Drake Midnight and the Rocks of Ages-- Part 1

I woke up at noon expecting a normal day--one with booze and without business. I hadn’t had a case for a month, but I didn’t mind the free time. I spent four weeks mastering the art of slicing limes, skewering green olives without knocking loose the pimento, both finer points of drinking.

I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen, my head throbbing and pulsing as if Jack Daniel’s was playing a game of pinball inside my skull. I pushed aside a pile of week old take-out boxes and shook open my kitchen cabinet, hoping to find the quick-liquor-jolt that would tilt the infernal game in my head. Thirteen bottles of assorted poison, each as empty as my wallet. It was going to be a long day.

An old man in faded jeans and a stained T-shirt was standing on top of an apple crate outside of my office. His oily hair hung in ratty clumps around his shoulders, his thin face dirty and pocked. A rusty crucifix hung loose around his neck, and he clenched a bright yellow Gideon’s Bible. A couple of tourists stood around him taking pictures while he muttered some nonsense about the coming apocalypse. I tried to avoid eye contact, walking to my car as quickly as possible, but it was too late. He stepped down from his crate and walked towards me. I wanted to run, but the words were already coming out of his filthy mouth: “Yellow rays like sunshine will light up Midnight’s path. The King of the Clues…”

“And the red, white, and blues. Take a hike, pal.” He studied his dirty bare feet for a moment then slowly walked back to his crate. I went back inside and sat in my black swivel chair at my busted-up desk. I spun around till the room twirled like a ballerina on a merry-go-round, but I still wanted a drink. My answering machine winked its red eye at me, so I pressed play. The first message was from my wheezy-hag of a landlord, Iva Humple. I had become overly familliar with her gurgles and he phlegmy attempts at speech the last few months.

“Where’s my rent you bast--”

ERASE.

The second message had me squirming in my chair like a kid with a bladder full of diabetes-pop on a road trip. “Yeah Drake, It’s Mel. Still waitin’ on the money from ya bet last week. Better come’n see me soon, or I’ll have some friends of mine pay ya a visit.” Mel is a scrawny bald guy, 5’2, 120 pounds. He didn’t worry me, the trouble was Butch and Clobber, his two pals.

Image Source: By Iceman7840 (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons