The HOA warned us of a homeless man in the woods. 20 years later, Charles and I are still friends
The first time I heard about the homeless man who lives in the vast urban forest in southeast Dallas was at a neighborhood homeowners association meeting in the late 1990s. For the next year, 1999-2000, I observed Jim Miller Road, where he allegedly walked daily on his way there. It was another four years before he let me ride. His name was Karl.
Charles was effectively wild after years off the net, so we barely talked while I treated it like a routine. I dropped him off at an intersection near Fair Park, where he went on a mission for lunch Monday through Friday.
Over time, I learned to find the rhythm to be his friend. Learning to feel your limits while realizing the need to learn, then stick to my own.
Most of all, however, I saw my friend Charles as a time capsule relic from the past century, held in abeyance by the incongruous world of this futuristic century. He was already living in the forest when the computer became the household norm. The smartphone confuses him, not to mention social media, where I started posting what became the Charles and Randall Chronicles after 2008. Charles never really got my name.
When two people become one-on-one friends, inside humor can develop. It was a dry joke exchange with Charles, both youthful absurdity and lovingly funny.
Once, when God knows how many bags of aluminum cans he’d been collecting for sale, I asked him how much he was making. When he told me $ 71, I said, “Charles, you’re going to live like a pasha.”
His reaction was as the words I said freeze through his eyes and mind like headlines on CNN before repeating, “Live like a pasha”.
Randall: “Yes. Like a pasha “
Charles: “I don’t think I’m a pasha.”
Randall: “Well, Charles, it’s like the old TV show Queen For A Day, where after all the cans we sold you can be a pasha for a week.”
Charles (with a boyish grin): “Pascha for a week. That’s a lot of french fries. “
Ultimately, I saw that Charles was likely well on the autism scale as he became progressively schizophrenic. He wasn’t comfortable anywhere, but he was an insatiable eater.
Enter Golden Corral, where I would take him every Tuesday for years. He would be waiting on the corner at 1 p.m. Through Golden Corral in Mesquite, I was able to help him feel comfortable in public spaces. Nobody stared at him at the Golden Corral, where we always sat in the far corner.
Christmas became important. I reached the top of the hill and parked to talk to our Tarzan yodeler in the middle of the darkest frozen fog, “Char-Ules,” until he appeared to be housed at the Hyatt for Christmas and later at the Omni Hotel, courtesy of Eve SoupMan people. He avoided eye contact, restless with emotions and anticipation and said, “I started crying. I didn’t know if you would come. “
In 2018 I started creating the Charles Dollar Tree on the way to his warehouse, which he would find when he returned on Christmas Day. Covered with 100 brightly colored envelopes my Facebook readers had sent and fastened the cards bottom up with jewel-colored plastic clothespins that held $ 1 each.
My assistant during this process was the little black cat Charles rescued from the golf course one night when he heard her cry. The cat he called zombie disappeared on New Year’s Day 2019.
In 2015, a handsome blonde German Shepherd named Sid adopted Charles. Through donations, I was able to get Sid his syringes and castration, as well as an oversized insulated dog house that Charles was sure Sid would never use.
Charles strokes his dog Sid.(Rawlins Gilliland / special article)
Sid loved it. It was nice to see this wild dog and the wild man. But like most dreams with Charles, it shouldn’t be. When Sid was killed by a car after following Charles, it was Facebook friends who helped me get the now decaying dog to the vet because Charles couldn’t accept that his dog was dead.
No good dream went unpunished. This story broke the hearts of both Charles and Randall together.
For years I sought medical help from Charles for a double hernia diagnosed in Stew Pot. Charles has detested doctors since he was in mental hospitals, so it involved tricky begging and golden corral bribery on my part.
At the height of this attempt, the surgeon at Parkland Hospital was blatantly condescending when I tried to inform her about aspects of Charles’ life and assured her that I would take care of him after the operation until he recovered.
Her response was lukewarm and made me lean forward and ask her through clenched teeth, “Do you really believe that I, a retired Neiman Marcus manager, wake up in the morning thinking, ‘What sounds good today, Rawlins’ and The answer is, “Get your homeless friend Charles and drive to Parkland Hospital and wait for hours in a series of doctor waiting rooms. That sounds fun!'”
That was that.
In 2020 I was able to call Charles’ mother in Louisiana by chance. It didn’t go well. She told me I should have called the police.
When I said they put him in a mental hospital, she said, “Isn’t he where he belongs?”
I offered my phone to Charles to call her, but he declined. She later died. Charles’ younger brother Steve was able to call me after following that previous call, and we have known each other ever since. Charles’ siblings believed him dead. He is now standing to inherit a substantial sum. My 21 year old job is done.
When talking about the homeless, I wonder how “they” are viewed as a monolith. We are talking about a million variants; those who have bottomed out awkwardly, those who suffer from mental illness, those who are in chronic PTSD panic.
What I learned when I became the brotherly friend of the man my 1999 HOA made sound like a scary creature is that these are real people. Some damaged, some ruined.
I suppose my souvenir was remembering the time Charles gave me a Hallmark card on which he wrote, “To my friend Randall. I think you are my friend I never had a boyfriend. “
Rawlins Gilliland is a Dallas-based writer. He wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News.
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