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asked Ginny with a stoned smile.
    â€œOh, it’s real,” he said. “If they find out I took it, they’ll send a mahtantu after me.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    â€œA kind of demon,” said Ginny.
    â€œYou didn’t notice this when you came in I bet, but my house is surrounded by a small concrete gutter full of water. I keep a pump running twenty-four/seven in it so the demons can’t get in. I was taught that evil spirits can’t cross running water.”
    â€œWhat happens when you leave the house?” I asked.
    â€œI have to be really careful, perform rituals and such before I go out. I can’t mess up.”
    â€œWhat are the chances of that?” I asked.
    â€œI can do it,” he said, “but the question is, can you two? Remember, you’re my witnesses. If you tell anyone outside of this protected area, even in a whisper, about what I’ve shown you, they’ll know I took it and it won’t matter how careful I am. So you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “It’s a deal.” I stood up and shook his hand. I said a quick good-bye to Ginny, thanked the old man, and split, almost missing the concrete block on the way down. Crackpop said I could take a painting, and as much as I wanted to just get out of there, I had to stop and consider it. The old man was truly insane, and his slow revelation of it on the porch gave me the creeps, not to mention old Ginny smoking a joint and secretly mocking him to me. On the other hand, I knew that years later, if I didn’t have something tangible to attach to this story, when I told it, no one would believe me. I grabbed the rendering of the oak tree burial from the hand of a tree-being. As I relieved it of the picture’s weight, the wooden giant moved, as if stretching. All the way home, with that painting in the backseat, I kept checking the rearview mirror.
    Lynn took one look at the painting and said, “No,” so I hung it in my office. Later that night, in bed, she asked me about my walk. I told her about the church and the art show. I really wanted to tell her about the bizarre episode of my bearing witness, but I swear I didn’t. And the fact that I didn’t followed me into sleep.
    Time passed, a couple of years, and both kids were in school and Lynn and I were both working. The Curse of Crackpop wasn’t the worst that could happen, and so the whole thing faded pretty quickly from my thoughts. Occasionally, I’d see him on the move, and I’d wonder what rituals he’d performed in order to walk so far from home. At other times, I’d notice the painting hanging in my office, and that would make me think of him as well. All this was fleeting, though, in the onrush of our lives. Through all of it, even drunk at the holidays or stoned with old friends, I kept the old man’s secret.
    More time passed, and the whole thing was as prevalent in my thoughts as my third birthday party, when one night Lynn came home from work pretty upset. She was trembling slightly.
    â€œCrackpop,” she said. “I almost hit him. He’s drunk or something, stumbling around in the middle of Atsion Road.”
    â€œUh-oh,” I said.
    â€œFuck him. I almost hit a tree trying to avoid him.”
    â€œWhat should we do?”
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” she said. “Stay out of it.”
    â€œSomebody’s gonna hit him,” I said.
    â€œHe’s popped his last crack,” said Lynn. She picked up the phone and called the local cops.
    Maybe a month after that, I heard, in a matter of two weeks from different neighbors and the guy at the 7-Eleven, that Crackpop had a meltdown at the pizza place, engaging in some unwelcome bellowing, then he was spotted weaving along Atsion one afternoon, literally frothing at the mouth; after that a car did hit a tree, trying to avoid him, though no one was