Rytius Records (Substack Edition), Ch. 18

Chapter 18. Madness

18. Madness

“Did you try the sweet potato pies?” GJ asked Voom, who was chatting with Dancy and Liz in the doorway. GJ was sure Voom had a crush on Dancy.

“I did,” Voom replied, smiling. “Both of them, like Sugarpie said.”

“Well, don’t be shy. Which one did you like the best?” GJ asked.

“I preferred the one with the pumpkin spice,” Voom said.

“Ain’t no such thing as pumpkin spice,” said GJ, sort of chuckling. He pulled from his shirt pocket the joint he had made that morning. He held it up as if to ask those gathered whether they would like to share it with him.

“Heck yeah,” said Voom, nodding yes to the joint.

“You just mean the one that tastes like pumpkin pie,” Dancy suggested to Voom. “Right?”

“But it’s sweet potato, though!” chirped Liz. GJ was sure that Liz had a crush on Voom.

“That’s right,” said Voom, answering Dancy. “I know what it tastes like, but not what goes in it.”

“What kind is it?” Dancy asked GJ, changing the subject. “You always have the best stuff.”

“They be growing heirloom strains and ancient seeds and stuff, like spelt and rainbow corn,” agreed Liz.

“I think they called it maize? excuse you?” Dancy smirked.

“Frickin’…millet,” said Voom.

“Egads, I do believe it’s emmer,” laughed Liz, continuing Voom’s construction.

“Fuckin’…fonio,” GJ drawled, chuckling lightly. They all laughed. He lit the joint, pulled and exhaled a pungent cloud among them. “This,” he coughed, “and I am pleased to present it, is Toe Jam.”

“You ain’t lying,” Liz’s eyes watered as she attempted to unstank her face.

“Oh my God, that smells awful,” Dancy agreed, wincing.

“Like moldy lemon peels,” said Voom, taking the joint.

“Yes!” GJ agreed emphatically. “But it tastes like…like chocolate…”

“Yogurt,” said Voom, coughing. “Chocolate yogurt. A strange mix, with a strange aftertaste. Rich and smooth but tangy and acidic.”

Dancy had to try it. “Oh, I see what you mean,” she said. “The aftertaste is like…like lemonade or, um, lemon…”

“Ice cream!” coughed Liz, having taken the joint, pulled deeply, and held her breath. “Or key lime pie…” She looked up at Voom. “With pumpkin spice,” she added, blinking suggestively.

GJ giggled as she passed him the joint again.

“Still smells like feet,” Voom reasserted.

“Sweaty running shoe sock feet,” Dancy said, crinkling up her nose. Voom grinned, pleased with her amplification. Sugarpie joined them just then, standing beside GJ, who put an arm around her waist and took a second pull on the joint before passing it to her.

“So whose pie did y’all like the best?” Sugarpie asked, embedding herself in GJ’s arms and jabbing the air with the joint like eeny-meeny-miny-mo.

“They won’t give me a straight answer,” said GJ. Then he almost doubled over, giggling, pushing Sugarpie away. “Voom keeps talking like somebody ground up some pumpkins and made spice out of ’em.”

“Aw, man, you’re just giving me grief,” Voom chuckled. “I just don’t know which one was which, so I called it by the taste. The classic, traditional one. You know, the one that tastes like pumpkin pie.”

“OK, cinnamon,” Sugarpie agreed, nodding. “I told you they’d like mine better,” she teased GJ.

“All’s I’m saying is there ain’t no such thing as pumpkin spice, and even if there was you can’t refer to a sweet-potato pie by calling it a pumpkin anything,” GJ stated calmly, as though he were concluding a presentation in the game.

Dancy snorted a laugh and said GJwas tripping, and Liz giggled, too, at his sudden change in demeanor. GJ grinned and passed the joint to Voom. “Yeah, well,” Voom chuckled too, as GJ stifled a giggle and attempted to compose his face. GJ crossed his arms, and leaned back against the doorframe, as though he were done arguing and would now rest his case and his body against the doorframe. He missed—he wasn’t square in front of it—so he slid off to the side of it, reached out with his left arm to grab it, and extended his right arm behind him to break his fall. He managed to catch himself before he ended up on the floor. Voom, Liz, and Dancy guffawed, and Sugarpie covered her mouth laughing, while pulling her husband back up out of his half-fall.

“Yuk it up,” he muttered, attempting to square himself again. “Go right ahead.” He appeared hurt in his pride.

“Oh, don’t be like that, baby,” Sugarpie stifled her laughter and leaned against him for a kiss. He jumped back, and he was still off-balance, so he fell again, and he did not catch himself with his hand against the doorframe, though he did try to slide along the wall to slow himself. This produced a sort of rotation, so that he looked like a tree turning and falling down. He realized he could not brake his fall, so he yelled “Timber!” and landed on his right side, and he cracked up laughing, there, on the floor.

Voom bent over to help him up and GJ snapped at him. “Watch you don’t draw back a stump,” and Voom was shocked and Dancy and Liz stopped laughing and Sugarpie got down quick.

“Wait a minute, GJ, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t like pumpkin pie, and I never ate it,” he said. Voom was stunned, Liz was gapemouthed, and Dancy was frozen, waiting to understand.

“OK, but what are you so upset about? It’s just pie,” Sugarpie said, concerned.

“You remember my great grandmother?” he asked Sugarpie as he tried to stand up. He fell back down and finally sat against the wall. “She was a snakebearer, too,” he spat, looking up at Voom. “She made pumpkin pie,” he said venomously.

“What is going on with you, GJ?” Sugarpie wailed. “Why are you talking to him like that?” She shot worried looks at Dancy, Liz, and Voom, each of whom was also perplexed.

“Shut up, woman! I’m trying to tell you something!” GJ shouted. Sugarpie jumped back and stood still. Liz bumped Dancy and whispered telling her to go get Rob or Rytius or D-Man or Fila or somebody, one of the men, and Dancy did, backing away horrified.

GJ tried again to get to his feet. “I never told you she was a witch, did I?” he asked Sugarpie. “She was. She used to keep this big black leather book full of potions, spells, brews, infusions and incantation.” He noticed Dancy was gone. “You ain’t getting none of that tonight, Voom,” he laughed. “Or ever. You know they’re getting married, right? Her and Rob? She just likes the attention, stupid. And here you come, like a little puppy dog jumping all up in her face, trying to get a lick.” He giggled in Voom’s face, and then he noted gravely, “Speaking of puppy dogs, you’re one Snoopy-looking motherfucker too, ain’t you?” He could hardly stop himself giggling, and so he was pushing himself against the wall so as not to fall again. “Tell him what’s up, Liz,” GJ winked big at her and laughed a loud snort.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, man, but I think you might need to go home,” Voom said. “Right?” he looked to Sugarpie for support. She didn’t know exactly how to respond.

“Like I was saying, that snakebearing bitch was sure enough a witch. I know. I’ve seen the book. She passed it down to her daughter, and she passed it down to hers, and that’s my very own mama.”

“Wait a minute,” snapped Sugarpie. “Are you talking about your mama’s recipe book?”

Dancy returned with D-Man, who smoothly took up the spot next to GJ on the wall. “My man,” GJ greeted him, and tried to give him a pound, but it ended up being a back slap and a low five. “I’m speaking on curses,” GJ declared. “In curses, as verses.” He laughed sharply at his rhyme and glared at Sugarpie and Liz and warned them, “Don’t think I don’t see what’s going on here, by the way. You sent Dancy to go get somebody to cool me out, and that’s my main man and it’s not just recipes. That’s just what it looks like. The shit gets inherited.”

GJ had managed to pull himself up fully erect, still against the wall.

“It’s in the blood now. And it looks like a recipe book because it’s all food potions, like pumpkin pie. And what is food? Food is nourishment. Nourishment for the body. But the soul can’t live without the body. So food nurtures the soul as well. And so if you poison the body, you can poison the soul,” GJ explained. He was calm. “It’s witchcraft, plain and simple.” D-Man looked at Sugarpie for an indication of what to do, and Liz and Voom were just as confused as Sugarpie was.

“That’s what drug addiction is. Right? Loss of the soul via ingestion. Digestion. So if you curse the nourishment, that’s not just any old curse. You’re planting the evil deep down in the metabolic process, the hormonal regulation, the growth cycle of the individual organism, and that’s a curse on all the future generations. The recipe is the transmitter, the information, the dna, how it spreads,” GJ went on. He was making a strained sort of sense, which made things somehow worse.

“And get this: it looks like culture. It looks like a recipe book. It looks like a family heirloom. And so the curse affects the minds of those who inherit it, and it spreads out further and further, deeper into the collective soul. So I have to listen to a redheaded snakebearer telling me about pumpkin spice. Fila’s right about family. Fuck family. And fuck snakebearing witch bitches, too, God damn it,” GJ finished.

Sugarpie had had enough. “OK, GJ, I think it’s time to go. You ready?” He said he didn’t care and his pupils were wide open. She put an arm in his and started pulling him off the wall while D-Man put his arm under GJ’s other arm. They got him off the wall that way, but his legs buckled after a couple of steps, and he pulled Sugarpie to the floor, while D-Man held the other arm up. Sugarpie was not strong enough to walk him out. Voom stepped in to provide support.

Daniel Maclise, Snap-Apple Night (1833). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“I told you to back up off me, you Red Baron Flying Ace–looking motherfucker!” GJ shouted, slapping Voom’s hand away and wrenching himself from D-Man’s grip. “You Samhain-dancing triplane-flying Grand Pumpkin–eating snake motherfucker!” GJ was on his own two feet, though falling forward again as he swung his right arm wildly wide, connecting firmly with Voom’s left jaw.

Voom slumped to the floor and Liz shrieked and fell to attend to him while Dancy cried and Sugarpie yelled for help, and folks came running and D-Man grabbed GJ in a bear hug while Rytius and Sosoface held his legs to stop him kicking, and they carried him, laughing and crying hysterically, out of Fila’s Finds.