Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Drew Id" data-source="post: 1204324" data-attributes="member: 12175">Episode II - What a Tangled Web - Crystal's IntroEpisode II - What a Tangled Web - Crystal's IntroYou spent the last couple of weeks with your grandfather over in Mississippi. Partially, you were eager to see him because it was his birthday, and partly you were just eager to get out on the highway with your new Harley. You used the leftover cash to buy yourself a new pistol and to buy your grandfather a new DVD player. It was the best birthday present you have been able to give him in years, and the best dinner to boot. Yesterday, you two went down to a big crafts fair the Tribe was having over in Redwater. There were a lot of people there from a large number of different southern tribes, as well as a lot of white tourists and assorted sideshow types. It reminded you a little of Lollapalooza, only with tribal music and not as many drugs.Near the end of the day, as you were getting ready to leave the fair, you spotted something a little out of the ordinary. There was a booth selling the usual artifacts (“Indian” necklaces, little handmade drum sets, “peace pipes”, etc.) The guy in the booth couldn’t have been more than one-sixteenth Native American at the most. Totally white guy, just cashing in on the Tribe, and raking it in from the tourists. The booth wouldn’t have attracted your interest in and of itself. There were a huge number of booths just like it all over the fair. And the guy inside was maybe a little more white than the rest, but nothing special. But what was unusual, was the trouble he was having. There were a few young punks giving the guy trouble, knocking over his stacks of merchandise, yelling at him, and drawing a crowd. You didn’t have your gun with you, but you felt the knife tucked away into your left boot (brand-new authentic Harley-Davidson boots, thank you again Mr. Scorse), and you figure, “If I can handle unstoppable zombies, then I can sure handle a couple of street punks.”But even as you make it over to the booth, there are a handful of security guards showing the punks away and telling the crowd to move it along. The crowd dissipates, leaving you and the booth-owner, who is busy picking his displays back up and looking frazzled. You make your way over to him. “What was that all about?” you say, as you help him stack ‘authentic miniature totem poles’ back up onto a table. “Hellifino, I was just here minding my own business, ya know, when those dudes starting screaming at me. Freaked me out completely!” His accent gives him away as an aging hippie, probably following the “tribal craft fair” from town to town, like he once did with the Grateful Dead. Judging from his bloodshot eyes, he may not even know that he’s not at a ‘Dead show right now…“Kids today, huh? Well, what were they yelling about?”, you say soothingly. “I don’t know. Something about how I wasn’t pure blood, and how I was a bug on the tribe…”“A bug on the tribe?” You raise an eyebrow questioningly. You also note that one of the hand-carved totem poles has a Jerry Garcia face between the various animal images. “Yeah, you know, like a tick?”“A parasite on the tribe?”“Yeah, that’s it! That’s what I said. And then they starting knocking stuff over, and saying that Suzy Knockers was coming, and she was gonna get me…”“Suzy who?”“I don’t know, Suzy Knockers, Suzy Knock-Ho, something like that. Something crazy…”At this point an young white couple approaches the booth, and asks about one of the peace pipes. They are both decked out in fake leather vests with colorful glass beads, and the woman has had her hair braided with several feathers. Clearly, tourists with money to burn. The booth operator takes a quick look at them, then back at you, figures you, being a tribe member, are not interested in his actual money-making business, and begins to wait on his customers again. At that point your grandfather spots you across the way, and motions you over to meet some friends of his.. . .On the drive home, it hits you. You had forgotten all about the whole affair. What the booth guy must have been trying to say. You remember the name now. You definitely know that’s the name. But, you can’t remember what that name means, or where you have heard it before. Just that the old guy must have been trying to say:“Sussistinako”</blockquote>

Verification