another day on venice beach

today was a beautiful fall day on venice boardwalk
i was painting a peice in gold & blue
inspired by one of this past summers cropcircles...

a customer came up and was checking out the work
we started talking about art and astrology
just then i looked past her
& saw this short overweight man in his mid to late 50's
homeless
who i've seen over the past few months
shuffling along with a little backpack with all these little bags dangling off it
mummbling to himself usually real agro
and occasionally yelling real agressive angry things
at no one physically present..
at this moment though i notice he turned
yelled real angry to no one something like:
"..oh yeah bitch, take that.."
and in just 2 seconds
cut his left forearm from just below the elbow
down to his wrist 3 or 4 times with an orange boxcutter
then turned back around & kept wandering south
now staring at the blood flowing down his arm
as though he'd just discovered a real unusual bug had just landed there

i'm thinking that is way gonna hurt
he must have just sliced through veins & arteries
costly wound to heal on the street

i took out my phone & called 911
told the operator the story stressing the need for a police response
when she put me on with the paramedic dispatch
meanwhile the man had started wandering back north up the boardwalk
& when he got so far i couldn't easily see him
i began to follow while i'm talking on the phone
giving description & location
to them both twice then we hang up
he by now had wandered almost 3 blocks north of the incident
listening to his little hand held radio,
mummbling and woddling along
a little to the left a little to the right
the small bags dangling swinging to his woddle
as i trailed him from a block away i kept looking back south on the boardwalk
in the direction of the police substation to see if the police cruiser
i'd seen there earlier had begun to respond
suddenly i saw a police pick-up drive up to the boardwalk from off the beach
about a block south of me & ran back towards them as my phone vibrated in my pocket
just then a police heliocopter arrives overhead
i answer & its the 911 operator asking my location
just then i approached the police unit
i tell them the story details & description
while i can hear them relaying the description to the heliocopter
i say i can just point him out to you
he's a few blocks away now
áfter making sure the description gets communicated
they say o.k and load up
i start running north up the boardwalk
and see the emt has arrived & is waiting
and at every cross street for the next 3 blocks
there is a police car just now turning onto the boardwalk
& the heliocopter noisily overhead slowly moving north
and im running looking for the little man with the bleeding arm
& little bags dangling...

and there he is
turning around to face 3 police cars
as i see the officer i first spoke with
drawing a taser in a semi crouch
a block ahead of me...

walking back to my setup
couple local people ask me what happened
guess they're not used to seeing me
running in my flipflops down the boardwalk
passing joggers
while talking on my cellphone
i notice there's a message on my voice mail
from 911 asking for help locating the brother

when i get back to where i have all my paintings displayed
i'm pleased to see the young woman is still checking out the work
we carry on with the astrology conversation...

couple hours latter as i'm packing up
i get a call from the l.a.p.d. nutcase unit
asking for particulars
we had a good chat
i said i was surprised at the response with the heliocopter
& all the cops
but i guessed that since 9/11
you say "boxcutter" and it tends to get peoples attention
we both laughed the funny but not so funny laugh
glad there are people trained to deal with this stuff
they had him under observation
his arm had been treated
but he said they were gonna have a closer look in a little while
they were waiting for any background psyche records on the brother
we said thanks & wished one another well...