The Legend of Cherokee Bum and it is a true story

It was a dark night in downtown santa barbara. a crescent moon peeked through the wispy, billowing clouds. woozle, austin, and I had just parted ways with a group of older cohorts playing pub golf. they were on the 15th hole and had been reduced to a wandering pack of fighting, vomiting buffoons. we liked what we saw, so we decided we should get equally as ridiculous. we went to the ol' liquor store by Cooney's (RIP) where it had become customary to purchase and immediately consume a foety of steel reserve during that limbo between the time when bars close and when liquor stores close. before venturing into the liquor store to purchase aforementioned swill, i decided to urinate on the shrubbery, which coincidentally, had also become a late night tradition. In mid-micturition, i thought i heard an eagle cry in the distance mountains. I paused, briefly, but thought nothing of it. i finished up, zipped up, and turned around.

shrouded in a cloud of mist was a bum with a garbage bag. but this was not your average bum. he had an air of dignity about him, that shone through his obvious inebriation. he had high cheekbones and through his red-bloated face, you could see he had some native-american blood running through his veins. he looked at me for a good 30 seconds before he cocked his head back and spoke to me, in a slurred snarl:

hey brother, can you buy me foety in there. the asshole clerk wont sell me anything because he says im to drunk. and cuz i pooped in the parking lot.

he then proceeded to hold out his fingerless-bum gloved hand filled with an assortment of change and waited.

i figured, hey, this could be me some day if keep on this same trajectory so why not help this poor, honorable native american.

no worries, man, i replied.

i walked through the parking lot into the liquor store, narrowly avoiding a pile of human feces (which oddly smelled of frankincense), and met up with austin and wooz and told them what had transpired. they urged me to make the transaction and so i did. the bum had provided more than the required $2 to buy the foety, so i returned to the Cherokee Bum with a foety, about 78 cents in change, and my two curious chums.

i handed him the foety immediately followed by the change.

upon feeling the change in his hand, the bum looked at me wide-eyed and dumbstruck as he clenched it tight in his bum-glove. he popped open the foety and downed half of it immediately.

you...you...gave me change back? said the Cherokee bum as he wiped foety-water from his beard.

i cracked my foety as well, took a swig, and said: of course, man. you need it more than i do.

While all this transpired, Woozle and Austin were horsing around in the periphery. I think one had his pants down.

Cherokee Bum made a transformation at this point. He went from drunk to very acute and clear-minded. He said to me, in a serious tone: My name is Chippewa. I have come from the far North of California, on a grey hound, over hills and valleys and rivers, to deliver this garbage bag to my blood brother. do you know him?

I replied, I don't think i do, man. what's his...

before i could finish my sentence, Cherokee Bum had shoot an evil glare to austin. austin stopped what he was doing.

Who is this man? he asked me without letting his gaze leave austin. Before I could answer he said, I want to fight this man to the death.

Austin pulled up his pants and slowly walked towards us. Drums were pounding somewhere in the distance. For those of you who don't know, austin is a quarter Cherokee. I can only deduce at this moment that there was some bad blood between the two ancient tribes. Before things escalated, i quickly reminded the Cherokee Bum of his mission of finding his blood brother and delivering the mystery sack.

I asked what it was in the garbage bag that he wanted to deliver to his blood brother, assuming it was scalps or Buffalo pelts.

He slowly turned his gaze away from Austin and his expression changed. he took a pull of his foety, which was down to about 10 fluid ounces already. He looked into the distance as the wind blew through his long hair. He uttered slowly:

You have shown me great kindness stranger, so I shall reward you. Put out your hand.

I obliged, hesitantly. He pulled out a fistful of something from his garbage bag and placed it in my hand. He closed my hand around the stuff. It felt dry and light.

Woozle and Austin had gathered around me at this point. We all looked down into what the Cherokee Bum had given me.

I slowly opened my hand and found about a quarter ounce of weed. Upon closer inspection, the weed seemed to have small pieces of tinfoil and an abundance of stems and seeds. The majority of the stuff was made of leaves and branches. We all looked up, not knowing whether to thank Cherokee Bum or to be insulted.

He was glaring at Austin.

I still want to fight you to the death, he said through clenched teeth.

At that moment, a big lifted pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot. I quickly pocketed the weed and we were forced to separate with Cherokee Bum to make way for the truck. The trucks engine thundered like a herd of 10,000 buffalo as it passed. When the truck finally passed, Cherokee Bum had vanished into the exhaust smoke without a trace. The only evidence that the events even transpired was a pocketful of bammer weed and a steaming pile of bum poop.

We finished our foeties in silence and threw them against the wall. it was 230 am and we had to catch bills bus back to IV.

As soon as we got home, we placed the weed on the kitchen table and all stood around to inspect it. It was even worse then we had thought. It looked like alfalfa with shredded tinfoil mixed in. we shrugged and packed the hookah bowl with a bammer/tobacco mix. we fired up the coals and had a seat in the living room. I was the first to rip it. I took a log, deep breath as the hookah bubbled. I felt the smoke deep in my lungs.

Within seconds, the THC had worked its way through my blood and into my brain. I dropped the pipe and sank back into the couch. I watched in wonder as Austin's face was lit up by the coals as he ripped the hookah. the music that was playing sounded rhythmic and trance-inducing (it was Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band). The deep, masculine voice of Hulk sounded other-worldly. The complex beat and bass-line seemed reduced to simple banging. I began to look around the room as if it had transformed. Everything I perceived had taken-on some antiquated and other-worldly hue, as if i had traveled into a different time period. I looked out the window, it was raining now, into our front driveway. I was able to make out a figure through the water soaked window, squatting by my roommates truck. I squinted to see a man, dressed in a headdress and buffalo robes, smoking a peacepipe, shitting in our driveway.

I woke up the next morning on the couch, with the nasty hangover that only steel reserve can provide, and with the hookah pipe tube still in my hand. austin and wooz had returned to their house and I was alone. The sun shone through the window and the rain had stopped. I immediately got up and checked the kitchen table for the bammer. It was there, right were we left it, the tinfoiil bits shining in the morning light. Next, I ran out into our driveway by my roommates truck. There, right by his front passenger side tire, was an Indian turd, that smelled like frankincense.

ok, the whole thing is true except the part about the indian turd. i made that part up. but pretty weird occurrence, huh?