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Danny was let off at a church at 6th and Galapago Street. There was a bake sale and a carnival going on: kids with gold fish in baggies, everyone yelling in Spanish. It was there that he literally bumped into Joe. He was pre-occupied and still kind of dazed and Joe was more or less permanently dazed, so those two just bumped into each other like comedians in one of those old time stage shows. They both said “excuse me” and Joe asked Danny mildly enough if Danny was going to kill him and cut him up into little pieces. Danny was taken aback, didn’t even laugh (which was good) and told Joe that was not the kind of thing he usually thought of doing and if he did think of doing it to someone it wouldn’t be Joe, for sure it wouldn’t be Joe.
It turned out that Joe had run away from some kind of home and he did that a lot and when they found him and brought him back someone would always warn him that there were weird people out on the streets and mean folks who might kill him and cut off his head or his hands. The guy looked to be 45 easy.
“I been out on the street twenty years off and on and that never happened to me,” said Danny unconsciously putting out his two hands as proof.
Course, Danny wasn’t a retarded, homosexual, schizophrenic like Joe turned out to be: tough luck for Joe.
Danny promised to help Joe get back home and it was one helluva walk for a man who’d just been through what Danny had been through. On the way they stopped at the Gold Mine and Danny introduced Joe to a few grizzled men who grunted and lifted their heads slightly in greeting. Joe approached one fella with a mean looking scar all over his face and a tattoo all over his upper arm, the one he had left, that looked big enough to do double duty, and asked him if he was Spanish: he thought the guy looked Spanish.
Joe’s manner was so mild and his voice so sweet that a man just knew he had to be joking and this man reacted with some hostility but Joe started jabbering away in Spanish so fast the man’s dangerous look subsided into amazement. He looked at Danny:
“This guy loco or what?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean he don’t make no sense man, none.”
“I think he’s retarded.”
The fella who was Spanish got real nice then and so did the other men: any kind of mental deviance awed them as indeed it should. Joe wouldn’t drink but he accepted a smoke and looked around with a sort of smug expression as he smoked with these men. Then when he’d finished he stood up and said it was time to go and it was obvious he expected Danny to go with him. Wandering away was a lot easier than wandering back. One of the residents of Joe’s home had wandered off and gotten lost for several weeks. Finally he stole a police car, vacated for a few minutes and left running, and drove it through a store front, which was a pretty smart move since the center’s staff had been checking hospital emergency rooms and jails daily. They considered these folks to be dangerous to themselves or others.
As Danny and Joe worked their way north they passed a park where people were gathering with picnic baskets and lawn chairs to enjoy one of the free performances the City’s Department of Parks and Recreation provided throughout the summer. This night a Flamenco dancer was performing with an accompanying guitarist and a singer. Her dancing was very beautiful as she manipulated her long skirts and shawls and a fan in a series of traditional dances but it was the singing that captured the fancy of Danny and Joe. Danny started chanting along with the singer until he became aware of the angry disapproving eyes of the people all around him and then he became quiet with difficulty. Joe appeared simply lost in the rhythms and haughty postures.
When it was over and quite dark, the two men started back toward Joe’s house and Danny began again to chant the gypsy music. Joe joined him with surprising accuracy and they had a good time as they walked through the night. They slept on the street when they could walk no longer, on a patch of grass under a tree, pillowing their heads on their arms on the roots of the magically sheltering tree.
Cool breezes blew and a light soft rain fell breaking the heat and comforted them. Joe dreamt of the drops of the water ceremony and tried to tell Danny when they woke at sunrise but Danny said that was all bullshit and went back to sleep a while, leaving Joe to marvel alone at the colors. Finally Danny awoke again and got up, needing to pee and Joe was close enough to know the way home and led Danny to the main building.
Staffers were suspicious of Danny at first but Joe insisted he was his friend and that all Indians took good care of him and Danny saw a few folks roll their eyes then but they were civil, and, just on the off chance, he asked about work and was sent to another building to see the “maintenance engineer”.
Danny reminded Joe of the Eagleman from San Francisco who had once protected him from the cold and the rudeness of men, Joe developed a crush on Danny and followed him around, asking what tribe he was (Joe had never heard of Hualapai, which was unusual since Joe had heard of all kinds of people including Basques) and what his home had been like, did they have ducks on the Hualapai reservation? Stuff like that. Danny got irritated at first but he felt sorry for Joe and tried having conversations with him, chaotic as that endeavor often turned out to be.
Danny was viewed with mixed responses by the staff. It was good that Joe was calmer when Danny visited with him, but then again he was just a janitor, not a trained professional and what did he know? One thing Danny knew was that Joe could learn whatever he wanted to learn and that he simply disdained what bored him. Joe was bi-lingual and knew the difference between ritual and routine but he did not know the difference between a nickel and a quarter. Joe also believed the medications that made him drowsy were deliberately given to disable him in case of an attack. Some days he knew to a certainty that people were after him and even understood the entire convoluted reasoning behind it. Other days he knew for a certainty that it was all nonsense and that he himself had something very wrong with him and belonged exactly where he was. On those “lucid” days he spent many hours in bed, chain smoking. Somewhere between his two worlds of despair and panic he dreamed of happiness, of enjoying simple things, of sleeping outside so when he woke briefly from time to time all he had to do was open his eyes to see the stars. Danny understood this. He understood the despair and he understood the joy of absolute freedom even at the cost of safety and comfort. He did not understand the paranoia but accepted it and was willing to pretend to protect Joe and weather the storm of strange visitations from a world he couldn’t see but would not say was not real. Danny believed in other worlds, had tried to break through to one in the mountains, and remembering his disappointment, he understood Joe’s reluctance to take the meds. He didn’t say anything though, didn’t mention when he found the pills in the trash, or tell the high falutin Doctors what he thought they were doing wrong.
Sometimes when Joe shivered, cold from within, Danny would help him take a hot bath to warm his bones and sometimes he would take a nap with him, just hold him to keep him from shivering, to keep him warm. None of the staff saw it, but a resident did and jabbered away about it as he did about everything he either saw or imagined. The staff didn’t know whether to believe it or not and Danny found himself the object of many thoughtful glances. If he looked back the looker looked away. Danny decided if they had something to ask him they would and went about his business.
IV.
The Excursion
With the help of an RTD operator, Danny worked out the bus connections to Elitches. The amusement park used to be a few blocks from the home but had been moved to the new, shiny, tourist-destination downtown. Over an earlier strata of skid-row warehouses, flophouses, Jesus-Saves shelters, condemned houses, whole neighborhoods hiding beneath the highways where remnants of families struggled, survived or died hidden from the view of city planners, a layer of glitz had been laid: the new Coors Field for the new baseball team, the Pepsi Event Center, Elitches Amusement Park, its huge Ferris wheel dominating the confluence of railroad tracks, bicycle path
s and bridges under which a few of the homeless still managed a bit of shut-eye amidst the commotion.
It was risky taking Joe into a crowd, but the psychologist on the team was new, came in with a desire to see all his clients get better, cheer up, learn new things, prove the old Doctors wrong. He came in optimistic, looking on the bright side, generous with the benefit of the doubt, believing in miracles. He thought an excursion to Elitches would be fun for Joe, turn him on to the possibilities of the “real” world and perhaps be some incentive for Joe to follow the rules and take his meds. Day passes were earned with points given for compliant behavior. It had been Danny’s idea. He was craving the excitement of a noisy crowd and a festive atmosphere. The price of the tickets would come out of Joe’s account replenished monthly with his disability check.
The last day the park was open, Elitches was advertising discounts on food and rides and a prize for the one hundredth person and the one thousandth person through the gate: a car for the first, a romantic weekend for two at a new downtown hotel for the next. One minute Danny was joking to Joe about whatever would they do if they won one of those prizes as if either of them ever won anything but a trip to jail, and the next he’s talking to himself. Its like that in crowds, you look away a few seconds and your companion completely disappears. Joe’s attention had strayed and he’d turned to look at someone who looked familiar and by the time he looked back in Danny’s direction, Danny was gone, long black braid and all. Danny, walking and talking until he realized Joe wasn’t following, retraced his steps as best he could, the crowd forcing him off course, and he began to panic. First he was feeling selfish, like you sort of had to be to survive this cold cruel world, worried about losing his job if he didn’t find Joe. Then he wondered why he cared so much about the damn janitor’s job, not like he hadn’t had dozens like it over the years. Then he started to feel like someone’s damn mother or something worried about what might happen to Joe if he didn’t find him. So he reminded himself that Joe had survived on his own on the streets before they met but, instead of making Danny feel better, it reminded him of the painful memories Joe had shared with him, and Danny started to feel this terrible helpless desperate thing, this desire to protect Joe from more painful memories and an anger at the kind of people that would pick on a poor old retarded guy. Finally he realized there was nothing he could do and he decided it was time to invoke some old AA philosophy, trust a higher power, any higher power, and he forced himself to stand still right where he was and let Joe find him. And Joe did.
Joe was trembling but he always got kind of shaky when he needed nicotine. Danny lit him a cigarette and they went in search of food. They ate turkey legs and munched on kettle corn while they walked and then, feeling lighthearted, rode one of those whirligig things that only children should have anything to do with. Joe, who never ate much anyway, threw up everything all over the seat and the ride operator just gave them that look that made Danny want to get in his face and say something devastating, but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be wasted on the big mean moron. Danny used his own money to buy a T-shirt with a scene of Denver on it for six times what it would have cost at the flea market, and then found the men’s’ room where he helped Joe get washed up and changed into the clean new shirt. Joe’s dignity had begun to be more important to Danny than it may have been to Joe. Joe’s expressions, facial and verbal, were always a bit “off” so that Danny wasn’t always sure if he was attributing his own feelings to Joe and then feeling sorry for himself in some convoluted way. He was thinking this while he washed the vomit off the old shirt so he could bag it and take it back to the home and then, seeing how old and torn and tattered it actually was, he just tossed it.
“You don’t need this” he told Joe meaning a whole lot of things.
Joe finally told Danny he wanted to leave, the crowd was making him crazy and Danny heard it for a moment from Joe’s head, the noise: bits of music, the grinding of gears, shrieks and screams and laughter and chatter grew palpable and engulfed him until he felt almost dizzy. They left and Danny started toward the bus stop but neither he nor Joe was ready yet to return to the dullness of the home. They needed some adventure, something to stimulate and tire them before the bus ride home and a TV show before bed. They headed into town, past the bars around the stadium (after several weeks sobriety, Danny didn’t want to crash and burn just because they had nothing better to do) and over to the Sixteenth Street Mall. Here, tourists, stylish shoppers and businessmen and women mingled with the runaway kids and homeless people who rode the free shuttle up and down Sixteenth Street from the Railroad Station on Wynkoop to the Main Bus Station on Broadway. Anyone who didn’t have things to do and places to go acted like he did. Everyone looked purposeful. Danny decided they should go see if any of his old buddies were hanging out at the MacDs on Court Street (nice not to be going to Court). But they didn’t ride the shuttle because the route was lined with street performers, mostly musicians, and Joe wanted to stop and listen to each and every one.
Over by the Tabor Center between Larimer and Lawrence was one of those groups that work their way up from Bolivia, Peru, Guatamala through Mexico into Colorado and beyond, playing those little flute things and selling their cassettes and CDs. Of course Joe wanted to talk to them, find out where they were from because that was the first thing he always asked any new person he met. Danny enjoyed talking to them too and when they took a break they all had a bite to eat together, riding the shuttle to MacDs where Danny didn’t see anyone from his old crowd, and back again to sit in the sun and listen to the music and urge the passersby to “tip these guys, they are working for you, and they’re good too.” When it looked like Danny and Joe might be scaring potential customers off, the group’s leader said they needed to move on and Danny and Joe moved on too, following the music eastward. There was an incredibly tall skinny fellow said he was from the Texas hill country playing some bluegrass and a slender blonde girl dressed in a long dress looked like a costume from a stage-play, who plucked an odd instrument she told them was a dulcimer. A man in a Mickey Mouse Mask and costume strummed a guitar, but he wasn’t very good and Danny figured he was probably hiding out from someone. Then a hot clarinet played by an old man Danny thought he’d met before. The name on the cassette said Adam Starvinsky (good one thought Danny) and he remembered this was the guy a newspaper reporter interviewed one time. Every now and then, the papers liked to carry a story about some street character, the guy who did some funky dance on the corner of Colfax and Colorado where he sold bunches of flowers year in, year out, rain or shine, this Starvinksy fellow who was pretty damn good and had a respectable past, an old lady they called “grandma” who made up a doozy of a story for them. They didn’t know she was flat out nuts and always had been. Danny suspected that the women sometimes pretended to be crazy, as a kind of protection, because the streets were so dangerous for them. He daydreamed and reminisced himself all the way to the end where the same hotdog vendor who had been there for going on twenty years still hooked up a loudspeaker to his cart and broadcast grand opera for a full block in each direction. Danny bellowed out La Dona e mobile without knowing what it meant.
They were having fun and it stayed light so late that Danny didn’t notice the time even though the time was right there for all to see on the clock at the top of the Daniels and Fisher Tower. It was feeling tired that reminded him they had a long bus ride with a couple connections ahead of them. Of course they were late. Of course the staff people on duty were worried “sick” and of course he lost his job the very next morning. That new psychologist said he’d “trusted” Danny as if he’d done something terrible (like losing Joe altogether) and everyone was very sorry but . . . . . Danny kind of figured they were looking for an excuse to get rid of him and maybe he’d needed one himself to get free of the depressing place.
When Danny left, Joe cried and the two men hugged and perfo
rmed one of those long complicated ritual handshakes, while impatient staffers looked on and then Danny strode off singing loudly. He sang that Spanish gypsy music Joe like so much and Joe could hear him for blocks.
When he got to the busy public road, Danny called a taxi from a pay phone. He’d had enough of buses and he still had most of four weeks wages, so he decided to go back home in style. He arrived at the Gold Mine at 2:00 p.m. and bought drinks for everyone there.
“Hey man where you been all these weeks? Robbing banks?”
“I been traveling man. I been places.”
“Places huh? I notice you ain’t saying what places. I bet you been in jail. You been in jail man? What’d you do to get yourself in jail so long? Huh?”
Danny started to tell him he hadn’t been in jail, that he’d been to the mountains and he’d had a job, but he remembered that singer fellow who made up sarcastic songs about everyone, and his disappointment over his name, and he decided to let them think he’d been in jail because that was something they could understand and he didn’t want anyone messing with his dream and there was no way in hell he’d ever tell them about his friend Joe.
Yellow Wolf and Shortstuff