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.
6
I didn't get to any of the paperwork, so after four sessions I fell further behind. The Michelin Woman would go ballistic when, and if, she found out because she couldn't stand it when all of life's ducks weren't lined up in rows. This duck almost never got into a row, so she generally hated me. Eventually she'd get around to checking the files and I'd get in trouble, but you know, the specter of getting in trouble never really was a motivator for me. If I could avoid pain-in-the-ass trouble I would, but I didn't spend my entire existence fretting about getting in trouble. If avoiding trouble wasn't my thing, fighting definitely was. It's hard to explain to people who don't do it but I need to fight-it's my Valium. When I don't get to fight, I start to get squirrelly and tense and I don't like the feeling. When you get to fight, your body relaxes, your mind has to get away from the daily bullshit to concentrate on protecting yourself, and you get to challenge yourself with a physical chess game. It didn't have anything to with beating someone up-except for the fact I really like landing a good shot, not because I like inflicting pain, but because it's good to know my punches do what they're supposed to do. Being told to take time off from the gym pissed me off. I knew when I felt all right and I knew when I needed rest. I knew I needed stress relief more than anything right now and it was taken away from me. Well, it was taken away from me at the Crawford YMCA boxing Program. There were other places to go where I they knew me, and knew me well, where I could get some work in. Smitty wouldn't have to know and I could avoid an argument by doing what he said and stay away from the gym.