The blood gushed out of both eyes. It was thick and came out with the force of a fireman's hose. It hit me in the face and splashed in my own eyes, making it difficult to see. I felt a piercing in my side and then two of them were at my sides throwing punches at me. The whole time I couldn't do anything to defend myself even though my hands were free. The blood continued to splash on my face, the piercing kept entering my side, the two shapes whaled away at me, and I couldn't raise my guard. When my vision cleared I could see a teenage boy fifteen feet away crying for help. He's in pain, scared to death and he looks pathetic. He screams for me to help him and I can't move. Something awful is going to happen to him. Slow dribbles of blood start to run down the boy's face. When I look close I see the boy is me when I'm fifteen. The blood starts to run down his face harder, and the blood gushing from the eyes in front of me turns black. I look to my side; the sharpened steel point that is stabbing me in the side turns into a snake getting ready to bite. It's all happening at once and suddenly something wet and scratchy is dragged across my face…
A piercing sound shakes through my head, my eyes open, and I'm in that weird place between sleep and awake. I see Al sitting on my chest staring at me.
Fuck, the dreams were back.
I went to the bathroom, thought I was going to get sick, and held it off. It was a shitty way to wake up and I had thought these things had gone away. Awhile back I got involved in some violent shit and though I didn't really think it bothered me much during the day, I'd get these really fucked up dreams at night. It made sleep unpleasant and something I think I unconsciously avoided, which ironically, made the nightmares more likely to happen. The self-prescribed medication in the white bottle with the brown label slowed them, but didn't prevent them. Stress brought them on, but I wasn't entirely sure what I was stressed about.
Regardless, I was up and the day had started, so I made some coffee and tried to get normal. The headache had dulled, which was the only bright spot of the morning so far, that is, until Al started to object to the birds flying around outside The Blue. This offended him to his core and he wanted the sparrows to understand his objection. The sparrows seemed to take a special joy in pissing Al off and continued to flit around the window. Al balanced between the top of a set of shelves and the back of chair and in terms of equilibrium Al was no Alvin Ailey. One particular sparrow must've given Al the finger or the wing or something because Al growled and then let out this long baritone bay. The sparrows didn't like the baying and flew away, which brought Al back to barking. It also changed his body position abruptly and the chair tipped over sending him ass-overtea-kettle to the carpet. He did a quick body roll, righted himself, and did that tornado basset move to clear the accumulated slobber from his jowls. Then he lay down and started to snore. With Al's morning exercise regimen complete and the noise reduced to his wood sawing impersonation, I was able to call the hospital. It was only 7:45 a.m., but I wanted to find out about Karl.
"Crawford Medical Center, How may I direct your call," The operator said. At first I was glad not to get an automated system with a menu longer than the Chinese take out place around the corner.
"Yes, I'm calling about a patient. His name is-"
"I'll transfer you to Family Services." The phone began to ring. And ring. And ring.
"Family Services, Michele speaking, how may I direct your call?" The younger but, no more friendly, voice said.
"I wanted to find out about a patient admitted-"
"Hold on. I'll transfer you."
I never had time to object.
"Crawford Medical Center, how may I direct your call?" The first woman said.
"I just spoke to you and you transferred me and now they transferred me back," I said.
"How may I direct your call?" She said.
"I just want to find out about a patient."
"Hold on I'll transfer you," and she did before I could scream.
I decided it would be best if I showed up there in person, which would make me late for work, but I could couch it in the fact I was visiting a client. The Michelin Woman would smirk about something, but I had become immune to her bitching at me.
Besides, I always welcomed an excuse to go to the medical center, because it gave me a chance to visit Doctor Rudy. Rudy was my landlord, well, sort of my landlord. An uncle of his died and left him the Airstream trailer I now call home. Rudy had no use for it and gave it to me. I knew Rudy because he worked the fights for the state boxing commission and we kind of hit it off. He wasn't your typical country club doctor-he was a regular guy.
At the hospital I stopped by Rudy's office before I went anywhere else. He had a small space in the office building adjacent to the hospital. When I came through his door, there he was like he always, hunched over his computer, next to a half eaten toasted coconut donut, and sweating. Rudy always sweated.
"Internet porn, again, Rude?" I said by way of greeting.
"Oh good. I was hoping someone would stop by today and borrow money, get me in trouble, or ask me to do something illegal," Rudy said without looking up from the monitor. He did push up the glasses that had slid down his nose. He had deep pit stains soaking through his shirt even though the air conditioning seemed to be at around forty degrees.
"What are you doing?"
"It's called work, kid. You oughta try it sometime."
"That's just plain hurtful. I thought you took the hippocrapical oath or something."
"Kid, let's get it over with. What do you want?"
"One of the guys got rolled in the park and I came to see him. Can you tell me what room he's in?"
"I'm glad I got a half million dollars in medical school loans. It qualifies me to be Duffy Dombrowski's personal receptionist," he said. "Give me the name."
"Karl Greene."
Rudy got out of whatever screen he was in and shifted to another. He exhaled heavily and muttered a few 'Come ons' to the slow hard drive.
"He left AMA," Rudy said when he found the name.
"What's that mean?" I said.
"Against Medical Advice. He split even though we told him not to."
" Hmm…"
"Look kid, I love you to death and would love to chat with you all morning but can I get back to work?"
"Yeah…sure."
Rudy turned toward the computer and exhaled again. I stood there thinking.
Rudy stopped typing for a second and turned toward me again.
"Hey, kid, I almost forgot. Do you know any fancy caterers?
I mean who does the clinic use when they got a big deal fundraiser?"
"Caterer? What's going on, you stepping up from Dom's Sub World?"
"Well, sort of. Marie and I have been talking, and I want to throw a shindig at the house. I'm having a pool put in too," Rudy said in a different tone. Marie was Rudy's one that got away. She didn't like Rudy's devotion to the medical profession and tendency to overwork.
"Well, well, well…" I said.
"Well, well, well up your ass." Rudy spun around to the monitor again. I took it that he didn't want to take shit for Marie.
"I'll ask at the clinic," I said.
"Yeah, great," he said without turning around. I headed out.
It was after ten when I got to the clinic. The Michelin Woman stood in the reception area hanging up a poster from the state about training on compulsive Internet porn addiction.
"You're more than an hour late, Duffy," She said, making sure the poster hung straight.
"I was at the medical center checking on Karl. He got beat up last night."
"We've spoken before about you becoming over involved with your clients."
"Yes, we have," I said and walked past her.
"I'm docking you an hour and eleven minutes."
"Swell…" I said. I headed back to my cubicle just to get away. By the time I got there Trina buzzed my extension.
"Your 10:30's here," She said.
"I don't have a 10:30."
"You're losing it Duff. You called Mr. Sprain yesterday to have him come in," she said, not feigning or hiding her annoyance at all.
I told Trina to send Mr. Sprain, or as I called him 'Sparky', into the multi-purpose room for a counseling session. Sparky was an unusual client in that he actually tried to improve his life, and he had succeeded to a degree. He got the name 'Sparky' because he's an arsonist who had a history of setting fires for money. He once explained to me when he got short on cash and wanted to get high he could always find a small business owner who looked for a little 'Jewish Lightning.'
Sparky's anti-Semitic but colorful euphemism for arson not withstanding, setting fires tend to get you in trouble in our culture. The problem was Sparky was damn good at it and his services were almost always in demand in Crawford's failing economy. Even with the temptation of easy money, Sparky had been able to put together seven months of sobriety and, how do you say this…adopt a fire-setting-free lifestyle.
"What's goin' on Spark?" I said by way of an astute counseling session opener.
"Mostly good Duff, mostly good," Sparky said. Sparky was a shifty guy-if not figuratively, literally. He never quite sat still and he had a tendency to try to crack his neck every twenty seconds or so.
"Duff, these twelve steps-do I gotta do them in order?"
"I don't think so."
"Some guy at an AA meeting the other night told me I hadn't done Step One and was trying to do Step Four already and if I continued to do that I was sure to get drunk. I didn't understand what he was getting at."
"Well, Step One is about admitting your life is out of hand and Step Four is about making an inventory of your life."
"The guy said I was a dry-drunk and that I was b-u-ddingbuilding up to a drink-or some shit. He also said I wasn't keepin' it green enough and something about if I keep going to the barbershop I'm bound to get a haircut." Sparky looked confused.
"Duff, what the fuck are these people talking about? I mean, I want to be clean, but some of this shit is a little wacky." I resisted telling him to put 'principles above personalities or 'to take what he needs and leave the rest' or even 'one's too many and a thousand's never enough.' Instead I said, "Ah, some of those guys are a little fucked up, Sparky. I mean, they may mean well, but some guys have never been good at anything their whole life, but AA and it gives them a chance to preach. Ignore it."
"Thanks, Duff."
Another existential dilemma with my fellow man solved. We kicked around another couple of things, talked about the Yankees middle relief issues and whether or not their starting rotation could go into September and October. That was more than enough for the day and we agreed to see each other next week at the same time.
I headed back to my desk and I got to my cubicle just in time to answer my phone. It was Smitty.
"Duff, how you doin'?" Smitty asked. When he called me at work it usually meant a promoter had contacted him about a fight.
"We got something?" I said.
"No son, I just called to see how you were feelin.'"
"How I'm feeling?"
"Yeah, the head, is it clearin' up?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Don't get upset Duff. You should get it checked if it's still hurtin' or if, you know, you keep repeating yourself."
"I'm not repeating myself," I said. It wasn't like Smitty to get overly concerned about this stuff.
"Look kid; just keep an eye on it, will you?"
"Sure, Smitty, whatever. I'll see you tonight."
"Son, take another week."
"No, you know me, I get buggy without the work."
"There's no sparring here for you son-take another week and we'll talk. Now, I gotta run." He hung up. This day was shaping up as a real shit sandwich.
I checked the calendar for today and it was a beaut. The Aberman's were due in, to continue their decade-long bitch session disguised as couples counseling. Then it was Eli, who had been coming for eight years with no more than a few days here and there without his daily dose of two or three forties of Olde English, and then, Sheila, my seventeen-year-old kleptomaniac who would come in if she weren't in jail. Then the day ended with Karl, which I figured was a long shot.
"Are you talking to me?" Monique, the counselor in the next cubicle said.
"Huh?" I looked around the partition. She had slid back on her desk chair and looked at me with her eyebrows raised. She had on a white jacket with a black shirt; it seemed to bring out her black skin.
"You're talking out loud, but I think just to yourself," she said.
"I was?"
"Uh-huh,"
"Sorry, I didn't realize I was doing that."
"It's okay. I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you. I heard Claudia say she was docking you."
"Yeah-I went to the hospital to check on Karl and I was late."
"What happened to Karl?"
"He got rolled in the park."
"That's some evil, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
"Why is everyone asking me that? It's making me crazy."
"You're wobbling a little."
"I am not. Shit." I felt my face flush. "I'm going for coffee."
I headed off to the break-room to get a cup of the shitty coffee. People got on my nerves a lot lately. Monique was almost never one of those people and it made me wonder if it was other folks pissing me off or something within me. When I got back to the cubicle I looked at a couple of the files I had pulled out to see where I stood with my paperwork. I thumbed through Eli's chart, noting it had been six weeks since I put anything in it, which wasn't particularly good since he came in once a week for a session and once a week for group. Sheila's was slightly better because I wrote something in her file a month ago, but that was also her initial visit. The Aberman's won the prize though because it was a full eight weeks since I noted any of their sessions. If this was representative sample, then things didn't bode well for my case load, and it was only a matter of time until the Michelin Woman caught wind of it and started to get up my ass about it.
Eli didn't cover any new therapeutic ground in today's session. He hit four NA meetings this week and got high after every single one. He reasoned hearing about drugs set him off, which presented a problem with going to NA meetings. He'd down-played his affinity toward the street prostitutes he claimed to be trying to help every night by giving them meal money. Eli didn't connect their affection toward him with his charitable efforts to keep Crawford's gals well fed.
Sheila claimed to have not ripped anyone off all week, her new bright red Jordans and matching oversized red Ecko T-shirt not withstanding. Then the Abermans arrived and Mrs. Aberman chose that moment to confront Mr. Aberman about the stack of Club International magazines she found on a shelf in the garage. Mr. Aberman claimed he had found them on the lawn and was waiting for the Crawford recycling night to dispose of them. Mrs. Aberman countered with questioning why the porn stash was sealed in a watertight bin and in chronological order. All of this was awkward enough for me, let alone Mr. Aberman, when
Mrs. Aberman upped the anted when she asked why a bottle of her favorite extra extra virgin olive oil made it in to the garage next to the bin. Mr. Aberman claimed he took a sip of it every day because he had read it would raise his good cholesterol. I had my suspicions that Mr. Aberman was raising something else in the garage with the magazines and the cooking oil, but I held my opinions to myself and mentioned something about trust and the need for open communication. The Abermans were just happy to be able to fight with each other and didn't really hang on every word I said.
I got up from the desk in the counseling room after they left and felt the blood rush to my head with a thick throb. It seemed to subside as I headed to the bathroom so I didn't give it a lot of thought. It was close to three but I didn't have much faith in Karl showing-in fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Karl had left town.
I figured this was good as any time to get going on the charts.
As I opened Eli's file my phone buzzer buzzed..
"Your three is here," Trina said.
"Karl?"
"Yep and Duffy you've got to see the get-up he's wearing." I went out to the lobby. Karl stood with his back to the wall on the right side of the door like he was hiding.
"Hey Karl, how are you feeling, buddy?" One arm was in a sling and he had three or four bandages on his face. When he shifted his weight he grimaced a bit. Oh, and he wore a Washington Redskins helmet and the bright yellow gloves housewives used to wear when they cleaned.
"Yeah, sure. As an agent with the NWO, I'm sure you give a shit," he said.
"Karl, I'm not with the NWO. I'm with JUS, Jewish Unified Services. Why are you wearing the Redskins helmet?"
"It's the only one Goodwill had. I plan to put some duct tape over the insulting racial stereotype image as soon as I get the cash."
"No, I mean why a helmet?"
"I was in the hospital."
"…and they told you to wear a football helmet?"
"No, but if you think I'm stupid enough to not realize what they were doing you're the idiot."
"I don't understand."
"The tracking microchip? The GPS? Don't tell me you don't think they're keeping tabs on where I'm going." I wasn't sure how to address that.
"You want coffee?" I said.
"Sure."
"Okay, c'mon back and we'll get a cup." Karl followed along, albeit with his helmet and rubber gloves on. Right or wrong, sane or insane, this guy was in a fair amount of emotional pain and my job is to help him deal with that. Looney tunes or not, I took that aspect of this gig seriously. I let Karl pour his own coffee and we sat at the 'staff only' break table. I figured if we went into an official room Karl would pick up some extra secret radio transmission telling him Lee Harvey Oswald wanted him dead. This way we were just two regular guys enjoying a cup of awful coffee. It just so happened that one us regular guys was wearing a football helmet and rubber gloves.
"So it must really suck having your own government after you," I said while stirring the non-dairy creamer into my Styrofoam cup.
"You use that shit?" Karl said.
"What shit?"
"Non-dairy creamer. You know what's in that?"
"I thought it was, like, ground up milk or something."
"That's the problem, no one fuckin' thinks. That contains partially hydrogenated oil-geez…"
"Help me out here, Karl-I don't know what that is." The coffee was bad to begin with and I guess I was about to hear it was much worse than I ever dreamed of.
"The powers that be found a way to fatten fat and put it in almost everything a kid eats from the day he's born-so much so t you miss it without even knowing what it is. They got you craving something you don't even know exists." Karl shook his head almost in pity. "Let me guess, you probably love chicken wings?"
"Yep."
"Potato chips?"
"Yep."
"Oreos?"
"Actually, I'm a Chips Ahoy guy."
"There you go-you're hooked and you don't even know it. They got you where they want you." Karl leaned back in his chair.
"Didn't you think I was part of them," I said.
"I did and you still could be but you seem like one of us-the unenlightened lambs heading off to slaughter."
"Karl, just one thing, what does this fattened fat do to you?"
"That's the beauty-you have no idea. Seventy-two percent of America is obese."
"Isn't it because we're lazy and eat too much?"
"Yeah, that's part of it. Fat, lazy, Chip Ahoy addicts don't complain about forty-five percent of their income going to weaponry design to eradicate the third world, but that's only part of it." Karl sipped his black coffee.
"What else is there to it?"
"Fat people get sick and they get sick a lot. That means they need lots of prescriptions to control their blood pressure and their cholesterol and their heart disease and their joint diseases, because of the fat they're carrying. Follow the money my friend-there's lots of folks getting rich on your partially hydrogenated oils."
"I see." I sort of did, but I liked my Chips Ahoy. "Seems like something a whole lot worse than fat happened to you because of the government," I said and let it hang there.
"You don't know the half of it," Karl said and looked down at the table.
"You feel like telling me?" I said.
Karl shook his head and took a sip of coffee. It wasn't easy to sip the coffee through the helmet, but he managed by lifting up the facemask. A single tear ran down the left side of his face. He didn't wipe it away.
"All I know is they fucked with me and they're not done fucking with me just like they're fucking with a lot of people," Karl said.
"Karl, do you know what your diagnosis is?" I felt on shaky ground here, but Karl and I had connected at least to an extent.
"Schizophrenia with paranoid symptoms, Major Depression and Substance Dependence Unspecified. According to them I'm a real smorgasbord."
"You buy any of it?"
"Look Duffy, I know you think I'm a whack job. I got news for you-I know I'm a whack job, but there's an old saying. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"I guess you got a point." I thought for a second. "Hey, the last time you and I talked you mentioned something about a fire. That night there was a fire in the ROTC dorm."
"Yeah…"
"Did you know something?"
"Me? I'm just a chemically addicted, paranoid schizophrenic, depressed, nut job."
"And then you got beat up…"
"Just a coincidence, I'm sure." He winked at me.
"What could the two possibly have to do with each other?"
"Depends who you talk to doesn't it? I'm a semi-street person ex-vet. There are a lot of us bumbling around city streets, rambling. They like it that way."
"I don't understand. Karl."
"Most don't. Most don't even pay attention. Wait till the next bomb goes off in a federal building and no one will pay attention to that either. Everyone will get all up in arms and there'll be all sorts of attention paid to the cults and the cult leaders. No one will even notice the CIA connection."
"You lost me…"
"What's his name? Koresh? The Waco dude-Ex CIA-they had to get him out. Nice production. We're due for another of those real soon. Probably in the South-everyone assumes the South is full of extremist red necks."
"I don't know Karl, I just don't know."
"Of course you don't, Mr. Duffy. Enjoy your chips." He raised his cup in a mock toast and walked out. A pretty dramatic exit, except for the football helmet and rubber gloves.