It was a socially awkward moment.
'Al is a basset hound.' I heard myself say. The receptionist looked at me, strained to push Al's nose away.
'Basset hounds are scent hounds and they are bred for hunting and tracking small animals like rabbits, gophers, or woodchucks.' I had no idea why I went on like this, but I felt I had to say something.
Al sneezed and the receptionist yelped
He went right back to where he was.
I reached in with the leash to try to get him hooked up again but the positioning of her thighs and Al made it impossible. Al sneezed again.
This time I got him hooked up. I pulled as hard as I could and got him out of there. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. The rest of the walk to Karl's room was mostly uneventful. Al pranced along at my side, getting smiles from the cute nurses, who seemed appreciative of his volunteerism as a therapy dog. Al started to pant partly from the exercise, but also from the sheer joy of interaction in the world. It was Al's world and the rest of us just lived it.
Karl was sitting up, staring at the TV when we came in. He didn't turn our way when we entered. I let Al walk over to him and surprise him. Al was good in new situations, and he was cautious in this new environment filled with new smells, lights, and gauges.
'Whoa, looky here. Hey there hound dog!' Karl snapped out of his trance and bent over to rub Al's ears. 'Hey fella, what's happening, my man!' A full moment or two before Karl noticed me in the room.
'Hey Duffy, who's this?'
'That's Al,' I explained to Karl it was short for his hard to pronounce Muslim name.
'Hey man, Assalaamu alaykeum! My brother,' Karl said rubbing Al behind the ears.
'Ahooo, Ahooo, Ahooo,' Al said.
'Why does he have a Muslim name?'
'He was in the Nation of Islam security force as a man trailer and bomb sniffer, but he got asked to leave on account of hygiene issues,' I said.
'That's it Al-stick it to the man!' Al jumped up on Karl's lap and started to lap at his face. Karl smiled from ear to ear. I had never seen him so happy.
'Karl, how are you feeling?' I asked him.
'Great, now. I love dogs, man. They're pure, you know. They ain't about fuckin' with you and manipulating you with some silent agenda.'
I thought about Al eating my couch, kicking me in the nuts, and waking me up every morning at four a.m. for his breakfast. It didn't seem all that pure of heart to me.
'Good boy, good boy,' Karl said.
Al growled.
'What's a matter, what did I do Duff?'
'He doesn't like being called 'boy'. Comes from back in his Muslim days.'
'Oh. Sorry my brother. Good dog, good dog!' Al went back to licking his face.
I wanted to talk to Karl and didn't know how to broach it, but I had never seen him in such a good mood. I didn't want to waste it.
'Karl, who beat you up this time? What happened?' I said. He kept playing with Al and began to talk without looking at me.
'Whatever happens man? I was in the park minding my own business when I get grabbed from behind and a knife is put to my neck. The next thing I know its lights out and I'm in here.'
'Were you going on talking to people about conspiracies and that shit or were you really minding your own business?'
'The conspiracies ain't shit. That's what they want you to think. Look at all this shit here.' He pointed to all the medical equipment. 'Who's paying for it? I sure as hell ain't. So who's paying for it? Who paid for it to be here for a guy like me to use?
Who benefits? Follow the money, Duffy.'
'That's the kind of shit. Were you yelling that in the park and getting on people's nerves?'
'It's too bad if it gets on their nerves; they need to be enlightened.'
'Karl-people hate to hear this kind of shit. That's what keeps you getting your ass kicked-Don't you see?'
'And I suppose you just want to sit back and let shit happen. Just like this massacre bullshit. Massacre at People of God. What a crock!'
'Now, right there-cut that shit out. You keep saying this ambiguous shit and then acting like you knew it all along. Did you know anything about this before it happened?'
'How could you not know? This Rukhaber, you'll find out sooner or later he was CIA, FBI, Secret Service, or something. Then whoever claims that will get discredited, caught with child porn or they'll just disappear. Watch-'
'What the hell are you talking about Karl?'
'It's like the black man. Every time we get a black hero they seemingly fuck it up. King, Malcolm X, Ali-you name them. If they're not homogenized like Michael Jordan they get destroyed. That's why you get fools like Sharpton as spokesmen. It's an automatic discredit.'
'Karl…you've predicted, at least sort of, two events. Do you know they're going to happen?'
'Duffy, Duffy-I'm a whack job, how would I know?' He went back to playing with Al's ears. Al went back to ahoooing.
'So tell me what's happening next?' I stared right at him. He shrugged and smiled a crooked smile.
'Let's see, we've had the act of God with a fire, we had the bogeyman getting blown up… hmmm…let me see. I'd guess it's about time for some sort of poison scare. You know, something shows up in the water, some senator gets some white powder, some bad Tylenol…that gets the ignorant masses petrified.' Al laid on his belly all spread out and snoring. I didn't have any idea what Karl raved on about, and I thought, maybe, I really had gotten hit on the head too much. CNN showed a collage of Rukhaber's photos on the screen. It ended with him in his desert khakis in a shot from Iraq.
Karl laughed out loud.
13
I got to the office the next morning and checked out Karl's file. The only information in it was the info I had put in it, which, by the way, meant there wasn't anything in it at all except names and addresses. Karl had refused to give me much personal stuff, because of his New World Order bullshit. I knew his folks were dead, he lived at the Westview Apartments-or at least said he lived there, and he had been born thirty miles away in Vorhees Park.
I checked with Trina, but nothing had shown up from the VA. The prospect of getting some worthwhile info on Karl didn't look bright. I didn't really care, clinically, about getting information, because all it tended to do was make a file really fat. We had plenty of records weighing twenty pounds because of the amount of useless counseling the client's had had over the course of their lives. It didn't really improve their treatment outlook much.
Monique walked back from the kitchen with her customary cup of chamomile tea. She wore a throwback baseball cap from the Negro League team, the Pittsburgh Grays.
'Nice lid,' I said.
'Thanks, Duff.'
'Satchel Paige's team, right?'
'Actually, no. Josh Gibson's.'
'He was like the black Babe Ruth wasn't he?'
'Babe Ruth, isn't he in second?'
'Now he's in third. Bonds broke Aaron's record.'
'Don't get me started,' she said.
