The Time Tooth Tooth Tasted Swine: Part 1

This article is part of the The Legend of Tooth Tooth series.

You heard about Tooth Tooth lately, god? Some crazy shit, man.

Been hearing some rumors, god, but ain't believed a word of it.

I'm sure folks been telling you about how Tooth Tooth tasted the unclean meats of a swine and was corrupted. Yeah, kid, I wouldn't believe that shit either. How could it be so? How could Tooth Tooth, a noble original black man, let the gamey flesh of a snouted ungulate pass the uncorrupted lips he use to impart righteous truth upon his brothers?

But it happened, god. He tasted the swine.

I could tell you that shit was unintentional-- and it was, make no mistake-- but how could a brother so vigilant as he succumb to such a fate by mere happenstance? If y'all know Tooth-- and nary a righteous man in this whole town ain't know Tooth-- you got to know that his revulsion of swine always been legendary, and any tale of him ingesting even the most insubstantial mote of its breads is liable to make you rise up and slap the teller for daring to utter such falsehoods.

Shit, I was about to do just that, but I'ma let you finish.

Got to go back a ways to start it. You heard how Tooth Tooth ran afoul of the white man's legal system? Now, we know that Tooth Tooth a peaceful man. Though his fury burn white-hot when he chance to espy a pale child of Yacub doing any one of the things that make white people the devil-- like systematically oppressing the original man, for instance, or offering bacon to a child-- he don't tend to lose his cool. That eagle of his, on the other hand-- well, god, you know all about that eagle.

Whereas Tooth is loath to waste a corrective palm on even the most simpering of hog-delecting whitelings, that bird don't tend to subscribe to Tooth Tooth's tenets of nonviolent protest. Thusly, ever since he got that eagle-- that big-ass righteous harpy eagle who ride on his shoulder and pluck out the eyes of the corrupt-- certain elements of Yacubian society been regarding Tooth Tooth as somewhat of a dangerous element. And not that he ain't been dangerous the whole time-- shit, he been the financial ruin of many a white business-devil who challenged his hand at dice-- but now a few too many white faces be rocking eye patches and talon scars for The Man's comfort.

So I'm sure you heard about when a couple months back they passed that new law, you dig?

The one about inciting an eagle to violence?

As if Tooth Tooth incited shit! That eagle violent by its nature: violent against the devils that would do injustice to the black man. They passed that bullshit law with the specific aim of trumping up dishonest accusations on Tooth, but it ain't work that way; they bring him before a jury of his peers, right, and Tooth Tooth just show that PowerPoint presentation proving that the white man was created in a laboratory by an ancient evil devil scientist named Yacub, and what with his unsurpassed oratory skills and all, even the white people on the jury ain't gonna convict him and that eagle of nothing. Only thing they got him on was the law about operating an unlicensed predatory bird in the city limits, and that's just some slap-on-the-wrist shit.

But that's how we get to the story: the judge, in classic white person fashion, endeavored to co-opt Tooth Tooth's fury-- or, more properly, the fury of his eagle-- into his own wicked narrative. Judge wanted to spin this whole thing into a tale of harmony and maybe get some press for himself, you dig? So in lieu of a fine, he sentenced Tooth Tooth to visit the house of a local white man for a sit-down dinner, with the hope that Tooth and the white man might share their views and become more agreeable toward one another. Now, if y'all had to guess it right off your dome, who would you say was the whitest man in town?

Must be that cat Jeremy Birdcastle in the East Village.

Right you are, god. Jeremy Birdcastle, renowned by all as the apotheosis of human alabastrosity; the judge told Tooth he gotta visit Birdcastle's apartment, eat his perverse white cooking and spend an hour discussing ways in which Tooth Tooth can learn to respect the existence of the lab-created sons of Yacub more fully. Now, Tooth Tooth all about harmony, word is bond-- in his eyes, the white devil is merely a corrupted version of the original black man; the color of his skin don't make him evil, it is only in his pig-swilling, righteousness-oppressing deeds that he becomes Tooth's enemy. As such, Tooth perfectly willing to suffer the company of an ivory homunculus like Birdcastle, provided he on the level.