Excerpts from The Oakland Portal, Dictionary-Sketchbook
(created throughout Fall 2004)
 
 
Did you Hear the one about the Pirate with a Prosthetic Peg Leg?
(written on Dec 13th, 2004)
 
 
            I'd seen him before, so I recognized him. He had one leg and sped around in a wheel chair. Well, actually he had two legs, but one was a prosthetic limb. He wore a cap a lot too. Kind of looked like a dying pirate. His eyes were sharply cut slits in his face and his chin was a sheet of sandpaper, 60-grit. And of course the peg leg influenced this mild hallucinatory idea. I had seen him before, and interesting enough I had always suppressed the desire to converse with him when I passed his dwelling.
            He had a way of appearing picturesque, always aesthetically amazing. Considering what he gives up in return to appear this way in my eyes is drastically unappreciated. Light hearted and very energetically joyful though. When I finally did meet him he turned to me at a particularly dangerous crosswalk and told me, as cars flew by, that I needed to 'anticipate and take advantage of the moment'. He then, without even turning to look, thrust his wheelchair forward and across the pedestrial path, barely dodging the oncoming traffic. It was like Frogger, only with bums. He awaited me to cross, grinning intensely as he watched from his comfortable perch at the other side.
 
            When we did talk, conversation style, I was informed of the fact that he had nearly forty different jobs, including architect, computer technician, and pop singer. Assuming his numerous occupations were all only figments of his overactive imagination, I found this news to be amusing, and allowed him to elaborate. Rising from his mobile seat, he extracted a cardboard box from within the center of a bush. The box contained pieces of computers with various cables attaching them, none of which made any coherent sense.
            Before I left him, he sang me a song. It was then that I realized he had only four teeth. As he sang I wondered if having less teeth made it easier to sing. Times like this make me wish my eyes were mini video cameras. The one leg pirate man gave me a miscellaneous computer adapter as I left him, walking south between the wall of his house and the edge of the sea. Mechanical sharks circled my shadow all the way to the paint room.
            That was the last time I talked to him. I saw him once or twice from a far, but not recently. People came in orange suits with metal claws that extended out to wield useless objects. They ejected him, his family, and their gear. Evictions suck, especially if the whole block becomes victim to them. Some of them came back though, said they were glancing downward at bright colors, that they had the free right to reside in piles of darkness.
 
            The other day I went looking for my one leg pirate man, but all I found was a Fischer Price doctor's briefcase, and an umbrella, spread out over a hundred feet of dirty earthen flooring. Wandering farther down into his abode, I turned a corner to discover a hidden alcove. The new found space was inhabited by another fellow, this one much less pirate-like. He gave me a fuzzy green box with a Power Puff Girl inside of it. The miniature plastic model of the ficitonal super hero bounced energetically on a spring in front of an oval shaped mirror. He said he couldn't sell it, so it was mine, for free.
            Although new man's store was plentifully stocked with interesting materials and utilities, I decided not to spend my time rummaging. Using my rain guard stick as a cane, I fake hobbled my way past twelve pillars and jumped a chain link fence. Seemed to me like the traffic dodging wheel chair rider was gone, and that was that. My only regret is that I didn't capture his soul electronically with my magic USB wand. Oh well, another day, another bum, another song.
 
 
 
Conversations with Sarge (a transcribed street recording)
(written on Dec 16th, 2004)

(I approach a man who is relaxing on the sidewalk sometime before noon)

Me: Good morning

Sarge: Good morning

Me: You got a hella nice bike man.

Sarge: Thanks man.

Me: Whatchu doin'? Shining your watch?

Sarge: It's cracked. Just trying to keep it from fallin' apart on me.

Me: It's cracked?

Sarge: Yeah, just a little bit. Just needs a new piece of glass on top.

Me: Oh yeah...

Sarge: Comes up sometimes, just gotta keep it pressed down. Yup.

Me: I love waking up in this neighborhood.

Sarge: Huh?

Me: I love waking up in this neighborhood.

Sarge: Yeah, it's kind of peaceful. Kind of quiet.

Me: Just white noise everywhere.

Sarge: Don't really matters, nobody ever bothers you. Woke up in better, woke up in worse. Just as long as the good lord let me wake up, it's alright with me. That's the main thing, you know?

Me: Yeah. Do you ever stay underneath the 880.

Sarge: Huh?

Me: Do you ever stay underneath the 880

Sarge: Naw. I got some brothers that stay up in there sometimes.

Me: Yeah...

Sarge: Got a little too crowded. I don't like to be around that many people.

Me: Yeah, for real. Sometimes there's like five or six people under there at one time.

Sarge,: Yup. A lot of times they be crazy. Fightin' each other. Some of 'em are war veterans like myself. Havin' flash backs or somethin' sometimes. It ain't safe for the people around 'em. If they do somethin' to you, they ain't gonna remember it. Nobody do nothin' to 'em 'cause they, the government come and take their money 'cause they know they're crazy. War did a little somethin' to 'em, it'll do to everybody. I'd rather just, I know most of 'em, I'd rather just not be one of 'em, caught up in that. I don't wanna be no witness, don't wanna be no victim

Me: Yeah, for real.

Sarge: So the best thing for me is to just leave 'em up under there until I see

'em in the streets, 'cause most of the time old veitnam veterans that was in the war, real part of the war, only have those flashbacks at night. They can't see nothin', can't even hear nothin'. Somebody's gonna walk up on 'em and they gonna slit his throat. He probably seen his one of buddies - I know a couple that seen their buddies' throats get cutt. Wasn't nothin' they could do, 'night. So, naw, I'm  just, be by myself. If I cut anybody's throat it's probably gonna be mine, or if I catch some son of a bitch standing over me in the middle of the night. But, I wish them luck.

Me: Yeah...

Sarge: They're good people, but they just, sometimes it's this fucking world and the war. Like the war in Iraq right now. Man. A lot of 'em gonna come back fucked up. A lot them young, like you, you like you're about twenty years old, or something like that.

Me: I just turned nineteen a few days ago.

Sarge: If you was over there, you'd come back all fucked up. Your momma, daddy, wouldn't nobody want you around. 'Cause, some of 'em gonna be really fucked up when they come back. But that's life, and life ain't always gonna be good to you.

Me: You know that one guy with the, with the peg leg, with the prosthetic leg?

Sarge: I know a couple guys like that.

Me: You know the guy who kind of, he kind of looks like a pirate, he goes around in a wheel chair?

Sarge: Oh yeah.

Me: Yeah, I talked to that guy before. He told me he was a pop singer, and he sang for me.

Sarge: Is that right?

Me: It was funny. I haven't seen him though...

Sarge: Yeah, well, he might be locked up for a minute or somethin'. He be a'ight though, he's a solider.

Me: All these people came in orange suits, and like, cleaned up the area. You know what that's about?

Sarge: Oh, that Cal, that's Caltrans. They'll clean up the area, they'll throw your stuff away.

Me: That's Caltrans?

Sarge: They'll throw your stuff away. If I leave my stuff over there and come back it'll be gone.

Me: Like Calfornia Transit or something?

Sarge: California, some shit. They clean up under the bridges. They do the bridges, they work on the streets. Part of 'em, some of there jobs is just cleanin' up campsites, where people are campin' out. It's just fucked up, they should leave them people alone. They got good jobs, those people don't have no jobs, only thing they own is probably in them little knapsacks and blankets. That's how the world is today, don't nobody give a fuck about nobody else.

Me: Yeah...

Sarge: They come in there and take your shit, you have to start all over, try to get a sleeping and blanket. But, it'll be a'ight. Sooner or later things is gonna change, hopefully for the better.

Me: You think that's why he left, 'cause they came?

Sarge: Yeah, they probably came and took his shit. He ain't got nothin' to sleep on, they take it. Some boys walk around with a buggy, with all they's belongings, or a shopping cart, or a buggy or something. Somebody come along and take it all. Then you gotta go somewhere, try to stay warm 'til you get some more stuff. Either way it go, you're fucked up.

Me: You got the Insane Clown Posse T-shirt.

Sarge: Huh?

Me: You got the Insane Clown Posse T-shirt or something.

Sarge: Yeah, one my little nephew's gave me that. My little brother's kids, they give me stuff like that all the time. They don't need to be out in that Iraw war. They's war is right here on these Oakland streets (Laughs). I was young once like that, I guess I was just as crazy as they was. Got they little gang and jump on people, fight people for nothin'. Rob people. Going in and out of jail, they ain't scared of jail. Used to be that young guys were scared of going to jail 'cause old guys make a girl out of you. Now there's so many young guys in there, they beatin' them old boys' ass. They go for that shit no one, like one of my nephews, they go there, say 'we not worried about them old motherfuckers fuckin' us'. Kick all their asses. That's the way to do it though, don't let 'em get you. It ain't like the old days, when I was going to jail, when you was oung. Not too many youngsters. Now, jail house, 'cause all these bullshit laws, is full young people, especially young blacks.

Me: You heard about that guy Mumia Abu Jamal?

(A very high class looking pedestrian approaches and joins the conversation.)

Pedestrian: How are you doin' my brother?

Sarge: Pretty good. How are you?

Pedestrian: Kind of sad, my father is in the hospital today.

Sarge: Is that right?

Pedestrian: Yeah, he's eighty one.

Sarge: My mom just turned eighty in August. What's wrong with him?

Pedestrian: Well, we don't know, he's having heart problems, 'cause he was in pain yesterday. And uh, one day I was leaving San Francisco and he was in the hospital. I came all the way from San Francisco, and he said 'Gene, buy me a hamburger' (Laughs).

Me: (Laughs)

Sarge: Anyway, maybe he be in that good spirit again today, hopefully so.

Pedestrian: Yeah, uh, I have a beautiful girlfriend, from the Philistines. And my, uh, son doesn't consider her family.

Sarge: Oh okay.

Pedestrian: And my mother, Raymond, and my other sister love him. He acts like a pain in the ass! Take care.

Me: You too.

Sarge: Okay, you take care man, have a good day

Pedestrian: Okay.

(The pedestrian walks off.)

Sarge: Yup. It's gonna be a'ight though.

Me: Yeah...

Sarge: You live around here?

Me: Yeah, I live in this warehouse right over there (Points to warehouse).

Sarge: You wanna them guys that be out there on the skateboard?

Me: Uh, no, I don't skate. But, you know, I'm kind of the type of kid to hang out with those types of kids.

Sarge: Yeah, I've seen 'em out them, some of 'em are pretty good, I watch 'em sometimes.

Me: Yeah?

Sarge: Crazy as hell 'cause, you fuck around and make one bad move off that thing, it ain't high, but all it gonna take about this high to twist your ankle and break your leg. Doesn't have to be high.

Me: You talking about out in front of the portal?

Sarge: They be right there, they be right there, at night. Crazy, I seen 'em last night when I was coming here. I said, you crazy motherfuckers.

Me: (Laughs)

Sarge: But hey, they kids. When we was young we had the same type of risks.

Me: You think this buildings abandoned (Points to the Oakland Portal building)?

Sarge: Huh?

Me: You think this building's abandoned?

Sarge: I dunno, is it?

Me: I don't know. I've never seen anybody going in and out, it's all dark.

Sarge: Well hey, maybe somebody's up there doin' some illegal shit.

Me: It's been there from 1948.

Sarge: Is that right?

Me: Yeah.

Sarge: There might be some people up there, that you don't want to know that you paying attention to them. I don't bother people, they don't bother me.

Me: What do you think about this building and the tunnel, the whole portal and all that?

Sarge: Well the portal, that just lead to that tube, the Alameda tube down there. Oh, there's probably people that work in there workin' for the state government or somethin'. Who knows, I dunno, I don't really give a fuck. As long they don't come out there, fuckin' with me, it's all good. There's probably people up in there workin' right now, with cameras zoomed in on you, or me, or whoever. You never know where the government can see..

Me: (Laughs) Surveillance?

Sarge: Yeah, they lookin' at everybody since this terrorist shit. Everybody's a suspect now.

Me: (Laughs)

Sarge: But hey, that's life.

Me: Yeah. Well alright man, I'm gonna go get some coffee.

Sarge: Okay, alright. What's your name man?

Me: My name's Dylan.

Sarge: Dylan?

Me: Yeah.

Sarge: My name's Sarge, man (Points to the emblem on his hat).

Me: Sarge?

Sarge: Yeah, that's right.

Me: Oh, like the symbol on your hat?

Sarge: Yeah, that's it.

Me: Oh, were you in the war?

Sarge: Yeah I was.

Me: Which war?

Sarge: Vietnam War.

Me: Oh, Vietnam, damn.

Sarge: Yup. That's when I was young like you, gung ho, crazy, thought I was just gonna go there and kill a lot of people, come back, talk shit, and beat up all my buddies. Didn't go like that.

Me: Did they really put LSD up in the water and shit, make you guys all crazy?

Sarge: If you ask me, they did. But some people try to deny it. Hey, who knows man. I know I got a lot of friends up on these streets, crazy as hell, they weren't crazy before they went over there. So you tell me, your guess is as good as mine. The government will deny anything...

Me: Yeah, war messes everything up.

Sarge: That's right. But it's good for some people, get rich off a war. Like them rich people who build tanks, and ships, and bombs, and guns, it's good for them. War is good. But, it's gonna be a'ight young fella. Just hopefully you don't have to go there.

Me: Yeah, hopefully.

Sarge: It ain't no picnic, I'll tell you that.

Me: Yeah.

Sarge: Some young guys, your age like I said, over there right now. They dead, scared to death, or come back here with no legs. Be shame if a young guy like you, walking around, like you doin' now, all of a sudden you go in to war, you got but one leg or no legs. Still nineteen years old, then whatchu goin' to do with your life? You just fucked.

Me: For real. Well hey, have a good day man.

Sarge: You too man.

Me: Stay up.

Sarge: Take care of yourself.

Me: Seeya.