The Basketball Sheik

I step away from my desk and look out through the glass doors at the park across the street. A turbaned man carrying a basket ball is doing what looks like a flamenco dance at the foot of the Abraham Lincoln statue. He's a regular here at the museum; the other guards have dubbed him the Basketball Sheik. Although he always wears the turban and robes, he’s white and seems pretty much insane, although he's a member of the museum. Perhaps someone buys him a yearly membership, no one seems to know. He always wants to take his basketball into the galleries and throws a fuss when we tell him he has to check it at the front desk. Once inside he spends his time obsessively writing notes on a tiny memo pad in cramped handwriting. Every once in a while he'll throw a fit or start touching things and we have to talk to him; he inevitably gets very hostile and occasionally we have to throw him out. No one's ever had a normal conversation with him, He's been seen carrying canvases through the park, so it's assumed he's some kind of painter. As I watch him, he stops dancing and starts dribbling his basketball. He makes as if he's going to take a shot at a basket and lobs the ball up at the Lincoln statue. It hits Honest Abe square in the forehead and flies right back into his hands. I hear a whoop of triumph before I head back to my desk, letting Venus keep her eye on him for a while.