The Prediction

by Kevin O’Neill

SEX!! NOW THAT I HAV YOUR ATTENSHUN COULD U SPARE SOME $? Next to the weathered piece of cardboard was an old coffee cup on the front of which a backwards dollar sign had been crudely etched by a borrowed Sharpie. The two quarters, three dimes, nickel, and several pennies previously found unattended on the sidewalk clanged against each other as their owner shook his life savings in hopes of attracting the goodwill of passing college students. When the school year began, naïve freshmen from the suburbs would gladly open their wallets to help these unfortunate people whom society had unjustly forced to the streets, but now it was February. All the homeless people, their torn leather jackets, scraggly beards, food-searching dogs, distinct scents, creepy eyes and clever signs were still there. Society had given up on them. And so had I.

Rather than continue to feel guilty about leaving this creative man to himself and none of my money, I started to head further up Telegraph Avenue towards the campus. I had a quarter in my hand from parking, but I quickly placed it back in my wallet and left. Once I passed him, the smell of weed temporarily disappeared and he let out a string of expletives. I thought they were for me and my unyielding pockets until I turned around half a minute later only to see him yelling at no one in particular.

When I reached Sproul Plaza, I was reminded of my mission for the afternoon. Exactly a year ago to the date- February 21, 2008- I was on my way to Dwinelle Hall to give a lecture on sociology when I bumped into a man handing out fliers. At five-four, he looked younger than his age, with a pure white beard that contrasted with his tanned, yet unwrinkled face. His blue tee shirt bore the markings of a radical religious cult I had briefly mentioned in a class last semester, and he had been mumbling in a language I guessed might have been Latin until I unintentionally knocked him to the pavement. Before I could apologize for disarraying his papers, he jumped at me, waving the few he had left in his hands in front of my face, giving me a paper cut on my nose. Being five minutes late already, I tried to go by him, but he slid in front of my path and started squeaking incessantly. Knowing I had no alternative, I took a handout that had been shoved into my stomach and ran as fast as my sixty-year-old body would let me, reading it only once I was safely inside. I uncrumpled the note in the hallway, and what I read would change my life: Prepare yourselves for the inevitable! On February 21, 2009, the apocalypse will occur at 3 pm.

No, of course it wouldn’t. I mean, there was always a chance it would, but February 21 was no more likely than any other date. And, for the past thousand years or so, countless “prophets” had forecasted the arrival of doomsday, only to be proven wrong when their specified date went by just as any other day. I only decided to return to Telegraph to see what this mental case would do in honor of his prediction. Some of my colleagues had told me that later that day, he began chanting in multiple languages, dancing in circles, and growling at the dogs of passersby. I may be a boring, aged Cal professor, but I know entertainment when I see it.

I checked my watch in anticipation for the event. What would he do this time? Would he remember his prophecy from a year ago and come back, attempting to save us from nuclear warfare or a cosmic rip of the universe? Fifteen more minutes and I would find out.

“Have you ever noticed that tye-dye shirts always go counterclockwise?” I looked up from my bench and to the right, startled from my reflective state and expecting to see another professor who had shown up for the quality portion of today’s entertainment. I was instead surprised to see a stranger walking by me, most likely unaware of my presence. Given his height, it was not the same stranger who had so elegantly warned me of the apocalypse, but he was a strange stranger nonetheless. If not for the deepness of his voice, I might have mistaken him for a woman, a not uncommon occurrence in this part of Berkeley, since his unkempt hair of varying shades of brown covered the entire back of his head.

No one responded to him. As the man was facing the other direction, I assumed he wasn’t speaking to me, but everyone else nearby was moving along as usual. Trying to be friendly, I gave the simplest, least controversial response possible: “No, I haven’t.”

This time, no one responded to me. The man just stood almost perfectly still in the same spot for the next minute, unwavering, as though he possessed the reaction time of a snail. A couple of times he clutched his head, like I had often seen students do in my classes, meaning he probably had a hangover. I took this moment to observe him more in depth, as I had nothing else better to do in the wake of the apocalypse. Starting from his head, I noticed that the back of his hair was tucked neatly behind the collar of his leather jacket, which he had obviously possessed for some time. Black patches covered different spots on his elbows and the sun had definitely gotten the best of not only his jacket, but his skin. Worn down khaki shorts with an enormous array of pockets failed to save my eyes from his legs, which were so hairy, I questioned the presence of skin beneath his lower body’s mane. Fortunately, long black socks extended from his ankles, which were contained in sandals that I had previously assumed went out of style in the seventies.

“It’s because the capitalists are trying to control our minds and take over the government.” It was at this moment I first realized how rough his voice was, and I imagined it had been days since he had last cleared his throat, or brushed his teeth, for that matter. He started to walk past me towards Telegraph, waving his arms in frustration at his inability to hold a conversation with someone besides himself and finally revealing his completely non-uniform attempt at a beard. He continued to rant on about various conspiracy theories, and I thought I might have heard something about military testing, but by then, I was so excited to witness such an entertaining man I may have misheard.

I was then faced with a predicament of utmost difficulty. Should I stay in Sproul Plaza, waiting for Armageddon or follow the schizophrenic man down Telegraph? I checked my watch again. I still had another ten minutes, and the apocalypse hadn’t even started yet! So I left my bench and settled on the schizoid.

Unfortunately for me, he crossed the street in front of several cars honking so loudly everyone could hear them but him, leaving me to wait an eternity at the stoplight. By the time I caught up with him, he was dancing to the Beatles hit “Let it Be” at a street stand, where a sixties nostalgist was busy blasting a boom box, which rested on a shelf next to an action figure holding a “Free the Weed” sign.

I wondered if the man I had been following had somehow managed to find the social skills necessary to converse with another of his kind. After all, the class I was teaching contained a unit on people who would act normal around their friends, yet psychologically damaged around others. However, I quickly realized that the schizoid was facing the other direction again, as though he were afraid to truly come into contact with another human being. As the song ended, he yelled, “We shoulda sent Nixon to Vietnam with his commie friends,” and turned up the street, leaving our friend the nostalgist all alone with his rainbow-colored peace-sign glasses.

A minute later, he arrived at People’s Park, Berkeley’s monument to the Free Speech Movement. Who knew that forty years later, it would be home to the homeless, specifically those who used their free speech to rant about society’s perils from last century to innocent young children who had been too young even to remember the O.J. Simpson trial? And I was about to witness this man in his natural environment. Just thinking about my potential career ramifications for publishing my observations sent shivers down my spine. Perhaps I had a chance at becoming a professor emeritus before I retired.

Finally, after an entire half-block of following the man, I arrived at the desired location with him not too far ahead. To the left were public bathrooms where the story of the Park had been etched on by true artists of graffiti and a basketball court where the only sane people in the area were engaged in an intense pickup game. To the right was a garden, tended to by the public, yet ironically located near the DRUG FREE ZONE sign. Years ago, I had a student whose midterm paper alleged that the sign was referring to free drugs; he received an A+ in my class and went on to graduate summa cum laude.

Directly in front of us were the dumpsters. The dumpsters were, in my mind, the centerpiece of People’s Park. Long ago, they had been decorated with a heart representing society and a rainbow representing peace, but now they were covered with the statements “Your Name Here,” and “I Love Weed” and the man I had been so enamored by began to search through them, humming to himself and explaining how communism had created such dumpsters.

“Where would we be without Lenin? We would be at no dumpsters. That’s what. Stalin built these dumpsters with his bare hands, but then Vietnam came to destroy them. They’re the reason we have socialism, stupid radicals leading government. These are all that are left. We’ve got our precious. Yes we do.”

If only he had been stuck in more recent times. I would pay to hear his 9/11 conspiracy theories, but alas, I was left to the olden days.

Trapped in my own nostalgia, I had missed his exact actions regarding the dumpster, but I immediately became attentive as he made the most unexpected move. While chewing on something that he may or may not have just found in the garbage, he said a subtle “good-bye” and reached into one of his many pockets. Exhausted from rummaging, he wiped his forehead with his hand, briefly moving his hair back, and exposing the side of his head for the first time, reflecting the sun with a small piece of metal curled around his ear. From then on, I understood what had been going on. I checked my watch for the first time in a while, reading 3:15. I looked up. The sky was perfectly blue with only a couple of clouds and no meteors. The sun was shining bright, but had definitely not exploded. As far as I knew, there was no nuclear war or tearing of the space-time continuum. But then I turned to the man I had met that day, and I wondered how society had created such an evil. The apocalypse hadn’t happened, but that flier was close.

Having discovered the true source of the man’s insanity, I turned to go back to the campus and prepare for my next class, but I stopped myself in the wake of an approaching female student. Seconds before her arrival, the man recoiled himself from the dumpster, reaching into his pocket again to press that dreaded button. “Hello,” he said, straightening himself and preparing to answer someone only he could hear.

The student, being the philanthropist that she was, bent down by his feet and picked up a quarter. “Excuse me sir, but I think you dropped this.”

“Uh huh. That’s great.” The woman, being completely unnoticed, placed the quarter in her purse and left, sighing in disappointment. At that moment, I decided it was time to go. Society had given up on him. And so had I.