STRAWBERRY QUICK — Chapter One

by Cormac Brown

This is who they send to watch me?

Even over the hyper-fluttering sound of the money counter tallying bills like an amplified flock of vultures, I could hear the snort. I looked over by the door and there he was, the true Lizard King, forget Jim Morrison. This character was a reptile, from his mannerisms, to his clothes and shoes made from snakes and alligators. To his bulging eyes that suggested his brain was all reptilian, with not a dash of ape or mammal to dilute it.

He had an Altoids tin open and there was a light pink powder inside. He was using one of those tablespoon-teaspoon spoons on a ring that your mom used to use in the kitchen when baking pies and the second smallest spoon seemed to be in heavy rotation, today.

I shuffled and stacked some more money like a blackjack dealer in Vegas and fed the pile into the money counter.

I nodded at him and said slowly "what's that, Pixie-stick dust?"

Even though I said it slowly, I figured it wouldn't register and it didn't.

"I said, 'what is that, Pixie-stick dust?"

He blinked for what had to be the first time since he had been in the room, some thirty minutes, and he blinked again as he glared at me with those cold, reptilian eyes.

He rasped "what are you talking about? Are you high?"

Talk about the kettle...

"The stuff, what is it?"

"Strawberry Quick, yo."

I banded the counted pile and shuffled up another deck of five dollar bills.

"Don't you want some milk to go with that?"

"Really, are you high?"

I repeat, this is who they send to watch me?

In between sorting singles, "no, I haven't been high since the elder Bush was in office." Fives, "what is that supposed to be..." Twenties, "some new kind of designer drug?"

"No, it's meth. Strawberry-flavored meth."

"And?"

"And it's not as strong as regular meth, so you don't become addicted. Shit, you are so retarded."

Yeah, how dumb can I be? I must be a raging idiot to not want have my eyes bugging out of my head and my brain bouncing against my ears.

"Interesting."

A light pink plume shot up as he closed the tin. He slipped it into a Ziploc and sealed the bag. He walked over to the water cooler and doused his fingers with water. Then he snorted the wet off of his fingers.

"What, you don't have no vices?" he sneered and nodded towards my ample frame.

"I like a sifter of Jack Daniels every now and then. But, see, unlike you, I like my death to taste like death."

"What?"

"I said, I don't need my death sugar-coated with a parasol, I take mine straight-up."

"Who asked you, any-"

There was a gentle knock on the door that silenced us and got our attention like the rattle of a sidewinder.