Metal Head (Part 2)
Seconds later I stood in front of a sprawling junkyard/domicile I had walked or bicycled past 150 times the last six months and watched as it grew into a small mountain range of mostly wooden in nature: pallets, chairs, tables, hutches, shelves, stumps, branches, rootwads, plywood, lumber and coat racks.
Brendon had also collected dozens of dolls and mannequins, some bicycles, a few lawnmowers, oil and watercolor paintings, Santa Clauses, barbecues, table lamps, a jet ski on a trailer and about a thousand other items.
Somewhere buried in the mountain range was a tent camper covered in tarps. The camper had several plywood annexes to it.
I had seen many a strange domicile constructed by homeless people, but this one easily topped them all. I had always assumed it was assembled as a result of extreme mental illness and/or a serious drug addiction. This was the same encampment where I had witnessed multiple scenes of deranged and inexplicable behavior.
And here Brendon was, standing in front of his ramshackle domicile after inviting me to see it and I had a thousand questions, but I slammed on the brakes and let him narrate as he saw fit.
In due course, with a stray follow-up question here or there, I learned:
Brendon was building a stage (I saw it) and would hold an acoustic metal festival in the summer.
He collected interesting natural woods from the park, creeks and roadsides for his art. He didn't carve the wood, but rather saw animal shapes and faces in them and displayed the wooden objects as art. He showed me one branch from an oak that was a “turtle turning into a clown.”
He was building a kennel to host a friend's dog and a stripper pole for inside his tent camper.
He had taught three people in the encampment how to play guitar.
There was a thought of rigging up an art gallery for the dozens of people who walk, run or bicycle through every day. He wanted to start selling some of his art.
He had grown up in Oregon, not far from here. He was 36 years old. He'd lived on the streets for years.
His previous domicile had been a two-storey pallet shanty (with a dumbwaiter!) that had burned down six months ago in act of arson. Luckily no one was killed. (I had seen this fire the morning it occurred.)
A friend of his had been murdered in an encampment where he used to live. The murder had been solved. (I had read about this murder in several newspapers.)
The neighborhood sometimes treated him meanly.
I had to ask him. I had to go there. You gotta go there.
“Is your accumulation and art drug fueled?” I said.
“No,” he said.
I believed him because of the way he said no. I also believed him because I had waited for him to explain his art and living space. Thus, the zany accumulations now made sense and the entire area resembled one big outdoor studio space for an eccentric, impassioned artist. I've seen similar such mismatched and messy art studios but of course, they weren't situated on a public street.
Brendon continued. “I never had much going growing up. I guess I'm making up for it. There is such great stuff here that people gave away on the sidewalks and I took it and then people think I stole it.”
I asked about the writing displayed on the plywood.
He told me his former girlfriend had written the words but he hadn't read it yet. Now he didn't know where the display was, but would find and read it.
I said that was a good idea, there might be something there, although I couldn't discern anything.
It was at this moment I thought about asking if his presence degraded the quality of life for the residents of the two-storey apartment building directly behind him or visitors to the park directly in front of him, but I didn't.
“Are you the mayor of this encampment?” I said.
“No, the beekeeper,” said Brendon, smiling.
I laughed at that and said it was time for me to go. We said our goodbyes and I promised to attend the metal festival. He threw up a kind of rock salute and then vanished inside the mountain range.