I should say a word or two about Crazy Carl's appearance and mannerisms. He was dressed in a tattered long-sleeved shirt and the dirtiest blue jeans I have ever seen. He had blue eyes, a beard, and reddish brown hair swept up and back sort of like they do on TV (it never works for me), though he was clearly in need of a haircut. And he danced. Danced like a person with ADHD who was hopped up on caffeine and really had to pee. He'd lunge forward into my space, or sort of stumble to the side, but he was always moving. I spent most of our conversation trying to figure out what he was high on or missing, but I think in the end he was just a little bit drunk and a little bit crazy.
When I told him I was drinking a chai tea, he immediately launched into a story about a time he'd been in Santa Cruz and had hepatitis C. He hadn't gotten it from a dirty needle or anything--he'd gotten it when (perhaps high on some other drug, he joked) he'd bathed in the river while the tide was going out. Apparently while the tide is going out in Santa Cruz, they dump all sorts of septic overflow into the river, and it has the nickname "Hepatitis C River." (I should reinforce that I am not vouching for any of Crazy Carl's information.) I told Crazy Carl I would really strongly advise against bathing in any body of water that was actually called "Hepatitis C," but he said he'd had antibacterial soap and he figured he could just get himself wet and then quickly scrub himself down. But in any case, he wound up with hep C.
So he was sick, and miserable. And begging for change so he could get a clean pair of "knickers" (when I encountered him, he was looking for socks). A woman offered to buy him some food, but he told her he was sick and didn't want anything to eat. She then insisted he try drinking some chai, which she provided. And it made him feel better.
That was one of the three times Crazy Carl has been ill.
A second was when he got tetanus. He was in the middle of telling me how I could get tetanus when I cut him off and told him I'd been immunized. He told me that just meant it wouldn't kill me, and then said if he scratched me with a tack that was even slightly bent to expose the iron, that should be considered assault with a deadly weapon.
Speaking of deadly weapons, he totally had a length of pipe strapped to his backpack, next to the water bottle I'm pretty sure had alcohol in it.
His third illness was cat scratch fever. He didn't go into its symptoms ("usually benign," says Wikipedia), but he described at length exactly how the bacterium Bartonella (he did not name it) gets under a cat's nails as it scratches through feces-infested sand. He showed me how even though his nails were short, there was space underneath them where disease might flourish. Seeing that his fingernails--and fingers--were absolutely black with filth, it wasn't exactly an academic line of thought. He described how the cat becomes sick and more easily feels threatened. And how all it takes is one little scratch.
And then... he scratched me. While talking about how a scratch can pass on bacteria from under fingernails and make you sick, he reached out and scratched my arm. Twice.
I think I can point to that moment as when I really started to lose patience with Crazy Carl.
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