neighbors

Tonight was a co-worker's birthday. There were cupcakes at the office, a night of bowling and beer, of course. It was a lot of fun, and I even got to play Dance Dance Revolution for the first time, which is probably the most strenuous video game in existence.

After a couple of post-bowling drinks at the bar, I made the usual walk home from downtown and ran into a familiar face. I'm not sure what his name is, but he's a homeless guy who hangs out in front of the music store with his guitar. When I saw him, I realized I hadn't seen him in months. I don't know if he remembers me, he doesn't seem to, but I do talk to him from time to time, because he seems like a pretty cool guy. He has never asked me for money, but I have thrown a few bucks his way; he usually only asks me if I want to hear a jam. He's not the best guitar player, but I watch him anyway; he sings too, more or less.

Tonight he played a twangy, bluesy number that sounded like it was born out of an empty freight car. I kinda liked the lyrics. I'm not sure if he wrote it himself or if it was someone else's, but I listened to the whole song--his songs have a tendency to wander on for extended periods of time. This one was roughly a radio friendly length. After the song was over, he shook my hand and started talking. He said he'd been traveling around, cooking ribs, which struck me as odd. I guess he had been working cookouts or fairs or something to that effect. "I ate like a king," he said, and I must admit the conversation gave me a hankering for ribs. I asked him when he got back into town and he told me just four days ago, which oddly enough, was right when the season of Hot turned to Rain.

I joked about his bad timing and said he should move south. He laughed too and said he was thinking about it. I could make plenty assumptions of how the guy got to where he was now, but I still wonder how people fall through the cracks like that.

There was one guy who used to lurk around town who called himself Johnny Spaceship. This was probably one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. I remember seeing this guy at this rock show downtown, and he ended up at this after party I was at later in the evening. I don't know how he got there. He started talking all this crazy shit to us, but he didn't sound crazy while he said it. He said he was from the future and that the people from his planet were going to pick him up. He claimed to have powers, too, I think. The thing was, he looked kind of off. He wasn't grimy looking, but there was something about his face; it was almost as if he could have been an alien or something. He looked human enough...I'm starting to sound as crazy as he did. He had a bunch of people crowded around him listening to him at one point--truly bizarre.

I saw him around town a lot over the next few weeks, then nothing until one night when I was having dinner in my favorite Chinese restaurant, Johnny stumbled in and talked to the proprietor. She gave him a little carton of rice, and he stumbled out. After I finished my meal, I bumped into him on the street. He was huddled behind a mailbox and eating the rice with his hands. He looked really out of sorts, the poor guy, and started talking to me about dragons or something. It was really hard to make out what he was saying; hardly the articulate yarn-spinner who was at the party. That was the last time I saw him.

Maybe he's in the basement of a mental hospital somewhere, but I hope his people did show up and take him back to the future, because this place really ate the poor guy up.