by Tom Schreck
"Good morning. Hey, Karl, how are you?" I said. Karl made eye contact with me and nodded. He looked with it, but depressed.
"Karl is showing signs of dysthmia. He's really going to need your support and he will have to take it easy for awhile," the social worker said. "Can you provide a supportive, calm, and nurturing environment?"
Karl made a face.
"Of course, I can," I said.
"I have discharge plans I'd like to go over with both of you." She pulled out what looked to be a four-page form. Karl rolled his eyes.
"The first opportunity statement is-"
"Excuse me?"
"What?" she said.
"Opportunity statement?"
"Yes?"
"What the hell is that?"
"It's like, you know, a problem."
"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 backseat and he marched in place nervously. He looked like he really wanted to get out of the car.
The three of us walked toward the protestors, trying to make out what they said. A couple of them had signs saying 'Close Down Puppy Mills' and 'Animal Freedom' and things like along those lines.
Finally, we could hear them chanting,
"No more puppy mills! No more puppy mil
ls." A lady, wearing army fatigues and Birkenstocks, handed Karl and me fliers. Al had lowered his head and neck and pulled me with all of his force toward the main gate. He went out of control, making a really strange sound that seemed to be half anger, half sadness.
"Look, there's one of the survivors!" A guy with a ponytail and glasses yelled at Al. A bunch of these crunchy protestor types gathered around Al and started petting and stroking him and talking to him. Al had his front paws on the fence and was doing his best to see in.
"He probably remembers," The ponytail guy said.
"No doubt-it isn't something you forget," the lady who handed us the flier said. I had no idea what they were talking about. Karl had worked his way into the crowd and was now holding a sign. He pumped a fist in the air and yelling something sounding like "Kill the man."
Al wouldn't calm down and the group of protestors wasn't helping. I pulled really hard and started heading back to the car. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I knew Al didn't like it. When we got about fifty feet from the fence Al chilled out a little, but he continued looking over his shoulder and whimpering a bit. Karl came running up behind me with his new friend, the ponytail guy.
"Duff, you gotta hear this. Listen to what this brother has to say." It was like being in a bad TV movie about the 60's.
"This is a puppy mill, where they are breeding dogs under deplorable conditions. We are set on shutting them down. Your dog might have come from here," The ponytail guy said.
"What?" I said.
"He's a basset-one of the breeds they breed here. Where did you buy this dog?"
"I didn't. He belonged to a friend who has since died. I have no idea where he came from."
"The way he acted at the fence looked to me like he was familiar with the place. These places are horrible, horrible places. They over-breed the bitches and the place is unsanitary. If you like dogs, you would join our cause."
"Yeah, Duff, let's help out," Karl said
"Is it illegal?"
"Technically no, but there's no question it is immoral," Pony tail said. "This particular place wraps itself in the flag and hides behind bullshit patriotism."
"What?"
"It's some sort of ultra right wing organization and they use this place as their clubhouse," Pony tail said.
"C'mon Duff, we gotta join in," Karl said.
"I don't know, Karl, Can't we solve one of the world's problems at a time? We've got someplace to get to. Remember?"
"Yeah, I know, man but we're coming back here to stop this shit," Karl said. He had Al by the leash now. Al was doing that marching in place thing he did when he was nervous. The crowd suddenly got louder as a big red pickup truck approached. The truck was one of those extra heavy duty ones with the extra back tires. It had a flag design all over its fenders, a sign on the passenger door that said: 'Give The Soldiers A Snack Attack-Give Can Goods!' I realized this was one of the places collecting all the goddamn canned goods that were all over the place.
The crowd chanted louder and the three crew-cut guys in the truck laughed. The protesters reluctantly parted and the guys went through the heavily armored gate. On the other side of the gate, two scrawny shaved-head types, with big black Doc Martens boots on and a load of tattoos, did their best to look quietly menacing at the protestors.
In all the confusion I felt my head do the throb thing. It was worse than it had been in the last few days. I got a little sick to my stomach, but I took a breath and stabilized it.
"Duff, you all right?"
"Yeah, I just got this weird feeling like something about this was familiar and then I got the head thing."
"Was it from getting Al?"
"No. I've never been here before," I said. Karl turned his attention to Al who did the whimpering thing and marched in place.
"You remember huh, Al?" Karl said. He got down on his knees massaging Al's ears. "Breath my brother, breathe." My head kept throbbing, but we had to get on the road.
29
We drove straight through the rest of New York. Thankfully, Karl curled up with Al in the back seat and they slept all the way to Erie. Elvis's early 60's, post-Army period got me through to Cleveland. Critics dismiss this period of Elvis's music, but I thought it was one of his greatest. On numbers like Such a Night, originally done by Johnnie Ray, Are You Lonesome Tonight, originally done by Al Jolson and It's Now or Never, Elvis's interpretation of Mario Lanza's, O Solo Mio; it was like listening to a music history class. Elvis was great as a crooner, which to me didn't take anything away from his ability to rock.
After the early sixties, I switched gears and listened to his complete Gospel work, which got me all the way to Toledo. Gospel music is an interesting study in Americana because there isn't one type of Gospel music. Elvis did Black Gospel, he did white rural Gospel, and he did traditional white upper class Protestant gospel. That's a huge swath of music and Elvis did them all better than anyone. The fact he brought all of those types of gospel music together is just more testament to how much of a uniter Elvis was. No wonder the government wanted him discredited.
It scared me that I now thought like Karl.
Toledo to Indiana we listened to the seventies period. Although everyone assumes this is when the King went into the tank, I disagree. The live album from Memphis is my favorite, followed by the afternoon show at Madison Square Garden and the studio album, his last, Moody Blue. When we made the turn off the Indiana toll road to US 31, Elvis kicked in to Moody Blue. That's when we got the first glimpse of the Golden Dome.
"Man, check it out," Karl said when we made the turn down Notre Dame Avenue.
"This is some special place. TV doesn't do it justice," I said. Al had his head out the window and his ears flapped in his face. The Golden Dome straight ahead and in the sunlight it gleamed almost like it was supernatural. The way the N.D. football team had played in the last couple of years, gave plenty of evidence the structure was not supernatural or at least God's mom had focused on other things.
We parked in a student parking lot and headed into the campus. It was the Friday afternoon before the Michigan football game, so the place was buzzing. Music blared out of the dorm rooms and lots of older guys, wearing green tartan pants and Notre Dame sweaters, walked around. You could smell meat grilling and the whole place smelled like a huge tailgating party.
"Uh, Karl?" We walked down what I learned they called the South Quad, and had just passed a dorm with gargoyles on it called Alumni Hall.
"Yeah, Duff?"
"Now that we've traveled nearly a thousand miles to thwart Newstrom. How the hell do we find him and whoever he's 'programmed' to do this massacre?"
"I have no idea."
"That's great."
"Let's follow the crowd and keep our eyes out for Newstom and anything that looks funny." As he finished, a dozen Notre Dame Students with just their underwear on, their bodies painted green and their heads spray-painted gold, ran past us.
"I gotcha, Karl."
We walked past the Knute Rockne memorial gym, cut across the lawn in front of Morrissey Hall, and came down around a lake. In the distance, we could hear a marching band. It was hard not to get into the spirit that seemed to fill this place. I had to remind myself we came here to stop a sniper from killing a bunch of college kids.
Al definitely got into things, especially the number of pretty college girls in tight sweaters and short skirts who bent over to tickle under his chin. Al wasn't the only one. We kept walking and found another lake and in between the two lakes there was this beautiful stone grotto where thousands of candles lit the twilight. I guess people really wanted to beat Michigan.
"Hey Duf, let's say a prayer," Karl said.
"I didn't picture you a religious guy. Certainly not Catholic."
"Something about this place makes me feel like saying a prayer."
It was beautiful. There were about fifty people there, some lighting candles, some praying, and some just sitting. Karl walked ahead and lit a
candle. I knelt and said a prayer and Al lay quietly next to me. I noticed a small figurine of St Francis of Assisi off to the right and figured that probably made Al feel good.
I stood up and met Karl as we walked toward the marching band.
"Hey, Karl. If this place has a French name how come they're called the 'Fighting Irish," I said.
"Your first name is the name of one of the original Irish clans and you don't know?" Karl said.
"Hey, I'm half Polish."
"The Fighting Irish came from stickin' it to the man back in the twenties. This place was Jackie Robinson to the Catholics."
"Huh?"
"In the twenties, Catholics were oppressed, man. Notre Dame is so popular because they won football games against big state schools filled with Protestants."
"What does that have to do with being Irish?"
"Back then, Catholics were oppressed, but the Irish were even more so. It was an insult to call all Catholics 'Irish.' So, when Notre Dame kicked the shit out of a school like, say, Michigan, the papers would say 'The Fighting Irish Win' but they meant it to be derisive. Like saying the 'Grambling Niggers Win.'
Because the school was proud of being Catholic, they adopted the derisive term. Kind of saying 'That's right we're Catholic and we just kicked your ass.'"
"Really?"
"Yeah, oppressed groups often adopt derisive terms and wear them defiantly and proudly. African-Americans will call each other 'Nigger', Gay people adopt the word 'Queer', Italians call each other 'Dago'. It's a way of taking the power out of the term."
"No shit. So this place stands for something besides rich Catholic kids and a good football team?"
"Yeah. Back in the thirties, the Klu Klux Klan marched on South bend. The school president forbade the students to do anything. The kids defied him, met the Klan and drove them out of the city," Karl said.
"Kind of makes you proud to be Irish and Catholic," I said.
"Fuckin' A-right."
We both took a second to look back at the candles lighting up the Grotto.
