Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Crazy Sheldon

So there we were in Edmonton: two crews sharing adjacent motel rooms and hanging out together every night. In addition to the folks I introduced you to last time, there were also Bryan and Crazy Sheldon. Bryan was a former member of the Canadian military who talked about his stint in the army all the time. I was intensely jealous of him for one particular reason: he had been stationed as a UN peacekeeper in the Golan Heights, and I, a Jew, had never even been to Israel. But, aside from his interaction with Crazy Sheldon, I'll write more about Bryan another time.

Crazy Sheldon. I wonder what his problem was. I mean, I wonder what his official diagnosis would have been. Borderline personality maybe. Still, a nice guy, and aside from the time I went along with him in almost getting us both killed, he was definitely a fun guy to be around, if you were able to make concessions to his craziness .

One of the ways it manifested itself was in his utter lack of fear of dogs. Dogs are one of the hazards travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen have to deal with. A lot of our work was done in trailer parks, and a dog in the yard could be a very real obstacle. For me, it would just mean that door didn't get knocked on, but for Sheldon, it was as if the dog wasn't even there. Now I know that in theory a dog can't harm you if you're not afraid of it, but I'm not sue how I could possibly test that theory. I have no particular phobia about dogs, but if there's a big dog I don't know barking at me because I'm invading its territory, I'm gonna be pretty scared.

Sheldon would simply ignore it. Only if it would actually charge him would he even acknowledge it in any way, by staring it down and yelling at it to shut up. Worked like a charm.

One evening we were off in some distant bit of territory on our own. We knocked on a few token doors before Sheldon decided we should go to the 7-Eleven and play Mortal Kombat for over an hour. I just stood there watching him, a guy in his 20s yelling at the screen and feeding it quarter after quarter. Once in a while, if he made a particularly successful move, he would taunt his computerised nemesis by yelling "Go-EEEEEED!!" very loudly. The first time he did that, he was rather proud of himself, and looked to me with raised eyebrows hoping for some affirmation of his tremendous wit. I smiled. "Sheldon, don't you think we should try to go make some money?"

"Yeah, I guess. One more game!" Pow, kick. "Go-EEEEEED!!"

By the time we were done trying to sell encyclopedias and were ready to drive back to the motel and meet up with the rest of the crew, it was pretty late. We had a good half hour drive ahead of us on an unlit snow-covered two lane highway full of sharp turns. So as we got in his car, he of course pulled out a baggie of marijuana and some rolling papers and proceeded to roll a fat doobie. I mean obviously.

Now I was certainly getting the feeling that this was not a smart thing to do, and it is something that wouldn't have occurred to me to do in a million years, but I went along with it. Yes indeed I did. I sat there in the passenger seat while Sheldon drove the suicide road back to Edmonton and we passed the joint back and forth. Despite knowing that this was crazy and dangerous, and not really wanting to, I did it. Why?

There are a few reasons, I guess. For one thing, I was 21 years old, and people do more stupid things at that age. I mean you're basically still a teenager and the power of peer pressure and a certain feeling of immortality haven't totally worn off yet. And I was a pretty go-along-to-get-along kind of guy. I'm glad my friends in high school weren't bank robbers or heroin dealers, or I might not be here today. Whatever it was, I shudder today to think that I did something so incredibly insane. But it's OK because Crazy Sheldon made me do it!

Eventually, it was time for Sheldon to go. He had been a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman much longer than I, but one day he got in a fight with Bryan the ex-soldier. Bryan was a pretty high-strung guy but he was far from insane. He knew how far to take the fight without losing his job, but Sheldon went completely bats**t and may have become dangerous if Ray and John hadn't pulled them apart and calmed Sheldon down. Having missed the first few minutes, I have no idea what they were fighting about, and I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Because Sheldon was crazy.