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I was thinking about my hometown the other day, the place where I spent fourteen years of my life, and will not see again anytime soon. I walked myself through the streets in my head and imagined what I might see. I'm pretty certain that not much would be different.

If I took a walk downtown, I would hear about people's new jobs, new relationships, new residences, but to me it would all be the same. To them, it would all be the same. Nothing ever really happened in Colorado Springs. It was all just a bunch of people going through cycles of wanting to make things happen, and then giving up and becoming overwhelmed by the boredom.

However, there was one kid who never seemed to be affected by these cycles, one person who was content with never changing at all, and I'm sure if I could transport myself to the southwest corner of Boulder and Tejon Streets right now, I would find him there. Unlike all of the other people in the city, his routine was a reassurance rather than an annoyance. His name was Travis, and everyday he sat outside of Boulder Street Coffee Roasters, or "the coffee shop," as it was called. (Most people didn't bother to notice that it had any other name.)

Travis wasn't your average coffeeshop patron. He wasn't your average anything. He wore a polkadot hat he found at goodwill, and had wild crooked teeth. He never combed his hair, but cut it a few times a year. One time he let me shave it for him. This didn't mean shaving it bald, but shaving abstract designs all over his head. He was a self-diagnosed schizophrenic, and nobody questioned this assesment. At any given time, he might yell at the top of his lungs whatever gibberish may have floated into his head, just because it pleased him to do so. This might be phrases such as "Satan smokes my crackpipe tonight," or "Your momma sure looks good in those red flip-flop sandals with the beavers attached." Other times, he would just sit and nod his head at whatever was being said.

Whichever mood he had, he would always be willing to take a walk to go smoke a bowl. And we took many walks. A lot of the time the weed for these walks would be provided by our friend Timmy. (Timmy was the one who introduced me to the sport of car surfing. Timmy and I became a championship car surfing team. We had one move where he would drop into my sunroof and take my place driving while I popped out of my window and onto the hood. We never crashed.) So, the three of us were going for a walk over to the park to toke up when we passed an old victorian house that had been sectioned off into apartments. You could still walk into the entryway of the house, which Travis decided we should do for some reason. We followed him, trying to get him to explain where he was taking us. He walked down to the basement which was just a short hallway, and the doors to four apartments. He stopped, "oh, I thought I knew somebody who lives here, but I guess not. So, are we going to smoke?"

We did, right there outside of those doors holding people who we had probably never met. We smoked three bowls before we left, creating a cloud that filled the stairs all the way back up to the entryway. Actually, we smoked two and one of Travis's. Travis always managed to exchange random objects for the most questionable of substances which he claimed to be marijuana. We had our doubts.

And that's what an average day hanging out with Travis would be like. On the way back to the coffeeshop he would grab his sharpees and look for something to write on. When he found an appropriate surface, he would stand in broad daylight on a busy street and scribble incoherent messages. I asked what one said one time, and he stopped bewildered, looking back at it, he asked, "does it say something to you? Because, I was just putting lines together." Sometimes they really did look like words, until you examined them closer. The truth was, Travis just liked the the look of tags, and he liked to confuse people. Some of the local tag artists actually started using his style, and soon there was gibberish everywhere.

I don't think he could have formed a coherent statement if he wanted to. This was one of the things that assured me that his schizophrenia diagnosis was for real. He kept a journal of his thoughts, and he would show it to you if you wanted to see it, or even if you didn't. It was a series of symbols, and sometimes words. He said he had invented his own language, and it all meant something to him, but when I asked him about the meaning of specific symbols, he would say that it's freeform, it changes with the moment. This worried me at first, but he was very proud of his journal.

One time we were walking along when we were stopped by two people who had been around town at the time. they described themselves as "apostles," but they looked like hippies, and were familiar with the whole rainbow family culture and all that crap. They traveled around with the purpose of spreading their interpretationof the bible. What that was was beyond me. Anyway, they stopped us, thinking we were homeless, and wanted to buy us food. (Actually, Travis was homeless at the time, I'll get to that later.)

So we went with them to the local health food store, and they stocked us up with everything they could buy us. All I accepted was a bottle of juice, because I could afford my own food, but thank you. Travis, however, grabbed everything he could carry. Afterwards, in their truck, they tried to tell us about their message of Jesus. I told them I knew about all that. (I was really only there for the spectacle of watching Travis interact with stangers.) Travis starts arguing with them in his nonsense way, asking them questions about the spaceship and aliens, and didn't Jesus smoke a lot of herb with his wise men and whatnot. The "apostles" tried not to get angry, and went on explaining, but Travis whips out his journal. "I've got it all written down right here." He flips through until he finds the page, where he shows them the diagram of his faith. What this was was a series of symbols connected by lines. some of the symbols were made up, others he were borrowed, such as the yin-yang, the pentagram, the crucifix, and so on. At the top of the page was a spaceship. Travis explained to them how the aliens keep us connected to God through various forces, and that you need to smoke a lot of herb to keep your mind open to these forces.

We got a quick ride back downtown. They had no idea what to make of any of this. I was trying not to laugh, when Travis looks over at me and shows a little laugh. I'm pretty certain that he didn't believe a word of wat he had told them, it was just some more of his nonsense.

So, Travis was homeless once. His parents told him that they'd kick him out if he didn't get a job and straighten up his life. Anybody who knew travis knew that this was an impossibilty, but they told him anyway. Apparently, Travis had been forgetting where he was while sitting in his parent's living room, and he would take out his pipe and start smoking it in front of his grandmother and everybody before they would ask him what he was doing, reminding him where he was. so, they told him to get a job and shape up.

I tried to help Travis out with the job hunt, I even got one for him once. We were passing by a Taco Bell, when we got the urge for some burritos. On the door, we saw a help wanted sign, and started joking about working at Taco Bell. He thought the idea was so funny that he walked up the cash register, and in his mock-serious tone, which invloved him clenching his lips, and for some reason closing his eyes, he said, "excuse me, sir, I would like to inquire about working for your fine establishment." When the kid turned around to get him an application, he turned to me and almost died laughing. He was still laughing when the kid gave him his application. I ordered some burritos, and got an application too, just for the hell of it.

When I sat down to eat, I helped him with his application. I learned that he did have previous job experience, although he couldn't remember the exact details of their name, or when he worked there, so he just left it blank. He filled out his name, street address, and looked in his wallet for his social security number. Following my advice, he only used words on the entire thing, no random symbols. He turned it in, and you know what? They hired him.

I ran into him again a few eeks later, and this is how he described the story of working for Taco Bell to me: He was there for about six days before the manager got weirded out by his behavior and nonsense talk, and asked him if he was on drugs. He replied, again in his high, mock-serious tone, saying, "why no ma'am, I have been smoking marijuana." He went on to explain to her the joy of the score he made when he found some weed he had lost in his room that morning, and smoked it, then scraped his pipe and smoked it in the employee bathroom before he clocked in. "That stupid bitch," he said, "I told her I smoked before I clocked in, I don't think she had to fire me." So, Travis lost his job, then got kicked out of his house.

This didn't really bother him at first. I guess he always figured he would be homeless someday. He didn't see this as anything to look down upon, and didn't yet understand the difficulties that come along with it. He thought he had a good solution to staying warm too. He had one of those fire blankets people use to smother flames, or potect themselves from them in emergencies. He thought this thin sheet had special powers to retain heat, and would keep him warm in any condition. He shivered, and the sheet tore. The next night, I allowed him to sleep on my couch, although neither me nor my roommates could take too much of Travis, and there would be no plan to make a habit of this. The next day, we went out for a walk around noon, and this time I decided to apply for a job. I had other honest (but illegal) means of obtaining cash at the time, so I wasn't too worried about actually getting the job. When the manager at the Bagel Shop was an asshole to me, I decided to have a little bit of fun with the app. For instance, Emergancy Contact: 911, and so on. For a refrence, I put down Travis. The funny thing was, he took my application seriously. He scheduled an interview. For the first time ever, somebody checked on my refrences, and when one of them came up as unattainable, he told me he couldn't hire me. I wasn't disappointed.

The greatest part was when Travis went to visit his mom. She said there was a call for him. This was weird in and of itself, seeing as how nobody ever called Travis. If you wanted to find him, you just went to the coffeeshop, but usually you never wanted to find him, you just knew he'd show up eventually. So, his mom says that there was a call for him, and that it was somebody checking on a refrence. At first she thought there was a trick being played, but when she discovered that somebody had actually used her son as a personal refernce, she was forced to reevaluate him. Maybe there was something that she wasn't seeing in him. Eventually, he was allowed to stay there again.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point, he was a crazy guy, surrounded by crazy circumstances, despite the fact that he did the same damn thing everyday.

Epilogue: In the past two and a half years, I've been back to Colorado twice. Both times, Travis was on the corner of Boulder and Tejon Streets, completely unsurprised to see me, just another day in the story of Travis.