As I entered the room, I expected someone who could have doubled in "Men in Black." The gentleman actually looked more like a taxi driver. This day just got stranger in my mind. I thought, "Oh, that's their technique”-- appear normal, then turn into a torture machine just when one least expects it.
It turns out; he was there to ask about a patient. This patient was not in trouble, instead, the CIA was offering her a very specific job. I pulled up her chart and remembered her well. When I had seen her years earlier, I was never sure if she was odd, insane, or truly amazing. She had related to me a couple of episodes. She reported one night visiting her cousin’s home. She claimed she had a clairvoyant ability. She claimed that night she felt an evil presents, and had to jump out of bed screaming. She had scratches over her upper chest. She felt she was battling something evil. She was asked to leave by her cousin in the middle of night.
Strange—odd, insane, or amazingly special? She also related an episode of getting off the highway onto a small country road. She says she told her husband, “Something will fall off a truck.” They drove about four miles and approached a truck. Large pipes began to fall off the truck and her husband barely missed them. Again- odd, insane…?
So, here I sat years later being asked about her medical health and my opinion of her mental health. The agent would tell me very little except agencies including Homeland Security were offering her a job in the area of intelligence and national security.
So, how does this relate to A Rainbow in the Dark? I’ve tried to explain to audiences how odd, or insane, or extremely amazing Skeet Carney was to hire Kirk, treat him as an equal, attend his ball games and generally look out for his interest. There is no way for most of us to understand how odd Skeet was in his day. He was decades before his time in the way he viewed race relations. There was no doubt people would have considered him odd and insane if they knew the whole story in that day. It is the cultural perspective that most of us cannot even begin to understand. Paranormal activity is defined as "a phenomena that is beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding." Skeet's behavior was not normal, maybe bordering on paranormal. So, read A Rainbow and decide for yourself what Skeet was all about. You might just be surprised.
