The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

 

So I’m at the little park I take care of over on the east side of the South End, loading up a wood ‘sculpture’ the wind had knocked down. I hear a truck roll in to the parking lot, but I’m lugging my wreckage, not paying much attention to bystanders when … geez, here’s the heroin addict who stole my guitars a few months ago walking right up to me. You can imagine, a thousand thoughts are ricocheting off my cranium.

My boy walks right up to me and says he’s been hearing how I think he stole my banjos. I said you heard right, amigo, I think you stole my instruments. Course, my instruments were guitars, not banjos, but okay, let’s hear the man out…. “I didn’t steal from you, Skeeter. I mean, I am a thief and all. I’ve stolen from lots of people, but I wouldn’t steal from you. No way, I have too much respect, man.”

Well, if you think someone has ‘too much respect’ for me, you maybe never met me. My boy has met me and I’ve met him. It’s not that I think a junkie would lie, it’s not that I believe an addict would say what he has to say to wiggle out of a bad situation, it’s not that I didn’t believe him. But … he did walk right up to me and maybe he’s clever enough to mention my banjos when the thief really stole my guitars … or, okay, maybe I’m a naïve sucker. But … I was mouthing off without real solid proof, asking around about his whereabouts, all that, and yeah, I guess I am, deep down, a bleeding heart liberal, what can I say?

What I said was this: “I am going to accept your version here, man. And I’m going to apologize to you for making what you say are false accusations. I appreciate you talking to me face to face about it and okay, I will assume you are not my thief.” He said again he’d stolen plenty in the neighborhood, but he was in rehab, trying to kick the monkey on his back, going straight. I said that’s great, good luck to ya. We shook hands, just two South Enders trying to make their way in this hard hard world. I said I got to get back to work here and he said yeah, he did too, he’d left some clothes in the woods the other day he needed to pick up.

I watched him hike into the woods at dusk, a slow drizzle starting up again, but I lost him in the firs and so I went back to my little park ranger task. I was about to drive out, near dark now, when he emerged through the ferns lugging a box. He placed it in the back end of his buddy’s truck and we waved adios.

The box was too small to hold my guitars, but I wondered whose stuff it did hold. NOT that I’m accusing my new buddy of theft. Sure don’t have any solid evidence for that …. I’m fairly certain he stores his clothes in the woods until he needs a clean wardrobe. Don’t you?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2016 at 4:42 pm and is filed under rantings and ravings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.