I'm sitting in a McDonald's on Midlothian expressway here in Richmond, and there are four police cars with flashing lights a block away. This is the part of town with the cheap motels, crack ho's, junkies, and the most shootings. For that reason, I've avoided hanging out here. I was sleeping on a little porch in a business district on the other side of town, not realizing it's the upscale area. (someone just came in and said there was a shooting, someone a block away might die, that's why the cops were there. No flashing lights now.)
My cheap sleeping bag was stolen a couple months ago from the little porch of an abandoned restaurant where I slept for about 4 months. Then the bag with all my clothes was stolen. For two months now, I've had only the clothes on my back, the FBM T-shirt Steve Crandall gave me, a warm sweater I got at Goodwill, and a kickass winter coat courtesy of Scotty Zabielski in the Chicago area. I've two pairs of shorts and one pair of sweats. So I smell really fucking bad. I clean up when possible, which isn't all that often. I've had two pairs of socks for two months. Then the good sleeping bag I'd been loaned, and my two moving blankets were stolen. When you sleep outside in 20-30 degree weather, sleeping bags are pretty important.
Why am I suddenly talking about what's REALLY happening in my life? Mostly because I got here to Mickey D's 1 1/2 hours ago, completely bummed and half asleep. It's 39 degrees outside. In about an hour, I'm going to take a bus to another part of town, where I will get off the bus, walk for about 15 minutes to the place I now sleep. There is a high roof, but it's basically open to the weather. I'll get pretty damn wet on the way there, most likely. Then I will try to dry off as much as possible, and spend a night in 30-something degree weather while wet. So there's a roughly 50/50 chance I'll die of hypothermia TONIGHT. In addition to that, I just watched a hour of Robin Williams' hilarious interviews on talk shows, which put me in a better mood. But it also made me think about why I've been holding back on telling what's really happening. I said, "Fuck it, I'm telling the start of my story, and I'll let the chips fall where they may.
I've had a lot of crazy shit happen in my life in this 21st century. Back in 2008, while homeless in Orange County, California, I was homeless for a year, living on the streets, panhandling to survive. I became completely homeless after about 4 years of working 70-100 a week as a taxi driver. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. I WORKED myself into homelessness. Really.
So anyhow, I was panhandling at this really out of the way off ramp in Laguna Canyon, where Laguna Canyon Road meets the 73 freeway. I'd usually get enough on Friday and Saturday evenings out there to get a motel room for a night, sometimes two nights. There was a plain clothes cop that used to ride his motorcycle, personal bike, up, stop, and talk for a while. He was cool, and seemed to be trying to figure out my story. Hell, I was trying to figure out my story, as well.
Then there was a uniformed cop, in a police car, who kept trying to catch me panhandling. But I kept hiding in the bushes every 20-30 minutes or so. He wasn't too happy about that. I dodged him for weeks. Then one day he just showed up, walking up the off ramp. He drove all the way around to Laguna Hills, came the back way, and parked on the other side of the freeway, so I wouldn't see him, and just walked up on me. I figured he'd be pissed. Instead he walked up and just said, "Who ARE you?" I didn't know what to say, and he continued, "I've never seen THEM come down on anybody as hard as they're coming down on you." I replied, "So there is a THEM?" He just nodded. I'd been running into all kinds of trouble trying to make a living for years at that point. There seemed to be some group working to keep me from making a decent living. But I knew I could just be crazy. Yet, suddenly there was this cop, a 23 year veteran of the force, he told me, baffled by THEM putting pressure on my life like he'd never seen in his life. This was in Orange County, a place with 2 1/2 million people, or more. That's fucking crazy. How could I possibly stand out in a place that big.
The cop, who I'm pretty sure worked with the plain clothes guy on the motorcycle, said, "You're not a bad guy. I've met a lot of bad guys, that's not who you are." He told me, quite politely, I needed to stop panhandling that day. We were both baffled by what was going on. He walked back to his car, and I grabbed my stuff, then headed the same way, to a bus stop nearby. He had pulled off, but there was a $5 bill by the curb where his car had been parked. OK, that IS NOT how homeless guy interactions with cops normally go. We were both baffled, and something was going on. That was just one of many weird things that have happened in the last 18 years.
Here's another thing. Since I've been in Richmond, no police officer has talked to me directly. That's unheard of when you're homeless. But they've rolled up, rolled by, and they knew where I was sleeping, in this little porch of an abandoned restaurant. Then I started waking up in the middle of the night, and I'd hear people talking nearby. Every two or three nights, for three months, it was the same thing, but seemed to be different people. There was a wall by my head, I could hear them but couldn't see them. Every time, one person would tell someone else the same thing, "That homeless man sleeping there, he has the highest I.Q. in the country, his I.Q. is 198." Every couple of nights, for three fucking months, I'd wake up, and hear some version of that. They always said 198." I woke up one night, heard the same thing again, and said out loud, "If I'm some kind of tourist attraction, I'm opening a fucking gift shop."
YES, I know how crazy this sounds. I don't think my I.Q. is that high. The last possible I.Q. test I had would have been when I joined the Marine Corps in late 1984, and did the testing in early 1985, 34 years ago. Now, some really crazy shit happened, I never got to boot camp, and was officially "dropped form the delayed entry program for fraudulent enlistment." I didn't tell them I sold low grade drugs (crosstops and black beauties) in high school for a couple of months, then quit doing it. When they told me they might have to go back and talk to my friends for a security clearance in the Corps, I came clean, and told them the whole story. I went home, and didn't know my status for a week. I finally was told I was dropped, and that the CMC made the call. I said, "What's the CMC?" They told me that was "Commandant Marine Corps", the general who ran the entire Marine Corps. It seemed ridiculous that he would have any reason to look at the file of some 18-year-old recruit from Boise, Idaho. That never made any sense.
So. I don't know if I took an I.Q. test then. If I did, I've never heard the score. I got a 132 on an I.Q. test in junior high, and I worked slow and didn't finish the test. So maybe I would have scored a bit higher. I DO NOT think I have an I.Q. of 198, or anything close to that. But for a reason I can't understand, many people here in Virginia have been told that. They seem to believe it. The other thing I've heard these people at night say is, "We don't know what to do with him."This I.Q. thing seems now to be the reason I was forced out of California, and to North Carolina.
I finally asked someone I know in law enforcement, in another state, if my I.Q. showed up when police ran me, maybe that's where this crazy rumor came from. They said they couldn't run me, they could get in trouble. But the people at night stopped showing up, and least close enough fo rme to hear them.
I don't know what's going on, except that I'm still homeless, a cop in Laguna Beach told me THEY were coming down on me like he'd never seen before, and some people here think I have the highest I.Q. in the fucking country. It's all nuts. Or, maybe I am, that would be the response from an official entity, I imagine, if they had to explain all of this.
So, whatever is really going on. This is the basic idea of where I'm at. Confused. And homeless. In the rain. On a night when it's 39 degrees and raining. Maybe that will help explain m sketchiness to those of you who read this blog.
If I die in the near future, which seems fairly likely, or at least possible, I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread at the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach, California. I love that weird little place, tons of wildlife there.
If I'm still around tomorrow, I'll keep blogging...
I've got a new blog going, it's about building and running an art or creative business, or any small business. You can check it out here:
WPOS Kreative Ideas
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