inside at last, he sat by the window and watched the sun come up without a trace of tired in his bones. He craved the comfortable confines of a prison cell, where at least he could sleep. A prison cell was cozy, crowded in a good way. The apartment was cold and helpless. He felt like the last orphan in a abandoned orphanage.
It felt good to watch the sun rise. It all felt less real in the daytime. He went about his business as though ain’t nothing happen last night.
And maybe nothing did happen. He weren’t tired. He recollected being awake all night, but he weren’t tired his morning. His old-nigga body couldn’t stay up all night and not be sleepy the next day, so he musta slept. Maybe that was all a dream.
Or maybe his dreams was real, and the daylight was a fantasy.
Regardless, night came along at night-time, and Thumper found hisself back at Lipsweet manning the door. The joint was jumping from a early hour tonight cuz some husky lumberjacks from central Maine was drinking, having done finish they six-month contract. They was on the rugged for sure, and they smelled like a pine tree’s armpit. They got boku dollars to spend though. They was young and vigorous, and they looked at Thumper like he was old and uncool and he oughta be embarrassed to be so damn old and so damn uncool.
One them in particular catched Thumper’s ire. His name was Alain, and he pronounced it in the French fashion like he was too good to end with a consonant, but he spoke with a whole rack of trashy yuppers in his voice. He was a well-tanned straightlane with a face like a kick to the balls, and he was loud and pinchy upon the dancers.
“You best slow yo’ roll, Alain,” Thumper said when he bodied hisself to the lumberjacks’ table. A mountain of empty beer bottles peaked high above they table, and they was now mad onto the whiskey train. The dancer Alain pinched done curtsy away, and the lumberjacks was hooting for another one to come near.
“Yes, sah. Yesssah, yessah,” Alain said with mock obedience. He was sloshed as hell, and moving his head made him dizzy. He shrugged it off though, and he shrugged off Thumper too — a fateful mistake for Alain. Then he guffawed and slapped his knee and grabbed the ass of a woman walking by.
Another fateful mistake. Alain be piling up blunders like firewood.
“Hey, you honky shit!” Thumper punched him right across the face, knocking him to the ground amid sparks of blood from his nose. The other lumberjacks jumped back, but one leapt at Thumper. He was too drunk to do more than bump into him though, and Thumper shoved him to the ground alongside his buddy. Thumper mounted Alain and punched his dazed and bloody face again. “Don’chu grab a woman here!” He was really more pissed that Alain did it right afronta him, afronta Thumper, who was in charge here, like Alain got no idea he was just some fucking woodcutter like from a fairytale, he ain’t jack shit in Lipsweet. Thumper ran this jawn on point, and honkies got a role to fill like everywhom else. That role don’t include disrespecting Thumper.
Or pinching dancers without paying first.
Taking a step back, Thumper’s blood boiled. Every nobody in this bar stared at him, none them listening to the disappointing rock music that dribbled out the speakers like a pansy’s nut. Music was awful nowadays. Thumper’s hands balled into fists at his side, flurrying to fly.
But Thumper couldn’t get the police called on him, or his parole officer’d find out. If Alain went to the hospital, Thumper’d be charged, he’d get his parole revoked. He’d be like that young-nigga Wendell, fated for jail, destined to become old-ass Thumper with the wonky bladder neck.
So Thumper let his blood run cold, and he stone-faced the mean-mugging lumberjacks.
That ain’t mean he was gonna let Alain get away with it. A man shouldn’t go groping no female, that was wrong, and that was a lesson Thumper wanna teach. So he grabbed Alain by the nape and dragged him outta the bar. Ain’t nobody like him much or lumberjacks in general, so that was fine, and they all assumpted Thumper was gonna deposit Alain in the alley like a unwanted infant.
“Oh, you are gonna treat me like that, eh?” Alain said as he swaggered free. Thumper let him go in the corridor behind Lipsweet. Alain both stood aggressively at Thumper and inched back, finna go out the backdoor to the alley. He was too drunk to realize that weren’t the backdoor. Instead, he inched hisself to the door to the stairs that led up to Thumper’s apartment.
Thumper gave him a shove, and Alain toppled to his ass against the door, which opened, and he toppled his ass further, onto the floor by the stairs. He rollicked around, trying to get up, but he was drunk as a punk. Thumper pulled his pants down to his ankles.
“You intact, you honky shit?” Thumper asked, as his plan finally formed — all he was thinking up till now was to get Alain away from witnesses without committing a felony, then do something that ain’t murder.
Alain guffawed. “You never met a lumberjack before, huh?”
Was that a yes or a no? Prolly a no, Thumper thunk, but Alain was right, Thumper don’t know any lumberjacks.
Thumper separated Alain’s meaty sscheeks — he was definitely not intact, Thumper saw that clear as mud. He slipped his dicktip right in, couple inches making it before Alain twitched into a flexed stack of hairy muscle. Thumper leaned on him for support and to keep him in position.
His clenching turned his butthole into a stop sign, but Thumper weren’t taking no for a answer right now. He slapped Alain hard across the face, the sound ringing out like a angry church bell. Alain whimpered and sneered his nose, and the tension in the resta his body made his booty open up.
That was enough for Thumper to plump his dick up Alain’s guts. Alain twitched in pain, and he clawed at the ground under his back.
A burst of pleasure shivered up Thumper’s spine, as his cock got deep enough to stick. Alain’s booty gripped it tight, despite his grimaces and his clenching. Thumper kept a good hold on him. The angle was awkward, Thumper sorta draped over his muscley back at the bottom of the stairs, but at least Alain weren’t gonna escape. Thumper held his place until Alain’s breathing slowed and he relaxed.
“Who done wreck yo’ booty, honky?” Thumper asked. He ain’t really want a answer, but he wanna wait for Alain to relax enough to answer. Then Thumper was gonna plow him good.
“My boss, Mr. Chambreux, he-” Alain winced and clawed at the wall. “Owww! Shit! Get off me!” He fell limp again, as Thumper smacked him in the head. He began pumping his dick in and out, Alain’s tightly-muscled booty squeezing his shaft the whole time. It sent pangs of pleasure up Thumper’s body.
“Mistuh Chambreux?” Thumper frowned. “I rec’nize that name.” He stopped moving. Damn did Alain’s booty feel good. Thumper do enjoy a honky who ain’t intact but ain’t loose yet neither, a nice muscley honky who got tightness for days. But the name Chambreux got his wrinkles wrinkling. “You know Mistuh Chambreux?”
“He owns the lumber company I work for, eh! He owns a lot around here,” Alain said through his panting, seething jaws. He sucked on his teeth and again stiffened up, trying to crawl up the stairs. That made his butthole squeeze tight around Thumper’s dick, which he inched bit by bit deeper into Alain’s booty.
“Hey, is he a actor? He do plays?” Thumper’s voice broke cuz he was nearing his orgasm despite hisself — he wanna keep talking, to find out more about Mr. Chambreux — but if he pulled out, Alain would skedaddle for sure. Thumper’s lower half kept humping on its own accord, and Alain’s guts kept sending a wave of pre-orgasmic bliss through Thumper’s frame.
“What?” Alain wrinkled his nose.
“Does he do plays? Like a actor? Theater, not movie.”
Alan shook his head, then shrugged and nodded. “Kinda. Owww, shit!” He threw his head back, then down, making it bang on the stairs. “Goddamn-“
“I’ll finish quick if you answer my question. Is he a actor?”
“What, no — he — well,” Alain said, squinting and squirming. “He told me once he had an audition to get to.” He craned his head up and whispered to Thumper. “He said it like it was a secret.” He laughed but he sounded serious too, and he groaned as he felt Thumper orgasm inside him.
“Huh…” Thumper’s voice wavered — he both considered what Alain said and orgasmed at the same time, unable to resist hisself any longer. His muscles spasmed and rippled, as he grunted up a sound that echoed in the cozy stairwell.
Thumper rammed his dick in and out, moaning into the muscled meat of Alain’s back. He got that hairy-honky back that Thumper found both disgusting and hilarious, but it took more than some furry shoulderblades to hold him back. He grunted and shot a thick jizzwad deep into him, then another, then another, and he filled Alain’s guts with creamy cum.
A long sigh came outta his lungs as a spurting flow of jizz came outta his cock. Thumper felt a potent release, all the tension of the day draining away. Ramrodding a man, he thunk, was less pleasurable but more relaxing than fucking a woman. He ain’t even gotta hold Alain down as his last couple cumdrops drained up his guts.
As he finished, Alain ain’t resist no more. He knew better than to blueball a nigga, or at least this nigga. He let Thumper spew nut up into him, and Alain fell limp until Thumper’s cock finally plopped out.
Wiping his dingdong clean with Alain’s flannel shirt, Thumper screwed up his eyes. “Shit…”
Alain stayed soft, both too drunk and in too much pain to move. He groaned. “I dunno if he got the part from the audition though, he never said that. He said earning an audition was hard enough. He had to sell his soul just to get an audition.” Alain laughed like he believed it but wanted Thumper to think he didn’t. “I’m sure he was pullin’ my leg. He musta been.”

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Seven

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper waited in the locker room at the homeless shelter. He was outta the Lipsweet building. He was outta Bangor. He found the furthest homeless shelter there was. Couldn’t even see that city from here.
It felt good. Back when he was in lockup, imagining hisself leaving prison only to stay in a homeless shelter felt like a disaster. He’d be a trash-high nigga if he did that, flopping into lowness cuz he be too default to rise above anything.
But now, he was glad to be here.
And it was sure to rain tonight. Thumper’s phone said it would start late tonight, and Thumper fully intended to go outside and feel it. Thumper got a app on his phone that predicts the weather. He’d prefer it if the weather was unknown, but now that he got the app, he couldn’t stop checking it. The phone got itself in Thumper’s noggin and wouldn’t let go.
Thumper done left Bangor for good and told Rico to get out too. He ain’t tell him Carson wanted him dead, cuz Rico was the kinda dumb nigga who might think he was big enough to take Carson down. But he told Rico he best bounce, and he told Carson Rico was gone. Both those things was true.
He lay on his bunk, the lower one — ain’t nobody even take the upper jawn, prolly cuz his biggish body and bumping looks scared ’em off. It felt like a prison bunk. Prolly was the same as a prison bunk. He could leave anytime though, that’s what made the bunk feel comfortable. Thumper could handle anything so long as he could leave.
That’s when he saw a hunky-dory whiteboy with a big fat head of blond hair like a girl, like a pretty girl who don’t know how slutty she is. He was slim but thick-butted, and you just know he was pink under them clothes. Thumper could dig a pink whiteboy. He was marble-hard too. Nice.
Lights was off, but nobody made niggas go to bed in a homeless shelter. Guards’d be hollering if they was this loud in prison. Niggas was gabbing on, using phones as flashlights — seriously, everything was a phone nowadays — laughing, smoking tobacco and weed and maybe something more too, watching teevee on they phones, texting females, playing dumbass phone games, arguing over chargers and outlets, looking at nudie pics on they phone screens. Every. Damn. Thing. A. Phone.
That hunky-dory marble-hard returned from the shower, carrying his shower shit in a cute plastic basket like a female might have on her bike. His phone was in there too, in a plastic baggie so it don’t get wet.

“Hey, whiteboy, what’s yo’ name?” Thumper asked. He stood there in his drawers. He ain’t take his shower yet, cuz he still finna get dirty. The good kind of dirty.

“Greg.” His eyes bugged out like he ain’t never seen a uncool nigga before.
“Hmm, nice to meetcha, Greg,” Thumper said. He like a whiteboy with a name no nigga has. That got him hard. Betcha Greg got a sexy mama too. That kinda whiteboy always do. She prolly crackerlicious, with sinkwater-blonde hair and tits that sag at the perfect angle. Hmm-hmm! If she got ass like her son, she be perfect. Bet she do gobble up nigga dicks, gobble ’em up like chicken nuggets. White people love nuggets. “You got a mama around here, Greg?”
“What? No. My mom died fifteen years ago,” Greg said. He set down his shower basket next to his duffel bag.
That gave Thumper a sadness. Sometimes a nigga forget other folk got they own shit going on. Greg woulda been little when she died. But Thumper ain’t wanna show softness, less Greg get the wrong idea, or even worse the bunchesa niggas all around picked up the notion Thumper was weak. So Thumper sucked on his teeth like Greg should be embarrassed his mama was dead. “Shit, whiteboy, Greg, hey, you wanna share a bunk wit’ me?”
“What? No,” Greg said with a wrinkle of his nose.
He grabbed Greg by the neck. “Listen, whiteboy, you best do as I say, quiet as a rat, or e’rry nigga in this place go’n come watch.” He squeezed his whiteboy neck just hard enough that Greg struggled to breathe, mouth gaping like a lake trout. Greg sat on his bunk, with Thumper standing afront him, so Greg’s wriggling made the whole double-bunk shake.
“Waaaatch what?” Greg asked through his quiet chokes.
Thumper lowered the front of his prison boxers with one hand, his other pushing Greg by the neck to kneel. He slapped Greg’s cheeks with his dick, then forced it into his mouth.
With a gag and a writhe, Greg almost got away. But Thumper shoved him back onto his bunk, where he sat with his mouth open like another, sadder lake trout. Ain’t nobody could see. They mighta peeped Thumper push him to his knees, but ain’t nobody give a damn about some hoboish whiteboy with thin lips. Thumper kept his boxers on, he just lowered the front to take his dick out, so nobody could see what he done unless they was right there. The bunk got sheets draped all around it, which blocked Greg, who crouched in there with just a pillow and Thumper’s dingadingdoo to keep him company.
He musta done this before, cuz he ain’t seem too confused. Greg stayed there like a surrendered soldier, and he let Thumper impregnate his mouth. He ain’t even discooperate and make Thumper force it. He parted his lips obedient-like, and Thumper rammed his part-hard meat right in.
The tight warmth and moisture of Greg’s mouth got him all firm up soon as summer, and Greg’s dome made buncha moist slapping sounds. The noise wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the general thrum and din of the shelter. Whoever was bunking up nearby musta heard, but they mighta all been asleep. Nobody said nothing anyhow.
Soon enough Thumper’s dick was throbbing like a drummer, and a fat load of precum burst onto Greg’s face. Greg pulled off Thumper’s knob to gag.
“Ewwhhck, man, c’mon-” Greg retched, and every inch of whiteboy on him rippled like a breezy autumn. He spat up quietly into his hands.
While Greg tried to stop gagging, Thumper crawled into the lower bunk with him, careful to not make noise or pull down the sheets that acted as curtains around the bunkspace. In the bunk, it smelled like scaredy saliva and nigga meat. Thumper do love that smell. They oughta bottle it and get a hefty bitch with a skanky ass to endorse it.
The whiteboy wiggled like a piglet in a oven. “Hey, get off me, what-?”
But Thumper put one hand over his mouth. “Yo, quit squirmin’, Greg, I’mma ram ya. Hold still-“
“What does that mean?!” His voice was muffled cuz of Thumper’s hand, but Thumper could still make out the words. Greg be squirming like a winter worm.
“Hold still, and I’ll show you,” Thumper said. He got one hand on the whiteboy’s mouth, the other holding his nape and squeezing hard enough to hurt. He bucked like a weak bull, as Thumper rammed his now-hard dick at the whiteboy’s ass.
Thumper kept them prison boxers on, just lowered to bare his crotch. Thumper liked the way that felt like prison again — like prison in a good way.
Greg tensed up and grunted in pain. Thumper clucked his tongue, grinding his dick into that hole. Greg’s back arched as a pang of pleasure ran through Thumper’s body. His dick done precum up, so the goo lubed his shaft and made it hard for Greg to pucker with enough force to kick Thumper’s meat out. Thumper got plentya experience breaking open whiteboys. Reluctant crackers thicken the tastiest of chowders, nigga, and you can take that to the bank!
‘Cept you can’t, cuz banks is just apps now. Every. Damn. Thing. A. Phone. Everything ‘cept this whiteboy’s butthole.
“Ow, shit!” Greg seethed through his teeth. “C’mon, be cool, man, be cool!”
“Sssssh…” Thumper murmured. He smacked first one asscheek, then the other, and each time it caused a twitch in the whiteboy’s spine, followed by another inch or two of dickmeat sliding into him. A jolt of pre-orgasmic pleasure ran up Thumper’s spine, and he rammed hard.
“Owwww!” Greg screamed the best he could, but since Thumper squeezed his neck, Greg couldn’t take a deep breath. All he did was oomph and squirm and squeeze his guts around Thumper’s dick. That sent Thumper over the edge.
A grunt and a groan condensed hotly on Greg’s cheek. Thumper moaned right into his ear, making Greg cringe and cry out. Thumper swallowed them whiteboy tears up. “Hmm-hmm, boy, don’t make buncha noise, or all the niggas here go’n want a turn.”
A flood of cum hit the whiteboy’s guts, great creamy gobs of it flowing into him. He hung his head low and let his ass fill up, while Thumper moaned again and his muscles undulated above the whiteboy’s body. He stopped holding him down. Greg was too numpetty to realize he could just crawl away now.
Instead, Greg grimaced as a continuous flow of jizz seeped into his flesh. It felt better than Thumper had experienced in some time, as he was relaxed and calm, no longer worried about Her. All that mattered was this moment, draining his balls up Greg’s backside. It made him feel serene as a waterfall in the springtime, in like Ireland or some shit — Thumper saw a commercial for soap that made him wanna buy a sweater and move to Ireland to lounge around in moss, not buy soap. But Thumper ain’t allowed to leave Maine, so instead, Thumper closed his eyes and moaned into Greg’s ears.
“Ow, c’mon, man…” Greg whimpered like a forgotten puppy. He shuddered, which massaged Thumper’s shaft and sent a wave of pleasure through his body.
When his dick was good and limp, Thumper let Greg expel it. He ain’t take it out, and he ain’t let Greg use his hand. But he stopped fighting back when Greg grunted and writhed and squeezed Thumper’s sensitive cockshaft out, bit by bit. As Thumper’s cock popped free, a moment of post-nut clarity lightbulbed up in his mind.
I gotta do somethin’ to stop that play.
His shaft was gooey and warm, dripping into Greg’s buttcheeks. Greg still had no idea he could crawl away. Thumper got no hold on him and no interest in him anymore. Greg got choices but was too weak to pick one.

If Thumper don’t wanna be a flee-away filly, he could go back, not to do it, but to stop it. A man do take action, and Thumper was a nigga who did.

He done got focused on how Delsinerr affected him. Thumper ain’t wanna lose his soul. Prison was hellish enough for a nigga. But now that he was away from that building and from her, he understood what she did say — this “play” was a invocation, which Thumper’s phone said was “a summoning of a deity”.
Thumper don’t like that kinda play. He liked the kinda theater where pretty whitegirls sing annoying songs. Like Grease. That’s a good play. He saw that movie in prison buncha times.
There was only one deity Thumper approved of, and He weren’t no deity that Bitch in White would summon.
He could stop that play. He was in a unique position. For damn near every day he been on this earth, all Thumper could do was stay alive and fight. A virtuous day was a day with nothing to do. But now, Thumper got a chore, and it was a good one.
Thumper wiped off and put his clothes back on, ignoring Greg’s frantic attempts to clean his butthole without being seen. Greg steady shot dirty-dog looks at Thumper, who saved all them looks up for later. Then Thumper left the homeless shelter and hitchhiked back into downtown Bangor.
The trucker who picked Thumper up, after a good half-hour of thumbing it on the side of the road, was a roly-poly pinkthumb, like a pile of uncooked pastry came to life and cultivated a forest of body hair. He said he weren’t worried about Thumper looking like a cast-iron nigga cuz he went to prison too; he did five years inside and five years on parole. He started trucking cuz that was the only way to get permission to leave the state from his parole officer.
So maybe it was possible to get permission to go to Maryland! Thumper don’t have a driver’s license though.
The trucker was on some uppers that kept him jabbing and jawing, and he made Thumper stroke him off too. He tried to make Thumper slurpy-slurp on his knob, but Thumper don’t play that way. He just used two fingers to jimmy the trucker’s runty niblet up and down. By the time the trucker’s amphetamine-addled wang dribbled out his watery nut, the truck was approaching Bangor.
Thumper’s heart sank. Jacking that trucker off at least distracted him from what he gotta do. Before the trucker dropped him off, Thumper told the man what was going on. He looked at Thumper like a somebody-nigga’s crazy old uncle graybeard, like he regretted picking Thumper up.
“The Bilderberg Group controls all that shit, don’t worry about it,” said the trucker when Thumper got outta the cab. He be sniffling and rubbing his nose like his brain was leaking out his nostrils. “Bohemian Grove, etc. They won’t let the world end, Thumper. It’d be bad for business.” The truck door shut, and he gave Thumper a nod and a bob through the open window. “Stay cool, friend.”
That pondered itself around in Thumper’s noggin. But he went to the Gregarian building anyway. His heart pounded faster the closer he got, until he arrived at the block and saw the building. Then his heart slowed to a measured pace, like when he got into it with the Crips in prison. He stayed calm as a cucumber and composed as a cantaloupe.

The worst part was that he had missed the rain. Bangor was wet. It done rain earlier, but Thumper was outta the city then. The air remained soggy. Puddles prowled atop the pavement. Thumper splashed through ’em down the streetside to that movie theatre on Stranger Street. The streetlight on the sidewalk was burnt out, so the movie theatre’s door was plagued in dark.
Actually, now that Thumper looked, it weren’t true that the streetlight was burnt out. It wasn’t there.

The city never built a streetlight afronta the theater. The sidewalks was lit up along both sides of the street, but not at the theater. The streetlight niggas skipped that spot.
As Thumper came closer, a pair of drunky-lucky lads lashed down the way like jolly liquids. They crossed the street before they came to the shadowy area afronta the theater, whose door was propped open. They ain’t give it no thought, they just crossed the street, just like the city planners never gave no thought to skipping the streetlight afronta the theater. Thumper never noticed the lack of a streetlight neither.
Come to think of it, Thumper never did walk past the theater before. He came right up to it that one time when he looked in the window, but otherwise when he walked this street, he crossed to the other side without giving it a second thought. Or even a first thought.
The theater be hiding itself from a nigga’s peepers.
No hiding from Thumper though. He went right into them shadows like omens so poor, coming to the open door coated in the old decor of posters well-tore up from long before. His hazy face that once more wore those crazy days of yore did tour his dreamy gaze aboard a maze of fiends and steaming demon blobbies leaning slow in the lobby’s seams like beams of creamy knobs and unclean snow. That Woman there reamed glows redly, rain-day ready, feeling his heady flows and tangling eddies like uncooking spaghetti. She spoke steady as a wheeze to a unsoftened sneeze whose coffiny head bled cotton-thin threads of forgotten-bin pennies, its eyeless sockets peeking like sentries.
Outing from the entry, Thumper fled free on bent knees to the wet concrete of the left-side street. He ain’t know if he was being strategious or showing his yellow belly, but he knew he couldn’t go in the front door past them demons.
The rain was gonna restart soon. The stars was already clouded by darkness, and the air was thick with wetness. He was ready for ark-building weather. He just hoped he don’t die first. He went to the other side of the building, where Lipsweet was on the outfront. He ain’t wanna be seen, so he went to the alley behind the bar. He still got his key to the back door.
But when he stuck it in the knob, the door opened before he could twist it.
Davon stood there, both his smiling mug and the lavender band-aid upon it took aback by Thumper. Davon looked at him like a inconvenient expiration date, then he said, “Yo, Lipsweet’s closed fo’ the night, Thumper, Mister Gregarian said the whole building’s getting fumigated.”
Thumper curled his lip at Davon’s nougaty mug, which stared down Davon’s nose at Thumper at the same time, cuz Davon was uppity like a fog in the sky. Davon still thought he was in charge, cuz Thumper ain’t tell nobody he quit. They call that “ghosting”, Thumper done ghost Davon. Thumper knew about ghosting cuz he savvied today’s slang, he was a full-stack ice-cold nigga a la mode, in touch and in vogue but outta sight, irie as hell, a tubular true blue dawg who got it goin’ on in the fast lane, and he do be turnin’ on, tunin’ in and droppin’ out, which was mighty white of him, but he kept it real, kept it tight, kept it classy and sassy, staying woke on the cutting edge, maintainin’ to the end, groovy like a hit movie far out the park and over the top, as he do pop wicked sang-froid, cuz he still had it and remained down for it, up for it and so over it all, off the hook, off the chain and off-book, like so totally random, a fashionable big man on campus 23 skiddooin’ the zeitgeist with mad skills on a tear, cuz this big fig fights The Man, and he be Da Man and da goat, e’rrybody’s homie who e’rrybody digs, cuz he a man’s man and a ladysman, round-the-clock stylish as gay Paree, slammin’ top-grade salmon, callin’ shots like a sniper on the phone and reppin’ M-D proper as a star who took center-stage suave as the mob, a righteous dude who straight-up got it, rizz, game, gumption, drip and spunk, this hunky-dory bruh be trendy as Japan, with je ne sais quoi all over, hot-rodding in the driver’s seat, he has a gas cookin’ with a full tank of blast, cuz this hep cat got a gold medal in puttin’ on the ritz, that’s how he stays the current thing, the mizzle of the moment, keeping the beat as he walks the line, in like Flynn, stackin’ wins in season, in style and in demand but outta stock, the meowin’ cat’s pajamas and the bee’s knees — hitting the scene right on, this vato sips chido, vibin’ on fleek, on point and on the ball like a state of the art seal, lookin’ smart and snazzy, dapper as a rapper, rockin’ on a roll, daddy-o, no diggity, so fresh and so clean on his brightest days, made in the shade, up to date like a calendar, nifty and spiffy as a kahuna, guns and cheese, funky as fatback, metal as steel and punk as a mohawk, with it to the max, absolute fire, fierce, dope, smooth, bomb, choice, good, boss, def, keen, swell, mean, fly, neat, nice, sweet, high, chic, mint, hot, big, top, hip, ace, slick, great, lit, rad, brill, flash, chill, bad, sick, phat, ill, cash and cool as sunglasses. Gen Z ain’t got nothing on this nigga.
“You ain’t scheduled tonight. Why you here?” Davon asked, oblivious as oblivion, his ignorance as vast as the universe was wide. His handsomeness was unshattered by awareness about what was happening here tonight or about Thumper’s coolness.
“You ain’t in charge of shit, Davon. Move out the way.”
“Lipsweet’s closed.”
“I ain’t goin’ to Lipsweet!” Thumper said, key still in hand. His simmering done boil over, and he squared up at Davon, who stood in the doorway like a clump of handsome cholesterol. “Lemme in, prettyboy, or I’mma ram this key at that band-aid on yo’ cheek until you so ugly yo’ mama don’t love you.” He pushed past Davon. “I suggest you go home and fuck a mirror, nigga.”
A sigh of relief chambered outta him when the door slammed shut, Davon on the outside of it. It wasn’t safe in here, but it wasn’t wide-open like the parking lot, and at least he done got away from Her and them demon-things.
But now the hard part began: he gotta stop the play.
His phone be mad beeping and booping. Thumper got no bandwidth for that though. He got a chore to do. He ain’t read the texts.
He went upstairs to go past his old apartment, because he knew there was a back way to the theater there. So far so good. That maze effect was gone, and he made his way to the correct stairwell no problem, easy as pimping on a Friday. Then he creeped down the stairs to the ground floor.
After that, he weren’t entirely sure of the way. There was some offices or something and a door with a sign marked “server room”. Thumper got no idea what that meant. It weren’t fulla waitresses, he checked. All it got was computers without screens.
The server room door opened, and out came that farty spicetip Rajesh. His eyes lit up when he saw Thumper. “Oh, hey, hey, Mr. Gregarian said to come find you. He needs you to go-“
“Nah, Rajesh.”
Rajesh stopped short, eyebrows flapping like a bland curry. “Oh, uh… He just said — you gotta check your phone, did you see him on Whatsapp?”
“What app?”
“Whatsapp. He sent-“
“What? Which app?”
“No, Whatsapp — he said he made a group — it’s on your phone, I downloaded it last week for you.” Rajesh held out his own phone as if to demonstrate how to hold a phone, and he looked at Thumper like Thumper got shit on his nose and don’t know it.
“Shut the fuck up, Rajesh,” Thumper said. He shoved Rajesh at the wall. Thumper could be dead soon, and he ain’t spending his last moments on Earth talking about what app Mr. Gregarian was on.
Thumper’s phone made some whoopy-doopy-whoop noises. He wanna ask Rajesh how to make that stop or what it means. But Rajesh looked frightened as a gazelle when Thumper lioned at him, and Thumper got no time to delay. Rajesh scurried away like a poppy seed, and Thumper continued on to the theater.
Once he saw a storm of texts from his parole officer complaining he ain’t respond, Thumper clucked his tongue and turned his phone’s volume all the way down. If he died right now, he ain’t spending his last moments abiding by parole.
“Mistuh Chambreux, Mistuh Chambreux!” Thumper said when he saw that wrinkle-tinkle cracker, who was all taciturn jowls. Thumper was glad to find the theater but scairt to see the ebony emptiness in Mr. Chambreux’s soulless ivories.
“Who are you?” Mr. Chambreux asked.
“My name’s Thumper, suh,” he said. Having done got worked up about coming here, Thumper ain’t think of what to do when he found Mr. Chambreux. “Listen, mistuh, you can’t do-“
“Thumper? What kinda name is Thumper.” He pulled his robe’s hood shut to cover his face. “Nevermind, get out of here, I’m about to go on.”
“I know. I know what you doin’,” Thumper said. “You puttin’ on a play, the summonin’ of a deity. You can’t do what she wants — Delsinerr, she-“
A hubbub interrupted Thumper from the stage, and Mr. Chambreux shrugged him off. He went to the curtain. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and you’re not going to stop me.” He walked onto the stage and hissed at Thumper, “Get out of here.”
Thumper stayed by the curtain. He watched Mr. Chambreux stand in a brilliant spotlight. The light made it impossible to see who or what was in the audience, but their silhouettes revealed dozens of horrid bodyshapes Thumper don’t wanna see clearly. Hooded humans filled up the front rows with a low murmur of a chant. Mr. Chambreux’s New England-honky voice was thready and warbling, echoing against the theater’s ceiling as he began a monologue in a strange language.
Hooded figures wheeled a coffin onstage. Somebody was in the coffin, banging on it and screaming to be let out. Thumper wanna go out there and open it, but he held back, lightbulbing up a plan — he couldn’t just rush the stage afront all those demons and the chanting cultists.
Reaching a pause in his monologue, Mr. Chambreux pried open the coffin. It weren’t attached firmly, but he got old-honky arms and struggled with it, while the clarion chanting grew louder.
Finally, the coffin lid popped up.
A woman lifted her head and opened her mouth to scream. No sound emerged, she just looked at the audience agape.
The woman was Cherry — the stripper — Heather, the small sweet red fruit. She looked dazed and pale, terrified as a mouse. Her head darted left and right, squinting her asians at the fiendish silhouettes in the audience, stagelights blaring at her pretty little face.
Mr. Chambreux held a ruby- and pearl-encrusted knife in his hand. Thumper connected the dots quick as toast. He was gonna kill that girl. Mr. Chambreux kept intoning arcane syllables in that strange language as he aimed his knife for her chest.
The whole theater shook like a fearful titty, and Thumper held onto the stage curtain for support. A whoosh of air almost knocked him over. It did knock over Cherry, who struggled to get outta the coffin with her arms tied behind her back.
A long green-gray tentacle emerged mid-air in the center of the stage. That was followed by more tentacles, exiting from a warping swirl of cloud and energy. The vortex farted out a palpable odor of rotten eggs.
Cherry’s screams suddenly sounded — pitchy and loud peals like paint, plaintive and sobbing — like a switch got clicked, she yelled like a banshee. Her voice was overpowered by a guttural ancient moan reverberating out the vortex.
A gristly body was clawing its way through now, attached to the tentacles.
Outta mere air, Delsinerr appeared, weird as a meager meerkat. Thumper’s beleagurement ain’t begin till now, so she musta done teleport in from the border within. He clenched fists of bite to ignore her sordid win. She stank like a bin afronta him.
“Mister White,” she said with chords of din. “You returned, so unlike aborted kin. Is you here to short my rim? Or to fork what yo’ been? You go’n drop pork with chagrin in exchange for a fort of skin? You can live with delightful sin in a river rife with the lights of life that has never been. War will sustainably spin, and you can be un-anchored by the petty restraints of bankers and lawmakers, morally slim.”
“I already ain’t do it.”
“You done fold the role of Rico, but this spot here is fulla moles who burrow fo’ souls. You can still steal a part of the goal in this art of tolls,” she spoke, sour as a tart. Onstage, it done start, and Mr. Chambreux made his long curved blade ready to raid in order to trade a heady way for a future to flay. In dishonor’s log, he groaned on along his monologue, and he aimed his knife at Cherry’s stripper skill.
He finna kill her, a sinner in life, to rip her like a miller and bill her for the balance, he might.
Unless Thumper did bite. Sans fright, he could steal the meal and a toe from Mr. Chambreux, take his role and go go go back to blue skies thirty-four dreary years ago.
“That’s the cue fo’ my eyes,” Delsinerr said, slow as the blues make a nigga feel wise, and she spilled like stew onto the stage askew for her size. “Take yo’ prize, He Who Thumps, or die like a lie.”
His brain returned to function, and Thumper knew what he gotsta do. But he needed a weapon of his own. There weren’t nothing backstage he could use.
If he was in prison, he’d get creative about finding a weapon.
So he did what he woulda done then — he made one. He punched the plywood backdrop of a starry night sky, which waited backstage to be wheeled on later. His fist collapsed through the plywood, which splintered around his forearm and drew streams of blood.
He grabbed a chunk and concealed it in his fist. The sharp tip protruded past his fingers.
Then he sprinted onstage, into the confusion of Delsinerr’s cage. He hurried his rage cuz he ain’t know how long this speech got to fade. Mr. Chambreux gonna reach a final stage soon as a endless age.
Thumper could stab him like a wage or the ginger Cherry like a thinner sage to take the offer that was proffered off Her.
Scoffing sure at inner outrage, he hesitated like a bin of blank page, eager to live his life again, unfairly merry amid the deadness of Cherry, no more living free as a dairy cow. Now he was daring to prowl her scary and bow at that Lady of Vows with hellishly hairy howls.
It was a choice he was born to foul, with a scowl he wore like the folds of her gown. In expectation he drowns. Thumper never does respect a section of frowns. Projections of evil unbound like a costume of sound, but Thumper lives up to shoot down.
Yet her boss fumes astound. His plywood shank was battlefield-ground to the sharpest of tips, rank as a bank that flips burial mounds.
It is God’s life that for all-time abounds
With the shiv that he found, he stabbed, not Cherry just barely, nor did he ram ho at Mr. Chambreux. Blowing free will, his street-filled beat aimed his shank at Her mien. Delsinerr screamed. As Thumper do, he stabbed mean, and he stabbed perfectly clean.
From her did stream death and furious beams illuminating things. The shiv kept rivening her belly, driven by He Who Do Thump into her rump and her stump and her jelly. He poked his last, instead grabbing that mask, ripping it fast off her face so so vast. Pinpricks of light did pass out that lass and cash out her vile pack.
Delsinerr slacked a mile and bent over. Though she went to tend clover atop the bug on her mug with both hands like a rug, Thumper saw her near and far dump her fear for raw clumps of the stink she pumped up from the inky beyond.
Nothing was left to do but to at last abscond.
In a dash for the door, Thumper pulled his peepers from her. The theater-crowd screamed jeers and hellfire, but the chanting cultists — the hooded humans, including Mr. Chambreux — stayed entranced by Delsinerr’s grace. Or maybe they was deep in the worship of that tentacled thing coming outta the vortex.
He grabbed Cherry and drug her off the stage. His mind worked clearly now. Delsinerr was there, but her aura was gone, and reality felt real to him. Cherry was stiff as a board though, until he got her away and she rag-dolled in his arms. She still got her white-girl notions caught in the eternity where Delsinerr’s face should be.
The last thing Thumper saw as he got Cherry outta the theater was them tentacles wrapping around both Delsinerr and Mr. Chambreux. Both were dragged into the vortex before it shut.
Then all was silent and still like a birth. Ain’t nothing matter but this moment.
The movie theater was empty of those demon-beasts, and the hoodened cultists — the humans — all exchanged dark glances like sober fiends. The door to the theater closed behind Thumper. He carried Cherry out through the lobby onto the street into the cool night air of the city of Bangor.
“Where are you takin’ me?” Cherry asked, still ashen and limp as spent dingdongs.
“Wherevuh you want, that’s yo’ choice, baby,” Thumper said. He was glad to put her down, cuz he ain’t know till now that his back could take carrying her this far. She asked him to get her dog from her apartment then to her daddy, who lived above a moving company’s offices — her daddy owned the jawn.
That sounded like a job Thumper could do, and sooner or later, somebody from Maine was gonna move to somewhere in Maryland. Then at last, he would see home again.
He took a deep breath of the steamy petrichor blowing by, fresh and fast. His bladder neck be bugging all of a sudden, but he did abide. Swarming with stars, the transcendant sky opened up with a blessed bang of thunder, and thin rain rapped upon him with a chill of perpetual reality. It felt good as grandma’s hugs. Thumper never walked as free as he did right now.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last