“No man, I-”
“Carlisle, I’m not here to bust you. You know I ain’t about that, but that shit will kill you.”
“I know, I know…” He got a sad look to his face. It happens when an addict knows he’s been called and his defenses drop. It doesn’t mean anything’s going to change, but it’s where anything starts.
“Come see me at the clinic, will ya?”
“Yeah Duff, I’ll try.” He looked sincere but the chances were slim he’d come by. It was time to change the subject for a couple of reasons.
“Hey, Carlisle. I was talking to the Caretaker and-”
“What you doing with the Caretaker?” He looked at me like I said I had just met with Jesus.
“Long story. He said something about a ‘Sky Pilot.’ What’s he talking about?”
“Shit-that funky-ass motherfucker could be talking ’bout any shit.”
“C’mon, what could it mean?”
“Yo, Duff, it ain’t like all us brothers pass around a dictionary to keep up with each other’s rap,” Chipper said.
“No ideas?” I looked back and forth between the two of them.
“I don’t know, it’s pretty old-school shit, but the Caretaker is all up funky into that shit.” Carlisle shook his head as he thought.
“A guy I knew inside used to talk that same rap… Sky Pilot?
… Hmmm… I think that’s what he used to call the chaplain. I guess a Sky Pilot is a preacher or some sort of man of God,” Carlisle said. “That sound right?”
“Yeah, yeah it might,” I said.
29
Elvis rocked me over to AJ’s with Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on My Mind.” There was never any use in trying to convince anyone that Elvis could make a goofy Glen Campbell cool, so I didn’t even bother. Besides, with the unfolding series of events running through my head, there wasn’t really anything being gentle on my mind.
Thank God there was no bicycled ninja ready to confront me at AJ’s front door, but that didn’t mean I was going to be able to slip right into a bar stool next to Kelley to give him the lowdown. The brain trust was busy problem solving and I got sucked in.
“I’m telling you, you can get high on nutmeg,” Jerry Number Two said.
“So how come we don’t see guys in back alleys trying to smoke egg nog?” TC said.
“I hate egg nog. I puked on egg nog once,” Jerry Number One said.
“Actually, if you’re trying to get high on nutmeg, you’re likely to get sick to your stomach first,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Talk about your bad trips,” Jerry Number One said.
“What about banana peels?” Rocco asked.
“What about them? Cartoon guys are always slipping on them, and in my whole life I’ve never come across a banana peel that made me trip,” TC said.
“You weren’t using them right,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Huh?” TC said.
“If you didn’t trip then you obviously weren’t doing them right,” Jerry Number Two said.
“What the hell are you talking about? Why would I want to trip on a banana peel?” TC said.
“To alter your consciousness,” Jerry Number Two said.
“By banging my head? No thanks, I’ll stick to the B amp;B,” TC said.
“Ask Duff. He works with dope fiends,” Rocco said.
“Duff, can you trip on a banana peel or nutmeg and do they make you puke?” TC said.
“In college I got drunk and tripped in a guy’s puke. It was disgusting,” Jerry Number Two said.
“I think you can on nutmeg but not on banana peels,” I said.
“There,” Rocco said.
“There what?” TC said.
Kelley was watching one of those strongman contests. Two guys were racing while carrying the engine block of a Ford van, and both of their huge heads looked like they were ready to explode.
“Talk about altering consciousness…,” I said, nodding at the strongmen.
“I’d have to smoke a lot of nutmeg before I tried something like that,” Kelley said.
“Bananas. You eat the nutmeg, you smoke the bananas.”
Kelley gave me a look and I decided that I didn’t need to explain any further.
“Hey, you know what I heard?” I said.
“What?”
“That those karate guys down at the Y are dealing steroids.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. That shit’s all over.”
“Do you guys ever go after steroid dealers?”
“It’s a low priority. It doesn’t have the same ramifications of, say, crack.”
“I think the shrink from work is on it. He works out with those guys.”
“Could be. You’d be surprised how many people are on the juice.”
Kelley finished off his Coors and slid the empty in front of him. AJ had a new one in front of him without a word.
“I was talking to the Caretaker and-,” I said before Kelley interrupted.
“You what? What are you doing with that scumbag?”
“He was telling me that the guy dealing drugs at McDonough is a preacher or a priest or something.”
Kelley just shook his head and watched the TV. The strong guys were now trying to bend perfectly good iron bars.
“You have any idea who he’s talking about?” I asked.
“You’re the private eye. You figure it out,” Kelley said without taking his eyes off the strongmen.
That was my cue to change the subject or, in Kelley’s case, move on to no subject at all. We watched in silence as the strong guys put harnesses on and got prepared to try to move an eighteen-wheeler twenty feet before they herniated their nuts all over the pavement. I settled up with AJ before that happened and headed home.
The next morning I took a ride over to the high school. I wasn’t sure why I was going or what I was trying to accomplish, but I thought if I immersed myself in the school atmosphere I might get a better feel for what’s going on. Call it wanting to feel the school spirit.
I parked the Eldorado and walked around the block to the front of the school. There were cops on every corner scanning the playground and keeping an eye on everyone coming and going. I noticed there were far fewer kids mulling around and everything was much quieter than I had been accustomed to. I didn’t feel like being labeled a suspicious person of interest, so after a cop looked me up and down from a half block distance I decided not to try to talk to any kids or go in the school. Instead I just observed what was going on and tried to make sense of it.
I was thinking back to when I went to McDonough and how being a teenager really sucked. Oh, you’ll hear people tell you it’s the best time of your life, but I think that’s a bunch of horseshit. I had a face like a pizza, I was terrified of girls, my armpits were soaked by nine fifteen every morning, and I went through the day with one boner after another. No wonder kids do drugs.
I was almost back to the car when I saw a familiar SUV pull into the faculty lot. It took me a few seconds to place, but then I realized it was Dr. Abadon. Since the steroid thing, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. I mean, he was a clinical psychologist, an expert in human behavior, and a devout Christian, and he was into steroids-it didn’t fit. The fact that he even associated with the karate guys didn’t register with me either. There was no question that Mitchell and Harter were assholes, and for that matter not real bright, and I couldn’t understand why they would become friends. It seemed to me that Abadon’s education and religiosity should put him on a higher plane, but the
