'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.'
