Wild Man

Art by Isabel Bryna

“You can’t buy good neighbors”:

      The words of my brother-in-law, Tony Lombardi, who also happens to be a neighbor of mine. He actually lives a couple-three blocks away so we don’t see each other every day, as you do the folks next door or across the street. These folks you typically see often, if only going and coming when you exchange a brief hello or simple wave of the hand. They are the ones with whom you share fences, whose tree branches hang into your yard. You hope to get along with these neighbors. You cannot choose or buy them. It really is luck of the draw.

      When we moved into our current house in Santa Cruz about 30 years ago, we found ourselves next door to a reclusive couple, a man and a woman, whom we rarely saw except when they waved to us backing out of their driveway, which was less than five feet from our house.

      I should say, she waved and smiled, while he negotiated their pickup in reverse. She was visible only through the closed, passenger-side window that reflected patches of daylight making it impossible to clearly see her.

      He was more visible because he would occasionally walk to the corner to catch the bus. Longtime neighbors knew him. They called him Walter. He was tall and slender, short dark hair flecked with grey, wore chamois collared shirts, probably from LLBean. He walked with a limp, leaning onto a cane, with his feet slipped into wooden clogs that made a clapping sound on the pavement.

      Word was he was from Germany. He had been a woodworker, now on disability, partially disabled due to an accident. We discovered that the knotty pine cabinet in our garage was made by Walter for Marsha, who sold our house to us: a small two-bedroom, one-bath, with a fireplace and large picture window in front, a half a block from the ocean.

      “I love this house,” said Barbara.

      We both felt fortunate to have found it when Marsha put it up for sale. That was following the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Downtown was in ruins and many houses had suffered serious damage. Part of the chimney had collapsed. From our front porch, we could see the Monterey Bay and on Wednesdays, during spring and summer, we had a slim view of boats sailing with their colorful spinnakers billowing, in the popular “beer can” races.

      Every Sunday morning before daylight, Walter’s truck would start up and the engine would hum for at least 10 minutes right next to our second bedroom where our 12-year-old daughter, Bryna, slept. It was just the three of us. Molly and Vanessa had gone off to college in Santa Barbara and Arcata. The rumbling motor woke us up. Then they would be off to the Flea Market and we could go back to sleep.

      During the week Walter parked his truck in the street in front where it would sit unmoved until the following weekend:  a well-kept, late-model Ford 150. Walter’s personalized license plate read, “DINE.”

      We had no idea what that meant. That he liked to eat? Since we rarely saw him or the woman, we didn’t have the opportunity to ask. They vacated the premises for three or four months every year. No truck parked in front. No flea market trips. Only a silent, vacant house whose size and design resembled ours, built in 1946. Walter had replaced windows in the front with wood framing and leaded, diamond-shaped glass, creating a modest Bavarian touch.

      The mystery of our neighbors raised questions:

      I wonder where they go for three months?

      Why must they warm-up their truck for 15 minutes?

      Have you ever met the lady?

      If he’s disabled, why do I hear him spryly clomping around on his back patio?

      It seems there are always questions about people who collect disability, mostly from people who don’t like their own jobs. I had heard the question so often that my ears perked up when I thought I heard Walter running like a horse, clippity-clop, across the pavement. Our fence was too high to see him. Maybe it wasn’t even him.

      Following the destructive earthquake, some businesses survived in tents and trailers. Broken buildings were being rebuilt. We ran into Walter in front of the construction site of the largest new building. I had never seen him up close. He was handsome, with thick dark eyebrows. His chin and cheeks were covered with stubble of grey whiskers. 

      “They’re doin it all errong!” he claimed, pointing at the new foundation. His brown eyes opened wide. Our downtown had originally been built and was being reconstructed in what is part of the bed of the San Lorenzo River. The soil is alluvial, soft and pliant.

      Barbara and I looked at each other, our eyes locking. This was our first conversation with Walter.

      “He’s probably right,” we agreed. It became a reference for us, especially as we watched the large building become a centerpiece of downtown, featuring a cinema complex and popular location for retail including Peet’s Coffee.
      “Remember what Walter said,” we would joke. Of course hoping against another disaster.

Early on the morning of September 13, 1994  — I remember the date because it was the same day and month that Linda died in the automobile accident — we heard loud sobbing outside of our bedroom window. It was the lady next door, Walter’s partner. She was near hysterical.

      “Walter died!” she cried out.
      It was chilling.

      Barbara went right to her, hugging her, holding and consoling her.

      Walter passed away from a heart attack that morning at age 61.

      That’s how we met Leah.

Leah and the Dine'

       She had a lovely personality with a bright, round welcoming face. This was Leah, the woman who waved to us through the window of Walter’s truck. Her hair was wavy with tinges of grey, her skin the color of burnished copper. She was Navajo. We became instant friends. 

      “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
      She was distraught over her loss.

      She obviously had depended on Walter. They had lived together for years, while never being formally married. Her family and closest friends lived on the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona, near the New Mexico border. That’s where they spent so many months every year, on the reservation.

      “Walter loved the rez,” she said.

      Within a few days, Leah’s family began showing up. They were here to console Leah and help prepare for Walter’s memorial. By the time of that event, to be held at Oakwood Memorial Park & Cemetery, there must have been 20 family members of all ages in Leah’s house.

      On the day of the memorial, as luck would have it, the plumbing backed up in her house. Both of our places had only one bath.

      “Feel free to come over to use our bathroom and shower,” said Barbara.

      The picture of a parade of dark-haired, smiling people of various sizes and ages walking from Leah’s house to ours with towels in their hands became fixed in our memory.

     

Navajo hoop dancer. photo: KCS

We were all washed and outfitted for the memorial. It was an open-casket affair with Walter’s torso propped up slightly for all to see. He was surrounded by flowers and his Navajo family.

      “Is he dead?” asked Bryna, her eyes welling with tears.

      We were not prepared for this. Barbara and I had seen people embalmed and dressed lying in state. Bryna,12, had never seen such a thing. Confronted by Walter’s motionless body, his strange avocado-colored skin, clothed as if he were going to town, she was disturbed for reasons only an unsuspecting child would know. 

      Leah’s sister, Effie, gave the eulogy. A large woman with thick short hair, she wore a printed dress. When she spoke — her words carefully chosen, direct and heartfelt — I knew I was in the presence of someone special.

     “We appreciated having Walter on the reservation and he loved being there,” she said. She told stories about him and his contributions to the “dine’,” (din-NEH’), the Navajo term for their people and language.

      I learned that Effie had represented the Navajo in our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. I understood why. 

      “So this is Wild Man,” she said when I met her following the ceremony.

      Unbeknownst to me, Leah and Walter, since the time we had moved next door to them, referred to me as “Wild Man.”

      “That’s what Walter called you,” said Leah. “You would pull into the driveway in your convertible with your hair flying like you were in electric shock. Walter would say, ‘There’s Wild Man.’”

      She laughed. Effie laughed. I laughed. Their laughter was infectious. As we became more acquainted with our Navajo friends, we were disarmed by their charm and ever-present laughter. They found humor in the simplest, most unsuspecting places. Members of Leah’s family made frequent visits while she began to sort out her personal situation and what to do about the house.

      Since she and Walter were not married, Leah did not inherit the property. She was left with very little, a small amount of cash found in the house, including a stack of uncashed travelers checks. There was a closet full of chamois shirts in various colors, many never worn, that Leah offered to me. There was a collection of medallions that Walter found at trading posts and flea markets.

      The administers of the estate began a thorough search for Walter’s heirs in Germany who would inherit Leah’s home. It took a while but they located a cousin, who may not have even heard of Walter. His affection for the dine’ had been usurped by the white man’s laws.

      Leah decided to return to the reservation in Window Rock to be with her people. The last time I spoke with her was on the phone a couple of years ago. She said that some of the rez kids that we had met were now going to college. Effie was well. Leah was living in a remote area on the reservation.
      I mentioned that I was planning a road trip to New Mexico and would like to stop by and see her, take her up on her invitation of many years ago to visit the rez.
      "You would never find me," she said. I recalled her shyness.

Felisha must have been 8-years-old when she scratched her name into the new section of sidewalk in front of the house.  She and her mother came from the reservation to keep Leah company. Photo: 2020 KCS

                                                                                        
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The house next door  was eventually purchased by a couple with two small children. He had cashed in on a software company he started in Silicon Valley and moved to Santa Cruz. Barbara, who is a real estate agent, handled the transaction and became acquainted with our new neighbors.

      He asked her if she could show him property where he might start a swim club. He mentioned another idea that he was kicking around. 

      “What do you think of an online movie rental business?” When Barbara told me about the idea, I said, “That’s weird. I can’t see how that would work. There’s a Blockbuster right up the street.” 
      He forged ahead with his idea. It’s called Netflix.

     

From Silence of the Oranges  ⓒ 2020 by Kevin Samson, a working title memoir,