I saw a genuine, bona fide, crazy person this weekend. LUNITIC. My wife and I were at the ATM, securing the funds needed to go and see “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”. She was fooling around with the machine, and I was reading a CD insert, both of us were minding our collective business on what had been up to that point a typical, boring, humdrum kind of day.
     Then I heard this weird noise. It was like a choked throaty growl, RAAAAAAAAR. I looked over to the ATM, but seeing nothing, returned to the insert. Huh, I thought, I wonder what that was? Then I heard it again. This time, taking the trouble to actually LOOK AROUND and properly diagnose the problem, I saw an overweight, soft looking person, standing wedged between the back left-hand side of my car, and the guarding concrete pillar of the ATM island. He was growling at us. He did it like five times in a row. RAAAAAAAAAAAAR, RAAAAAAAAAAAAR, just over and over again like that. I at first thought we were the victims of a really strange robber, but this person had no interest in our money. My wife, with all the sincerity and frustration in the world, shouted out the window at him
     “GO AWAY,” she shouted with all the sincerity and frustration in the world apparent in her voice. He actually turned around and walked a few steps away for a minute, only to turn back and growl again.
      Now, normally it would have been our policy just to leave at this point. GOODBYE CRAZY PERSON. But matters were made complicated by the fact that my wife had already put the card in the ATM, and now, having rolled her window up after the third or fourth growl, was unable to retrieve it. We were at an impasse, she wasn’t going ANYWHERE without it, and it was clear that he wasn’t leaving either. So we just sat there in the car like that for awhile, him growling, her worried and determined to get back our debit card, and me, terrified, wondering if this was one of those occasions where society would dictate I go kick someone’s ass, (if any of you have ever met me then you know how unlikely that is.)
     This lasted about five minutes, until she decided to honk the horn in an effort to scare him away. The horn proved on to startle him, and he began beating on the trunk lid with his meaty fist. Things were growing dire. The growling intensified.
     Then the ATM, having been inactive for several minutes by this point, automaticly asked, yes or no, if we would like to cancel the transaction. The answer being an unqualified yes, my wife, always one to seize an opportunity when it makes itself available and displaying a level of bravery and courage I would NEVER have been capable of, rolled down the window, pressed yes on the machine’s touch screen, grabbed the card, and took off. It was really quite heroic, and it really felt like a getaway.
     As I looked into the rearview mirror at the face of our assailant, I saw that he was MUCH older than I had thought. He had been obscured from my view until then by the back window frame of the car, and I had been laboring under the impression that he was young, like 16 or something, and was maybe just being a jackass. But this person was closer to 45, and had a disheveled look similar to the pictures of Brian Wilson that you see from his deranged, hanging around in bed all day period. It looked like he had a beard, not from choice, but from a fundamental inability to shave. He looked scared, and had that unmistakable, schizophrenic look in his eyes, that look of distance and confusion.
     After we were some distance away, I looked back again at him, and there he was, operating the ATM. He had only wanted us to leave. It was clear to me then that he was mentally handicapped in some way, and was only trying to get us to leave so he could do whatever it was he needed to do at the machine. He was trying to communicate. I felt bad for him then, and terrified, still very terrified.     
     So that was it. I didn’t call the police, and I can only assume that whoever his helper person is was alerted to his absence and had collected him. At least I hope so. It worries me for him to be on the streets. For his safety and mine. But I have faith. One thing we are GREAT at in this country is locking up the bizarre. Great kickoff to ’05.