the man who looked like crumb

So there he was again.

This tall, mustachioed 40 something brown haired 6 foot 3 or 4 skinny white guy in a wrinkled old brown suit and tie with an equally disheveled hat and briefcase, was once again sitting in my favorite local Mission District San Francisco coffee shop (name long since forgotten).

And he was "sketching" the patrons and passersby. I was seething. Did he have to do that?

To explain:

This corner of Mission and 24th had a great variety of people going to and fro, and I often passed an hour or two "just looking" at folks entering or exiting the subway across the street, or shopping along the busy boulevard.

For some reason though, the few times I had spied this "keep on truckin'" wannabe, he just got my goat.

I mean, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, but to go to the extreme and completely adopt the look, habits, and chosen artistic expression of your idol just seemed to represent all that annoyed me about the pretensions of the Bay Area in the year that I had lived there.

This guy had me seeing red. he had become my own private whale.

That day, he decided to "sketch" the pretty young object of my affection that made the coffee. I mean, she was the real reason I was at this place so often. And of course, she had big legs, so Mr Pretend "R" just had to do it. And he asked her out!

Errgh.

So I waited. Made a vague plan of inaction.

When he put his stuff away and got up, I decided to follow him.

As I trailed him by half a block north on Mission, I mentally conjured images of the various methods that he could succumb to harm.

Wayward bus? Roving gang of comic book critics? Pothole to the earth's core? Heart attack from his 30th espresso of the day?

And just why was he getting to me? (maybe it had been all the San Franciscans that always let me know how "glad" they were that I had moved from Los Angeles).

He meandered a good 15 or 20 blocks, making a right on Market Street to the "seedy" district, where he promptly sat down on a bus stop and once again resumed "sketching".

What now? The afternoon wind had kicked up, and I had something else to do...

I leaned against a building 20 or 30 feet away from him, looking like I was waiting for a cab or somesuch.

He kept drawing.

What the @#$%&! was I gong to do? I had learned nothing about the guy, and I really wasn't prepared to follow him home and burn down his place. But there he was, irking me.

As I considered my options, a bus pulled up in front of him bringing a hefty gust of wind that took the loose sheets of paper out of his hands and tossed them all over the stop.

I could hear him shout and attempt to gather his sketches which were being run over in the street by passing cars. He looked really sad and pathetic.

I suddenly didn't feel quite so annoyed with the man, so I decided to help him retrieve his works.

We got most of them, and he thanked me. There were real tears in his eyes and suddenly I felt like the jerk.

He told me to hang on a second and rifled through his pages, found one and took it out for me to see.

He had sketched me leaning on the building down the street. Not bad. Nothing like his inspirational source. My ego was stroked.

I mentioned that I had seen him around my neighborhood, and remarked on his striking likeness to the comic book artist. I asked him if I could keep my sketch.

He wouldn't give me the sketch. He got very defensive, said I had a small mind, and walked away in a huff.

Weirdo. I never saw him again.

Maybe he's imitating some other cartoonist.