Full Tilt (Rock Star Chronicles) (41 page)

3. Karen dreamed of having children but was devastated to learn that she was infertile. Have you ever had a dream that was dashed? What was it, and how did you cope with the disappointment? Discuss specific Scriptures that helped you, and talk about how God has since used that circumstance for good.

4. Eddie Lester claimed he would not believe in a God who would allow his son David to die, his marriage to falter, and his family to disintegrate. How should we act toward people who will not surrender to God based on negative life circumstances? What, if anything, can we say or do to lead them to Him?

5. Everett’s father was a sinful man, and for a good part of his life, Everett himself lived a sinful existence. Even when he became a Christian, Everett often felt guilty about his past sins and that God might be punishing him for his rebellious years. Does this go against the New Covenant and everything for which Jesus died on the cross? Read and discuss Psalm 51; Jeremiah 31:34; 33:8; 50:20; Micah 7:18–20; and Acts 10:43; 13:39.

6. Everett found true forgiveness when he gave his life to Christ. As a result, God removed Everett’s sins as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no more. God does the same for us—but does that mean we will not experience the consequences of our sin? Why or why not? What are some of the consequences you can experience from living your life outside of God’s plan?

7. A person might say, “I want to believe in God, but sometimes I doubt. Am I a Christian?” What is the answer to this question? Does God sympathize with our weaknesses, our questions, and our humanity? Read Hebrews 4:14–16 and discuss how it relates to your life—and Everett’s.

8. A person may also ask, “Who goes to hell?” What is the answer? Discuss the reality of hell and who is destined for this awful place. Is it people who want to believe in Jesus Christ but sometimes have doubts? Or is hell reserved for those who reject God and refuse to bow in humility before Him and believe in His Son? What was Eddie’s position on all of this?

9. In the heat of Karen and Everett’s troubles, Everett elected to strike out against Tony Badino. What was wrong with this decision, and what dangers did he open himself up to by doing so? Take a closer look at what the Bible says about vengeance in Romans 12:17–21 and Hebrews 10:30.

10. Throughout
Full Tilt
, it would have been easy for Everett and Karen to give up on sharing God’s love with Eddie and his family, using the excuse that they didn’t want to cast their pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). But Jesus also instructed us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us (Matthew 5:43–45). Study these Scriptures in context and discuss why they do not contradict one another. (Hint: One passage governs our personal dealings with our enemies; the other governs how we defend the gospel in the face of those who hate the truth.)

11. Karen reached out to Madison at a time when she herself was hurting. What was it about Karen that appealed to Madison? What does this tell us about those days when we’re hurting and when we’re not perfect? Does God love us any less? Can He still use us during those trying times? Ask God if there’s someone He wants you to come alongside and minister to, as Karen did for Madison.

12. Wesley Lester was one frustrated and miserable individual. If you knew a person like Wesley, what could you do to try to help him? Would you do it? Why or why not? If you had a child like Wesley, what would you do differently?

13. Karen grew up a Christian, worked with her church, and was close to her parents. But when she married Everett and moved to New York, her life became full of danger, trials, and persecution. It would be understandable if, at times, she wanted her old life back. But there’s something special about taking pleasure right where God has us. Are you in the midst of a bad situation? Share about it with your friends. Examine it in light of God’s Word. And discuss what He may be doing to glorify His name in your difficult time.

14. Discuss the similarities between Wesley’s life in
Full Tilt
and Judas’s life in the New Testament. Satan often attempts to use bitterness in our lives to turn us against the world and even the church. Talk about the role bitterness played in the lives of Wesley and Judas. If there’s any bitterness in your life, confess it and repent before it becomes poison in your system (read Ephesians 4:30–32; Hebrews 12:14–15).

15. The Bible teaches us that nothing should have “mastery” over us. That was the problem in the lives of Eddie, Sheila, and Wesley—each was addicted to some habitual sin. Even Everett formerly lived a life as a slave to sin. Read Romans 6:1–14 and 1 Peter 2:24, and discuss the fact that “he who has died [with Christ] is freed from sin.” Are you applying this powerful truth in your life?

16. By the end of
Full Tilt
, Everett learns that he does not have to be someone he isn’t in order to please God. Quite the contrary—he realizes the Lord made him the creative individual he is and that God allowed him to go through the dark afflictions he did for the specific purpose of being able to relate to others, comfort them, and lead them to Christ. Read 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 and discuss how these verses relate to your life.

NOBODY excerpt

I’D SEEN STIFFS AT
crime scenes before, one flat on his back in the middle of his garage with a twelve-inch meat cleaver sticking straight up out of his rib cage like a Halloween prank; self-inflicted, to boot.

But this one beat all. 

I got there before the cops. Saw the guy from my Mustang GT. It was 5:54 a.m. 

He was positioned upright at one of the dozens of covered bus stops along the Strip. Beneath flickering fluorescents, it looked as if he was just sleeping, like a thousand other bums scattered like garbage across the sand-blown outskirts of “fabulous Las Vegas.” I rolled down my passenger window and leaned closer. Blood, dark like burgundy wine, but thicker—a pool of it, absorbed into the seat of his pants and ran shiny down the concrete block he was perched on, forming another smaller puddle beneath his black Converse high-tops. 

I shivered, remembering the call I’d heard on the scanner in the newsroom at the
Review-Journal
. Las Vegas metro police got an anonymous call about a potential shooting at the Civic Center North bus stop. I was wrapping up the obits and crime beat from the night shift and had some time to blow, so I headed out. 

Leaving my car parked in a vacant lot along Las Vegas Boulevard, I did a three-sixty as I approached the body but saw no one. There was plenty of traffic, because what they say about Las Vegas is true—it never sleeps—but this was not an obvious crime scene yet. 

For more than eight minutes I waited, finally sitting right next to that dead man, with the cops nowhere to be found. That’s the way they were in Vegas, slow as sludge, especially if it had anything to do with the homeless. For all I knew, it might have been another hour before they showed. 

That’s when I thought about searching him. Nothing bad, just find the wound, maybe get an ID, see if he had anything else on him. It was a fleeting thought. But as another minute, two, then three crept by, the vapor of the idea began to crystallize. I pictured how everything would come to a painful standstill once the cops finally arrived. They would boot me, tape off the area, and withhold the bum’s identity and cause of death until it was old news. 

My heart rate kicked up a notch. I had no gloves. Would I leave prints? On what, clothes? It’s not like they’re going to go over this nobody with a fine-tooth comb. At first glance I wasn’t sure where the wound was. Blood covered the upper quarter of his torso. Ignoring my own sick disregard for the human being next to me, I scoped the area again, saw no one near, and gently leaned his 150-or-so-pound frame forward six inches. 

To the touch, his body felt normal, as if he were still alive. There was no exit wound on his back. Dropping to one knee, I examined the bloody mess at the upper left portion of his chest. His coat was torn there, and yes, there was a bloody hole. Whether it was a messy knife wound or a bullet hole, I wasn’t sure. 

That was all the further I should have gone. In fact, knowing myself—that I would dare to do more if the fuzz didn’t show up soon—I passed the time by jotting notes on the pad I always kept in my back pocket. 

He had a thatch of red hair, bleached the color of sand by the scorching Nevada sun. The city had felt like Hades lately, going on seven consecutive days of 109 degrees or better. 

His peaceful, middle-aged face, the side part in his hair, and the back of his hands and neck were a burnt brownish red; not raw sunburn, mind you—he was way beyond sunburn. 

The stubble on his face was speckled blond and gray. He wore a gold T-shirt with dirty creases and a black, lightweight overcoat, unbuttoned. Funny thing is, he didn’t smell bad. In fact, he smelled clean, like laundry soap. The pants were navy Dickies, and each sneaker had a hole just above the big toe. He wore two pair of thick gray socks on each foot. Perhaps most odd were his left ear and wrist. The skin on each looked melted, as if it had been surgically repaired with some sort of skin graft. 

I was still within the bounds of the law. I’d taken my time with the notes, describing the scene, the wound, and the slumping corpse next to me—and hoping the LVMPD would hurry up and get here before I did something both stupid and illegal. 

A steady flow of cars darted north and south, their drivers oblivious to the dead man twenty feet away. As always in Las Vegas, nightlife rolled seamlessly into morning within the mammoth hotels up and down the Strip. 

My time limit had expired. The cops didn’t care. Likely, no one cared about this destitute beggar. A few hours ago he’d probably been as nasty and senile as the rest of the riffraff who shake their fists and wag their heads at me when I drive past them on Owens or D Loop. 

Who would know if I searched the guy? My editor didn’t know I was here, no one did. My eyes darted about. My heart stormed high in my chest. And then I just did it—reached into his shallow outside coat pockets. They were barren. Easing back his thin coat, I found an inside pocket—empty. I scanned again for onlookers and saw none. I was doing him and his family a favor by trying to identify him. As I braced him at the shoulder with my left hand, I jammed my right into his pants pocket. Again, nothing. 

Convinced the Las Vegans breezing up and down the Strip were both oblivious to the crime scene and in a colossal hurry, I filled my lungs with morning air and took another plunge. Being careful to swing around the puddle of blood in front of him, I changed sides, leaned him forward, and slid my hand beneath his coat and into one back pocket, then the next. No wallet. The guy had nothing. Or so I thought, until I propped him up firmly by the opposite shoulder and stuffed my hand into that last front pocket of his navy Dickies. 

Bingo. 

He had something. Not much, but something. 

Getting my fingers around what felt like some folded papers, I pulled, but my fist caught. My prints were on whatever was in that pocket. The sound of sirens arose far off from the south. My head jumped and sweat started to come on my forehead. Seeing no police lights, I braced him again and twisted my wrist back and forth, yanking hard. My heart almost catapulted from my throat as the man’s stomach gurgled and his head dropped and swung toward me, as if he’d decided to watch. 

Trying awkwardly, desperately, to square the man’s hunching shoulders and swivel his jaw back to where it had been, I panicked, as his entire upper body started to collapse, quite unlike I’d found it. 

Blue police lights canvassed the neon skyline. 

I rehearsed excuses, lies, the truth—any way out of the developing mess. 

Then I realized the only way out was to get out. 

But the object I’d ripped from the man was still in my hand. I looked down. It was a tattered bankbook with a worn maroon cover. As the screams from the sirens grew louder, my trembling fingers found the last page and the handwritten balance: $689,800. 

The bus stop spun. 

I felt my fingers press firmly into my forehead, as if trying to steady the ship. 

He was rich. 

It didn’t compute. 

Figure it out later. Get out! 

I stood to run, but something fell from the book, splattering into the puddle at the man’s feet. 

A key, now three-fourths covered in blood. 

I froze. 

The sirens beckoned me to look up. 

A squad car was in view, maybe a mile down the Strip. 

Something inside told me to give up, wait for them, explain what happened. 

Something else jolted me to the ground where I plucked the blood-drenched key from the crimson puddle and bolted toward my car. 

Sprinting faster than I had since I was a boy, my mind wound down to slow motion and I became disgusted by the cool, thick liquid making my fingers stick grotesquely to the palm of my clenched hand, and even more so, by the type of man I’d become—to steal from a bum. 

After scrubbing hard at my hands and the key in a long, hot shower back at my place—a stucco two-story in a cluster neighborhood west of the Center Strip—I put on some old cutoffs, went downstairs, popped a can of Dr Pepper, and examined the tattered bankbook at my kitchen table. It contained no name and little writing but was stamped with the address of a Wells Fargo bank near Arville and Flamingo, not too far from my place. 

Periodic deposits had been made in amounts ranging from $155 to $12,650 with no indicator of where the funds had come from. A number of withdrawals had also been made, mostly in the three- and four-digit range; on those occasions, the only word ever written in the memo area was “cash.” 

One transaction stood out, dated the day before I found the body. The word “cash” was scribbled in the ledger. The amount withdrawn: $425,000. 

“Hmm.” 

I took the flat, gold key that had fallen from the bankbook over to a lamp in the living room and studied it closely. Although it was shaped like an old-fashioned key, it appeared to be brand new, imprinted with the name of a well-known security company.