Courtesy of Rynofoto on flickr
Every big city I've lived in has its cast of famous faces. Strange people you see on the streets every day. Tokyo had Tiger Mask, the bicycle delivery boy with a boombox and a child's colorful tiger mask on. New York had the lady who would wear nothing but a black trash bag and writhe around on the concrete in the dead of winter. (Don't get all emo on me, the hot dog vendor told me that she has clothes, but stashes them behind the buildings before she goes to 'work' every day)
Los Angeles has Ricky the Pirate. Mentally ill, crack addicted, pirate hat and eye patch wearing homeless man in his sixties.
The first time I saw him was on Halloween. I thought, that's so cute, the homeless guy is wearing a pirate hat! I realized later that the hat is standard uniform for Ricky. Because for the last eight months, every time I go downtown, I bump into Ricky the Pirate. Granted, I'm on Main Street most of the time, which is his stomping grounds. But still, out of the twenty or thirty visits I've made to downtown in the last half a year, every single time, I bump into him.
He's sidled up to me with an umbrella when I got caught in the rain. He's suddenly appeared to help me over a fence when I was too drunk to hop over. He materializes to mooch cigarettes, crack jokes, sell me things out of his pockets. Sometimes he gets in my way when I'm trying to park. My friend is constantly throwing him out of her coffee shop for sleeping on the patio during business hours. But he always comes back...
It's this ongoing joke with me. A few months ago I started to play this game to see if I could get out of downtown without bumping into Ricky. I just couldn't do it. I almost got out last weekend without seeing him and he snuck up behind my truck in the parking garage to show me a photograph he had. It got so ridiculous that I started thinking it was a bad omen of some sort. As if Ricky represents a nuisance in my life, a negative influence, a trickster or a thief. Every time he shows up, perhaps I should take a good look at who or what I'm interacting with in my life at the time.
But tonight for the very first time...I didn't get Ricky-rolled.
I went downtown, had dinner and drinks, walked all up and down Main Street, got in my car and went home. Not a pirate in sight. I'd like to say that this had to do with self development or some spiritual transformation I've gone through where I recognized bad influences in my life and guarded myself against them. Enough to stop getting the same baffling omen over and over. I'd like to say that.
"Oh, Ricky?" my friend said when I told her the story. "He's probably just in jail again."
