Magic

By Davis Willis

            At the time, I did not know if it was magic or simply an old Southern trick but when Marsh was about eight-years-old, my great -grand father, whom everyone called Mr. Joe and whom we called Papa, talked a massive, festered wart off Marsh’s pointer finger. Papa rubbed that wart, said a few words, and two weeks later the darn thing was gone.

I swear that wart was invincible. Marsh had that thing on his finger for two straight years. Mom and Marsh tried everything to remove it. Mom put those wart Band-Aids on it and took Marsh to the doctor about once a month. One time, Marsh even took a knife to it, but that did not work either. All it would do was bleed like a son of a bitch and grow bigger each time.

            So one day, Marsh, my grandmother, and I headed forty-five minutes south to Damascus, Georgia where my great grandfather had lived all of his life. Papa had grown up in the Deep, South on a farm and believed in all the Southern tricks and superstitions. Things such as hanging a bag of water to deter flies and  keeping a rabbit’s foot or a raccoon’s penis as good luck. He was a simple man and loved helping others. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him. They also knew that if they needed anything, Mr. Joe would drop whatever he was doing to go help them. Papa could not only help people with their problems, but he could also heal people’s sicknesses. He was sort of the medicine man of Southwest Georgia. Some of the things Papa did were sort of like magic, at least to an eight-year-old.

When we arrived at his house, he was sitting outside on his back porch smoking his pipe. Marsh and I jumped out of the car and bolted towards Papa, who embraced us as we reached him. We sat there and talked with him for a while as he smoked his pipe. Then Papa said, “Marsh, I hear you have a wart on your finger that you want gone.” Marsh replied, “Yes, sir, I do.”

Papa grabbed Marsh’s hand and took a look at the wart. Then he placed the tip of his pointer finger on Marsh’s wart and began to rub in a counter clockwise motion while softly whispering words in what sounded like another language. Papa did this for a minute or two and then stopped. “You must not, whatever you do, look at the wart for two weeks. It will be hard not to look, but imagine that the wart does not even exist. After two weeks you may look at your hand and the wart will have disappeared. Also Marsh, you now have the power to rub warts away. Just place your finger on the top of the wart and say the words you just heard me say. Then tell the person to not look at the wart for two weeks and it will be gone.”

             Two weeks went by and Marsh had done his best to not look at the wart on his finger. On the day of the second week, Marsh slowly pulled the Band-Aid off his finger. The whole family was gathered around. Mom was holding our infant little brother who was crying, but as Marsh pulled off the Band-Aid, Shep suddenly stopped crying. The atmosphere in the room was odd. It was an indescribable feeling that none of us had felt before. If I had to describe what thee feeling was like, I was as though God was present or like everyone had just witnessed the unfathomable, magic. My mouth dropped wide open. Dad was staring in disbelief, and I thought Mom was going to drop Shep. Marsh was most amazed at all. We all just stared. It was as if the wart had come off with the Band-Aid. If you looked at Marsh's finger with the Band-Aid on it, you could still see a lump where the wart was. If you felt the lump, you could feel the wart underneath yet when Marsh uncovered the invincible wart, his finger looked like any normal finger. The wart had vanished. It was magic.