He drooled.
He ate pork rinds, and sometimes drooled a mush of pork rind, down his chin, down onto the cement.
He had a backpack, and a milk crate, a banged up flute duct taped to the strap of the backpack, a flute he never played, and a stuffed dog that a taco franchise gave away a decade ago.
He sat in the space that used to be the Salvation Army parking lot, and played with paper.
Almost always they were beverage napkins, from a large box of them.
He stacked his creations on top of the milk crates; matted, manic knots of paper and flimsy, crepey concoctions that sometimes blew into Lafayette to be run over by UPS trucks.
They didn’t seem to have pattern, or even form, just something the man needed to do with his hands.
Eduardo watched him on his frequent downtime at Greasy Bob’s Oil Change, a block too far from the freeway and nestled up against the Calien School of Design, where all the students rode bikes or skateboards or Mercedes Benzes still under dealer warranty.
The man didn’t speak, and Eduardo was aching to know how he always had beverage napkins.
The closest bar was Tommy Roast’s, and Eduardo asked everyone he knew there about the guy who played with the bevnaps.
Nobody knew, even though most of them had seen the guy, knew of him.
He dumpster dived for food, and sometimes accepted a sandwich from one of the volunteers at Harvest Town.
Eduardo had just guided a Caddy out of Bay One, when he saw the man shuffling toward the office.
He jogged up to the man.
“Yo, yo what you need?”
The man held out two dollar bills and pointed at the pop vending machine in the waiting room.
Eduardo stepped back, sucked saliva through the sides of his mouth, internally chastised himself.
Damn, Uardo, you ran up on the dude like he was gonna rob the place. Dude just wants a pop.
The man, with an effort that made Eduardo sad, managed to get a Fanta Orange out of the machine.
Eduardo made a mental note.
I can get my man a pop once in a while.
Young guy in a Subaru pulled in, Eduardo got him the paperwork. Guy was friendly, maybe even flirty, would have been too chatty for a busy place.
Invited Eduardo to his new installation.
Eduardo was on the cusp of an excuse when the guy said “the free drinks start flowing at four.”
Friday, after work, Eduardo was on free drink three, wandering under a trellis outside Smoothies and More, looking at pieces of plastic with water squirting against them, dripping down near test tubes.
Subaru guy tried to explain it and it either sailed over or under Eduardo’s head, he wasn’t certain.
He saw Subaru guy– Troyvincente (“one word”, Troyvincente told Eduardo) hug a woman and place a small red circle on the piece’s nameplate, to indicate sold.
Eduardo leaned. 1400 bucks.
He wondered if it came with the compressor that was squirting the water.
On Monday, Eduardo approached the Bevnap man on his break, gave him a Fanta Orange and asked if he could buy some paper.
The man seemed confused, but after a series of points and gestures, Eduardo gave him 5 dollars and plucked a knotted mass of bevnaps from the top of the pile.
Eduardo smiled at the man, who seemed even more confused after the transaction, but Eduardo was happy that the guy had 5 bucks in his pocket.
The feeling of accomplishment wore off quickly, Eduardo even annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought to give the man singles for vending machines.
He stopped on the way to work and grabbed a small corkboard
Once he was at Greasy Bob’s, he took a blank invoice and made a sign:
ABSTRACT ORIGAMI
STARTING AT FIVE DOLLARS
ARTIST IS NONVERBAL
BE KIND
Herinsed a clear container that once held peanut butter pretzel nuggets for the Greasy Bob’s crew and fashioned a little money jar.
Eduardo jogged over, presented it to Bevnap man, said “good luck,” patted him on the shoulder and jogged the 50 feet back to work.
Eduardo worked, cleaning the bays, arranging the hoses, distracted with visions of Calien students skating by, stopping, falling in love with the new artistic genius of Midtown, spending money.
During a protracted, unplanned break, he told Ziggy and Blasch he was gonna check on Bevnap man. They were both older suburban dudes who thought Eduardo was a little off. He heard them ripping him, snickering, as he jogged over.
Bevnap man held two fistfuls of pork rinds. He drooled.
His pile of “abstract origami” was larger than usual.
One knot, almost a bow, clearly held a piece of broken corkboard.
Next to it was a piece that looked like someone had taken a hatchet to an accordion.
Eduardo could tell the piece was not made out of bevnaps, and even with the folds, he could read letters he had written: ERB.
Bevnap man looked at Eduardo and looked away, watching pieces of broken corkboard blow into Lafayette.
***
An Eduardo and Bevnap Man collab. You never know how support of an artist will manifest itself
“Mercedes Benz still under dealer warranty”. Perfect!