Born as William Crawford, the wild child of Crystal and James Crawford quickly earned and maintained the nick name Crazy Willie.  Truth be told, no one in the Seattle area really knows Crazy Willies real name.  Having been born in the Portland area and growing up walking up and down the docks lining the Willamette River, Crazy Willie had a weird and adventurous childhood.

Having been born at 12:06 am on New Year’s Eve, Crazy Willian came into the world earning his parents a $50 cash award for having the first documented new born in the City of Portland.  But that would be the last time Crystal and James would benefit from their newest addition to the Crawford family.

At age 2, Crazy Willie was diagnosed with strabismus, or “lazy eye”.

At age 6, Crazy Willie still had not spoken a word.  Using guttural sounds, Crazy Willie would grunt out his needs or wants, leaving his poor mother guessing as to what he needed.  When she couldn’t guess or guess fast enough, Crazy Willie would fly into a screaming tantrum, throwing himself on the ground.  At first his parents would try anything to appease the upset child.  After seeing this occur several times and having grown up in a household where spankings were common place, James attempted to snap his son out of his bad behavior with a swat.  To James’s satisfaction, Crazy Willie stopped the tantrum immediately and ran from the room.  James gave his wife an “I knew that would fix it” look only to see a movement from the side of his eye as his precious little son ran into the room holding a knife.  Shocked at what he was seeing, and not believing his eyes, James failed to take action until Crazy Willie drove the knife into his father’s thigh.  Needless to say, that was the last time James laid a hand on his son.

At age 9, Crazy Willie lost his father in a jobsite accident.  This left Crystal absolutely devastated as she had no idea what she was going to do with their only bread winner having been struck down and her without a profession.  Feeling like she was hanging on by a thread, she sat with a black veil over her face, weeping as the Pastor said the last rites over her husband.  Just as the Pastor finishes his vestige, Crystal hears a giggle, followed by a louder giggle.  Then the giggle turns to laughter.  Thinking “who would do such a thing”, she turns to see that Crazy Willie is standing in the middle of the isle of the small church, looking directly at where his father’s casket had been placed, laughing with job.  Just as Crystal feels the last thread of her sanity begin to fail, Crazy Willie stops laughing abruptly, looks directly in her direction, then back at the casket and mutters his first words “Bye Bye Asshole”.  The thread snapped at hearing those words and Crystal faints, falling out of her chair and onto the hard wood floor.

At age 15, Crazy Willie became a local legend, but not exactly in a good way.  It was early spring and heavy rains had been expected for the Portland area.  Crazy Willie was walking down a street as torrential rains blanketed the area.  The street crosses a tributary to the Willamette River and as he approached the bridge he hears cries from a woman looking over the railing.  Crazy Willie doesn’t exactly feel the need to run, so he just saunters over to get a glimpse.  The distressed woman, seeing Willie, runs over to him and cries “You have to save my baby.  She dropped her doll and when she reached for it, she lost her balance.  She can’t hold on much longer and I can’t swim.  Please help her.  PLEASE!”  Crazy Willie looks over the railing and sees a young girl, maybe seven years old, holding a soaked doll, clinging to roots from one of the trees as water rushes by, attempting to pull her into the fast moving current.  Crazy Willie turns to the distressed lady and says “I’ll save your baby Mam.” And begins removing his coat.  Just as he does, the little girl loses grip of the root and screams as she is swept under the bridge and out into the middle of the river.  Willie jumps over the railing, into the water, feeling his feet hit bottom as the water appears to only be about six feet deep.  As soon as he pops his head above the water, he frantically begins swimming toward the little girl.  After a short distance, Crazy Willie has quickly closed the gap and reaches out and grabs a hand full of hair and then begins swimming toward the shore.  At first, the pull from the weight of the girl is significant, but then the weight becomes much less as he approaches the shore.  Climbing out of the water, several hundred feet down the river bank, Crazy Willie flops onto his back, breathing heavily from the strain of the swim.  After a few minutes, he hears footsteps approaching and looks up to see the distressed woman’s eyes full of tears.  She says “Why....Why did you do that?”  Crazy Willie looks at her with a sense of pride and says “Mam, I saved your baby!” handing the water soaked doll to the woman.

Shortly after his father passed away, Crazy Willie dropped out of school.  His mom did everything she could to keep him going, but now that she was forced to work two jobs to keep her home and food on the table.  For Crazy Willie, that meant he could spend his days doing anything he wanted, adventuring through the city.  Many a night, finding himself in a part of town where he had never been, he’d lose his bearing and become lost and scared.  Knowing that bad things happen to children at night in the city, he would find someplace to hide.  Here is the story of one such night:

At 13 years of age, Crazy Willie spent a majority of his days down by the docks, casting a line into the water, in hopes of bringing home fresh fish.  Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to explain to him that you needed bait.  The day was partly sunny and warm, so Crazy Willie had decided it would be a good day to just wear a t-shirt, a pair of ratty old pants, and leave the shoes and socks at home.  After spending hours watching his line never move, Crazy Willie sees a flatbed truck pull up to the dock area and the driver gets out, pulls out a small crate from the back, and walks into one of the local businesses.  Across the side of the truck hand painted word that starts with Abe's Dxlxvxxy.  Not being able to read, he remembers one of his friends telling him that was a delivery truck and he had seen one similar to that by his house.  Always willing to avoid having to walk, Crazy Willie pulls in his line, then runs up and jumps onto the back of the flatbed truck and hides behind two of the crates, excited about his luck of finding a ride from his favorite fishing hole to his house. 

Seeing the driver walking quickly out of the business and toward the truck, Crazy Willie hunkers down to avoid being seen.  The driver jumps into the trucks and off they go.  Crazy Willie is enjoying the ride and watching the people walk along the street as the truck navigates through town.  After several minutes, Crazy Willie begins to notice that things are not looking familiar.  Must be a new route to his neighborhood are his thoughts as he goes back to watching people.  Finally, he feels the truck begin to slow before making a right hand turn into a large, fenced parking lot.  The truck abruptly stops and then backs into a parking space, with the tires finally coming to rest against a large timber adjacent to three other similar type trucks.  The engine shuts off and the driver gets out and goes into a large building with three large doors on the side.  The last door is being closed as the driver enters.  Not understanding why the truck has stopped here, Crazy Willie decides to get out and look around.  Sneaking out the back and along the fence line, Crazy exits the fenced yard and begins walking back the way he had come.  After a short distance, he sees group of men huddled around a section of sidewalk.  Curiosity setting in, Crazy Willie decides to see what they are looking at.  The man in the middle is smoking a cigarette that is hanging from his lips as he says “Come on you cheap bastards, I know you got some more money to lose.  And you can’t win any back if you don’t challenge your buddy Tops!”  Then this man called Tops glances over and says “Kid, this game is the devil and not for you...unless you have some cash you want to lose?”  Crazy Willie had nothing in his pocket except for the long piece of fishing line wrapped around a small piece of wood so decided he would move on.  But before he did, he said “Sir, just exactly where are we right now?”  Tops responded “Kid, you don’t know where you’re at?  How old are you?  And are you looking at me or Jake over there?  You’re momma slap you a little too hard as a kid or something?”  Waiting for a few seconds and figuring that he wasn’t going to get an answer, Tops continued “Kid, you’re in Gresham.  Now get your ass out of here.”  Crazy Willie walked away thinking to himself “Gresham…I’ve heard of that place, but isn’t that in another state?  How did I get into another state?”

Walking along, the shadows had started to grow as the sun slowly worked its way toward the horizon.  Crazy Willie knew that it was bad to be out after dark, especially if you were in a different state.  Having no idea that he was only a few miles from home, he continued to walk.  The area changed slowly from having trees lining and people being out and about to more of a warehouse district with large buildings with closed doors.  As the wind blew, periodically a piece of paper would blow by from discarded trash left along the edge of the roadway.  The streets in this part of town were dirt with the periodic mud puddle from continuous truck traffic moving around the area.

Before he could see it, he could smell river water.  Not so much the water, but the things around the water.  From the smell of coal being burned to propel the large ships to the stench of fish carcasses, the smell brought on an elation from Crazy Willie as this meant he must be close to home.  Running to the next street down and then turning right, he could see the typical seagulls that populated the river banks of the Willamette River.  Running to the end of the street that dead ended at the river banks, Crazy Willie looked down the river, scanning for anything that looked vaguely familiar.  Off in the distance, barely visible, was a familiar sight.  One of the main bridges that crossed the large river was off in the distance.  From his favorite fishing spot, the bridge was always a good hour walk away and now he was at least that distance, if not more, on the other side.  There is no way that he would make it home before dark.  Taking comfort that he was at least back in Oregon, he figured he would need to find some place to hide for the night.

Wanting to keep his lifeline in place, Crazy Willie decided to walk down the river banks and keep the bridge in sight from that point forward.  But that would definitely slow down his progress and the shoreline was steep and impassable at times.  But the good news was that a short time later, he came across a large black berry shrub that was completely full of fresh fruit.  Eating to his heart’s content and feeling much better with a full stomach, Crazy Willie set off once again.  But the sun was setting and he still had no idea where he would be safe to hide.  Seeing several building ahead, Crazy Willie made is way over to an area between two of the structures.  Numerous piles of wooden boxes were stacked unevenly along one wall and a pile of trash sat next to the other.  At the end was a fence, blocking an exit out the backside, but a small storage building sat adjacent to the fence with a door ajar.

Looking inside the small storage building, there is a small wooden pallet lying on the floor and a torn piece of tarp wadded up in the corner.  Crazy Willie things to himself “Wow, how lucky am I.  This place even has a bed.”  By this time, the light is quickly disappearing and he steps inside, closing the door as much as possible with what appeared to be a broken hinge.  Spreading out the tarp on the wooden pallet, Crazy Willie lays back and within minutes, drifts off as he envisions bringing a huge fish home to his mom.

Startled awake, Crazy Willie looks up at the silhouette of a person’s face, inches away from his own.  The odor coming off this person smelled of urine and feces and every breath was filled with the stench of cigarette smoke and rotting food.  Trying to move but unable as the person’s strong grip has his arms pinned down to the pallet and the attacker’s body laying across his legs.  Out of the darkness, a grisly voice says “Well lookie here.  Seems someone wants to share my bed.  If you’re going to share my bed then maybe I should take something in return.”  Full of revulsion from the smell, the real panic came to Crazy Willie when the man transferred the rest of his body weight onto the terrified boy, then released the grip on his left arm.  Crazy Willie could feel that same hand that had released his arm sliding down his side and then attempting to search for a wallet or change in his pockets.  Crazy Willie begins to thrash around as he doesn’t want to be touched by this horrible smelling person.  This just makes the attacker begin to laugh as Crazy Willie is being over powered by the much larger man.  To get leverage, the attacker slides his head in close to Crazy Willies face, putting an even larger portion of his body weight on the struggling boy’s upper body as he lifts up and reaches for the other side. To afraid to even scream, instincts take off and the next thing Crazy Willie does saves his life.

Realizing that the attacker’s ear is right next to his mouth, Crazy Willie opens up and clamps down on the ear.  The attacker lets out a scream and Crazy Willie bites down with all of his might.  He can feel the teeth begin to break through skin and then cartilage as the attacker is trying to pull away.  With a jerk to the side, the ear tears off of the side of the attackers head and Crazy Willie feels blood begin to pour down onto his neck and t-shirt covered chest.  The attacker screams and rolls off of Crazy Willie, holding the side of his head, blurting out obscenity after obscenity.  Crazy Willie scrambles to his feet just as he hears “You’re going to pay heavily for this you little bastard” as the attacker begins to roll back toward him.  Seeing the silohette of the attackers head, Crazy Willie kicks out as hard as he can, making full contact with the persons face.  Crazy Willie felt the crushing of the nose as much as he heard something snap.  The attacker screamed out once again, rolling completely away from him leaving a direct path to the door.  Crazy Willie sprinted down the narrow pathway between building and out into the street.  Turning toward his savior bridge’s direction and fueled by adrenaline, Crazy Willie ran.

Several blocks later and fully spent, Crazy Willie sees the neon of a late night diner.  Outside the diner sits a police cruiser which normally tells him to run the other way.  But not tonight.  Bursting inside and having forgotten that he was covered in blood, the sight of him causes the waitress to scream and the police officer instinctually jumps out of his seat and moves to aid Crazy Willie.  Once Crazy Willie tells him he’s not hurt, the alarmed officer looks at him quizzically and says “Son, if that’s not your blood, then who’s is it?”

The waitress does what she can to clean the blood off Crazy Willie as he explains how stowed away on truck, ended up in a different state, met a guy name Tops, ate some wonderful berries, hid in a shed, and had a very smelly man laying on him.  Crazy Willie explained to the officer:

“I was so scared that I bit off his ear and then kicked him in the head”

“Where did this happen son?”

“In a shed” stated Crazy Willie.

“Yes, I know it was in a shed, but where is the shed located”

“I don’t know Officer, I’ve never been to this state before” exclaimed Crazy Willie.

“You’re not from Oregon Son?”

“Why yes I am Officer, but I ended up in the state called Gresham when I hopped that ride”

The officer chuckled and said “Son, that isn’t a different state, that’s a town just outside of Portland.  You’re in Portland now”.

Crazy Willie exhaled and said “I figured so since I saw the big bridge”

The Officer questioned “Where do you live specifically son?”

Crazy Willie replied “With my mom”

“I get that, but where does your mom specifically live” asked the officer.

“Well, she lives in a house sir” stated Crazy Willie.

An angered officer asks “Son, are you retarded or something?  Is that why your eyes are all funny and stuff?”  

Crazy Willie retorts “Not retarded Officer, are you just fat because you eat here all the time?” 

Instantly the officer’s face turns bright red and he just glares at Crazy Willie.  Then after a few minutes and several deep breathes, the officer calmly asks, “Son, I know you’ve been through a lot tonight.  Can you show me where you and your mom lives?  I’m sure she’s worried about you”

Crazy Willie responds “Of course, why didn’t you just ask?”

Several minutes later, Crazy Willie is standing in front of his mom as the officer explains the evening events.  The look of worry, shock and then anger can all be read on Crystal’s tired face.  Thanking the officer, she closes the door and sends Crazy Willie into the bathroom to strip down and take a bath.  After sliding down into the warm soapy water, Crystal sticks her head into the room and asks “Do you want some food before I start asking questions?”  Remembering the smell from the man coupled with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, Crazy Willie said “No, I think I best not unless you want me to puke!”

One day, as Crazy Willie is walking through town, he sees several large trucks driving as a convoy through town and on the side is the distinctive painting of a clown and the words PT Barnum.  Having never heard of it before, but excited by the painting of a clown on the side, Crazy Willie begins to chase after the trucks through the center of Portland.  Aided by frequent stop signs and walking traffic, he was able to keep the trucks in sight even as he lagged farther and farther behind.

A short distance later, the trucks turned into a large field on the outer edge of town and began to form a circular form as each truck parked.  Being fully out of breathe, Crazy Willie stopped at the entrance to the field, leaning against a large pine tree, and watched the coordinated effort of parking the trucks, and then beginning to unload.  He continued to watch in amazement as large rolls of fabric were brought out and teams of men hauled large poles out of the inside of the large trucks, placing them on the ground before rolling to tarps out over them.  Now sitting with his back to the tree and nibbling on a long piece of grass, he watched as with the effort of 20+ men, a tent was erected inside the perimeter of the trucks.

About that time, Crazy Willie heard sounds that made him freeze in position.  First this large screaming sound, somewhat like one of the alley cats he had heard fighting in the alleyways, but so much deeper in sound.  But following that sound was something that mimicked that large horn that they play in the marching bands at parades…..but so much louder.  Crazy Willie quickly stood up and moved around to the backside of the tree, keeping it between him and the scary sounds.  Looking around, none of the men seemed scared.  About that time, one of the panels of the trucks swung open and there stood this tabby cat….but it was huge.  Crazy Willie remembered being told about this thing called a tiger in school before he dropped out, but the black and white drawings he had seen were nothing like this.  Then the screaming sound came out once again and it was from the tabby cat.  And there was a black man, smoking a cigar,  standing right in front of the cage with his back to the scary creature.  Scared for the man, Crazy Willie decided that he would do something to help.  Sprinting toward the man, he knew that the right thing to do was to get him away from the scary tabby cat and off to a distance. 

The foreman for the circus set up crew is standing near the tiger cage, watching the progress as the last of the tent ropes are secured.  He notices a boy running toward him at a full sprint and cocks his head to the side as he takes a long drag on his cigar.  Thinking to himself “What the hell is this lad doing?”, he continues to watch as the kid appears to be coming right at him.  Just 10 ft from him, the boy trips on a mound of grass, losing his balance and his arms begin to cartwheel.  The foreman can see that the boy is going to run right into him and before he can move, the boy makes impact, taking out the foreman at the knees, resulting in both of them falling onto the grass and mud in a pile of legs and arms.

Once recovered, the foreman grabs the boy by the throat and says “What in the hell are you doing boy?  Say it quick before I slap the shit out of you!”  The breathless Crazy Willie replies “Sir, sir, there’s a monster tabby cat behind you and I’m trying to save you!”  The foreman scrunches his eyes and looks behind at the tiger sitting in the cage that is now just watching these two lying on the ground.  The foreman shakes his head and says “Dumbass, that’s a tiger, not a monster tabby cat.  And those eyes….You retarded or something?”  Standing up, still keeping his hand around the boy’s throat, the foreman looks down to see his freshly lit cigar is broken in half and lying in the mud.  The foreman glares at Crazy Willie and says “Son, I get one cigar for each performance.  You just ruined mine only cigar for this performance in Portland and you’ll either buy me another or work it off!  And since I’m guessing you have no money, you can work for me the rest of the day?  Otherwise, I’m gonna feed you to my friend!”.  Upon saying that, the foreman, not trying not to grin, turns the boy so he can see the tiger watch him intently.  Then to drive home the point, the foreman starts dragging the boy toward the cage only to see pure terror on his face as he tries to break free of the hand around his throat.  Crazy Willie cries out “Anything, I’ll do anything, just don’t feed me to the monster!”. 

At that, the foreman stops and says “Well, then, we have a deal” and stops in his tracks.  Continuing, “So, let’s start off with your name.  Mine is Jimbojunya and you owe me, got it!”  Shaking his head in agreement, Crazy Willie states his name and that he lives in Portland, all of which come out very rapidly as the adrenaline of being so near the tiger have taken their toll.  Jimbojunya follows up “Well, the name fits, especially with those eyes.  Are you looking at me or over there?” as he leans in closer to inspect the kid.  Then looking over his shoulder to see possibly what the other eye is watching, Jimbojunya begins to laugh.  “So, you want some of that boy?” states Jimbojunya as he releases his grip on the boys throat and then turns and begins walking in the direction he had just looked.  Crazy Willie exasperates “No sir, I was looking at you.  Promise”.  Jimbojunya just continues to laugh and walk and says “Sure young one, I have a treat for you.  Come on now…You owe man and you get to do my least favorite task!”.

About that time, the tiger begins pacing, watching Crazy Willie the whole time.  Terror fills him and he sprints after the foreman and falls in behind him as the two head toward a trailer.  Jimbojunya stops outside a closed door and above the door are the words written “Worlds Only Bearded Lady”.  Of course Crazy Willie has no idea what this says and the foreman just continues to look from the words on the trailer and back to the boy.  Waiting for a reaction, finally Jimbojunya squints his eyes and says “Well?  Know what this is?”  When Crazy Willie shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head “No”, Jimbojunya mutters under his breathe “Definitely retarded!”.  Continuing, “Alright boy, one of my jobs is to key Missy happy.  And she’s never happy. But she does like her feet rubbed.  So, your job for the next two hours is to rub Missy’s feet.  You do this and I’ll call it a deal.  Hell son, you do this and I’ll even teach you how to play dice!”  Unsure what to think, Crazy Willie says “Ok…That’s not so bad”  At that, Jimbojunya raps on the door three times and the door opens.  A silohette is seen within the trailer and a scratchy womans voice says “What the fuck you want JUMBO?”.  Jimbojunya shakes his head and has a grin on his face as he says “Missy, unfortunately, I’m busy since we are running late.  This boy has come to rub your feet.”  With that, Jumbojunya opens the door a little more, grabs Crazy Willie by the shoulder, and pushes him inside the doorway.

Once inside and the door closed, Crazy Willie looks around at a single room with numerous dresses and feather boas hanging from the walls.  The air is thick with cigarette smoke and cheap sweet smelling perfume.  As he continues to look around, purposely not looking at the woman, he tries to identify dangers as he’s terrified.  Then turning toward the woman, keeping his eyes to the floor, he begins to take in the reality of the situation.  The woman is wearing nothing more than a white mid-thigh under garment and a black lace bra.  The first time seeing this much of a woman’s body, Crazy Willie feels both aroused and embarrassed as his heart begins to race and his cheeks turn a bright red.  Then he looks up to her face and any sort of lust is completely gone as he sees a long, shaggy beard that has been braided and pulled back and clipped to her bra strap on top of her shoulder.  With a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and no obvious concern about showing some much flesh to the young man, she comments “Well, well, well, what do you have here?  About time JimboJunya does something that makes me happy!  Come over here and sit on this stool.”  The bearded woman moves back and plops down in an oversized chair and takes the cigarette from her lips after a long drag, using the cigarette as a pointer to the stool in front of her chair.  Reluctantly, Crazy Willie move farther into the room and sits down.  As he moves through the area the woman had previous stood, the strong fragrance of the sweet perfume begins to make him nauseous. 

Sitting down, Crazy Willie keeps his eyes to the ground in what she believes is a sign of embarrassment.  But in truth, Crazy Willie is scared to death of this woman with the beard as his is something from a nightmare.   The woman instructs “Ok, turn sideways a little so I can rest my foot on your leg.  Boy, what in the hell is wrong with your eyes?  Did Jimbojunya hire you to work the circus?”  In response, Crazy Willie simply turned on the stool while shaking his head side the side.  Continuing, she says “Well boy, you may have a future on the road with us.  That is if you are any good at rubbing my feet!”  With that, the bearded woman lifts up her foot and places her foot on Crazy Willies lap.   Shifting focus to the feet, Crazy Willie sees misshapen toes with dark, crusty toe nails that give off an odor that cuts through the perfume fragrance.  The odor smells something between a trash can on a summer day and the bathroom toilet down at the diner that he sometimes has to sneak into when walking around the city.  Placing the cigarette back between her lips, the bearded woman reaches over and grabs a bottle that is filled with a white liquid and says “Here, rub this on my feet and ankles.”  Crazy Willie applies the liquid and gently begins to rub.  As he rubs, the bearded woman continues to stare at him, taking long drags on her cigarette and then blowing the smoke directly in his direction.  Then the nervous tension rises as she begins to moan and she says “Oh…..Oh boy….That’s just the way I like it”.  Crazy Willie just wants this to end and wonders if the door is locked if he tries to run.  Then he feels her shifting her leg and looks over to see that she has crushed out her cigarette.  This is followed by her spreading her legs slightly, keeping one foot on Crazy Willies leg and the other now resting on the stool seat, touching his backside.  Then she moans again, but louder “Aaaahhhhh….Just like that” and moves one hand down between her legs.  Crazy Willie is beginning to shake uncontrollably as the flight instinct is rising more and more within his subconscious.  The bearded woman then says “Faster boy, faster…..ahhhhhh”.  And with that Crazy Willie cannot take any more and in one fluid motion, jumps up off the stool and runs for the door.  Luckily for him, the door was unlocked and flew open as he exploded from the trailer.  At a full sprint, he moved past a surprised JimboJunya and out the entrance of the property.

As Jimbojunya watches the boy run away, he hears a voice from behind him say “Jimbojunya, I still need my other foot rubbed.  Get your ass in here and make me happy!”  Jimbojunya cringes before turning around and heading toward the bearded woman’s open door.

 Jimbo Knocks on the door and say's to himself! Hey it aint the face ya Gotta Fuck its the Fuck ya Gotta Face!

Sorry for the next sucker! as Jimbo see's the list of men the beared lady will have that evening on a Chalk Board! JimboJunya number one as always ohhh!!!

 Looks like BlueGoose  has sloppy seconds!

Sorry about his Luck!

 Lucky I showered last week!!!

“WILLIE, COME DOWN HERE” is the voice Crazy Willie hears as he’s lying on his bed, day dreaming about catching the biggest fish ever.  Knowing his mom must be down in the kitchen from the wonderful smells in the air, he leaves his room and runs down the stairs, jumping past the last four to land onto the carpeted entry way.  Turning a corner, he sees his mom standing near the sink.

Sensing his arrive, Crazy Willie’s mom says “Hon, I want to make a pie for dessert.  But I forgot to get apples.  Can you run down to the store and get me six Granny Smith apples?”

Seeing him nod yes and knowing her son, she asked “Do you know what Granny Smith apples look like?”

Crazy Willie quickly respond “Of course I do.  You want old shriveled up apples”.

Taking a deep breath as she does so many times when talking with Crazy Willie, she says “No Willie.  Granny Smith apples are green.  And I don’t want them old.  I want them fresh”.

Crazy Willie frowns and says “You make things so difficult.  If you wanted green apples, why call them Grandma Smith apples?”

Smiling and shaking her head, she replies “That would be too easy and you’re way too smart.  Just get me six green applies”.  She then hands Willie a quarter and without a hesitation, Crazy Willie turns and quickly leave the house.

The walk from his home to the store was about a mile.  Within minutes, Crazy Willie was back to day dreaming about the large fish once again.  Imagining how he would get his picture in the paper and everyone would tell him how good he was at fishing had him grinning from ear to ear as he approached the grocery store.

Then Crazy Willie notices several nice cars pull up in front of a hangout of the “Suits”.  His mom has always told him to stay away from the “Suits” as they will have him do things that will get him in alot of trouble.  Curious as always, Crazy Willie watched from a distance and marveled at all the fancy cars that had showed up in this run down part of Portland.  Wanting to get a better view, he walked closer, as the cars parked, one after another in front of the old building.  Then he notices a man he had seen before.  It was Jimbojunya from the circus and the very scary man-lady.  Jimbojunya stepped out of a car and had lit the biggest cigar that Crazy Willie had ever seen.  Crazy Willie stepped to the side of a car so that he would remain unseen by the circus foreman.

Then men began pouring out of the cars, all wearing clothing that put the “Suits” to shame.  Each of them even looked like they had just taken a bath or shower and recently shaved.   I wonder if these are celebrities, or something crossed Crazy Willie as each of the individuals appeared to have a job upon exiting their car.  A few went to the sides of the building and peered around as if looking for something.  The larger ones moved to the fancy Cadillac with Jimbojunya in the middle of the group and just stood with their back to the car.

As Crazy Willie watched in awe, one of the individuals walked up in front of him and said “Hey Cross Eye, time for you to leave” and was pointing down the street toward the store.  Crazy WIllie looked up as if he didn’t understand and then back and the entourage forming around the Cadillac.  The man repeated “Did you hear what I said dumbass?  You stupid or something?  Get moving or I’ll make you!”  Crazy Willie wanted to give a counter, but his curiosity had peaked when he said “Ok, I’ll move on.  Are you with a celebrity or something?”

Caught off guard, the man gave a light laugh and said “Something is right.  Tyki_Mikk is visiting from Seattle.  Now, get your ass moving”.  With the last comment, the man pulled a quarter from his pocket and tossed it toward Crazy Willie.  The toss should have been easily caught, but poor Crazy Willie just watched the coin as it flew through the air, hit him in the chest, and fell to the ground.  Looking back at the man, the man responded “You are a dumbass kid…MOVE”.

Crazy Willie picked up the quarter and ran off toward the store.  He’d met his first celebrity and couldn’t wait to tell his mom about Tyki_Mikk and thought Wonder what Tyki_Mikk does at the circus anyways?