The Stick Man (as promised)

I remember the first time I saw him. I was standing with my bike in the driveway of the warehouse where Ben lived, and we were talking as he latched the gate after me. I heard a weird rhythmic stomping. I turned around and gaped at the approaching Stick Man, then shuffled closer to the gate. The Stick Man's head and neck were wrapped in white cloth. He wore a long sleeved shirt, shorts, and heavy looking boots. In his right hand, he held a long stick. As I looked, panic stricken, at Ben, Ben said, "He's nothing to worry about. He's out jogging every day. You know, every small town has a local crazy."

Now, I have had a fair share of exposure to local crazies. But they're different. They are city crazies. You expect them, you understand them as part of the scenery, and you generally don't spend too much time in dark, deserted places where your chances of a more dangerous encounter might happen. Well, Shitara after 7 PM is as dark and deserted as Times Square is bright and busy after 7 PM. And with the cicadas' and crickets' chorus as the background music, the "THUD, THUD, THUD" is pretty terrifying.

Coming out of my ballroom dance class the other day, one of my classmates warned me that I would run into him. "It's 9:30. He's like clockwork." When we peered down the street, there was no sign of him, and we stood and talked a while. "Ah! There he is!" she pointed, not too subtly. Of course, with the white cloth wrapped around his head, he probably didn't notice. He was jogging, as he always did, from the center of town out in the direction of my apartment, which is always where I ended up losing track of him. "You know, he's really harmless," she reassured me. Then she added, "He still kinda gives me the creeps."

Yeah, me too. I kicked my headlight on, and rode quickly past him, into the safe and silent shadows of my danchi.