Messiah Man

I glanced out the kitchen window this morning while dipping more peaches in boiling water...and saw apricots laying in the grass (sigh, another pie)...I am not baking more—did that last night again. Apricots appear only every 4 or 5 years—last time gave away 42 pies--police department... senior center...relatives...tileman, farmer guy, custodial girl, cropman... and I thought of Messiah Man again...but NO, I'd better not start anything after what happened last summer.

Imagine someone walking right into your house late at night, sitting down like its an old habit, making themselves right at home. It's an oddity; this person has NEVER came calling before... You say that you don't really want company; you're expecting a phone call etc. (In other words, a polite yet obvious hint that this unexpected, 1^st time 'visit' is a weird inconvenience/uncomfortably unnerving.) The visitor doesn't listen so you repeat yourself again to no avail. Your third attempt no longer shows a smile and is quite firm, which causes the visitor to come toward you and all of a sudden drop to their knees in front of you, placing their hands upon your thighs.

As your stomach does a flipflop and you scream “STOP! I DON'T LIKE ANYONE TOUCHING ME!” (What the hell?!), the visitor stands up awkwardly, then kneels again, grasping your thighs...Again, same scream as before only a lot louder and he goes out the door! Shaken, I wondered what he was thinking or expecting. Was I about to be kissed? blessed? proposed to? other?

Years and years ago I'd always taken a southern path when out for a walk, which heads a few blocks from my house by the river. It looks like 'country' around the corner; a gravel road with a gigantic, meticulous garden abundant with produce of all types. If the gardener was out, (I'll call him Jay) a nod or polite hello was in order, or even a phrase “Your tomatoes look fabulous.” Jay (Messiah Man) might shyly nod or even possibly mumble something about 'nitrogen fertilizer composition', but he rarely made eye contact and once in a great while, might offer a pepper or squash. If this happened, I'd run down an obligatory plate of cookies (or pie) the next day to return the favor, which I'd hand through the door to his mother.... So, maybe we'd speak 4 times a year at the most....

One summer evening 'bout 5 years ago, daydreaming as usual, rapidly walking along, when (too late!) I realized that I'd rounded the gravel corner smack into a yard party. Oops! If I tried to turn 'round I'd be interpreted as some stuck-up broad....keep going...I'd already been noticed...don't be scared...take a deep breath...

A party meant that Jay's brother was out-- not only outside/outdoors, but 'out' as in 'out of prison' again. We're talking a couple felons sitting here folks, ex-cons, not just your typical everyday 'just got outta the county jail' guys... but more hard-core, 'nearly killed (or did) someone more than once' type of guys... and Jay (the little brother yet 2 years older than me) had just emanated by the sidewalk, fiercely grasping my wrist and began yanking me across the yard.

At first I was so shocked by this boldness coming from such a painfully shy man, I scarcely noticed that he was saying my name (how'd he know THAT?) excitedly, loudly, proudly wanting to show me something. “Brenda! Brenda! Look—come here!” He pulled me to the taller than life-size crucified carved wooden Jesus he'd chainsawed near the center of the yard and I realized he'd been drinking—aaahh that explains this radical personality change (they were all around a fire with whiskey)--and he'd nearly pulled my arm out of the socket when he reached down into a 5 gallon bucket of beige wetness set under Christ (imagine that the sky dims here and twilight glooms ominously) and pulled out what I thought was a dripping, skinned baby.

I nearly screamed; choked it back as I realized it wasn't actually a human...It was a smooth, inside-out bobcat pelt he'd gotten on his farm. By that time I was ½ giddy with fright and had to swallow the fear, make small talk, and try to fit into this weird situation. I admired the bobcat, smiled, complimented the flowers too, since he seemed so pleased, all the while glancing around wondering what the hell to do...the bonfire had been stocked with part of a railroad tie, so along with the whiskey and other items, the choking, heavy smell was simultaneously murdering more of their brain cells. Jay's middle brother now had my other wrist and was clamoring for attention (I felt like a kindergarten teacher; me me me!)—he'd been making salsa all day and canning tomatoes...so I attentively questioned him about the recipes (these guys really are extremely bright and very interesting under other circumstances—what other circumstances? you are asking...um, I don't know...) noticing that the wild-eyed man known as the Charles Manson look-a-like was NOT present, but a crazed man similar TO Charles Manson WAS. Jay's mom, Myrt, (imagine Mama Fratelli, female crimeboss in The Goonies movie) was even uncharacteristically outdoors partaking in animated discussion along with another unsavory being usually labeled as someone NOT to meet in a dark alley....

I finally managed to break away politely, hightail it home (to HELL with the rest of my walk) and tell Brigham of this bizarre experience.... He remembered Jay's brother the last time he was released from prison when he was a little boy, the guy zipping across the yard and grabbing his front bike wheel, a scared bike-seat hostage bewildered by some type of loud, inane ranting while I tried to rescue him, until Myrt called off the man like one calls off a mean dog.

Just then 'nuther cop friend drove by in the squad car and stopped to chat. He was on his way down to the river—neighbors had called in a strange smell and smoke. “It's creosote!” I tell him what had just transpired and that the parolees were just sitting around the campfire drinking. All kinds of odd things happen with this group: crazed man, an ultra-experienced felon (hiv positive + a spitter and a biter) had beaten one of his girlfriends so badly that she left a blood trail 5 blocks long on her crawl to the police station; there's let's go outside naked and howl at the moon man; others beat, maim, rob, 'cook', and sometimes climb trees and break their legs when they fall out; or.....there's that lady that went missing), so hearing that these radicals were drinking caused 'nuther cop friend to sigh.

Now this incident involving a little fragment of Wamego's finest had occurred about dusk. Near dawn, when 'nuther cop friend got off his shift, well-- more extreme things had transpired. It seems that Jay/Messiah Man (NOT supposed to drink due to bizarre past experiences and a propensity for hallucinatory and auditory visits from the Madonna or Native American spirits or his dead brother from Vietnam) had drank too much, driven out into the country near his acreage and pulled a handgun on the police chief's relative that resides nearby. The relative used his head, calmly listened to inarticulate Vietnam/religious ravings, offered to get a couple beers and dialed 911 as he pulled some cold ones from the fridge. 'Nuther cop friend partook in this stealthy 'take-down', drawing weaponry and other exciting, scary stuff and managed to pry Jay from his truck and the gun from his hand...

So, over the next couple years, we still exchanged nods and some small talk, a few sentences, some of which where very interesting and coherent as Jay is an incredible horticulturist. Other times his sentences were odd ramblings filled with such items as sprouting tomato seeds under grow lights, seeing sparks when he ejaculates, watching puppies levitate, and the growth of his climbing beans. Hmmm.

He's never actually scared me (remind self about the GUN plus suffers delusions) before, but last year he looked in the windows during mid afternoon. Odd; most people knock on doors. Then there was the night that he watched me sleep on the couch through the screen door (creepy crawly feeling here)...and then seeing him vacate my house when I returned from a walk (he sheepishly told me he went inside cause he 'thought I'd committed suicide in there'...what??!!) and then the hands on the thighs thing.... disturbing.

I apologized to the police last summer after these incidents; seems I had visited the police station many times in the past couple years, but they said they'd much prefer listening to this than issuing traffic tickets or something! I didn't want Jay arrested or anything since I didn't consider him harmful (again--remind self about the GUN plus suffers delusions) and one officer grinned—he'd had to figure out how to get Messiah Man out of a tree just a few days before (climbed to the highest limbs like a squirrel!).... but they said they'd keep their eye on him and circle my block in the evenings...and apparently one of the officers nicely told him to stay away since he hasn't been around since...

I sometimes feel guilty that I had ratted on him to the police when he was probably a very lonely troubled and trippin' individual that was starved for attention. His brother died not long ago, overdosing at one of the parties, so the only one left in the household is Catholic Myrt who reigns fanatical, which does nothing to help a possibly schizophrenic individual: impairments in the perception or expression of reality, most commonly manifesting as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking in the context of significant social dysfunction.

Sigh. I feel badly...I would take a pie....but wait! Just sitting here remembering that Messiah Man has seen the inside of my house—did he observe too closely?/Bailey looks at my art and laughs “Mom, you're just so sacreligious.”/Could this be enough to set someone unstable off?/You never know about people...What goes on in their minds......oh, knock it off!

Note to Dan: No, this is not a story about Stalkerman. THAT guy scared me!