Page 34 of Jackson
“Iwill.”
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed my car keys. While she took the seat I’d vacated on the daybed, I grabbed her handbag and rifled through. I pulled out her passport and placed it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to take anychances.
* * *
“Jack,”D-J said as he walked towardsme.
I’d climbed from my car at the same time as D-J had flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and pushed himself off thewall.
“Is he in a good mood?” I asked as D-J gave me a fistbump.
“No, I think we’re both in for it.” He laughed as hespoke.
D-J was the only other person who knew it all. He knew every seedy detail about me and I knew the same of him. His drug taking was a result of being abused as a child. Not only abused by his father but pimped out for years. When his demons took over, he fought them with coke, pills, pretty much anything he could get his hands on. He was one of the many that Dexterfixed.
“Bad one, was it?” heasked.
“Been worse. But Summer saw me on a downer, it wasn’tpretty.”
“Dude, thatsucks.”
“Yeah.”
We walked through the doors and into the bar. Dexter was standing in his usual spot behind the bar. He looked up and without a word pointed to the door behind him. The three of us made our way to the saferoom.
He closed the door and slid the bolt across behind us. “Sit,” hecommanded.
D-J sat on the edge of the bed and I took one of the chairs. Dexter sat facingme.
“Show me,” he said and I raised my t-shirt.
He leaned closer and inspected. “Okay, you’lllive.”
He turned slowly to D-J. “You know the drill, piss in abottle.”
D-J rose and headed to the cabinet. He knew which drawer was his, it contained all that Dexter needed but was normally kept locked. I guessed it had been opened for our arrival. D-J took a small sample bottle and in front of us, pissed in it. He grabbed a testing kit and took both to Dex. I noticed the shake of his hand as he placed them both on the table. He wasn’t expecting a good result, I suspected. Dex pulled off the cap from the testing kit, poured a small amount of urine in it and then replaced the testing strips. He let it sit for amoment.
“Do you need to tell me anything?” heasked.
He always gave us the opportunity to confess before he produced theevidence.
“A little Ketamine,” D-Jsaid.
Dexter closed his eyes and sighed. “You ain’t no horse, son. That stuff will finish you off and there is nothing I can do with thatshit.”
Dexter inspected the kit and nodded. D-J had confessed all. There had been a time, not too along ago, where that kit would register every drug known to man. Dexter’s mission was to wean him off slowly. He bought the drugs, he administered them, but there was no stopping D-J from obtaining his own if he wantedto.
There was nothing legal about what Dexter did. He had been a registered psychotherapist at one time, but he’d hit the bottle when he’d misdiagnosed a young boy who had then gone on to take his own life. He’d left Australia and settled in New Orleans with Alfie, as an alcoholic, but turned his life around. When the storms wiped out his neighbourhood, they’d moved again, bought the bar, and he’d made it his life’s mission to help the misfits that couldn’t afford regular therapy. And whatever it was he did, it worked. Most of the patrons had been in his care at one time. Most were able, stable youngpeople.
“Now you. How was it this morning?” He turned back tome.
“Okay, I didn’t wake until mid-afternoon, I think. Summer was still there; I half expected to have found her gone. She was scared, she wants to help me but I can’t let her do that. I stole her passport,” Iconfessed.
“You replace that the minute you return, you hear me? Why do you think you can’t let herin?”
“Because if she finds out what I need, it’s not something she can give me, and she’d be disgusted with me. If she finds out what I did, she’ll hateme.”
“There is no reason for her to find out. But we need to wind it down,Jack.”
