Curbchek by Zach Fortier

Author:Zach Fortier [Fortier, Zach]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Outranked

Sgt. Leeds was always talking about his quest for a spirit animal guide. While waiting for the owner of a building we’d cleared to show up and turn off the alarm, Leeds started telling us this story.

He’d been reading Indian lore on how to go about getting a spirit animal guide; he wanted to commune with the spirit world to get out there and mingle with the dead.

As he spoke, emotion made his voice crack a little. He said he needed guidance from something “appropriately carnivorous”; after all, he was a warrior. He was also concerned that it was taking so long for this spirit animal to reveal itself to him.

Setting up his primitive camp alone, he’d actually sit in the mountains east of where we were for days at a time, squatting out in the elements, dressed in his buckskins and moccasins with warrior paint on his face, fasting, chanting, and beating on a drum. He told his wife he was off camping so she’d think he just needed to get away; little did she know, he was a crazed, drooling, wannabe shaman.

So far, there was nothing, no sign; not even a curious coyote offering a fish or the wind in his hair, whispering ancient messages. Hell, even a tap on the shoulder would’ve been nice.

His Irish-Catholic roots hadn’t done it for him: there was no animal soul included in that particular map to spiritual fulfillment. He really worried about his spirit guide not being an “appropriate” animal; he thought himself too manly to accept a docile animal, such as a ground squirrel.

Just then, the owner of the building showed up. It turned out to be just a routine false alarm; we’d checked the building, and the alarm had proven unfounded.

“Who wants the wisdom of a ground squirrel?” said the sergeant as he got back into his car, leaving us to clear the call. “I’m hoping for a bear or a wolf, maybe an eagle.” We just stared as he drove off; shit-faced drunks we caught pissing in the park didn’t talk this crazy shit.

He was bat shit crazy, like the night he matched testosterone levels with a group of “pee wee” gang bangers just getting into the life. He and some of the patrolmen (his “followers,” as we called them) had a group of the youngsters cornered in an elementary school parking lot. I’d heard them all sign out at the same time, so I knew something was up. When I got there, Leeds was standing in the middle of the group of 11- and 12-year-olds.

It was late at night, and he’d thrown down his spare nightstick and dared each member of the group to pick it up and fight him. The kids on the street aren’t that naïve; you don’t survive on the street being that stupid. The reality was, Leeds was a nightstick instructor and also trained in martial arts, so any fight with an adult would’ve been no contest - let alone a kid.

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