I've forgotten his name. All I remember is him endlessly stalking the long halls, arms twitching, scratching some amphetamine itch, his red rimmed eyes blinking ten times faster than yours or mine, a red flag flying unfurled in a self-created breeze.He kept to himself. Grunted hello when spoken to. Never seemed to use the bathroom. Only ate candy bars. Wore the same clothes every day. Ran up and down the stairs a lot. Stayed up all night. Stayed up all day.
He'd only been there a few weeks, when Terry took me aside in the kitchen one morning, panic in her voice.
"He has a gun," she whispered. "I was coming in at 2 AM last night, and I saw him sneaking down the stairs holding a gun in his hand!"
I asked if she was sure, hoping she wasn't.
"Pretty sure. I mean it was dark. And when he saw me, he kind of hid it under his shirt, and ran back to his room."
We discussed what to do. We knew what not to do.
Question: Hey buddy, you got a gun in there? Answer: Bang!
Two nights later, a second roommate had a similar encounter with him after midnight.
As Paul was coming in the door, the guy came slinking down the stairs, holding something under his loose shirt, a paranoid look in his eyes. He stared at Paul a moment, then ran away.
That same paranoid look crept into our eyes.
Now he mostly stayed in his room. Behind his closed door, a tragicomic farce began entering its fatal third act.
Looking out from his big double windows was a coffee shop directly across the street. Tables set up on the sidewalk, with people sitting there all day long.
He became convinced these people were watching him, laughing at him.
No doubt they were. Because he was standing right in front of his windows, shirt off, making wild gestures and flexing his skinny muscles at them, like some amateur wrestler challenging opponents in a homemade ring. Center stage, he'd carry on for hours, a silent soliloquy of mental stupefaction. Nobody could help but look, point, and laugh at this spectacle. Impossible to ignore, it had become a daily floor show enjoyed by all.
Until he started waving what looked to be a gun.
On that particular day, lucky for me, I was with my girlfriend Monique in Emeryville, far from the scene of what was about to transpire. I heard the full account next day from the owner of the coffee shop, Fred.
"Crazy bastard started flashing a pistol. Then he wasn't at the window anymore. Next thing we saw, he was downstairs, crossing the street headed towards us.
"Everybody ran inside, while I locked the door. People were on the floor. He came right up to the window and banged on it. I said something like, 'We're closed, go away' and he ran back back to the house.
"I called the cops, told them there was a man with a gun across the street."
When the police get a call like that, they tend to take it very seriously.
Half the Ingleside police force showed up, lights flashing, guns already drawn. They blocked off the street. Every gun and rifle was now aimed at our upstairs windows, including mine, two windows away.
I could picture myself taking a nap, being awakened by the noise, then opening the window to look.
Bang! Bang! Ka-pow! Ka-blooie. The end of me.
In the confusion that followed, cops shouting, everybody shit scared, walkie-talkies blaring, he was eventually dragged outside.
Laying on the sidewalk, shirtless, sweating, surrounded by about a million cops, he offered the following account of his actions:
"Bluh b-bah ah don't wanna, bluh wanna bluh bluh. Huh? Wanna uh, buh blah b-bub bub, lemme huh?"
That was enough to haul him away, lock him up for 48 hours pending a psychiatric evaluation. The gun turned out to be a pellet gun, harmless but genuine looking from a distance.
His mother showed up the next day, distraught, in tears, comforted by Terry, while we all told her we thought it was speed. The guy was doing stupid drugs. There was nothing more to tell her.
Three days later he stomped back into his room. Late that night, I wanted to make sure he knew how much he was welcome. So I slipped a note under his door. Unsigned, of course. It could have come from any one of us.
Everybody here hates you, it said, Get the fuck out of our house you scum!
The next day I heard him angrily muttering these words, over and over, through his closed door.
And the day after that he was gone forever.
Final score: Speedfreak, minus zero. Danny, switching to decaffeinated.
Next, Part 3: A Giant Russian and 3 Stooges.
