Booger scrutinized the lizard at his feet, which crawled amidst piles of debris within his Bywater shotgun house. The iguana had grown to the size of a shoebox. She was only eight inches before. Maybe nine.
Booger was no stranger to hallucinations; like at the end of a bender, say, when the little men began jumping from behind parked cars in the distance, doing ninja somersaults before vanishing…
Now that was a meth hallucination.
The Tree People, though, were a different story. But Booger knew better than to bring up the Tree People with others. ‘Cause they were fucking everywhere.
The iguana’s growth in the prior hour was no hallucination. He was sure. Fuck. He considered calling a trusted friend to verify, which led him to consider that he had no such person in his life, whereupon a stage-whisper sliced in from the alley:
“Boogs!”
Booger hopscotched over the piles of debris and stuck an unsteady landing before the covered front window. He raised a piece of cardboard and peered out.
Right, he thought. Forgot I texted him. He opened the door and Clark sauntered in, claiming the space in that fucking way he had that drove Booger up the wall. “Where’s the patient?” Clark asked, all efficiency.
“In the corner, on the floor.” Booger pointed to a pile of stolen merchandise. “By the Madame Alexander Dolls.”
“Ohhhhh, Madame Alexander,” Clark smirked as he hopscotched over the garbage. “Aren’t we fancy, just the creme de la -” His face fell as he took in the iguana. “Dude, stop. It got fuckin’ huge. What did you do to it?”
“So,” Booger began, “my source for HGH, he’s a personal trainer. Or mebbe a nurse. He swole. Got the good shit.”
“That artisanal Human Growth Hormone…” Clark mocked in the fancy-schmancy voice that drove Booger nuts.
“Yeah,” Booger hesitated, then dove back in. “So dude’s all 'Bro, I got the super good HGH, the stuff actors use to beef up for superhero movies.’ And trust, dude ain’t shady like summa the shit people pass through here…”
“You mean he’s not honest shady.”
“Yeah, I-”
“Which means he’s shadier.” Clark gestured with a little ‘topic closed’ wave of his hand that triggered Booger’s control issues like a motherfucker. “Never trust nobody who says ‘trust me.’ But you were saying?” Clark perched in a cute ‘I’m listening’ pose.
Booger took a deep breath. “So dude pulls out this brown glass bottle with a twist-off lid, like a bigger poppers bottle, like ‘medical, kind of’ - but not like a sealed vial. So I’m all ‘Huh, this don’t look like the same-level-shit as before’ but dude’s all ‘I siphoned it offa the supply the Illuminati keeps in Beverly Hills. In a very exclusive, well-guarded location.’”
“Did he really say ‘exclusive, well-guarded location’?”
“Does it fucking matter? Am I a reporter?”
“Stop.” Clark raised a hand. “You shot up the iguana?”
“LET ME GET THERE. You always pull this shit with me!” Booger vented. “There’s a few steps you need to comprehende before I get to it. Otherwise shit just sounds crazy.”
“You slammed the iguana with Human - no, Superhuman Growth Hormone?”
“Yes!” Booger slammed the table with his hand. “I mean, it’s fuckin’ alive! They test shit on mice in labs and an iguana’s the same thing basically.”
“Iguanas are in the reptile family,” Clark lectured in a prissy manner that pushed every button Booger had. “Mice, however, are closer relations to humans as warm-blooded vertebrates.”
Booger narrowed his eyes at Clark. He hated Clark when he dropped his goofy ‘meth party boy’ persona. With the mask off, Clark was Satanically intelligent and vicious - smug, like he had a cheering audience in his head.
“Dude, what matters is this,” Booger resumed, “I shot him up, like, an hour ago. He was gettin’ all sick and shit anyway…”
“The fuckin’ nerve. After you pilfered that exotic animal from Randy’s climate-controlled aquarium and left it to fend for itself in this shithole you call home. And suddenly it ain’t the peak of health. Fuck that pussy-ass iguana bitch.”
“Well what am I supposed to do now? Motherfucker won’t stop growing. I mean, what if it gets, like, Godzilla huge?”
“How long since you slept?”
“Don’t get personal.”
“‘Cause the iguana’s fucking fine.” Clark picked up the reptile, which lashed its tail angrily. “Dude, I mean look. It’s just the size it was before. Only difference is now it’s sick.”
Booger felt a thud in his cerebral cortex as he squinted at the iguana. In Clark’s presence it appeared unremarkable, as iguanas go. So either Clark was right and he was hallucinating, Booger mused, or perhaps Clark was working with a shadowy cabal to fuck with him - replacing the iguana with a decoy, perhaps?
Fuck. Was Clark working with the Tree People?
Sensing Booger’s oncoming sketch, Clark replaced the iguana on the floor and reached into his messenger bag. “So I got some merch if you wannit. An iPad, a laptop-”
“Mac?”
“MacBook Air.”
“Where’dja lift ‘em?”
“From that tourist twink I brought over.”
“Whatd’ja do with him?”
“Oh, I was fixin’ to make him my slave ‘til that Ariel rescued him from my evil clutches,” Clark sneered.
Booger winced on hearing Ariel’s name. “Somebody gotta take her out. Thinks she’s all High and Mighty.”
“You fuck with Ariel, Medulla’s gonna land on you like a house.”
“For however long she got left, anyways. When she croaks, it’s open season.” Like Clark, Booger lingered on the outskirts of Medulla’s criminal Krewe, never promoted nor demoted but kept just where he was. “Who you think’s gonna take over when she’s gone?”
Clark paused. “I reckon she finna anoint some queen to take her place.”
“That ain’t fair,” Booger pouted. “We live in a democracy.”
“Maybe she’ll pick that witchy Middle Eastern bitch she drags around, the one with the fucked-up eye…”
“Valencia? Naw. She’s a poltergeist.”
“Maybe Ariel, then,” Clark proposed. “He the only other one in the Krewe who got his shit halfway together. He owns a whole goddamn building.”
“Fuckin’ goody two shoes.”
“You kidding me with that? He’s a hooker. A dealer. Most thugs join a crime family. He was born into one.”
For the first time since Clark’s arrival, Booger and Clark locked eyes, lit by a slow-burning discovery.
“It’s Ariel,” Clark murmured. “She gonna pick Ariel.”
“Well shit, then. We ain’t gettin’ no closer to the center than where we at. I been on the outskirts the whole time I rollin’ with these bitches.”
“Medulla’s gonna cross the Styx before long. Life as we know it’s about to get shooken.” Clark sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“The stink of opportunity,” Clark replied. “Ain’t it long since time somebody took Ariel out? ‘Cause if he takes over, we ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
The iguana flicked her tongue, tasting the air one last time before dying.
Orleans Parish Prison
Following his indictment down the block from OPP, a virtual judge set Gage’s bail at $20K.
Forty-five minutes later he was back, fresh fish amongst the general population. On assigning Gage his tier, the corrections officer offered him the choice of a bunk in a two-man cell, or one among others in the dormitory. When Gage asked which option was safest, the CO sent him posthaste to the dormitory with a towel, soap, a toothbrush and orange shower shoes.
“Hey bro, you a’ight?” a pale skinhead asked Gage as he lay in his cot, staring at the ceiling, wishing he were invisible. “Mind if I crack the ice? I got you a present.” He waggled a package of Honey Buns.
“I’m fine,” Gage replied in a monotone.
“You gotta watch who you roll with, y’know whi’msayin?” The skinhead extended a tattooed hand to Gage, who didn’t respond. After a moment, the skinhead withdrew his hand.
“Hey, imma give you some advice. You respeck people ‘round here. I introduce myself, you do the same. That’s call ‘respeck.’”
“I’m Gage,” Gage blurted to the ceiling.
“Another thing, honey. Ya wanna watch y’all’s tone of voice.”
"Stop right there,” a basso voice commanded from two beds away. The skinhead froze. “I see what you up to. You get steppin’ and take them Honey Buns with you.”
“Aw, c’mon, bro…” Jaime relented, raising the Honey Buns in surrender, backing away from Gage’s bunk.
Gage turned his head. A large black man filled his view, chuckling. “You gotta keep an eye out for the ol’ Honey Buns angle. Tale as old as time.” He winked, then proceeded past. Gage exhaled in relief.
Then the man tapped his shoulder, suddenly close. “Hey, y’all good? Need sumthin’? I’m Darrell.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Gage flashed a brief, conciliatory smile before averting his eyes. “Gage.”
“Cause Gage, I bet you hungry. Amiright? I got chili in my cell.”
“I’m all good.”
“No pressure. Just bein’ friendly.”
“CO said dinner’s coming up before long,” Gage replied in a neutral manner.
“Well, I roll with the cooks!” Darrell revealed as if solving a gnarly problem.
“Hey,” interrupted a rough male voice. In tandem, Darrell and Gage snapped their heads to take in the new addition: a Filipino with a fu-munchu mustache and neck tattoos. “You back offa him, Darrell, hear? I see what you doin’ and it’s sick. Sick! Gitcha on outta here.”
“But -”
“Git, I say!”
Gage’s suitor backed away, hands raised. “Okay, okay, don’t want no trouble.”
Fu Manchi turned his gaze to Gage, shaking his head in dismay. “Sorry ‘bout that. I’m Tim.”
“Gage.”
Tim leaned on the bunk, tsk-tsking. “Lemme give the sitchy ‘cause you don’t wanna find out the hard way. What these freaks do is - see that first guy? Number One. His job: to butter you up. Creep your shit out so then Number Two comes in and saves you. Now you owe him. But I’mma cut to the end. ‘Cause eventually you realize they all work together.”
Tim produced a peach with a magician’s flair.
“Peach?”
The Chancellor’s Mansion at Jesus University
Branson, Missouri
“He’s gonna call any minute now,” Kayleigh assured Larry over their Monday morning Metamucil. “Tail between his legs. We gotta hold firm or it isn’t Tough Love.” Though Kayleigh radiated confidence in Gage’s eventual surrender, a grave doubt escalated privately within her.
Like maybe she didn’t know her son at all.
Larry ignored his wife, his fingers furiously working his phone. “Whatcha doin?” Kayleigh asked.
The throbbing vein in Larry’s forehead signaled Kayleigh that she was on thin ice. “I just booked a flight back to New Orleans. Departs in an hour and a half.”
“But we can’t go back today!” Kayleigh whined. “I’m chairing the Modesty Panel for the Sorority Majority at noon.”
“I didn’t book a ‘we.’ I booked a ‘ME.’ I’ll arrange a bail bondsman and bring him home by bedtime.”
“And then what?”
“We go from there.” Larry rose from his chair, pocketing his phone. “The boy has no idea how the world operates. You want him to learn the ropes from a bunch of lowlifes and criminals? As the twig is bent.”
“But traumatizing him is the point,” Kayleigh countered. “How else can he learn? We’ll spring him when he’s penitent. Then we can wipe his record. He’s white. A first offender. We got money. He’ll be fine.”
“He’s my son.”
“Less yours than mine,” Kayleigh retorted, whereupon Larry cleared the breakfast table with a sweep of his arm.
Ten minutes later, their chauffeur pulled the Porsche Cayenne from the curb of their Colonial-style mansion, en route to Branson Airport with Larry in the back.
###
Chapter 15: Free
Thank you for reading!
☮️ & ❤️,
