24 Years a stranger in a Strange Land

Saying that I was ill-suited to be the street outreach guy might be a bit of un understatement. I was a bit of a spoiled kid from small farming towns. My parents weren't perfect but they loved me.

I never really had an interest in drugs. I was in short, sort of a comedy nerd. I liked theater and comic books. I had no idea what I was going to do out in the gutter if someone tried to get violent on me. Show them my action figure collection? Quote a dirty lymric? I hadn't even been in a fight when I started. Having kids from school beat me up because my dad laid off their dad only taught me how to take a punch. And I don't like that. Twenty-four years later...

The world's a different place. Not that long ago I was surrounded by four crack heads with machetes and a crazy tweeker that was screaming out of her mind. I hadn't slept well in a couple days before that. I was at least 15 years older than the next person. I was old, worn out, and tired. That's when I noticed an small iron sledge hammer sitting at the tweeker woman's feet. She noticed it at the same time I did. I thought, "It's on!" Last one to the hammer was going to find out if there was a God. Her man, the one guy that hadn't yet pulled out his weapon was sliding it out. And Damn it! He knew how to hold it. He had some knife fight training probably from the military by the look of him. But he had no idea that I had three weeks of stage combat from a state college. So we'll see.

She started for the hammer! And Bam! It was on. Even though it was early in the morning, I hadn't had enough coffee, and she was on all the shard in the world. She should have been moving like lightening. After all, it's called speed for a reason. However, the human desire to not get brained has a powerful effect on adrenaline production. Not wanting to die, or worse yet having to navigate the world by blowing into a straw to get my chair to move, does stimulate the old adrenal glands. So the old slow fat guy got to it first. Praise Jesus. I snatched it up, got rid of it, and turned my attention back to the dude with the knife. Cool as a cucumber.

I figured I'd ask that timeless question WWJMD. What would John McClane do? As junior gman decided to come at me with his Arkansas toothpick at the ready. I realized I was holding a full sharps box containing 50 or 60 dirty needle that had just been picked up. I popped the lid off and gave it a toss at him. Ad hoc Shrapnel and germ warfare combo. He announced that I wasn't worth it and he retreated off to honor his ancestors by smoking a baggie o' crystal. I headed off to the comic book store, figuring I owed myself a treat.

I don't include this story as a brag or to show that I'm some sort of tough guy. I'm probably not. I have faked my way out of more fights using my acting skills than anything else. I'm telling the story to show that I've seen some stuff and been some places. None of which do I recommend.

I have always felt a resistance to The Keep Portland Weird motto because I felt it glorified the performative weirdness of attention seekers while ignoring outright the truly bizarre things I have seen on the streets of Portland. Whether it was the Satanic cult leader that worked as a clown, Stavos the angry eastern european clown as we called him, the numerous black alters we found, the venom spewing man in a coon skin hat with a battle axe that attacked us for popsicles, and the curse boxes. There were so many days that I felt like I had stumbled into a David Lynch short film. Or perhaps Fox Mulder in the episode Postmodern Prometheus.

Hopefully, as these blogs continue we can have some fun exploring the darkside of street life with a bit of tongue in cheek humor. In the meanwhile, how do you plan on celebrating Portland's third annual Shigelle outbreak. For the record the traditional celebration includes everyone dressing up like UPS drivers and pouring syrup on your swimsuit areas and punching each other in the neck.

See you soon,

Wil