Tom Schreck: Out Cold

"I'm docking you an hour and eleven minutes."

"Swell…" I said. I headed back to my cubicle just to get away. By the time I got there Trina buzzed my extension.

"Your 10:30's here," She said.

"I don't have a 10:30."

"You're losing it Duff. You called Mr. Sprain yesterday to have him come in," she said, not feigning or hiding her annoyance at all.

I told Trina to send Mr. Sprain, or as I called him 'Sparky', into the multi-purpose room for a counseling session. Sparky was an unusual client in that he actually tried to improve his life, and he had succeeded to a degree. He got the name 'Sparky' because he's an arsonist who had a history of setting fires for money. He once explained to me when he got short on cash and wanted to get high he could always find a small business owner who looked for a little 'Jewish Lightning.'

Sparky's anti-Semitic but colorful euphemism for arson not withstanding, setting fires tend to get you in trouble in our culture. The problem was Sparky was damn good at it and his services were almost always in demand in Crawford's failing economy. Even with the temptation of easy money, Sparky had been able to put together seven months of sobriety and, how do you say this…adopt a fire-setting-free lifestyle.

"What's goin' on Spark?" I said by way of an astute counseling session opener.

"Mostly good Duff, mostly good," Sparky said. Sparky was a shifty guy-if not figuratively, literally. He never quite sat still and he had a tendency to try to crack his neck every twenty seconds or so.

"Duff, these twelve steps-do I gotta do them in order?"

"I don't think so."

"Some guy at an AA meeting the other night told me I hadn't done Step One and was trying to do Step Four already and if I continued to do that I was sure to get drunk. I didn't understand what he was getting at."

"Well, Step One is about admitting your life is out of hand and Step Four is about making an inventory of your life."

"The guy said I was a dry-drunk and that I was b-u-ddingbuilding up to a drink-or some shit. He also said I wasn't keepin' it green enough and something about if I keep going to the barbershop I'm bound to get a haircut." Sparky looked confused.

"Duff, what the fuck are these people talking about? I mean, I want to be clean, but some of this shit is a little wacky." I resisted telling him to put 'principles above personalities or 'to take what he needs and leave the rest' or even 'one's too many and a thousand's never enough.' Instead I said, "Ah, some of those guys are a little fucked up, Sparky. I mean, they may mean well, but some guys have never been good at anything their whole life, but AA and it gives them a chance to preach. Ignore it."

"Thanks, Duff."

Another existential dilemma with my fellow man solved. We kicked around another couple of things, talked about the Yankees middle relief issues and whether or not their starting rotation could go into September and October. That was more than enough for the day and we agreed to see each other next week at the same time.

I headed back to my desk and I got to my cubicle just in time to answer my phone. It was Smitty.

"Duff, how you doin'?" Smitty asked. When he called me at work it usually meant a promoter had contacted him about a fight.

"We got something?" I said.

"No son, I just called to see how you were feelin.'"

"How I'm feeling?"

"Yeah, the head, is it clearin' up?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Don't get upset Duff. You should get it checked if it's still hurtin' or if, you know, you keep repeating yourself."

"I'm not repeating myself," I said. It wasn't like Smitty to get overly concerned about this stuff.

"Look kid; just keep an eye on it, will you?"

"Sure, Smitty, whatever. I'll see you tonight."

"Son, take another week."

"No, you know me, I get buggy without the work."

"There's no sparring here for you son-take another week and we'll talk. Now, I gotta run." He hung up. This day was shaping up as a real shit sandwich.

I checked the calendar for today and it was a beaut. The Aberman's were due in, to continue their decade-long bitch session disguised as couples counseling. Then it was Eli, who had been coming for eight years with no more than a few days here and there without his daily dose of two or three forties of Olde English, and then, Sheila, my seventeen-year-old kleptomaniac who would come in if she weren't in jail. Then the day ended with Karl, which I figured was a long shot.

"Are you talking to me?" Monique, the counselor in the next cubicle said.

"Huh?" I looked around the partition. She had slid back on her desk chair and looked at me with her eyebrows raised. She had on a white jacket with a black shirt; it seemed to bring out her black skin.

"You're talking out loud, but I think just to yourself," she said.

"I was?"

"Uh-huh,"

"Sorry, I didn't realize I was doing that."

"It's okay. I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you. I heard Claudia say she was docking you."

"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.