The Fargo Kantrowitz'z Literary Campsite

Over the years after hearing that little tale about the little girl being cooked by the cackling witches of Brierson Brook, I thought about it a lot. I never believed it because I always thought that if witches were cackling it was because they had gained a victory over somebody, one worth having. No witch would gain a victory over a little girl by eating her. You’d have to do a lot more to a little girl then eat her. You’d have to be a sicko and do unmentionable things to her, but not eat her. That’s a story for fairyland.
In the town of Millsville there was a lady who ran naked in the woods now and then. She didn’t live anywhere near Brierson Brook. She didn’t need to. You could hear her laughing and screaming as she ran through the woods, well, a certain part of the woods every day, and only me and a buddy knew about her secret spot.

One day I went out there alone and there she was. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I had no idea who she was, who she belonged to, but I wanted to get closer so I did. I carried a fishing pole with me and pushed from behind the brush making believe I was going to go fishing in the creek. She saw me and looked at me for a moment and then slowly began to put on her clothes.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said and I walked by her.

Her eyes were black and her lips red and full. She hadn’t put on her pants as I walked by and yet she didn’t act shy.

“You’ve seen me before,” she said.

I stopped a ways away from her and looked back at her. I shook my head.

“No.”

“Oh, yes, you’ve seen me many times. I know because I’ve seen you.”

And she walked towards me then and I ran. I turned so fast and ran that it wasn’t funny and after I ran a little ways I turned back around to see if she was still there, but she wasn’t. I figure she went home to her husband or whatever and I hated myself the rest of the day for chickening out on the most exciting experience of my young life or what would have been. But I’ll always remember the way that she laughed. It reminded me of the way a woman would laugh If she were worshiping something other than God. After my encounter it reminded me of the way she would have laughed had she had me on the ground and we had started rolling around and she being the older and the smarter doing to me what I had no way up to then any way of conceiving other than through pornography. And because those moments were sharp in my mind as pure fear I ran.

But after spending an hour or so fishing I knew it was time to go back. I went back the same way I came and I looked for her through the trees and brush on my way, but I didn’t see her, not until I came to the creek and she turned around, her breasts pert and pointing up at me, her shoulders squared and her eyes making half-horizontal moons, the black of the iris low and the lids drooping as she stared at me.

I walked up to her and kissed her neck. She kissed back and I pulled her up out of the water and laid her on the grass beside the little pond and hustled to pull down my pants and do unto her what it seemed God had ordained. When I was through I got off her real quick and put on my pants again.

“Where you going?” she said.

But I wasn’t listening. It had been too much for me and I was ashamed and scared. I ran off quick, but catching up to me almost as though laughter can have fingers pulling you back, I listened to her cackle, it was every bit a cackle as those of the witches of Brierson Brook, I’m sure, but that story didn’t mean nothing to me anymore as I ran through the brush, jumping over dead branches, dodging trees, knowing that I’d had my first time and that first time had been with a witch no less.