The R-rated movie—which Rob Gillis’s older brother rented for us from Blockbuster—followed the legend of the Candyman, who supposedly appears whenever someone looks in the mirror and repeats his name five times, then he slashes his victims with a metal hook.

When the movie was over, all the lights in the basement were on, and Rob and I were each holding one of my dad’s golf clubs. Rob dared me to go into the bathroom by myself and say “Candyman” five times in the mirror.

There was no way I was doing it, and I double-dared him back. He shook his head, and then, as often happened, he triple-dog-dared me. Up to that point in my life, I’d only chickened out on one triple-dog-dare—to do a backflip off the high dive at the pool—and Rob had never let me live it down. I told him I would do it.

I went into the downstairs bathroom, which was always cold because of the concrete floor. I looked at my reflection in the mirror—which, with a bad bowl cut done by my mother and a mouthful of braces, I wasn’t too keen on—and took a deep breath.

“Candyman,” I said. “Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Can—”

I couldn’t finish the fifth one. I turned and ripped the door to the bathroom open and ran to the couch.

Thankfully, Rob didn’t hold it against me. He said he wasn’t sure if he could have even said the name once. I might point out he wet his sleeping bag that night, though I might have too, if I’d fallen asleep for even a second.

It wasn’t until my freshmen year of college that I would finally have the guts to say “Candyman” a fifth time in the mirror.

I swiveled my gaze across the large group circled around me in the white canopy tent—Holland, Rix, Vern, Diego, Andy, Lieutenant Goytia, and Darnell—and said, “And guess what, the Candyman didn’t show up. He didn’t kill me.”

Blank faces stared back.

Holland wrinkled his nose and said, “That’s a great story, Thomas, but I’m not sure how it applies here.”

“It applies, Mark,” I said, “because it was a silly superstition. Just like with this Nsé-Eja tribe.”

“No, no, no,” Diego said, shaking his head. “Nsé-Eja is no movie. They real. The jungle is filled with dark spirits.”

When I had first gathered the group, I told Diego to tell everyone what he told me the previous evening.

So Diego recounted the legend of the Nsé-Eja.