I miss Eddie

When I first moved to LA or Santa Monica rather, I felt like it was just a place like any other. I didn’t feel like I stood out as I expected I would coming from east TN and then I realized that I was surrounded by tourists not people from Santa Monica or LA. No wonder I blended in with the crowd. Then I started a job in the trendy neighborhood of Silverlake. It is a really cool area of town and is the back drop for many movies and television shows. I was very excited by all the shops and restaurants but also by the many eccentric people. There was a man who walked around wearing only shorts and sneakers reading the paper, all the time. He never looked up he just read the paper and walked very fast. We liked to call him Walker Reads but later I watched a 5 minute documentary about him and learned that he has been walking Silverlake for 15 years and is known around there as the “Walking Man” and is suspected to be an MD that walks an average of 25 miles per day. Then there was Dancer (may he rest in peace). He was a homeless man that always had a ring of red lipstick smeared around his mouth and sometimes dressed like a matador or PeeWee Herman. He carried a boom box with him everywhere and would turn it on and dance in front of the outdoor cafes or just on the street corner. He died a few months back. Eddie says he was killed by someone which is probably true because homeless deaths are not investigated like others. Eddie was my favorite homeless man and I got to know him pretty well. He made his home on top of the building in which I worked and I talked to him a lot. Eddie is not a panhandler, he picks up junk and then sells it. He also sells cigarettes and who knows what else. He eats all his meals at McDonalds, Subway, and all the fast food places. We often offered him food that he would turn down because he just had lunch. He is known as Silverlake’s $5 man even though most of his stuff cost more than that. He mostly wears cutoffs and a pink straw hat and is very handsome for a homeless man or for any man at all. During my first conversation with him, he explained how has been homeless for 15 years and in fact has been “living” on top of the roof for 9. He was once jumped and robbed but for the most part people know him and know that it is his area so they stay clear of it. He was protection for us even though he is not big or scary. He knows the neighborhood and knows who is harmless and who we should be scared of. There were a few times that we saved him from being ejected by the police and we even called the police once to get rid of a homeless guy that stole Eddie’s ipod and cell phone (we were confused, where does the bill go?) The cop could not understand why we called the police on one homeless guy but let another homeless guy live there. We said “we like Eddie, he keeps the scary people away” . He used to be in sales and said that when he lost his job and became homeless, he thought his life was ending but soon discovered that his life had just begun. He loves the fact that he doesn’t have to get up early, punch a clock, or even wear a watch if he doesn’t want to. Once he realized that we liked him, he started bringing more and more stuff around. It took days but he set up the most amazing display of urban art that I have ever seen, I wish I had pictures of that. Then he started his mural. It was exciting watching him create this wonderful self-portrait little by little on the side of a huge building. He had even pasted a pair of cutoffs on himself in the mural. When he finally finished, he would bow down to the “shrine of himself”. It was quite fun to watch. Then the day came when the landlord threatened to paint over the graffitti mural unless Eddie got rid of all his stuff. Eventually, the stuff went away, the mural got painted over, and Eddie got a van to live in and apparantly he has all of his stuff on top of it. I am very excited for Eddie, he was saving for a van. I now work in Santa Monica and I haven’t found a homeless person to befriend yet. I miss Eddie and will say hi to him the next time I am in Silverlake.       

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