Hexs and Hammers

A little construction site fun. True story.

                  Hexes and Hammers
            Written by T. L. O’Neal

 

     Back in the early eighties I worked on a framing crew building houses. It was hard work but an enjoyable occupation when you’re young and strong. You had to also learn to work as a team because if you didn’t, it was hard to get anything accomplished. It was always a lot of fun banging those hammers, the smell of freshly sawn wood, the buzzing of the saws and the friendships that I had with my coworkers. We always had a lot of fun working too, sometimes we’d hangout after work and break time was always a plus, we were always doing something during break. We would tell jokes and sometimes Dale would even get me to draw the guys portraits on pieces of scrap wood, or at least draw something. I was an inspiring artist at the time so they all enjoyed my creative side in that respect. Anyway, on these jobsites we were always joking around with each other and this time was no exception.

 

    On this crew was Dale Williams; Dale and me went to school together by the way; his younger brother, his two cousins, his father who ran it and me. We were all the time joking around, especially Dale and me. One afternoon break on a Friday, Dale got it in his head to tell one of his cousins who went by the name of Pudge, and let me tell you that the name really fit him too. Anyhow, he told him that I could do hexes. This fellow was a bit of a strange looking fella, kind of like a fat munchkin but taller. One thing to note is that all these boys liked to party too. They would smoke pot on occasion, that occasion was usually waking up in the morning. I’m not saying that they were addicts or anything like that, so I guess you could call them herbalists.

 

     Anyways, this fella wanted me to do a hex and I was more than happy to oblige him. Not really knowing what to do or what I was doing, I decided to improvise so I made it all up as I went along to make it look good. So I took some sticks and little rocks that I found and made a configuration out of them. In the middle of that I built a little smoky fire and started to wave my hands around and in a strong voice, started to make up some chants. Some were gibberish and others were understandable but it was all for effect anyhow. I knew that he wouldn’t have known the difference in whether it was a real language or not, hell he had a hard enough time speaking English and that was the only one he really knew. But I don’t think I could have won an Oscar or even an Emmy with that performance but this boy looked on in pure amazement, his eyes sparkling with that small fire reflecting in his eyes. He though this was the neatest thing he had ever seen up until he found out that the hex; the one that he was so fascinated with… was on him.

 

   With this his face then turned from amazement to pure horror in just a second or two, and the sparkle in his eyes turned to fear. That to me was amazing in itself, seeing him change that quick that is. All the boys were laughing up a storm and enjoying this prank, everyone but him that is. He started pleading with me to take it off of him, so I assured him that it wasn’t real and there was nothing to worry about at all. He was somewhat relieved and we all went back to work and then home for the weekend that afternoon. I didn’t think anything else of it but I sure didn’t foresee that Dale was going to pick up the ball and run with it over the weekend, and boy did he ever run with it too. I was right proud of him; he surprised me, I didn’t know he had such a mischievous streak.

 

    The weekend went by without incident, on my end anyways but what happened with them boys I didn’t find out till Monday morning. I knew something was up when I saw that fella Monday morning. He looked like he hadn’t slept all weekend and had a terrified, pale look on his face. I’ve forgotten about all that hex mess and hadn’t even thought about it all weekend but he came up to me, and started grabbing me by the shirt with both hands screaming,

 

“Take it off! Take it off!”

 

Now I wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with this, but I knew I wasn’t that crazy about the proposition. I never was one to do stripteases at construction sites but he set me straight in a hurry on what he was talking about.

 

I said, “What the hell are you talking about Pudge?”

He said, “The hex! The hex!”

 

It became clear to me then and I was relieved it wasn’t the other thing. But sensing a chance to have some more fun with the old boy, Dale handed off the ball to me.

 

“Well, what’s wrong?” I said.

 

   He then proceeded to tell me about all the misfortune he had over the weekend and that he couldn’t even sleep because he was so terrified of the “hex.” He pleaded again to remove the curse.

 

So I told him in a mischievous manner, “Let me think about it a bit and we’ll see, but for now we need to get back to work.”

 

     As the morning progressed I found out what exactly happened over the weekend. Dale filled me in on all the details, because frankly I was lost over the whole ordeal. As it went, the boy had a flat tire on his way home, which started the ball rolling especially after Dale told him it was the “hex.” There are a lot of little things that happen in life that just seem to happen for no reason but that night they where watching TV and drinking, and the picture just went out. So Dale seeing an opportunity says to him,

 

“Watch this, Terry is fixing to pop up on the screen in a minute.”

 

With that said, that boy went off screaming bloody murder. The poor guy had bad luck all weekend, and Dale played with his head the whole time till he was the tormented soul that I saw that Monday morning.

 

     As the morning went on, that fellow kept hitting his thumb with the hammer, dropping this and that and was just having a hard time all the way around. He would look in my direction every now and then and I would give him one of those looks or say “Boo” in his direction and he would go to pieces again. The poor boy was a nervous wreck; he was pale and shaking and with the look of a madman in his eyes. At this point he was a certifiable basket case for certain. He pleaded in a begging tone on several more occasions to remove it but I just told him I would think about it some more but he needed to quit worrying me. As time went on we had about as much fun as we wanted to have with this joke, and about as much misery as that poor boy could possible stand, so I told him that I would remove “it.” With this he was tickled to death and I was sure that he would have done about anything I asked of him.

 

    So just like before, I took some sticks and little rocks that I found and made a configuration out of them. And then in the middle I built a little smoky fire and started to wave my hands around and in a strong voice, started to make up some chants. Some were gibberish and others were understandable but all just for effect. Then I told him that it was removed and he would be just fine now. He had such a relieved look on his face and thanked me several times over; he even shook my hand on several occasions throughout the day. Dale and the others were laughing their heads off at all of this and enjoyed every minute of it. Me, I just found it all a bit embarrassing.

 

    Well after that his luck changed and he quit hitting himself with the hammer and dropping everything, and he seemed to have some confidence and was a lot happier too. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was all in his head, but even if I did, I’m sure he wouldn’t have believed me anyways. People are going to believe what they want to, whether it makes any sense to them or not. Superstition can be a dangerous thing to have, especially in people that don’t have much sense to start with.

 

    After that he never asked me to do another hex and to tell you the truth, he never did have that much to do with me anymore either. And he always kept me at arm’s length away from him on the jobs we worked at together too. But every now and then just for fun you know, I just really couldn’t resist myself, I would have to wave a hexing hand at him or give him a funny look just to keep him inline.

 

Reviews

[JR]

I like the voice; it does have an anecdotal feel to it, just a story told over a couple of beers after a long day of work. I like that... it rolls away in front of the eyes, and it's less reading and more experiencing (I guess more a sense of hearing it in the head rather than pushing it through the eyes). And the story itself is amusing, though I wasn't really sure where you wanted to leave me with this. If you were after a chuckle, you got it. If you wanted to set me off on my own tangent down memory lane, you got that to. If you were trying to leave me with some deep, emotional message, you lost me. That's ok... I didn't want a message. I wanted to read a story and have a chuckle. If I drank, I'd pop open a cold one right now.

I don't want to f**k with the voice, but the line, "On this crew was Dale Williams; we went to school together, his younger brother, his father ran it, his two cousins and me," was so convaluted it was nearly impossible to get through. Who did you go to school with, Dale or his younger brother? Who ran the crew, Dale's dad, or the cousins and you? Do you see what I'm saying here, buddy? You could untangle this without losing the anecdotal edge, and it wouldn't require multiple readings to get through.

Take a look at these lines, "One thing to note is that all these boys liked to party, usually smoking pot. They would smoke on occasion; the occasion was waking up for the most part." I think the humor here is kick a*s, but the "usually smoking pot," takes away from it. The idea is that they would smoke pot on occasion, and that occasion was waking up. Funny, funny s**t. But it removes the kick to the funny bone by giving it away in the first line. See if you don't like it better with the punchline cleaned up a bit.

Damn funny piece, and it sure made me think back to all the pranks that I've pulled over the years. I like the way this works, just another tale in a roadhouse somewhere. You're mood and tone are fantastic, spot-on, and I couldn't stop reading if I tried. Nice piece.

[T. Thorn]

This is a good (fictional?) depiction of reality-shaping with ones own mind; the boy, obviously, was a character more susceptible to believing the unknown (perhaps mostly inclined to believing it when it is frightening and threatening, as most superstition works).

I was expecting tragedy at the end of the story, which would have made it deeply disturbing-- to me, anyway. I am generally quite disturbed by stories in which harmless fun ultimately results in terrible misfortune for no good reason (other than the reality-shaping I spoke of earlier). This wasn't the direction you were looking to move in, however, but I still like the theme.

The execution is also nice and clean. It is direct, and easy to read/understand; yet, it is not one-dimensional because of that.

[Jesse Lynn]

This was hilarious, and some great storytelling ability, as well. I'm from Indiana, and this could have taken place in my own backyard. which is a cornfield. but anyways.

[Michael Anyanwu]

The power of suggestion is indeed potent as evidenced in this humorous tale of camradrie and excitable imagination. The story flowed well and had a warm sense of positive familiarity that comes when one reads tales that are rooted in the fine art of enveloping the reader in a world that's as believable as it is consistent.

Definitely gets a positive thumbs-up from me.

[Roger F Aucoin]

Cute little story... the brain / mind is far more powerful that we think or know.

I think the first line of the second paragraph could be reworded - you have Dale's dad in the middle of people attending the school. I know he ran it, but maybe he should be at the start of the list. If 'as written' is part of your 'regional dialect', then keep it 'as is'.

[E]

i love story telling. that's one of my favourite parts of living 'round here - nothing but story tellers on our turf :)
this is a great one. love it!!!

[David P. Eckert]

Thanks for the story. Very professional piece of story-telling. Could be a nice vignette in a children's magazine. It held my attention very well, nicely focused so that the reader wants to know what will happen next. Excellent!

[Michele]

Very interesting and goes to show how powerful the mind really is and how strong the power of suggestion is on someone too. Awesome story.

[Taryn Simpson]

Loved the story....it's a great story telling piece. I felt like I was right there!

Thanks!
Taryn

[Katrina Mckeown]

I agree with Emilie C. on this one, your stories remind me to of Huckleberry Finn...and pranks me and my cousins used to play when we were young....great write and true insight into mind over matter.