Tom Schreck: On the Ropes

She hasn’t returned my phone calls since that date and I’m not sure what happened. I’d like to say that it doesn’t bother me and try to pull off the flip “can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em” deal, but I can’t. I like Lisa, I respect her, and I think we could go someplace. I don’t get what I did wrong or what I need to do to make it better. The way she’s been acting, it could be something she just snaps out of, but something inside made me doubt it.

Anyway, her message was a simple “Duffy, please call me.” It had a weird feeling to it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I have always talked to Trina at work about my various relationships, and right from the start she didn’t approve of Lisa. Trina made it clear that I put up with way too much goofy shit with Lisa. In fact, Trina almost always thought that the women I got involved with were way too needy and that I should choose more carefully. That always sounded good, but when it came to dating women, it’s not like they do a full disclosure when you first meet them. When I first meet them they’re always attractive, interesting, and engaging, and it usually takes time before the psychotic behavior starts. Then I’m left with trying to figure out if their wackiness is an aberration or if they really are funny-farm certifiable. Inevitably they should be getting their mail delivered to One Funny Farm Circle, Wack-job, USA.

The third call was from Walanda. She was using one of her two weekly calls to contact me from jail. She was not doing well.

“Duffy, get me out of here, they’re goin’ kill me. He has people in here… they’re goin’ kill me. Duffy, you gotta get me out of here!”

She was holding back tears and half shouting in that weird way that people sometimes do on the phone when they’re trying to control the volume of their yells.

Al whimpered when he heard Walanda’s voice.

Before she hung up, she paused and, as an afterthought, said, “Remember, don’t give Allah-King no pork.”

No doubt Walanda felt she was in trouble-the difficult thing was trying to get a handle on whether it was real or brought on by withdrawal from the lack of psychotropics, both legal and illicit, in her system. Whether or not the danger was real or imagined, her anxiety certainly was authentic. One thing I’ve learned over the years of working with people like Walanda is that reality has very little to do with emotion. Right or wrong, true or false-Walanda was hurting and hurting bad.

Her short-legged, overgrown sausage continued to whimper for a few minutes after the phone call. After a minute or two the whimpering must’ve exhausted him, because he laid down on his back with all four paws pointing straight up and went to sleep.

Even though Walanda was nuts, it didn’t necessarily mean she was imagining the danger. Still, she was coming off crack and who knows what else and probably wasn’t taking her antipsychotic medication. It would be a few days before the jail doctor would see her and prescribe her Haldol, and then a few days after that the medication would work again. The stress of being taken out of her environment, losing Al, the situation with her stepdaughter-real or imagined-and being in jail were all sufficient to put her over the edge.

Just the same, I called Kelley to see if he could help. He wasn’t in, but I knew where I could find him. I put Al’s new leash on him and we headed for AJ’s. AJ’s is a grill on the West Side, in the middle of the city’s industrial section. It was a speakeasy during prohibition, and I think that was the last time that any of the AJs had put a dime into the place. The bar has been passed down three generations to its current proprietor, the one and only Andrew Jursczak III. The place reeked of stale beer, cigar smoke, and the poor hygiene of the people who frequented the place. Kelley hung out there a lot when he was off duty.

AJ’s is a dive, which is why I like it. I parked right in front of the entrance, told Al I’d be back, and headed in. As I closed my door and walked around the car, I could hear Al’s protest. I did my best to ignore him, that is, if you can ignore the baritone woofing of a hound fixated on getting your attention.

The place is long and thin with a bar capable of holding maybe eighteen patrons, and there are a half-dozen tables set close to the wall that no one ever sits in. The walls feature old-time beer signs, not because AJ III thought they were trendy, but because AJ’s grandfather got them for free in the forties.

The regulars, or the Fearsome Foursome as I called them, were present. There was TC, a lifetime state worker, sipping a draft of Genny with a back of B amp;B. TC’s view of the world consisted of figuring the best way to expend the least amount of effort in life and maximize the greatest amount of pleasure. There was Jerry Number One, a contractor, drinking a draft of Bud. Jerry Number One told the filthiest and least funny jokes that you never wanted to hear. Next to him was Jerry Number Two, who didn’t work and took one too many acid trips, drinking his signature Cosmopolitan. Lastly, there was Rocco, a retired construction worker and a WWII vet with a scotch on the rocks in front of him. He had spent the war in Okinawa and often referred to the hand-to-hand combat he learned from the “Japs.” Age hadn’t mellowed Rocco, and at seventy-five he still hated everything and everybody, mostly because things were perfect in his day and now they completely sucked. The Foursome sat in the four seats directly behind the stick, in the same order from left to right every night.

Kelley was sitting to the left of TC with a seat in between the two of them, turned in the opposite direction toward the TV, half paying attention to the Yankee game. AJ always had the Yanks on with the TV sound turned down and a radio turned on to catch the play-by-play. I took the stool between him and TC. AJ opened a bottle of Schlitz and slid it in front of me without me asking. They kept Schlitz at AJ’s just for me.

“What’s up, Duff?” Kelley said.

“Ahh, you know,” I said. “Still in the business of saving lives.”

“God bless you, man,” Kelley said.

Kelley was the kind of guy that didn’t make a lot of small talk and, though he was good guy, you kind of got the message when he wanted to get a few beers in him and zone out while watching a game on the TV. Just the same, I needed his help tonight.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“You just did,” Kelley said.

“Seriously…,” I said.

“Go ahead,” Kelley said.

“Walanda left a message on my machine,” I said. “She was hysterical about somebody trying to kill her in jail.”

“Yeah?” he said. Kelley took a pull off his Coors Light and watched Jeter lead off the inning with a single between third and short.

“Well, should I be worried?” I said. “Do you think she’s just being nuts?”

Kelley put his beer down and swung his stool partially around.

“Look, Duff, you and me have different relationships with these people.” Kelley took a sip from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, so don’t get me wrong, but I can’t spend a lot of time playing these things out in my head. That’s for you guys. She’s in jail because she broke the law, and I helped get her there. The long and the short of it is, jail is often a dangerous place and Walanda is crazy. Just because she’s crazy doesn’t mean she’s not in danger.”

“I think I got ya,” I said.

“Regardless of whether she’s in danger or not, there ain’t nothing you can do about it,” Kelley said.

I decided to leave it alone. I bought Kel his next round and let him get lost in the game. Meanwhile, the Foursome were locked in a heated debate about the important subject of why we have daylight-savings time.