#thecoldestdish

           The night that I got jumped by three homophobes was the worst night of my life. One minute I was in the bar having drinks with my homegirls and the next I was on the cold pavement getting kicked in the head. My biggest fear—since coming out—was one day getting gay bashed for who I am. The three guys who jumped me outside of that bar had spent that entire evening hitting on my female friends. When their comments got offensive and disgusting, I got security involved and all three of them were thrown out. About an hour later, I decided to leave before my friends because I had some studying to do for a class. The moment I stepped out of the bar, they attacked me.

                                              Me (Damien)

           I didn’t know their names but I did know who they were. All three were frat brothers and lived off-campus in one of the fraternity houses. I could’ve told the police how to find them but I held my tongue. No one on-campus would believe three brothers of one of the “Divine Nine” would do such a thing. They were treated like kings and queens by the entire black campus population and even by most white students. I lied to the police and my friends by saying my attack was a random gay bashing. For two days, I accepted that what happened to me was horrible but I just had to move on. And then came the third day when I met Semaj.

           “I think you should serve them the coldest dish,” he said to me as I was passing him outside of the political science building.

           “Are you talking to me?” I asked, looking over the top of my shades at him.

           “Who else would I be talking to?”

           “Look, I don’t know who you are but I have another class to get to and…”

           “Damien, revenge is more important than class.”

           “Wait, how do you know my name?”

           “That’s not important right now. Revenge is the most important thing to you at this point. You know it and I know it.” He smiled and stepped towards me. “I want to help you but only if you want to be helped.”

           “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

           He quickly snatched my shades off, revealing my battered face. “I’m talking about that. They have to pay, Damien.”

           “I told the police everything I could about that night.”

           He laughed and exclaimed, “Bullshit! You know them.”

           “Not true. I don’t know them like that. I couldn’t even tell you their names if…”

           “Craig Akil, Jerrod Hamilton and Marcus Lowry. All of them Kappa motherfuckers.”

           Hearing him say those three names caused me to feel a sharp pain in my stomach. I couldn’t verify it but I knew that that was their names. Somehow, I felt it. I looked at this stranger and simply asked, “Who are you?”

                                                   Semaj

           “I’m Semaj. I think you may want to skip your next class, Damien. There’s a lot that I need to talk to you about.”

           I skipped my next class for the day and rode with Semaj to his loft downtown. I wasn’t sure of what he was going to do with me, but something told me to trust him. When we got to his place, he locked the door and then began taking some things out of a cabinet and sat them down on his wooden coffee table. He made me sit down beside him as he lit a few candles.

           “What are you doing?” I asked.

           “Fixing your face,” he replied. “I have a feeling you’re very cute under those ugly bruises.” He opened a jar of white powder that he’d placed on the table and grabbed a fistful of the powder. He then said some chants in a language that I didn’t know. When his eyes began to roll back and his skin turned slightly pale, I jumped back.

           “What kind of shit are you into?!”

           Without saying anything else, he stood up and turned towards me. His eyes were still rolled back and his skin had turned so pale that he looked white! He raised his hand and then dumped the white powder on me. I didn’t feel anything change, only the feeling of the powder hitting me. When I tried to dust it off, nothing was there. Thinking that this boy was crazy, I turned and made a dash for the door. That’s when things got really crazy. He was already out front on the steps when I made it outside.

           “Holy shit!” I hollered, holding on to my chest because my heart was beating so fast. “How did you get out here? I left you inside just now!”

           “Where are you going, friend?” he asked with a smile.

           “Where the fuck do you think I’m going? I’m getting the fuck away from here! You’re crazy!”

           “I told you I was going to fix your face.” He pulled out a pocket mirror and handed it to me. “Take a look.”

           “There is something seriously wrong with you. Your skin just turned white and…” I opened the mirror and almost fainted when I saw myself. My bruises were all gone. My face and body didn’t hurt anymore from the attack. It was as if I hadn’t been attacked at all. “But…how?”

           “If you would kindly step back inside, I can explain.” He led me back into the loft and closed the door before bluntly telling me, “I’m a warlock.”

           “A what?”

           “A male witch.”

           I laughed and said, “But witches aren’t real. That’s make-believe.”

           “Did you or did you not just have a face full of bruises? Did I just not chant a healing spell and throw magic powder on you to take away those bruises?”

           “Well, yeah…but…”

           “Damien, this is real and I am going to need your cooperation to get revenge on those pieces of shit who did that to you. You may think you’re the only gay guy they’ve attacked but you’re wrong. It’s not the frat itself, all the other Kappas that live in that house wouldn’t harm a fly. It’s specifically those three. They’re homophobes, Damien. And it doesn’t matter why they’re homophobic. They are dangerous. You could’ve died that night.”

           “All I want is for them to turn themselves in. Can you make them do that?”

           “No. All I can do is get revenge for you. I don’t have spells that can overtake someone’s free will. But I do have one up my sleeve for the motherfuckers that attacked you. Oh yeah, it’s a good one.” He laughed and rubbed his hands together.

           “I do want revenge, but only as a last option. Semaj, I don’t want anything bad on my conscience.”

           “Fine. Whatever you want to do, we can do it but we still must summon Pyamus.”

           “Who is Pyamus?”

           “I’ll explain later. Right now, I need you to focus on what those three losers did to you. I want you to feel the anger that you’ve already been feeling. Let it fester inside you and then…release it. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

           He made me help him move the coffee table out of the way and roll up his rug. Using a different white powder from another jar, he made a pentagram on the floor. I’d seen stuff like this in movies and shows before but never thought it was real. After lighting a few more candles and closing all the shades to shut all the light out, he made me kneel in the center of the pentagram while he chanted in several different languages. I remembered him telling me to focus on my anger, and I did. I thought about how painful it was taking those kicks to my ribs and back and head. I thought about their smiles as they struck me. I thought about each fist taking away a part of my soul blow by blow. And then as he’d told me to do, I released it.

           The moment I released my anger, everything went silent. Both me and Semaj were breathing but our breaths made no noise. Suddenly, we both heard the sound of a long-winded growl. The candlelight blew out on its own and I immediately felt something large pass by me. Just as I was about to pull out my phone to use the flash to brighten the room, Semaj pulled back one of the shades to let the sunlight back in. Everything looked normal and I could hear other sounds again.

           “What the hell just happened?” I asked him.

           He smiled and simply replied, “Pyamus.”

           Together, Semaj and I drove to the Kappa house. I still had it in my mind that I could talk the three who attacked me into turning themselves in. Looking back, I couldn’t have been more naïve. The moment one of them came to the door, I heard the sound of laughter and ridicule. I wanted to just call the cops and let them handle it but Semaj barged his way into the house.

                           (left to right): Craig, Marcus & Jerrod

           “The following names need to stand up right now,” he called out. “Craig Akil, Jerrod Hamilton and Marcus Lowry.” No one moved so he pulled out a handgun and fired a shot into the roof. “I’m not fucking playing!”

           “Semaj, what the fuck are you doing?” I asked.

           “No one fucking move or I swear to God I’ll blow someone’s head off.” He slammed the door shut. “Craig Akil, Jerrod Hamilton and Marcus Lowry; stand the fuck up right now!”

           The three of them stood up while the other few members in the house either stayed seated or sat down where they were. Marcus asked, “What do you want?”

           “The three of you beat up my friend here at a club a few nights back,” Semaj explained. “He doesn’t want a lousy ass apology. He wants you raggedy ain’t shit motherfuckers to turn yourselves in to the police. If you don’t want to do that, then you’ll have to answer to our other friend.”

           “That can’t be the dude we beat up,” said Craig. “Look at him. He ain’t got any bruises.”

           “Are you going to turn yourselves in or not?” I asked angrily. “Because if not, you’re in for a surprise.”

           “Fuck you,” said Jerrod. “I don’t give a fuck if you gotta shoot me. I’m not apologizing to no faggot! And I damn sure ain’t…”

           “Do you two agree with him?” I asked the other two. They looked at each other for a few seconds and then stood beside their hateful friend. “Fine. You’ve made your decision. That’s all I needed to know.” I looked at Semaj and he smiled as he kept the gun aimed at them. I then took a deep breath and called out what Semaj had told me to say back in his loft. “Pyamus, lord of revenge; tear them apart!”

           The lights in the entire house went out and so did the phones of the few frat brothers who were probably trying to call the police or record what was happening. I could hear them all trying to scramble about in the living room but I knew they wouldn’t get away. When the lights jumped back on, Pyamus was among us and he was as scary as Semaj had described. I would’ve been terrified out of my mind if I weren’t so fixated on getting revenge. The look of horror on all their faces brought a smile to mine. Pyamus was there to serve my every command, and I wanted to see him kill them.

                                                 Pyamus

           He first grabbed Craig by the stairwell and killed him by turning his head around 360 and then ripped it off. It was as if it took a few seconds for the reality of it to sink in for the rest of them because they stood there in shock for a while and then started screaming and running towards the other frat brothers. But Pyamus knew just who to get. He grabbed Marcus by the arm and tore it off in one quick move.

           “Ahhh!” Marcus screamed out in pain as blood gushed everywhere from the wound. He reached towards his frat brothers with his remaining arm and pleaded, “Help me!”

           Pyamus punched him in the back so hard that his large scaly fist penetrated Marcus’s body and came out through the other end. After Pyamus ripped his heart out, his dead body collapsed to the floor. Jerrod punched Semaj and took the handgun from him. He aimed it at Pyamus and shot him in the shoulder, but it had no effect. Pyamus took the gun and dropped it to the floor before gripping Jerrod by the neck and lifting him off his feet.

           “You’re a fighter,” he said to Jerrod as he choked him. “Let’s see how bad you are in my world.”

           Suddenly, this portal opened up out of thin air and Pyamus stepped into it while pulling Jerrod in with him. We could all hear Jerrod’s screams until the portal closed up. With Marcus’s and Craig’s dead bodies still in the house, the other frat brothers were going crazy and screaming. Semaj and I just laughed for the longest, and then Semaj picked his gun back up. He fired another shot into the rough to quiet down some of the remaining frat brothers.

           “Now,” he said to them, “are you your brothers’ keepers?” They didn’t answer him; most of them were still in shock. “I said, are you your motherfucking brothers’ keepers?”

           “Yes,” a few of them answered in unison.

           “Good. Clean up this place and try to forget all of this happened.”

           “And if you go to the cops,” I added, “they won’t believe a word you say. You’ll all be suspects. And even if you can get them to believe you, Semaj and I can get each and every one of you if we want to. Let this be a lesson to all of you: live and let live. You never know what anyone is capable of.”

           Semaj and I left the frat house as quickly as we’d arrived. The coming days told us all we needed to know. The Kappas filed missing reports for Craig, Marcus and Jerrod; even though they knew no one would ever find them. No one suspected me or Semaj of anything and no one ever fucked with us. Semaj taught me more about witchcraft and I thanked him. I never used it to gain wealth or to make someone suffer who didn’t deserve to suffer, I was going to be a vengeful but grounded warlock like him. Before meeting him, I felt so powerless because of the attack I endured. But now I understood what he meant about the coldest dish. Revenge truly is a dish best served cold.

[Disclaimer]: Pictures used do not reflect the sexuality or personality of people in the pictures. They only serve as visual examples of the characters.