We're staying late, waiting for the last tables to leave, and he starts to talk. He's quit smoking, 2 weeks now, never felt better, doesn't even miss it, and this might in part explain it.
They're out to get him, the people at the shelter.
He thought that maybe the mob had gotten to them, was figuring the other people at the shelter we're being paid $5, maybe $10 grand to keep an eye on him, but someone at the shelter told him that it could be done for only a couple of hundred dollars.
I'm pretty sure no one's out to get him and I'm starting to get uncomfortably close to a diagnosis. Before I'd given him the benefit of the doubt, it could be any number of things, it still could, but right now there's one symptom that's glaringly obvious.
No, no, we don't understand, they can't get him and he's just trying to protect us all from the enemy and now he reaches for his bible, he's going to prove to us that he's the chosen one, he'll just flip it open and God will speak to him through it as often he does...
It's the "Reach Out" bible, cloth-bound with peoples images visible in the psychedelic 70's lettering. He closes his eyes and selects a verse:
"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night."
-"Well, that's not right, but he usually gives me the insights I'm looking for" he apologizes, then begins another rant.
He's completely gone. We're all going to hell and he has the chosen mark upon him and has been sent to save us. Not just hell, either, there are people ...
I challenge his believe that everyone's out to get him, that his world is made of enemies, but he won't hear it. The people at the shelter, they know things about him they couldn't possibly know, unless the Doctor at the Rockyview told them...
The other church he belonged to, it was a scam, they were trying to get at him, he's lucky he escaped; he's going to have to figure it all out by himself, you can't trust anyone...
Uh-huh.
He found a diamond in his duffel bag, it's a small one, but he digs it out of his pocket to show us, he found it or it was sent by God and he's going to have it made into a promise ring for the girl at the dry cleaners who smiled at him today...
And he holds up his take-away coffee mug, stainless steel with the word "Dynamite" written round the top, it makes him childishly happy, "Dynamite Dave", he doesn't need to say it, I know.
The tables, eventually they leave, late, but I've finished my assessment.