The Good Doctor: A Queens Conspiratrix

It was 6 p.m. on Thursday in an Arabic-speaking deli in Sunnyside, Queens. Neighborhood people were popping in to play Lotto. Commuters walked in, grabbing quarts of milk, cold cuts, cigarettes, other sundries before heading home.

Into this scene strolled a middle-aged blonde. With a big smile and a booming voice she announced, "Would anyone like to contribute to my mission of stopping the Illuminati from taking over the world? They're dangerous, you know. As we sleepwalk they are destroying the Earth for the poor and the middle class. The rich are taking over and getting ready to enslave mankind."

She paused and looked at the owner. "Sir, anything?"

The Arab owner clocked the situation quickly. A couple of coins would get this woman walking out of his store. So he handed her some change. She beamed as she dropped it into her cup. "Thank you. I will continue the fight for us all."

When she left the store, I followed. Queens may have its share of oddballs, but they tend to be more of the bitter poor and working-class variety. Like the men and women who howl outside of OTB parlors. An anti-Illuminati agitator? Rare.

I caught up with her outside. Shrugging into her dungaree jacket, she was trying to explain the dangers of the Scottish Rites of Freemasonry to a Pakistani woman who was looking aghast and claiming that she didn't understand English.

I handed the crusader a dollar and asked her just what she was selling.

"Well, nothing," she smiled. "Just information."

"What kind of information?"

"Here," she said, "take some of my work." She exhibited the pride of a schoolgirl who had just written a winning essay. She handed me six pages. I glanced at the mimeographed sheets and laughed to myself. Like most conspiracy advocates, she was clearly compulsive; every speck of the 8-by-14 sheets was crammed with typed messages and cheesy graphics.

She told me her name was Dr. Dorothy Dalskov. I asked what the Dr. was for.

"I studied for a doctorate of divinity in Atlanta."

She shook my hand with a steel grip. Her face was bright with what I took to be the innocence of a lost time. She seemed a likable enough kook.

"I travel to all different neighborhoods throughout New York," Dr. Dalskov explained. "I live in Hoboken, so I spend my day traveling to parts of the city?all parts. Well, all except the rich sections. I've been at this for three years. It's my own thing. I don't have a following or anything. I just want to educate people that the danger today comes from the Pharaohs like the Illuminati, Zionists and the Freemasons. They control all the banks and the governments and are making mankind their slaves."

She paused and gave me a sunny smile. It was mildly disconcerting. I asked if she was ever harassed on the street.

"Some people think I'm crazy," Dr. Dalskov conceded. "They run away from me. But they can't run away from the truth. But no one has ever bothered me. I go to the Bronx, Brooklyn, wherever."

I asked how she landed in Sunnyside.

"Oh, the Most High directed me here."

"You mean the Most High told you to get on the 7 train and walk down Queens Blvd.?"

"Well, yeah. I go where the spirit takes me. I head back to Hoboken about 7, because it's not safe after that and I don't want to test the Most High."

She showed me the PO Box on her handouts and sighed, "You know, all the people I've talked to, only like three people have ever written me. Maybe you could drop me a line after you read my work."

I said I might. That night I pored over her rantings and shook my head. It was a combination of the worst of the Five Percenters, the Nation of Islam and the Klan. Zionist bad, people of color good. Christianity is based on Spookism and a false religion. There is a Mothership hovering above Earth ready to take in the righteous. Aliens lurk among us. The government is reading her mail, so if you send money send it certified.

I threw her material away and decided not to write the good doctor.