The Wizard

The Wizard

Before the story of the wizard, I have to explain homeless Dave. Homeless Dave was not, in fact homeless. He lived with his parents in their lovely suburban home. Homeless Dave got his name because he constantly had homeless people secretly living with him in his basement. Sometimes they were runaways, sometimes friends down on their luck, and sometimes it was some wack job transient who was old enough to buy cigarettes and booze.

 The wizard fell into the last category. He wasn't crazy in the "hey that guys crazy, he drinks too much and fights" kinda way. No no reader. This guy believed he was a prophet of the one true god. This one true god, by the way, granted his true believers the power of magic....imagine lightning striking and an organ going ba baaaaa right there. Dude was off his rocker in a scary way.

 Homeless Dave was always around so whatever homeless person he was housing was always around too. When that person is constantly explaining heavens currency system to you, it's a smidge uncomfortable to say the least. You try to chat up a lovely young lady, and he's right there to describe her aura to her and let her know that the two of your souls are destined to meet in the apocalypse. You try running any sort of game under those circumstances...you can't...unless she's really turned on by fear.

 Whenever we thought we had ditched the wizard, there he was. He got escorted off mall property (I think it was because of his smell), and he came back a half hour later with his head shaved in patches and speaking in a horrible fake voice. He said he was in disguise. He also had gone into the fine food store of the mall and filled his pockets with olives to mask his scent. He explained that it was an ancient ward spell that god taught him while he was sneaking back into the mall.

Once we thought we were completely rid of him. He was mugged (so he later said), so he busted out some sweet moves that he learned from street fighter 2. I do, in fact, believe that he did emulate street fighter 2 in an effort to defend himself. This would be the least crazy thing he'd done in the short time I knew him. After he'd fended of his would be attackers and sent them running back to their lair, he got in touch with the police to let them know he was doing their job for them. Police arrived on scene, he gave his story, he let them know he was a prophet, he let them know of his magic, and we didn't see the wizard for a while. Now, this is about fifteen years ago, so I can't remember if it was two weeks or two days later, but he's back around. He tells us his story of epic battle and then kinda leaves off what the cops did with him. I'm guessing he was in the nut house for a spell, but later when pressed he said that a church was giving him sanctuary.

 Now we were back to the old routine. Listening to crazy shit, listening to his attempts to convert us, him claiming that he did it whenever the weather changed, and I think he baptized homeless Dave in his sleep. Then he felt something wrong in homeless Dave's home. A spirt. A little girl. Well guys, I don't know about you, but when we realized we were stuck with crazy, we went all in. It's seance time god damn it. We've got to help her move on, give her peace, find her murder, ward the house against future ghost. I mean, getting rid of one ghost creates a ghost vacuum and could displace other ghosts, making it so never finds peace....could you live with that? Could you?

 So we had ourselves a party. We called it a seance. The wizard walked around saying we were doing everything perfectly, the energy was right, we were all naturally gifted wizards. I was on a fun little combo of purple gel tabs and snake charmers...so...I was inclined to believe that I was a gifted wizard. But with the chemical cocktail tickling my brain nothing pleased me more than watching spells and enchantments being cast. Eventually the wizard solved the murder. That was when I got bored. I went down into the basement where my good friend Ari was mixing some tech house. I sat on the floor. I took it in. It was good.

 According to Ari, every time he looked up from his mix I was a little bit closer to the speakers....until my face was touching them. 90's X was no joke. But I guess the ol' wizard wasn't done doing his thing and decided he'd have to purge the ghost with fire...yeah...he lit a bonfire in the basement with me in it. The rest is a bit blurry as adrenaline and acid don't mix well. Shit gets weird. My next memory is standing outside the house, some smoke coming out the door, and me deciding that I have zero interest in staying at this party.

Never saw the wizard again.