By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Krokodil Rock
I remember when rock was young. Me and Susie had no clue a Krokodil rock would find us.
“Krokodil” I learned too late, is street name for Desomorphine, a synthetic opioid said to turn skin green and scaly if you take enough. Why not?
We drove off in our old gold Chevy, started hopping, bopping and rear-ended a county cruiser.
“Know how fast you were driving?” Sheriff King asked.
“You’re not the Allegan Sheriff,” said Susie.
“Because you’re in St. Clair County. Other side of the state,” he said.
Susie checked her GPS. “No, you’re on wrong side. Plus we’re not going any speed since you suddenly stopped in front of us. How much have you had?”
“You were doing 110 mph 3 inches from my bumper,” the Sheriff said.
“I couldn’t have if you hadn’t first,” I said.
GPS beeped back an error code. “So we are in St. Clair?” Susie answered. “We crossed state in no time!” she whispered to me.
“Speed depends on where you measure it from,” I parried the Sheriff while Googling “Krokodil.” Who knew “rock” was slang for crack cocaine laced with Krokodil?
“Are our skins green and scaly?” Susie pressed him.
“So you are doing Krokodil!” King surmised.
“Like some?”
“Not yet.”.
“Do you mean our skins aren’t turning green?” she asked. “If so, I want my money back.”
“Susie, he didn’t sell it to us,” I said. “He means maybe he’ll try it later.” But by then she had fled the car and was sunning in a nearby ditch.
“Krokodil,” the Sheriff lectured, “first surfaced in 14 years ago in Russia.”
“The Russian flu?” I asked.
“One might have flown it here …”
“First Covid-19 in China, now the Russkies are beating us to market too?” I made a note to call Putin to get U.S. rights to peddle it, knowing the more harm it does the more in-demand it will be.
“Imagine,” I told the Sheriff, watching Susie snap up a heron, “turning from human to crocodile? How cool would that be?! All the Greek gods could shift shapes. Come on, we have plenty left.”
Up drove Elton John, not in an old gold Chevy but his silver ’55 Bentley S1 Continental. “You can’t do this to my song,” he told me.
“I thought ‘Your Song’ was different.”
“’Crocodile Rock’ isn’t ‘Your Song,’ It’s mine,” he said.
“It’s a little bit funny,” I sang,. “Didn’t Bernie Taupin write lyrics? So you had to share royalties?”
“I’m doing OK,” said Sir Elton, stroking his hood ornament while leaning back into the car’s white ostrich feather-festooned cockpit.
“You think I’m a freak?” I told the Sheriff. “Look at this guy.”
“He’s richer than God,” the Sheriff noted.
“You’re saying the law discriminates? OK, look at Susie.”
“She’s not hurting anyone,” King said as she swallowed a school of snail darters.
“Not even endangered species?”
“Have they filed a complaint with us?” the Sheriff asked.
“Snails can be slow, even when they do dart.”
“You’re the one who drove across state so fast you didn’t know this isn’t Allegan.”
“In our hearts, everywhere is Allegan,” I said.
Venue Change
“Not so fast,” cried the New Sheriff in Town, pulling up as the Old arrested me.
“What town?” King challenged. “County laws trump town ones.”
“Every town, city, state, the whole country!” the New shouted as his minions who ringed us suddenly. “I hear America singing!”
“I’m still Sheriff!” King protested.
“The last King who led a protest got shot,” said the New Sheriff, gesturing to his disciples armed with assault rifles, nooses, crosses, upside-down American flags and Confederate ones, which look the same either way. “Sic‘em, boys!”
“Look,” I pleaded. “Crooked King tried to bust me for doing due duty to The Movement.”
“Movement!” Susie echosed, excreting what looked like remains of the heron but could have been ostrich feathers too.
“Pay no attention to that woman in the pond!” I commanded.
“A bit green in the gills, is she?” smirked the New Sheriff as his mob lynched the Old.
“Thats a fake noose,” I said. “Like the Liberal Press slings.”
“Sing?” asked Elton. “Listen: (in falsetto voice) La la-la-la-la-la. La-la-la-la-la. La-la-la-la-la …”
“Taupin got a split for writing that?” I asked.
“We were in L.A.,” Elton said. “Split afterwards.
“You’re Media?” the New Sheriff accused me.
“No, Medea,” I clarified. “The sorceress who helped Jason seek the Golden Fleece.”
“Fleece? I wrote the book on that,” he said.
“Fleis & Vandenbrink?” asked Susie from the swamp. “Aren’t they city engineers? Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam who did time for tax evasion?”
“She was framed like I’ve been,” the New Sheriff said.
