@13thFloor This one is for Cartoon Danny.
A not very long time ago, when I was on a shamanic calling, I ended up on the streets of Ashland, beneath the Sisikyous. I didn’t know why I was there, other than the town is nexus of leylines that meet like a spiderweb, which turned out to be quite good at catching wanderers between worlds.
One of these wanderers was Cartoon Danny, a tall burly man nearing his seventies, with a burst of frizzy white hair and a top hat always adorned with flowers. He took care of a group of street kids, and I ended up becoming friends with him during the weeks I was there. He was huge fan of cartoons, especially Felix the Cat, and often channeled old cartoon characters in a high squeaky voice for much longer than was socially acceptable. Despite being homeless, he always had a bag of candy that he’d share with those around him, and he always carried a broom to sweep up after everyone.
Turns out Danny had been in Vietnam, commanding a unit that had huge morale problems due to losses to the Vietcong, until one night, one of his guys managed an insane night-time sniper killing streak. When he talked to the guy about it, the man admitted he was on LSD.
Danny was astounded at the effect, and started letting his guys take it to up their edge in the jungle. It was an amazing success, but Danny’s superiors weren’t happy with his methods after they found out. His units’ activities were classified, and he was transferred to a desk job for the rest of the war.
When I heard this story, I responded “Holy shit! Have you seen the Men who Stare at Goats?”
“Whadda fuck is that?”
After the war, he ended up as a beat cop in San Francisco, and immediately ran into trouble again, as it was the summer of love, and he wasn’t interested in busting people for smoking weed or dealing LSD. As a result, he was eventually kicked off the force, and he started a career panting windows.
He had ended up on the street in Ashland after his RV broke down in the mountains, and was towed before he could fix it, leaving him stranded for at least 2 years when I found him, partying every night and drinking as much as possible with the group of street kids he looked after.
One of those nights, I came around the corner to find him collapsed on the ground, lips blue, his kids screaming and calling 911. He’d done a hit of fent with them and collapsed.
The kids were freaking out, so I took the phone. The kids had given him liquid narcan and rolled him on his side (to keep possible vomit from choking him), but he wasn’t responding and they were too high to listen to the 911 operator.
The operator told me to roll him on his back so the narcan could drip down his throat. Once this was done, like Lazarus, he started breathing and woke up just as the paramedics arrived.
After he was released from the hospital, I kept watch over him until it was time for me to leave Ashland. When he asked me why I was always hanging around, I responded
“Don’t you get it man? There is nobody else in the world like you. You have shown kindness through all sorts of horrors, and you care for those around you even when the world has taken everything from you. Yeah, you’re a drunk and a goofball and an addict, but you’re a good person who’s giving out kindness to those who need it most. You’re the kind of person who makes the world a better place to be in. Why wouldn’t I want to protect that?”
While he still drank during our time together, I never saw him hit the oxy or fent again. I hope he’s still out there someplace, sweeping up after his street kids and tossing out candy with his Cartoon Danny cackle, fresh daisies tucked in the band of his battered top hat.