Casey Jones and the Naked Hippie
By Newamba Flamingo


The hippie and I walked briskly out of the movie theater, into the moonlit parking lot. Sirens blared as a cavalcade of cop cars, ambulances, fire engines, and media vehicles descended onto the scene. A SWAT team rushed by us in single file.

We arrived to an empty parking space.

“Some sumbitch stole my van!” the hippie shouted, his Mississippi drawl barely audible over the sirens.

“What?” I shouted back, more out of surprise than not being able to hear him, because I did hear him.

“The van! It’s gone! I had all my gear in it!” the hippie screamed, this time even louder.

I realized by gear he didn’t just mean his favorite electric guitar. He meant more his book of acid sheets and tub of homegrown.

The hippie stared down at the ground in disbelief for a good few seconds. His long, curly red hair and bushy red beard blew around in the wind, which seemed to be picking up.

“Over there…” he pointed, across the street, to a dimly lit public park.

He slung the acoustic guitar he’d been carrying over his shoulder and ran across the intersection, through oncoming traffic, into the park’s direction. Cars honked and swerved out of his way. I waited for the stoplight and followed him. Off in the distance, from the movie theater’s parking lot, I could hear gunshots.

The hippie stopped and stood in the sidewalk in front of the park, put down his guitar, and tore off all his clothes.

His tall, obese frame was covered in red body hair. His skin was pale as a ghost, and he had a protruding beer belly that hung so low it obscured his privates. Nearby pedestrians who’d been rubbernecking at the scene across the street shrieked and scampered in terror upon sight of him.

Picking up his guitar, he strummed and sung “Casey Jones” horribly out of tune for about a minute, then took off running into the park. I again followed him.

I heard someone from the park yelling “fuck you!” over and over. The farther we ran into the park, the louder the yelling got.

We ran into a forested area. It was dark. I could barely see anything except the hippie’s red mane and pale flabby ass, between the trees, fading into the distance.

Finally we got to a steep hill and the “fuck you” yelling was now deafeningly loud. The hippie ran up the hill way faster than someone his size should, hurdled over a thicket of bushes, and disappeared into the night. Just after he disappeared, the yelling ceased.

I took a few steps back but stopped when I bumped into something large, warm, and hairy. It was the hippie. He was behind me and still naked and had a flashlight in one hand and his acoustic guitar in the other. He shined the flashlight into his face, under his chin, and stuck out his tongue. On it was several hits of acid. He then withdrew his tongue, shut his mouth, made a gulping sound and smiled.

Then he shined the flashlight to his left. Another hippie was there, who looked sort of like him, red hair, tall, obese, but with a shorter haircut and a goatee instead of a bushy beard.

The other hippie wore two garbage bags as clothes and had plastic shopping bags tied around his feet. The garbage bag hippie began to yell “fuck you” at the naked hippie. Then the naked hippie threw the flashlight at him and proceeded to beat him over the head with the acoustic guitar.

The guitar hummed as it broke over his head. After it completely split apart, the naked hippie bludgeoned him with the fretboard and stabbed him in the throat a couple times with it, too, and, soon enough, the garbage bag hippie looked pretty well dead.

Halting his murderous assault, he turned slowly to me.

“I know who stole my van…” he said, pointing to the hill, the top of which now appeared to be on fire.

“I know who stole my van…” he repeated and he ran back up the hill, into the spreading fire, singing “Casey Jones” and waving his bloody fretboard triumphantly in the air.


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Newamba Flamingo likes dragon fruit, alien abductions, and trying to talk to John Cheever via Ouija board.