Tom Schreck - TKO

I was into my third cup of coffee and trying to ignore Al, who was whipping around the house like I spiked his dish with Sudafed when the phone rang. It was Hymie and I dreaded talking to him.

“Son, what is this latest mess you’ve got yourself into? That Claudia is meshugenah with anger, you know,” he said.

“Yeah, I know, Hymie. I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” I said.

“You threw a coffee cup at the doctor?”

“Yeah.”

“Son, I’m sorry about your fight. It’s okay, there’ll be others.”

“I’m not sure there will be, Hymie.”

“Son, you’ve got to let it go. You’re a crazy Irishman and the Polish doesn’t help, but you know better.”

“Yes, I do, Hymie.”

“What did this doctor do?”

“He believes Rheinhart is the murderer. That, and he took a shot at me about my fight.”

“Isn’t this guy, Rheinhart, the guy?”

“I don’t think so, Hymie.”

“Son, you have a soft heart-this Rheinhart, he has had it rough, no?”

“Yes.”

“Son, I’ll see what I can do with Claudia, but I don’t know this time.”

I thanked Hymie and I signed off. At this point I didn’t particularly care about the job and I didn’t care about my boxing career. There wasn’t much I gave a shit about, but I didn’t like the thought that Howard was getting screwed. Of all the shit swirling around my toilet of a brain, that was the one piece of shit that just wouldn’t flush.

Sure, I promised Kelley I’d back off, but with all this time on my hands it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything if I poked my head around a little bit. It would give me something to do and it would be a way not to think about everything else. I definitely could use the diversion and I was betting that Howard could use someone-anyone, to look out for him. After all, he asked me for help.

In the meantime my Muslim brother was on my last nerve. I grabbed the leash and tried to get him hooked up but he thought it was an opportunity to practice his open-field running. Again, he was running crazy as dog shit all over the Blue, dying for me to give chase. I’d try to stop and pretend like I wasn’t going to chase him, thinking he would feel guilty and relent to the leash. Apparently guilt wasn’t an emotion that Al struggled with, because when I’d pause he’d stay just out of reach until I took a step toward him and then he’d fake left and go right. Finally, out of frustration, I ran as fast as I could after him and got real close when he shifted direction and ducked under the coffee table.

My shin was actually bleeding and the thin skin over the bone was a dark purplish red. Al crawled out from the table with his tail wagging, ready for his walk just as soon as I stopped hopping around repeating the f-word. I’m man enough to know when I’ve lost.

I lifted Al’s fat ass into the passenger side of the Eldorado and switched tracks on the Blue Hawaii eight-track until “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was cued up. Al curled up, belched, and went to sleep. I drove toward Smitty’s house, not to see him but instead to have Al pick up his scent and follow it to the Y. Smitty was almost never home, except late at night, so I figured I’d let Al nose around, see if he could pick up some Smitty aroma, and see if he could find his way to the gym. I guess in some ways I knew I had to see Smitty and maybe I was setting up a scenario to bump in to him accidentally on purpose.

Al huffed around Smitty’s front lawn, his porch, and settled on a bench where Smitty read. I gave him the “Go find!” command and he was off with his nose working the ground and the pavement like an Electrolux on overdrive. Al kept a steady pace, stopping and raising his nose in the air, pausing to think from time to time, and then getting back to the ground to do his work. He worked the trail for a couple of miles and he was more intense then I’d ever seen him. Trailing was clearly in his blood and it was what he was meant to do, at least in addition to eating and farting.

About a block from the Y, Al stopped, crapped, and then sprinted to the parking lot right to Smitty’s car. He was jumping all over Smitty’s Oldsmobile, happy as could be with me praising him when I heard voices a couple of rows behind me in the parking lot.

“That would be a fitting dog for you. A dog that looks as pathetic as your life.”

It was Harter, the karate guy. I looked up and he was standing there with Mitchell and, of all people, Dr. Abadon. They were standing in front of a shiny black Escalade with gold chrome all over it.

“Maybe floppy-ears would like to play with Seagal,” Mitchell said, and with his remote he lowered the driver’s-side window just a bit. The head of a pit bull emerged with its snarling mouth almost foaming and its teeth barred. Al got behind my legs and whimpered.

“Ha, just like his master!” Harter said. “Hey, nice job at your last fight… loser!”

I was taking it all in and feeling several of the veins in my neck twitch, but I didn’t want to subject Al to any more of this. The whole episode seemed so out of context, especially with Abadon joining these two, that I felt a little off, like something was wrong or something was about to be wrong.

Even though it would have been my nature to get into it with them, I walked away with Al without saying anything. Al’s jubilant mood from the trailing was gone and he looked a bit ashamed.

When I didn’t know what else to do with my time, I went to AJ’s. With very little going on in my life, but a lot of things racing through my head, I needed the group therapy that AJ’s offered.

“It’s all based on shittin’ the bed when you’re a kid,” Rocco was saying.

“I thought it was wetting the bed,” TC said.

“Why would shittin’ and pissin’ in the bed make you a serial killer?” Jerry Number One asked.

“How would you like to sleep in a shitty, wet, and uriney bed every night?” Jerry Number Two said.

“That would stink,” TC said. “Hey, doesn’t setting small animals on fire have something to do with it too?”

“It must be a big bed,” Jerry Number Two said.

“I don’t think they have to set the animals on fire. I think those are two separate categories,” Jerry Number One said.

“Separate from what?” TC said. “What if they sleep with an animal that wets the bed? Does it still count if they kill that animal? It could be justified, you know.”

“When I was a kid I had a hamster that slept with me,” Jerry Number Two said.

“So?” Rocco said.

“He caught fire accidentally,” Jerry Number Two said.

“In bed?” TC said.

“Yeah, there was pot involved. He survived though,” Jerry Number Two said.

“How?” Rocco said.

“I pissed all over him,” Jerry Number Two said.

“That’s disgusting,” Jerry Number One said.

“You’re telling me,” Jerry Number Two said. “You ever smell urine-soaked, burnt hamster?”

“That’s enough to put a guy on a killing spree,” Jerry Number One said.

Kelley was in his position watching a profile on NASCAR legend Richard Petty. Kelley would have watched sex tapes of Golda Meir if it meant drowning out Jerry’s drowning hamster story.

“So, are you picking up educational credits by listening in on the brain trust’s discussion on serial killer forensics?” I said.

“Yeah. But I’m going to need another few beers to rid my mind of the visual of Jerry in bed pissing on that poor, flaming hamster,” Kelley said.

“Has anyone heard from Howard?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You’re not going to like this, but I’m going to start looking into this.”

“You’re right. I don’t like it at all. Didn’t we have this talk?”