First real rainstorm of the year supposed to come in on Thursday and Friday. About an inch-and-a-half of rain is forecast. So here we go again. Last night I set up my trusty little pop-up tent for the first time in 6 months. It’s pretty beat-up — it’s got a big hole on top, and none of the zippers work so I can’t close the thing. But it should hold up until the big storms hit in December.
This’ll be my 19th Winter living outside. And who knows what’s in store this year. Last year we got 40 inches of rain. But the year before we only got 8 inches. Which — oddly — averages out to our normal annual average of rain, 24 inches. But who knows which end of that average this year will be. The Rainy Season is basically a 5-month marathon — from November through March. And I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s kind of second nature to me. At this point I wonder more if I’ll ever be able to adjust to living indoors again. Not whether I’ll adjust to the winter outside. But as Hate Man — who lived outside for at least 3 decades — used to say: “No matter how many winters you go through, it’s like you have to learn how to do it all over again every year.”
Living on the streets you notice a lot of things that nobody else notices. . . For example, for the last two years there’s been this homeless street person that has been living in the men’s room in the basement of this building on the campus. Just about every night he’s in there in the toilet stall. All night long. And I’m probably just about the only person that has noticed him in there.
He’s pretty smart how he does it. For one thing, he picked this wing of the building in the basement that’s mostly deserted in the evening. All the rooms are used as offices during the daytime, so after normal business hours, almost nobody is down there. The only person that goes down there in the evening is the janitor, and once he’s finished cleaning up the area (which he does at the same time every evening) there’s no one else around for the rest of the night that might bust him. So he usually waits until after the janitor has done his rounds, and then around 9:30 he’ll sneak into the men’s room. And he camps out there in the stall for the entire night. . . The whole building gets locked up at 10PM, so after that it’s even less likely that anybody is going to come down there. So he’s got the whole place to himself all night long.
There’s an outlet in the men’s room, so he can charge his cellphone. And he’ll usually bring to-go food in there to eat. He’s got running water (including hot water). And all the paper towels he needs. And the place is immaculate — it’s recently been cleaned by the janitor after all. And while it might seem a bit scuzzy to some of you, the idea of spending the night in a toilet stall. It is in fact warm and dry. As well as safe. Which is more than you can say about where most homeless street people spend their nights. Plus, it’s rent free. As long as he gets out of there before 8 in the morning when the grounds crew comes around to unlock the building, he’s home free.
But that’s what it’s like living on the streets. It’s like we live behind the screen. Behind the curtain. Backstage, hidden away from view from the crowd (and one of my abiding street mottos is: “Invisibility is next to godliness”). Street people sometimes remind me of water that seeps in between the cracks in the walls and the floors and into the spaces that nobody else is using or notices. . . The only reason I notice the guy is because I’m living in between the cracks myself.
First real rain of the year tonight. The first rain since May, six months ago. Here we go again. Another Rainy Season. This’ll be my 19th Winter living outside. So I suppose you could say I’m a grizzled veteran of the streets by this point. . .
The Rainy Season in Berkeley is a 5-month marathon. November through March. 150 days. And I’ll count off each one of them (today is Day 17) (133 to go) until we finally hit the warm, dry month of April.
I get a wistful feeling at the first rain of the season. It seems like every year there’ll be a couple of old-timers on the street scene who don’t make it through the Rainy Season. One winter it was Pink Cloud. Then Butch. Then Hate Man. Then Chicago. The list goes on and on. It’s kind of like Russian Roulette. You never know who’ll go down this year.
Last winter there was a particularly tragic story in Berkeley. One evening this drunk, old homeless guy was causing a disturbance in the parking lot of this business. So they called the cops on him. And the cops arrested him and hauled him off to the drunk tank to sleep it off. No big deal. It happens all the time on the street scene (and I’ve even seen street people purposely act drunk and belligerent on a cold, rainy night, specifically so the cops will arrest them and they can spend the night in a nice, warm, dry cell). . . Anyways, it turned out the old drunken homeless guy had a really bad, contagious skin disease. And the cops were worried that he might pass it on to some of the other people at the police station. So around midnight they released him from his cell and put him back out on the street. . . The problem was, it was pouring rain and freezing cold. And all of his camping gear was stashed at the parking lot where he got arrested a mile up the road. Plus, the guy was still drunk out of his mind. So he staggered a couple yards from the police station to the nearest bushes, and curled up there and went to sleep. Laid there in a puddle shivering his ass off all night long. And never woke up in the morning. The end.
I suppose there are multiple morals to the story. One being, don’t get drunk and belligerent on a cold, wet night. . . But at any rate, here we go again. One more Rainy Season on the streets.. . .
The latest issue of MINESHAFT came in the mail today (thanks, Everett Rand ). Issue #44 for those of you keeping score at home. I think I have every issue, except for the first couple of issues — an almost complete set — and I keep them all together in one place like a time capsule that I can preserve and inflict on future generations.
It’s a beautifully laid out little magazine. And the content is stellar. Dan Clowes put it well: “I’m always happily surprised to see a new issue — how can something like this still exist? Incredible.”
It’s like a remnant from a past age. When zines and comic books ruled the earth. And you actually got cool stuff, actual letters, in the mail.
There’s a three-page letter from R. Crumb in the latest issue. Among other things he muses about the recent death of his dearly departed wife: “Aline’s departure from this world put everything in a different perspective. It’s quite strange. All life seems more fleeting. So much of human endeavor now appears to be a delusion, an elaborate set-up to insulate us from the fleeting reality of this life.”
Soulful words that I could relate to. When I was younger this world seemed more solid and real. But as I get older, and more and more people I once knew pass away, this life seems more and more like a fleeting hallucination.
At any rate, there’s stuff like this, and much much more, to ponder in the latest issue of MINESHAFT.
Moo Cat has been missing for the last four weeks. And I’m pretty sure she’s gone for good. . . sigh . . .
Every morning I go down to her feeding spot by the creek hoping she’ll show up. And every morning I’m disappointed. It’s a sad way to start the day, I can tell you that much. . . I lost Fatty the black cat four months ago. And now Moo Cat. It’s been rough year for feral cats.
Moo Cat was the first cat born at my campsite. Way back in 2008. And she was the first feral cat I actually petted. It seems like another lifetime now — 2008. Duncan was still alive, Hate Man was still alive, I was still doing my vending table in front of Cody’s Books. And Moo Cat was one of my last links to that era. She spanned the eras. She was 15-years-old. Which is about 75 in cat years. I’ve known her a long time.
I liked all my feral cats. But Moo Cat was really special. I don’t want to say she was my favorite. But she was my favorite.
I remember a couple of my childhood Halloween costumes. One Halloween my Mom hand-sewed me a Batman costume. I loved that one. I remember jumping all over the place with my bat cape swaying in the air. . . Then in 5th grade I dressed up as a woman, with a slinky skirt and high heels and make-up, and a mop for a blonde wig. I was transgender before transgender was cool. . . On the years when you couldn’t come up with a good costume you could always fall back on that old stand-by and dress up as a bum or hobo. All you needed was some ragged clothes, some charcoal on your face for the beard, and a stick with a bag at the end of it to store your stuff. Little did I know I was prepping for my future lifestyle.
Probably my favorite Halloween memory was the end of the night when me and my little brother would go back to our bedroom and dump out all of our loot onto our beds. Marveling at all the incredible candy we had scored. Arranging it into piles, with the best stuff in one pile (Snickers, Chunky’s, Paydays, etc.!!), and the average stuff in another (apples, phooey!!). And we’d make trades for the stuff we really wanted. . . What a great holiday, Halloween. This celebration of over-indulgence. With a touch of evil.
After 9-11 I had this bright idea for me and my friend to dress up as the World Trade Center buildings. Except instead of the fake arrow through the head gag, we’d have these model airplanes sticking out of the sides of our heads. . . I guess that idea wasn’t in very good taste.
Woke up this morning. The weather was perfect. Blue skies, the sun coming up. A beautiful California day. And the woods were beautiful, lush and green. My cat was lying on top of my blankets purring happily. Everything was peaceful and tranquil everywhere I looked.
And yet I was miserable. My guts were churning with this sense of anxiety and dread and impending doom. I have a very active imagination and I’m very resourceful with coming up with reasons to make myself miserable. Thinking about all the bad things that could happen to me.
When I wasn’t worrying about the horrible things that could befall me in the future, I was thinking about all the horrible things that happened to me in the past, all the mistakes I’ve made, all the tragedies I’ve experienced, all the regrets I have..
And I realized: I basically fear my future. And lament my past. And even when the present moment is seemingly wonderful, I have a hard time appreciating it. Because I’m so fucked up about the future and the past. . .. And yes, I read the book BE HERE NOW from cover-to-cover when I was 18. And the past and the future don’t really exist, all there is is the Eternal Now, and all that. But in spite of that, I am indeed experiencing my misery in the present moment.
I remember this Hindu spiritual teacher used to say: “The main spiritual battle is with your own mind.” And I think there’s some real truth to that. I often feel that living with myself is like being trapped with a bad roommate that you have to live with 24 hours a day. I guess a lot of life is trying to make peace with yourself. Just being able to live with yourself.
Mini Scaredy was born at my campsite in 2016. She was a kitten from Scaredy Cat’s first litter. Which is how she got her name. Because, physically, she was a mini version of her mom. They looked alike.
Mini Scaredy was very wary of me at first when she was kitten. She generally kept her distance from me. And recoiled if I tried to touch her. It took a long time before she started to trust me. It wasn’t until she was around 8-months-old that she finally started to warm to me. And I remember the moment . . . One morning she happened to get knocked up by Owl — the feral tom stud of the neighborhood. Owl had been pursuing her all morning, and he finally chased her down and nailed her. That’s how she lost her virginity. Anyways, a month or so after that seminal event she approached me one morning as I was laying on my blankets. And she kept meowing and meowing at me, like she was in some kind of distress. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the problem was (needless to say, cats don’t even have the decency to speak in plain English, they just do that “meow meow” thing). She kept pacing back and forth around my campsite, and she kept crying and crying, and she kept looking at me like she was hoping that I could help her in some way. But I had no idea what she was going through.
Finally, she climbed up on top of my blankets and squatted down. And then there was this really bad smell. For a moment I thought she was pooping on my blankets. And then Mini Scaredy went running off into the woods.
I looked down on my blankets and noticed Mini Scaredy had deposited something on them. Amidst some blood and various fluids was this thing that looked like a little pink rubber toy. When I looked closer I realized — to my horror — that it was actually an aborted fetus. Mini Scaredy had had a miscarriage on top of my blankets!
Well sir, as disgusting as that was, it turned out to be a seminal moment in my relationship with Mini Scaredy. After that, she finally began to trust me. And from that point on she spent as much time as she could hanging out with me at my campsite. And my blankets became her blankets. And my campsite became her home. And 7 years later she’s still here with me, hanging out with me just about every night and every morning.
But I think that was the moment when she really bonded with me. When she was in distress, and she had nowhere to go, and she decided my blankets was the place to be.
It’s 1:34 am. And I’m about to head up the road to my campsite in the Berkeley hills.
The only thing I know for sure is that my feral cat Mini Scaredy is waiting patiently for me to show up at my campsite (I’m late arriving tonight because it’s Saturday night and I’m wasting time getting well drunk)…. It’s probably the one and only really cool thing about my life at this point. That I have a feral cat who loves me and waits for me to show up — waits for hours — just so she can greet me when I show up.
Last night I was out drinking until 2am. So I didn’t get around to heading up to my campsite until much later than usual. As I headed up the road towards my campsite, Mini Scaredy the feral cat jumped out of the bushes to greet me. Apparently she had been anxious about me showing up so late at my campsite. So she ventured a quarter mile down the road to wait in the bushes for me to show up. When she spotted me, she came running out of her hiding spot in the bushes to greet me. She was so happy to see me, she rolled over on her back on the sidewalk and demanded that I stop and petted her.
Ace Backwords 