Tiger’s balls
Now ain’t nobody gonna stop me ever at all
Nobody put me up against the big black wall
Cos I ate that Tiger’s testimonials
I ate Tiger’s balls.
“Old Monkey he laughs fit to bust, holding his side and shakin’, and stampin’, then he starts singin’, ‘Tiger’s Balls, I ate tiger’s balls,’ snappin’ his fingers, spinnin’ around on his two feet. ‘That’s a fine song,’ he says, ‘I’m going to sing it to all my friends.’ ‘You do that,’ I tell him, and I head back to the watering hole.
“There’s Tiger, down by the watering hole, walking up and down, with his tail switchin’ and swishin’ and his ears and the fur on his neck up as far as they can go, and he’s snappin’ at every insect comes by with his huge old saber-teeth, and his eyes flashin’ orange fire. He looks mean and scary and big, but danglin’ between his legs, there’s the littlest balls in the littlest blackest most wrinkledy ball-sack you ever did see.
“‘Hey, Anansi,’ he says, when he sees me. ‘You were supposed to be guarding my balls while I went swimming. But when I got out of the swimming hole, there was nothing on the side of the bank but these little black shriveled-up good-for-nothing spider balls I’m wearing.’
“‘I done my best,’ I tells him, ‘but it was those monkeys, they come by and eat your balls all up, and when I tell them off, then they pulled off my own little balls. And I was so ashamed I ran away.’
“‘You a liar, Anansi,’ says Tiger. ‘I’m going to eat your liver.’ But then he hears the monkeys coming from their town to the watering hole. A dozen happy monkeys, boppin’ down the path, clickin’ their fingers and singin’ as loud as they could sing,
Tiger’s balls, yeah,
I ate Tiger’s balls
Now ain’t nobody gonna stop me ever at all
Nobody put me up against the big black wall
Cos I ate that Tiger’s testimonials
I ate Tiger’s balls.
“And Tiger, he growls, and he roars and he’s off into the forest after them, and the monkeys screech and head for the highest trees. And I scratch my nice new big balls, and damn they felt good hangin’ between my skinny legs, and I walk on home. And even today, Tiger keeps chasin’ monkeys. So you all remember: just because you’re small, doesn’t mean you got no power.”
Mr. Nancy smiled, and bowed his head, and spread his hands, accepting the applause and laughter like a pro, and then he turned and walked back to where Shadow and Czernobog were standing.
“I thought I said no stories,” said Wednesday.
“You call that a story?” said Nancy. “I barely cleared my throat. Just warmed them up for you. Go knock them dead.”
Wednesday walked out into the firelight, a big old man with a glass eye in a brown suit and an old Armani coat. He stood there, looking at the people on the wooden benches, saying nothing for longer than Shadow could believe someone could comfortably say nothing. And, finally, he spoke.
“You know me,” he said. “You all know me. Some of you have no cause to love me, and I’m not sure I can blame you for that, but love me or not, you know me.”
There was a rustling, a stir among the people on the benches.
“I’ve been here longer than most of you. Like the rest of you, I figured we could get by on what we got. Not enough to make us happy, but enough to keep going.
“That may not be the case any more. There’s a storm coming, and it’s not a storm of our making.”
He paused. Now he stepped forward, and folded his arms across his chest.
“When the people came to America they brought us with them. They brought me, and Loki and Thor, Anansi and the Lion-God, Leprechauns and Cluracans and Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they brought you. We rode here in their minds, and we took root. We traveled with the settlers to the new lands across the ocean.
“The land is vast. Soon enough, our people abandoned us, remembered us only as creatures of the old land, as things that had not come with them to the new. Our true believers passed on, or stopped believing, and we were left, lost and scared and dispossessed, to get by on what little smidgens of worship or belief we could find. And to get by as best we could.
“So that’s what we’ve done, gotten by, out on the