okay, i thought this was pretty weird. strange. coincidental. again, no camera. sorry, long.
i went hiking again today at the trail with the cross. this time i went by myself because i felt like being alone. it was burning hot when i started hiking up. it was around 3 o'clock and hardly anybody was on the trail because it was so hot. i started the trail with my sleeves rolled up so i could even my tan; by the end i had taken off my shirt. yeah, it was kinda weird being one of those guys--those 'shirtless in public' guys--but i figured it would cool me off faster, nobody was around, the people who were on the trial had their shirts off as well, it would even my tan even better, and it was a new experience.
i got up to the top huffing and puffing. i guess i'm out of shape? i don't know.
i was sitting, shirtless, on the bench in front of the cross when from the other end of the trail a middle-aged guy comes walking up. he said "Ow" when i first saw him, and kept repeating it. "ow, ow, ow." he was wearing loose jeans and about three shirts, one of which was a striped long-sleeve with a collar. the one on top was a faded orange t-shirt. he had thinning white hair on top of his round head, and his aviator sunglasses were bifocals.
he sat down next to me. he pulled out a waterbottle from his waistband, and he set down the draw-string bag he had around his wrist. i said, 'hot, isn't it?" he said it was better than some days we've been having. i asked him if he needed any water, thinking he was dehydrated. he shook his bottle and said, "i've got some. or some ice, at least." keep in mind i was still shirtless at the time.
he got up and started talking about christianity. he was a christian, he said, and he walked this trail every single day. he went from weighing 280 lbs to 170 lbs. i said, 'wow, that's impressive." he kept on going. he didn't stop talking for ten minutes. he jumped from subject to subject like he was thinking and talking at the same time.
he said he had thirteen jobs the past thirty-two years. he asked me if i went to a certain local high school because my shorts were the school colors. no, i said. then he asked what high school i went to. i said the other local high school. he didn't seem to think about it. he immediately started talking about his sons. he said he had three children, all sons i think. they graduated from another, third, high school. then one of them got an MBA from stanford in physics or something. he repeated that about three times. he said the younger ones were twins. one of them played football in high school. he said, "do you know this restaurant?" it was some restaurant in the area. i said, "Yeah, i've never been there, but i know it." he gave me a sarcastic eye-roll face and said, "all right, if you go into that restaurant, look at the wall on the left. there's a plaque that says CIF Football champions 1968. Number 30," he said, " the one knealing in the front or second row, I think." he said his son played about five or six different positions: kicker, punter, defensive end, wide receiver.
then he said he played football, too. "Touchdown Tommy Smith, " he called himself. he said he played for a junior college. i guess he was pretty good, from what he was saying.
he kept talking about his sons. they're about thirty now, and he kept saying that one of them got a degree in physics from stanford, and went to so and so polytechnic college. he said he wrote the best physics thesis in the college. "it was about nuetron stars," he said, and he proceeded to tell me the title. something about radiation from neturon stars, and if they produce most of the radiaton in the galaxy, or something like that. his version was much more technical and correct. "it was the title page, okay? and the next page was a blank sheet of white paper." i said, "Huh?" "at the bottom of it, were the words, "I give my thanks and honor to my savior, Jesus Christ." then he said, explaining, " my son's a christian. like me."
at this point he had gotten his bag and was walking toward the cross. he said, "you know, i come up here everyday, and i don't mind collecting the things people drop." right next to the cross, in the dirt, were a couple of empty water bottles. "it's free," he said, "and I come up here everyday anyway. might as well do my part, right?" i was going to agree with him and show a bottle and rice krispies wrapper i found on the trail on my way up, but he started talking again.
"i've had thirteen jobs in the past thirty-two years," he said, "trying everything to support my family and paying the house." he had picked up the water bottles and was standing right next to me. i started feeling stinging on my legs and saw a fly buzzing around me. i started to put my shirt back on. "you know, i've had thirteen jobs in the past thirty-two years, and you know what? if i wasn't a christian, "he said, pointing at the cross, "i'd be very bitter right now. I'd be a bitter person." i nodded slowly and kept swatting at the stinging fly landing on my leg.
he told me about his college experiences. he got a degree in english from cal state los angeles; he said he wanted to be a writer or a teacher. do you see the oddness now? he said he ended up as an engineer. "you ever done any engineer work before?" i told him no. he started talking about working as an engineer, something about a lubricated piston that was sitting on a shelf that had to be one one-thousandth of an inch. he repeated that about five times. i nodded like i knew what he was talking about. he also worked as a bouncer at a saloon, he said. i didn't know what saloon he was talking about, whether it was the name of a place or if he worked at bar that was like a saloon.
then he started talking about christianity again. he called allah, the muslim god, a chicken-shit. then hastily, he looked worried as he said, "are you a muslim or anything?" you know i'm not religious at all, but i didn't want to tell that to this guy; he seemed a bit off and volatile; who knows what he would have said if i had told him that. he may have said or done any number of things. so i told him "no, i'm not a muslim." he talked about the suicide bombers, calling them chicken-shits, then he pointed up at the sky and started shouting a little bit. "allah is a chicken-shit, and he is a false god, too!" i wanted to say that, theologically speaking, allah is the same god as the christian god, but at this point i didn't want to say anything that might set this guy off. "don't you think that's a chicken-shit thing to do?" he asked me about suicide bombers. he said, "sure, you can believe in buddhism. i was into that for a while. you can believe in hinduism," he said, and started naming off hindu gods. "vishnu, shiba, ......." that's when he started talking about muslims being chicken shits, and when he asked me if i was muslim. "forty-two virgins," he said, "believe in that, if it floats your boat." then he started shouting again: "but if you kill, if you do something--boston bombing--you're a chicken-shit. it's a chicken-shit religion."
then he started talking about the persecution of early christians. apparently he read the bible back in 1982 or '83, and he started to believe. he was talking about the martyrs of early christianity when he suddenly stopped talking and asked me, "what's your name?" i told him. "All right, "he says, "do you think, when [my name] and Tom, they start talking about Christianity, they didn't get tortured or killed or kicked out of places? how many martyrs are there? those people, they say [my name] and Tom, they get killed if they go around, you know?" at this point he was at his most incomprehensible. i couldn't follow what he was talking about. he was staring down fiercely at me, eyes locked with mine; i kept swatting at the fly on my leg.
then he repeated his jobs claim again. "i've had thirteen jobs the past thirty-two years. i was working as an engineer. i had a degree in english. i have a degree in english from cal state los angeles. i wanted to be a writer--or a teacher!"
"some people," he said, "talk about the suicide bombings to me, and try to compare them with christianity. i was a football player; i was a bouncer at saloon; i was a bouncer at saloon, all right, and a football player. i tell them, 'don't talk that stuff around me, all right?' those chicken-shits blowing themselves up for their chicken-shit religion." i could see his eyes behind his dark glasses, and when i glanced inside his mouth i noticed white foam from having talked for so long.
another guy walked up the trail, a chubby man wearing a black tank-top and with greasy thin hair and a thick mustache. "god bless you," tom said to him. "God bless you, brethren," the black tank-top guy said in return. "oh, thank you very much." the tank-top guy took a photo of the cross with his phone, and started walking back down the trail. tom and him said god bless you to each other one more time.
i guess you may not see the strangeness still. the strangeness of meeting a man named Tom at the top of this mountain, who got a degree in english, and who wanted to be a writer. when he kept saying, "[my name] and Tom, when those people say, '[my name] and Tom,'" i thought, 'what does this mean? could this guy be a metaphor or symbol for something about my life? is this fate, or coincidence, that i've met this man named Tom?'
i guess he had to go, or got tired, because he started walking back down the trail. not before talking about his wife and him. they looked at each other, one day, when he was 280 lbs, i guess, and said to themsleves, "we can do better." they started running, but "oh," he said, "it hurt my kness so badly. i had to keep pulling up the wraps on my thighs and i had to wear a backbrace." "then, four years ago," he continued, "we found this place," meaning the trail, "and, WOW!" he raised his arms up. "And it's all free!"
before he left, he said, "God bless you, [my name]." i didn't know else to say, so i said, "god bless you, too." he didn't leave right away. he talked about his wife and sons some more.but finally, as he was going down the hill to the trail, he said "god bless you" again. i didn't know what to say again, so i said, "you, too." this seemed to please him, because he said "thank you, [my name]," and then he left.
after he left, i sat down next to the cross and started eating an apple, thinking about what had just happened, organizing my thoughts to eventually write down here. he was a strange person, yes, and i'm sure he wasn't all there, if you know what i mean. then again, he seemed quite knowledgeable about a lot of different subjects. the one thing that struck me as the oddest feature about him, i thought the five minutes i sat eating, was the fact that he wore loose jeans and a lot of shirts. it was about 90 or 95 degrees, and we were standing directly in the sun the entire conservation. why was he wearing that?
i found a shaded area a little further down the trail, and sat down to finish my snacks and rest a little bit. i kept thinking about my encounter with this guy, the rapidity in which he talked, the range of topics and issues which he touched upon, the realistic weirdness of the whole incident. when he first approached, i felt a bit of fear that he might rob or hurt me. i was thinking maybe a kidnapping or a beating. but halfway through his talking, i stopped feeling afraid and started to wonder and grow curious. who was this guy, and what was he talking about?
there's also the whole thing about his name. tom. that's my name on here, but in the real world, it's an usual name for me to come across. he kept saying, "when [my name] and Tom, [my name] and Tom." the joining of these names left me thinking: which parts of me are Tom, the writer, the blogger; and which parts of me are [my name]?
i relaxed in the shade for about an hour. i was talking funny pictures of myself with my phone. at one point i put my baseball hat on backwards so that a small tuft of my hair was sticking out the front. i thought i looked pretty handsome. on my way back down i kept laughing thinking about one of the funny pictures i took with my phone. i kept my hat backwards.
