Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

used to say, and I realized he’d probably shot up in the stall.

“Anybody need food?” I asked. They all shook their heads to the negative.

“Ziggy wants to know if you want Ziggy to drive for a while,” said Ziggy from the back seat.

In the rearview mirror, I saw the wide eyes, the beads of sweat on his forehead, the dilated pupils.

“No thanks.”

About two hours later, Ziggy was out and Jerome hadn’t said a word, when I saw the big man make a hand gesture. I double-tapped my earbuds, pausing the music. I saw he held the copy of the Bible I keep in the glove compartment for emergencies.

“This a Bible?” he asked.

“Yes, that is what it is.”

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

“You a Christian?”

“Yes.”

“Thought you boys was supposed to turn the other cheek when someone punches you.”

He squinted, emphasizing the cut near his eye.

“That’s a common misconception.”

“Thought it said that somewhere in there.”

“It does, but like all writings, what is said has to be taken in context. You have to take the words said in context with the sentence and the paragraph and the chapter and the book and the testament and then in the context of the entire Bible.””

“So you ain’t supposed to turn the cheek?”

“Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren’t.”

He looked at me quizzically.

“Don’t make no sense.”

“Well, okay, how about you turn to the passage you’re talking about, which would be Matthew 5:39, and we’ll go through it?”

He looked at the book then back to me.

“Can’t. Don’t know how to read.”

“Not a problem these days.” I stretched a few distracted driving laws while I thumbed through apps and settings on my phone, popped out my earbuds, and handed them to him. “The whole Bible’s on audio.”

He looked at the buds then back at me.

“They won’t bite.

“Was those in your ears?”

“I Q-Tipped just this morning. Try them.”

Jerome took the ear buds with a disgusted squirm, twisting his lips, and wiped them on his shirt before fitting them in his ears. I showed him how to work the app and let him listen while I watched the road and enjoyed the silence. An hour later I pulled off the highway for a potty break and snacks. When I got back in the car, Jerome had a question for me.

“It says, I think it’s in that book called Romans, that everything that happens, happens because God makes it happen for good. How is my Clair gettin’ stole and maybe killed a good thing?”

I nodded. “A lot of people get caught up on that verse, Romans 8:28. What it actually says, in its natural language, which is Greek, ‘…we know that God works all things together for good with those who love God…’ The meaning, in context, is that no matter how bad something might be, no matter how terrible or seemingly unbearable, if we are loving God and staying close to Him, He can help us get through it. He can make the best of the worst situation.”

“You mean God will help me kill them?”

“No, that’s not what I said. What I said is, that even if Clair were to be… hurt… if you lean on God, He can help you to get through it. He can give you strength and courage and show you how life is still worth living.”

“I would live so I could kill them.”

I thought about my wife and daughter and how I hunted down their killer.

I shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe.” I tapped the phone. “Keep listening.”

Eleven hours later, we drove into the mean streets of Chicago.

I pulled into a motel two blocks off the freeway called The Star’s Inn. My eyes were heavy and my head felt like I’d gone a couple hundred rounds with George Foreman in his prime.

Jerome’s eyebrows scrunched down and I saw a scab over the brow crack a little, revealing a fresh spot of red.

“You ain’t planning on stopping here.” It sounded more like a statement than a question.

“Have to,” I said. “I’m dead tired.”

“Well, you gonna be able to drop the ‘tired’ part of that speech, you stop here,” he said.

Ziggy laughed from the backseat. “Ziggy says you got that right.”

“You think someone would kill us here?” I asked, not getting it.

“Not ‘us’,” said Jerome.

“Nope,” said Ziggy, “not us.”

“You, white boy,” said Jerome.

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “That is so politically incorrect.”

“Ziggy say that don’t matter diddly down here,” said Ziggy.

“Dead’s dead, no matter how you say it,” said Jerome.

“I can take care of myself,” I said. “Besides, I have got to get to a bed.”

Jerome shook his head. “No. We ain’t getting shot up with you just ‘cause you tired.”

“Shot up?” I said. “Um, I believe you two are a little confused. Chicago happens to have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.”

Ziggy burst out laughing. “Ziggy says you wouldn’t make it to the front door. No sir, no sir, Ziggy says no sir you wouldn’t.”

It was about then I started to notice the little group of teenagers smoking by a car. There had only been two when I pulled in; now there were at least five and they were all looking at me through the windshield. One of them started talking into a cell phone.

“Put her in drive and let’s go,” said Jerome looking perfectly bored.

“Ziggy says it might be too late,” said Ziggy.

Two more black teenagers joined the group and another came out the front door of the motel office.

With one hand, Jerome signaled that I should move forward. “Just run them over if they try and stop you. Go now.”

Tired or not, I’m not as stupid as many people give me credit for. I made a quick spin and got out of there. Suddenly I didn’t feel sleepy anymore.

Jerome directed me to another motel a few miles away and I stowed my gear on a chair by a plain desk before falling face first on the bed. Max got up and laid next to me.

I’d given Ziggy the keys, hoping he wasn’t too stoned to drive, and he and Jerome