The Way of the Wanderers (Part Three)

There’s a guy I happen upon from time to time. Let’s call him Steve.

Steve has been a fixture in my hometown for at least the last two decades. He’s short, blue-eyed and bushy-tailed, with thinning gray hair, knobby elbows and knees swollen from outdoor living and arthritis. He’s an amiable sort if he’s taking his medications, bright, witty, always looking to please. He’s talented, he draws, he sculpts driftwood.

He also claims to be Universe X’s premiere pirate radio DJ, and indeed, he does possess an ancient battery powered boom box and microphone among his ragtag cart of belongings, a jerry-rigged system which he uses on occasion to preach odd factoids and racy gossip about Universe X to passersby. In my dealings with Steve over the years, said gossip often involves an alternate earth where Norsemen Vikings first colonized North America instead of the English and the French. Naturally they developed an array of advances we don’t have in this universe, like flying cars, personal jet packs, and a cure for the common cold.

Steve’s also passionate about local police and city ordinances, especially when he’s been inconvenienced by them, like when he’s ‘moved along’ or shuttled to social service offices. Sometimes he’ll blast Beatles songs at full volume as tourists toss coins in a hat while he sketches or whittles. He fashioned a name plaque for my girl once, on a sunny Christmas morning as I visited him at the beachfront, painstakingly burning her name into a piece of driftwood. After I gave him some pittance of an offering in thanks, he quickly scribbled a re-marqued Universe X Pirate Radio flyer just for me: To Bard – Universe X awaits your light! Keep your station dialed to Q1 million for further announcements! Your faithful servant, DJ Steve.

His shopping cart wagon is adorned with orange Cal-Trans traffic pylons serving as bumpers, the top is covered in blue tarps, its depths are full of wood and metal and recycle refuse, and the whole crazy traveling assemblage is topped off with a tattered white flag emblazoned with a hand painted, Universe X logo.

When Steve’s not on his meds, it’s evident.

Instead of parking his cart and working on the crafts of the day, he frantically pushes it up and down the sidewalks, storming, ranting and raving, cursing anyone who approaches him, including the cops, whom I’ve seen trying to deescalate him a number of times, and I have as well, having some background in cooling down those with developmental disabilities or mental health issues. He doesn’t remember who I am when he’s in that state.

Once, I went out to Palm Springs with my girl in the dead of summer, to soak some rays, drive through Joshua Tree, hit the pool, standard desert weekend getaway fare. I was driving east on the 111, there was an underpass encampment, and zing, there it was, parked up against a drainage culvert alongside cardboard shelters and tents. I’d recognize it anywhere. The orange cones and blue canvas were evidence enough. The white Universe X flag was a dead giveaway.

I pulled over, unbelieving he’d made it out that far southeast, left my girl in the car with the AC running, and I ambled over to the cart. He was nearby inside the culvert, along with a smattering of other drifters, sitting and sweating. It had to be 110 plus inside that pipe ‘cause it was an easy 114 outside under the sun. I greeted him, friendly, wary, and he launched into a litany of threats and ultimatums, crazed and medication-dry, and I backed off, retreating sheepishly.

He didn’t recognize me in the slightest.

All I could think about was how he’d hoofed that cart along the roads for however long it took him, just to get from the south coast out to the Coachella Valley, over two hundred miles. I doubted he hitched there. It was more likely he’d rolled through the endless concrete of Los Angeles side roads, subsisting on convenience store food and Mickey D’s. Can you imagine the fortitude to exist like that? Can you imagine doing it under the haze of schizophrenia, or PTSD, or really any variety of diagnosed or undiagnosed breaks in sanity?  It’s herculean in some ways, tragically appalling in others.

Eighteen months later or so, I saw him back in town, he’d returned, and somebody had gotten him back on his meds. He greeted me as if no time had passed at all. He remembered my name and offered to doodle me something. We sat for a while together and palavered. I didn’t ask him if he remembered me in Palm Springs.

He’s a good guy. He’s a lost boy. Many of us are. He thinks he doesn’t need any help. That’s his reality. It doesn’t excuse us folks with enough marbles in our bags rolling in the right directions from forging a path of mutual comprehension with folks who are shorter on marbles.

I hope he is still surviving, and that he’s taking his meds.

Continued…

*Compiled from June 17, 2020