This had to be a dream. He was driving some tiny tuxedoed Indian kid and his pet squirrel, who the kid claimed was a reincarnated wino named Gerald Hicks, around town in some White tennis player’s white SUV. On top of that the kid claimed to be a runaway, a pimp, a drunk, a craps player, a resident of the Hyatt Regency, and a prophet. T. T. began tuning in the radio to occupy his mind.

Brother, what are you doing here? You should be running from the cops; out of state by now at least.

The boy, who called himself Three-Rivers answered his cell phone and began talking to someone. He then hung up with a serious click, chattered back and forth with the squirrel, who sounded upset, and then turned to T.T. with a very serious look, as they crossed Orleans on Lombard. “T.T. Redbone, please tell Miss GPS to divert to four-nine-two South Monroe Street, about a block north of Wilkens Avenue. I suggest we park out of sight, since we are going to war. Of course, since you are the warrior, I leave this for you to decide.”

“What? Boy, you should not go into that neighborhood. I don’t even go down there after dark.”

“Alas, squirrels and giants agree on this. It appears I shall have to go alone.”

You are in intensive care, in a coma. You shot yourself; that’s it. The kid is just a figment of your imagination. Go along with it. At least you are having an exciting dream life while they water you like a plant.

“Look kid, I thought you were just hooking school. Now all of a sudden we’re playing Gears of War in the worst neighborhood in town?”

The boy’s voice was deadly serious. “T.T., my friend Eddie went to this bad place as you say to buy a gun called illegal on my instructions. He was captured by enemy traders-of-bad-medicine and is being held in a place called crack-house, until I bring money: twenty thousand they say. I must go to him. He is loyal and my medicine-man besides.”

“Okay kid, I appreciate that you have a rich fantasy life, and I get it, I really do. But come on. Do you really expect me to believe any of this; like you even have twenty grand?”

They had stopped at the light and were now waiting to cross Calvert. The kid then cracked open his little briefcase and pointed to four bank-bound stacks of twenties. “As you can see T.T., I do not lie about having money. According to Eddie each of these bundles is ‘ten grand’ as you say. I must take his word for it. I am not much of a scientist, and it would surely take me all day to count—we do not have all day T.T. Eddie says his ass is taped to a chair. This sounds painful indeed and I wish to rescue him.”

The squirrel was now nosing around inside the case apparently trying to count the bundles of cash that lay atop the boy’s other possession, an art book. A woman behind him was beginning to honk her horn so he cruised up towards Saratoga as the boy continued, “T.T. I understand Gerald Hicks and you being afraid of the warriors of the Bad Medicine Nation, so I just ask that you let me off ‘around the corner’ as you say.”

The kid then started chanting like an old Indian in a movie as he looked up into the sky through the windshield.

Is he stemming or what? Do you think he’s handicapped? They don’t say retarded anymore, do they?

“Hey, kid, you okay?”

“Yes T.T., I am just singing my Death Song, knowing that the ghost of Father above shall hear.”

“What?”

“I go to war T.T. Just take me to my enemies please.”

“Kid, I don’t know who you are—although I’m starting to think maybe some Columbian Drug Lord is torturing your nanny right now. But I’m not letting you go into no crack-house on your own.”

The squirrel, having finally managed to get a twenty loose, was rolling it up with its little claws. It then began to chatter at Three-Rivers, and the kid chattered back.

Okay, your life has become one big LSD trip. You might as well go along with it.

“Hey, can you and that squirrel really understand each other?”

“Certainly T.T. He is my totem, my spiritual advisor so-to-speak.”

“Okay, so what did he just say, just now? No taking time to make something up!”

“Two things Mister Skeptical Redbone: first he says turn up the radio, for the singing ghost called radio sings his favorite song; and second, he says that if we are going to a crack-house he has his bill all ready—to ‘snort a mighty line’ he says. What is a ‘line’ T.T. and why would one snort it?”

That squirrel is trying hard to make a straw out of that twenty.

“You know kid, that’s a pretty disturbing pet you have there.”

“You’re telling me Mister Redbone.”

“Oh yeah, the music…”

He turned up the radio and heard a familiar song that his uncles had always listened to: Poppa Was a Rolling Stone. He looked down as the squirrel chattered and began to boogie like a Soul Train dancer on the lid of a briefcase that had suddenly become a stage…

Yes brother, a bullet to the brain will do it every time.

Well brother, the strangest day of your life is just kicking off. You know you are in a coma—it’s okay.

He pinched himself and he felt alive.

Wow, that was creepy.

They were waiting quietly around the corner from the crack-house on Wilkens, while Gerald Hicks scouted the location. Moments later the squirrel returned and leaped through the window onto Three-Rivers’ shoulder, chattering in his ear. The boy then turned to him. “A fat man with a gun waits just inside the front door. In the same room called living is another man taped to a chair—that’s Eddie—and two other men—skinny ones—without guns.”

“What about the backdoor?”

“Oh, Gerald says that there is a ‘big-ass cat’ in the backyard, so he doesn’t know about that. He says ‘you’re on your own big man’. He’s going through the front door with me.”

“Wai…”

With that the kid grabbed his briefcase and climbed out of the car, stopping to cock his hat sideways, before continuing up the sidewalk, the squirrel bounding along behind him with its rolled up bill in one claw.

Holy—this is really happening. It’s ‘that time’ brother. Get up that alley!

He sprang into action, and was around the corner and up the alley so fast that he had to stop and count. His heart was pounding in his head he was so worried for the kid out front. There was a big old curtained conversion van parked in the alley behind this house—kind of suspicious.

He walked back and walked it again, figuring that he would walk at least twice as fast as the tiny kid.

Is that him knocking out front?

All of a sudden he was afraid that the kid was already in trouble. He snatched a loose cinder block out of the crumbling wall in the alley, counted the houses—yes, the fifth one up—and walked over the fence into a concrete yard where a Siamese cat sunned itself in front of the porch steps.

I hope this is the right house! The squirrel did—no, no, don’t even…

He lowered his shoulder and battered down the storm door and steel security door with one furious charge. He was so pumped up he did not feel a thing. He ran straight through the kitchen as a

commotion broke out in the front of the house. The kid was standing in the open front doorway, hands in the air. As the fat gangbanger that had been covering the kid turned and leveled his nine-millimeter at T.T. people yelled and scrambled unseen to his left on the other side of the intervening wall. The nine fired low into the doorframe by his knee as he launched the cinderblock underhanded like a fast-pitched softball. The block took the fat man in the short ribs and he fell to the floor like a dropped water bottle.

He was now charging—head-down so he didn’t get knocked out by the doorframe—into the living room. A tall thin dude was diving for the gun, but diving too slowly. T.T. grabbed him by the pants and swung him up into the sheetrock ceiling, where the guy became stuck, legs dangling, arms stuck in the crawl space, making muffled noises with an unseen dust-filled mouth.

He turned around expecting to get shot, and came face-to-face with a short thin dude in his early twenties who was hiding behind a terrified Black kid duct-taped to a chair in an old school pimp-suit. His antagonist was terrified and armed, alternately holding a butcher knife to his wide-eyed captive’s throat and then pointing it tentatively at him.

Oh, you have this.

He walked casually over and picked up the fallen handgun, checked to make sure it was clear for action, and leveled it at the man with the knife while his prisoner closed his eyes and started mumbling with his duct-taped mouth.

“Okay my man, nobody has died, so I do not have to kill the witnesses. Drop the knife and sit in the middle of the floor here and we’ll talk this thing out.”

The man was obedient and sat cross legged with his head between his hands. The others moaned while Three-Rivers untied his friend and the squirrel began rooting through a collection of cardboard boxes in the corner. The prisoner stood, unleashed a torrent of trash talk at his former captor, and then recovered a big knot-roll of money, which he claimed was his, from the man’s front pocket. The kid’s friend was named Eddie and the young man on the floor was called Trippy. They were obviously rival drug-dealers.

While he was taking in the situation he sat the two wounded henchmen on either side of Trippy and tied their hands behind them with their own shirts. He then took one knee in front of Trippy as he held his hand up to Eddie so he would stop running his mouth. Meanwhile Three-Rivers and the squirrel were going through the boxes. Trippy looked up at him and then T.T. suddenly began enjoying his new life, which was most certainly going to be a short-lived experience.

“Trippy, I have the keys here to a new white SUV that’s parked around the corner on Wilkens. It’s hot and the heat is on—cops looking for me. Do you have a title and registration for that conversion van out back?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s trade. I need a vehicle that can’t be traced to me. You could roll that SUV over to the West Side and recondition it—make some money. Eddie here came looking for a gun—we have a gun. Let’s just call it all even brother.”

“You kiddin’ right? You don’ wan’ no payback, ain’ gonna jack ma shit?”

He looked out of the corner of his eye at Three-Rivers breaking open a kilo of powdered cocaine and making a nice neat line on the hardwood floor, as the squirrel attempted unsuccessfully to snort the powder through his rolled-up twenty. “Well, I’m not going to ‘jack your shit’. But I’m not so sure about those two.”

All four drug dealers, including Eddie, watched in amazement at what must have seemed like an Alice in Wonderland parody of their own lives. Not one of them made a comment as the squirrel finally gave up his efforts in disgust and chattered in a grousing fashion to his little human partner. Three-Rivers then turned to Trippy and asked innocently, “Mister Drug Dealer, do you have any Hennessy?”

“Sure son, iz in da ledduce crispa, bottom a da fridge—feel free…”