Sock It To Me

Lately I have been writing some stories about random people in the neighborhood where I grew up. My first post of those stories was the Egghead entry but there will be more to come as I try to really capture the essence of crazy.

This little special mention, in regards to crazy, has to go out to whom I always just called “The Crazy on the Corner”. He was both a drunk and a full on crazy. He would stand on the corner all disheveled and stuff and, in Polish, just scream. Now I don’t understand a lick of Polish so he could have been making a great deal of sense. He could have been on his imaginary soapbox spouting off about religion, politics or the injustices of the world but somehow I doubt it. When he wasn’t just standing there he would walk around the neighborhood in a very Herman Munster-esque like fashion. Arms out, heavy steps. You almost expected to look down at his feet and see giant black platform boots. No matter where he straggled around he always reserved the corners for his screaming. What made him really strange was that he wore a black dress sock on one ear. A sock. I remember hoping that that sock was designated for his ear only but I bet it wasn’t. I hoped that, after a long day of raging at the masses, he hung his sock up like a little hat right after walking in the front door. I don’t know the significance of the sock but ya know, everyone has his or her thing. Day after day, rant after rant that sock was ever present. He would hold it closer to his head when windy, shield it from rain, dab around it when sweating. Maybe he gained his inspiration from it. Maybe his craziness led him to believe that that sock, that little polyester blend sock, had the right answers and he was sharing this knowledge with all of us. For all his aggressive yelling he was never violent or anything but he did attack my old landlady once and she broke her hip. I don’t really hold it against him though. You didn’t know my landlady.

"Crazy on the Corner" is just one more of the people that have been long gone from the streets of my neighborhood; off to that big ol’ fluffy soapbox in the sky I’m sure. Or a crumbling soapbox in Hell but let’s leave this story off on a high note shall we?