Cupid: Human Guidance.
Claire, would you come to my office please?
The knot in her stomach tightened. Now what did Trevor do or not do? Or what new treatment plan did they have in store for him that she would have to talk them out of that he would hate that just would not be right for him? Or for the other Patients? Or what other disaster? She rushed to Dr. Greeley's office her heart in her throat!
Isaac was there, his eyes and strong, black, right arm were on a disarrayed, very frightened little Fellow, with wild white hair and tons of wrinkles on his ancient face, no doubt a new Patient. And no doubt that was why she had been called in. The knot in her stomach loosened a little. Patients she could handle easily. Almost always, except for Trevor's lunacies which kept finding new original ways to manifest, those went by the book. It was the craziness of her fellow Doctors that gave her the most stress!
Dr. Greeley said with sincere concern, "Claire this Fellow was found going up to Folks on Sixth Street yelling at them at the top of his lungs in some foreign language. I am pretty sure it's Greek. He hasn't stopped jabbering it in here too. It is kind of a shame! If we could communicate with him here is a Patient willing to talk to us! Due to his age and the fact he really wasn't breaking any laws other than possibly disturbing the peace instead of arresting him the Police brought him directly to us, didn't throw him into a squad car, just dragged him up the street half a block. Here's our problem. We've made a major goof! Every Doctor we have who speaks a word of Greek is on vacation, even Dr. Cornelius! Claire I hate to even suggest it but is there any possibly that Trevor actually speaks any Greek?"
Claire laughed "Oh yes! And every language I ever could find anybody to test him on. I tried to trip him up on that so many times! He even SPEAKS ancient Egyptian! Several dialects! NOBODY can speak ancient Egyptian. But Trevor can!"
Dr. Greeley sighed. "Claire sometimes I suspect you believe him! But never mind that now. I am shuttering at doing this! We are damned if we do and damned if we don't! If it turns out this Man is Psychotic and needs treatment using another Psychotic as a Translator is hardly good medical procedure and could get us sued! But if it turns out the Man is just lost and all he needed was directions to Astoria and we fail to provide a Translator who could give him good directions which I admit Trevor is perfectly competent to provide being a perfectly adequate Barkeep who does that sort of thing all the time, than again we could have a lawsuit on our hands for locking up a rational Man whose only problem is we couldn't find a Translator fast enough when we knew someone who could provide that service was just across the street!"
Claire nodded and whipped out her cell phone. "Trevor how soon can you get across the street? You aren't going to believe this! We need your help!"
Trevor had as usual an Audience and that was how he loved life: Living it large! He was juggling 4 bottles at once, ten full bottles of very expensive whiskey. Felix wasn't even worried, not the way he would have been just a few months before. By now he was used to his strange new Barkeep's antics. He was also slowly getting used to the fact his bar and restaurant was NOT going to go out of business. 9/11 was not going to send this establishment crashing down as it had the World Trade Center! This stray god of his, this Cupid had worked a miracle on sixth street!
At first it had made Felix a bit worried that it was blaspheme, an affront to Christ that he had taken in a man who also thinks he is a deity, for do not the Ten Commandments say "have no other gods before Me?" But time spent alone in prayer with Christ had reassured him. There is a little bit of Christ IN Cupid for Cupid had accepted Christ too, and the little g gods of Mount Olympus are the Big God's Kids too, just as Mortals are. Jehovah is so much bigger than any little g god and Love in the end wins out over all theology. It is an insult to consider God is so small that He would hate anyone! God IS Love!
So Felix accepted Cupid in love as the love-needing stray he is, just as he had accepted Pepe and Jalapeno when those two starving Dogs had come begging for shelter at his door and all the stray Cats he fed in the alley behind the bar, and he was was blessed by the Big God for doing so, as we all are when we reach out to help others in Love. (And that is the real reason Tres Equis is prospering).
Trevor suddenly cocked his head, listening to a voice only he could hear then spoke into thin air and said, "You don't say! You need me to come to the mental hospital!"
He suddenly caught the bottles of whiskey, set them down on the table and said, "Boss I am off!"
Felix said tolerantly, "I agree fully with that statement!" He laughed as he watched Trevor happily rush across the street. And he moved in behind the bar to take over Trevor's shift.
One of the Audience said, "Poor fellow! I heard he was cracked. How long has he been hearing voices?"
Felix shrugged, "Probably since he got that blue toothed wireless receiver for his cell phone. I do wonder what that was about though? That was his Shrink he was talking to and while he does like her he isn't usually happy to be called over there." Felix pointed across the street at Sachs-Gordon. "Something interesting must be up."
At the mental hospital Trevor wasn't quite sure where to go. He headed for Claire's office, didn't find her there and stood in the hallway a bit confused. Then the disembodied voice provided him by virtue of Verizon wireless told him to go to Dr. Greeley's office. There he found his beautiful Psyche-iatrist, his Shrink's pesky Boss, his Friend and Nemesis, Isaac and what he recognized immediately from having seen thousands of years of them; an elderly Greek Peasant, and a very frightened one at that.
"Trevor" summed up the situation immediately. His IQ after all was off the charts. They called me in to help. What can I possibly do that all these smarty-pants Mortals with degrees cannot do to help their fellow Mortal? I don't have any powers anymore and they don't believe I'm a god anyway. So to do something divine is not why they called me here. All I can do anymore that they can't do is speak other languages, so he must not speak English. So "Trevor" started talking to the fellow in Greek.
And that worked a miracle! The Fellow's face went from terrified to delighted! He started gesturing to the skies with absolute gratitude! He danced with joy as much as Isaac would let him. This was a Man who like Trevor showed his emotions with his entire body!
The two Greeks gestured and jabbered back and forth for several minutes. It soon became apparent to those listening who could not speak Greek that direction were being included in the gesturing. That much was coming across between the cultural divide.
Finally "Trevor" Turned to Claire and said, "He is just lost, Claire, not crazy. He needs to find his Sister who lives in Astoria and he got off on the wrong subway stop but didn't realize it until he had walked a few blocks and can't find his way back to the subway either. He can't speak a word of English, obviously, but that was not a problem before as so many People in in Astoria speak Greek. He is also a tad hard of hearing which explains the loudness of his talking. I think what everyone should do is just let me escort him to his Sister. I promise not to try and match him with anyone. He already has a Wife! Yes, I checked. (So shoot me! I am what I am). I won't get home any sooner for taking him back but I have feelings of decency too!"
Claire eyed his Boss questioningly.
Dr. Greeley smiled and nodded. "Seems a rational solution to me." He turned to Trevor. "You won't get in any trouble with your Boss for taking the time away from work? Seems to me we've already taken you away from it far too long."
Trevor shrugged, "I am the only reason the bar is still in business. I also do the janitorial work for free and most of Felix and Lita's private cooking upstairs. I also do most of the apartment housework. And until the hospital arranged to get me a 'replacement social security number' I was only working for tips because that was the only way Felix could pay me. I was and am an Illegal Emigrant because my family didn't arrange to get me a green card when they cast me down from Olympus. So he has a bargain with me and he knows it. It is not that I mind sir. I was this close. (Trevor made a pinching gesture with his fingers) "to being homeless. I was living in a hotel and had only a few dollars left from the money my family gave me when they cast me down here when he hired me that first time, and then he took me back after I managed to trick my way out of here! So we have each other over a barrel! He puts up with just about anything I throw at him. But vice-verse!"
Dr. Greeley sighed. "Alright. Take our little lost Lamb back home."
Trevor laughed, "What a coincidence! His name is Mr. Gardoubes."
After they left together still jabbering happily together a mile a minute in Greek and gesturing wildly and neither having to be escorted by Isaac, Dr Greeley and Claire stared at one another and Dr. Greeley laughed. "I just sent a Normal Person out into the wild, free World to be escorted by a Psychotic!"
Claire nodded and grinned ruefully, "It shows how labels don't tell everything do they?"
Dr. Greeley nodded. "No they don't. And it's chilling! We label everything and everybody and go by those labels! But then into the system drops a Trevor, a prot or a Jesus Christ and we have no labels for them! So what do we do then and how do we handle them? How do we handle our Aliens, Claire?"
Claire smiled, "With love and tolerance, Charles. We simply don't forget to use our Humanity and muddle through!"