'Why don't you call it that?'
'Mr. Dombrowski I-'
There came an ahroooo echoing down the long hospital hallway. Outrunning the Doppler-effected sound came Al, running at full speed, ears flapping and tail wagging.
'Al-my man!' Karl came alive. Al had what looked to be a walky-talky in his mouth. He must've paused to spit it out before yelling his battle cry. He charged Karl, jumped up, and lapped him across the face. Then he started barking. He wouldn't stop barking. The walky-talky skittered across the linoleum.
'Mr. Dombrowski, could you-' Al jumped on her lap and crumpled her beautiful discharge plan as he tried to climb up her to give her a smooch. She pulled away, dropped the papers and said something like 'Ewwww…'
The big security guard came down the hallway a little disheveled.
'I'm sorry Miss Rodriquez-O'Hara. I turned around and he got loose,' he said.
'It's MS. and its O'Hara-Rodriquez.'
'Huh?' The security cop said.
Al ignored this interaction and started chewing and slobbering on the discharge papers.
'He's destroyed the discharge plan! You know how long that took me?'
Karl got down on all fours giggling and playing with his buddy. Al started to get excited and hop around and bark. I really enjoyed myself, but decided to quit while I was ahead.
'Look, Miss Rodriquez-O'Hare, if I promise to be nurturing would it be okay for us to go now?'
'Please go,' she said while trying to get the slobber off her glasses with a tissue
We did.
28
Karl said he felt okay, just like he had a pretty good hangover. I asked him what had gotten into him that made him OD.
'Newstrom can push the right buttons, man.' He stopped, looked down, and shook his head. 'He started on some shit about it would be easier for me to do myself in than to have him come for me and terrorize me. For whatever reason, I bought it.'
'The guy is that powerful?'
'Yeah, Duff, believe it or not he is,' We both sat in silence until it felt awkward. I decided to move ahead.
'You sure he said 'Shake Down the Thunder'?' I tried to get a handle Karl's latest prediction and its level of craziness. Al wasn't, he slept with a complete lack of curiosity about anything Karl had to say.
'Yep. No question.'
'And you think this guy is nuts enough and powerful enough to set off a college type massacre?'
'You've already seen what he can do.'
'We've seen what you've said he's done.'
'I know,' Karl folded his arms.
'Karl, there's one thing I don't get. I still don't get how this guy, Newstrom, gets other people to do this shit for him. I mean, he's not the one pulling the trigger in any of this stuff.'
'Look Duff, Newstrom was special forces. He trained in all sorts of psychological shit. He explained it to me once. He doesn't create monsters, he just feeds them.'
'What the hell does that mean?'
'It means he scouts people, situations, environments, whatever. Then he gets a feel for it, takes the pulse, and fertilizes whatever he wants to grow.'
'How?'
'Think about it Duff. You think it's hard to find people who hate the government, the system or the situation they're in? You just find the people, bring them along, finance their craziness, and give them what they need. Newstrom used to call it gassing them up.'
'What the hell does that mean?'
'He's a motivator. He's like Bill Parcels or Joe Torre or some Fortune 500 exec. He knows how to get people to do what he wants.'
'That's it? He gives them a rah-rah speech and they're ready to kill?'
Karl frowned and scrunched up his forehead.
'Let me ask you this Duff. You think it would be hard to find a kid stressed out with pressure on a college campus?'
'No.'
'How about a violent kid?'
'No'
'A kid with some mental illness, who maybe likes what drugs do to him?'
'Easy.'
'How about a kid who listens to a charismatic leader, who gasses him up?'
I didn't say anything. It made too much sense and I started to wonder if I was as nuts as people said.
'Newstrom is expert at finding the right people, assessing the situation, and giving them the tools. It's like the cops say-he finds motive, helps the opportunity along and then he does what he's best at.'
'What?'
'He creates capability.'
'I guess I kind of see it.'
'You saw me on the floor filled with enough drugs to stop a rhino didn't you? That was Newstrom's work.'
'So you think we should take an 800 mile trip to Notre Dame to somehow see what Newstrom has in store?'
'We can always go to the game.'
The next morning we loaded up the El Dorado with a cooler full of snacks and Schlitz, and headed west. Karl asked Al if he wanted the front or the back. Al responded by jumping in the front seat and crawling over the arm rest to the back. I doublechecked I had all the Elvis 8-tracks I needed because it was going to be about a 12 hour ride.
Between Karl's New World order bullshit and Al's flatulence, it was going to be a hell of a trip.
'All right Karl, how do you want to do this? We can listen to the Elvis catalog in chronological order, frontwards or backwards. We can start with the movies, do all the live concerts, or go alphabetically,' I said.
I took Al's snoring as an abstention.
'I'm really more of a Zeppelin guy,' Karl said. 'So, I guess it's your choice Duff.'
'Zeppelin?'
'Yeah, Guns and Roses, Clapton and some folk stuff. Don't get me wrong…I respect the King, especially after, you know, that stuff we went over.'
We traveled only about 45 minutes out of Crawford when Karl asked if I minded getting off the Thruway. He reasoned surveillance would be easier on the major highway and we ought to break up our road trip by using some smaller country route. Never mind it would add hours to an already long trip. Somewhere between Amsterdam and Utica we saw a crowd of people with signs and placards. They were outside a gate and a couple of police cars with their lights on parked nearby.
'Pull over,' Karl said without shifting his stare from the window.
'Karl, we got a long trip ahead of us.'
'Pull over. This is the people fighting back.' Against what I knew to be my better judgment, I pulled over. Thirty or so people with signs marched in front of the gates. As I got closer I saw a banner they had spread out and hung on the fence surrounding whatever it was they protested. It said PETA, and the group had broken in to a chant. Al had woken up and made some weird noises in the back seat. He did that whistling thing through his nose he does when he wants something. It's almost like crying, but maybe not as bad. I went to get him out of the
