Janice inspired me to do this, and some of them will end up being repeats from her list, although some of those Liverpudlian crazies are only legends to me.

Top 10 Crazies:

10. Popeye--KC calls him Popeye. He's deaf and he bums for money on Barrington Street. When KC would walk by, Popeye would always roll up his sleeve and flex his muscles. He always told me he loved me.

9. Bra-Strap Woman--Graduates of Mahons will remember her. I used to know her name, but fuck, it's lost on me now. Big, big lady. And, well, whatever. Like Charlie (#5), she was a bit, uh, retarded. She was a thick woman with a black buzz-cut. She always came into the store while waiting for the bus. She would stand in the doorway, obsessively pulling at her bra-strap, grunting all the while. I could tell her grunting was attempting to say something, but I never understood. I tried my best to be nice, and figure it out, but I often couldn't.

8. Leroy--Sweet guy. Mentally handicapped Mahons photocopy customer. He always came in for photocopies of pictures he had. Pictures of friends and family. Most times, he would try to give me the picture and just take the bad, black and white copy. "For you, for you." No, no, it's yours, take it please. He loved me. He came in when I wasn't working one time, and gave Ali some artwork to give to me. I still have that [I think], and a picture of him with some friends.

7. Junkie Man--I'll guess that as well as crack, he's a heroin junkie. It's just that heroin does something to the user's voice; the way they speak. I call it "heroin voice". You can hear it in Nirvana and Sonic Youth. I've seen this guy wandering the streets for years. KC would often give him some change or a smoke and get into little conversations. A few years ago, we were walking past the Armouries, and he said hi to KC. "Hey, I haven't seen you around in a long time" was his response. Junkie Man explained that he had been in jail and just got out. Then he rolled up his sleeve and showed us his infected arm. I kid you not, it was VERY reminiscent of the arm in Requiem for a Dream, without the exaggeration. This wound was real; not some Hollywood concoction. He's still around. I sold him smokes this week.

6. Beeper--Another product of that town down south. An obvious product of incest, he did not look normal. I was back in high school, at 19, and in a town where I knew no one. The people I had met were all home for the summer, and they didn't live here anymore. But at the same time, I wasn't there to make friends, and I basically spent most of my time alone. I'd go to class, go to the cage for cigarettes, and eat lunch in the hall. I witnessed the bullying of Beeper daily. I don't even know what his name was. Sometimes, I'd go for a smoke with him around the school, hiding from bullies. When I would ask his name, he'd always say "Just call me Beeper, everyone does." He talked cars a lot. I don't know much about cars, and I don't actually care to. Then one day, he told me that if anything happened with me and my boyfriend, he'd like to go out with me, "in a second". I didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm STILL with KC and it's 6 years later, and he was inbred. I don't mean to be discriminatory, but come on, his parents were close relatives and his ears were satellite dishes..., his eyes were too close together..., cars...,... Last I heard, he was now a father. The mother is of similar upbringing and the baby has a hole in his heart and other health problems.

5. Charlie--"Hi. Hi. Go home." You know, he never really said go home to me much. I think he liked me. He used to ride around Liverpool on a bike with a little radio. One day, at The Apartment, I saw him play guitar and sing. Someone video taped it [Bursey, maybe]. When KC worked at Lane's, Charlie would always go into the dish-pit and tell KC to go home. Then he would start washing dishes.

4. Lesbian Seagull--This is a fella I was friends with in Bedford. He was completely nuts. A conspiracy theorist who lived in the woods and believed in supernatural stuff. One morning, coming down from acid, I went on a roach hunt with him. This involved going to all the prime pot-smoking spots in town. We came home with quite a lot. In Clayton Park, Jason Wamboldt gave him his nickname. It fit with his sleek, feminine physique, long hair, and other seagull-like qualities [dirty, scavenger, anemic]. He was nice, and I kinda feel bad putting him on the list, but ultimately he belongs; his mother kicked him out because he was interfering with her connections with the spirits.

3. Dancin' Mike--I used to always see this guy at Cousin's and the Mokka. KC would talk to him at great length; he likes talking to crazy people. I usually felt uncomfortable and drank my coffee. Now I see him, often at Reflections, and I see why people call him Dancin' Mike. The first week at my job, I saw him befriend a couple of tourists a lead them to the Split Crow.

2. Rob Smith--I hear he went crazy from acid. Reportedly, he was fairly normal beforehand, but there was always something a little off. I guess he would bring people to his place, where he would smoke weed with them and then promptly throw up. He was the first person I met in Liverpool. At Tim Hortons. We went back to his place and smoked pot. He didn't throw up. We'd always go for a walk with him if we bumped into him. I remember dragging him back to the Pizzeria for coffee. He sat there and turned red, shaking. He disappeared for a year or two. Then I saw him drifting around town. I saw him walking sketchily down Cunard, reading Tarot cards at the library, and one time, he came into Dairy Queen to say hi and show me his stitches. Apparently, he was very drunk and got kicked out of Dooly's, in L-dot. He was so angry, he beat up the car that he thought belonged to the guy that gave him the boot. He knuckles were mush.

1. Charlie Ashcroft--Oh man. He used to sit out in front of the liquor store, in Liverpool, busking with an accordion. He would talk to KC for hours upon hours, if allowed to. He was a tiny, feral cat of a man. We'd go back to his place, where we'd be subjected to countless recordings of him and his friends, and conversation about gear and numbers and volume. Meanwhile, I'd be suffocating on the horrid cat-piss stench. You know the smell if you've ever been in a house where there is a dirty litter box, but multiply anything you can imagine by about a thousand times. This guy has probably had hundreds of cats in and out of his house, and they ALL used the carpet. The whole time, his crazy, drunk wife would be laying around in their bedroom. Once, she pulled a shotgun on KC and his friends.

And now that I've finally completed my list, I wish I could add more. I had trouble coming up with the right 10, and now I can think of others. People I went to school with last year, some friends of mine (but I would never name them here), the deaf note-passer guy that J mentioned, the girl that laughs for no reason and talks to herself, that guy that thought my friends and I were stalking him and we thought the same of him, and even my own, dear old Grandma. But I guess those are stories for another day.