A Legend?

Like a rodent hunched up in the corner, clutching food in tiny raised hands, he stares blankly from his dark eyes that are set deeply in their hollow sockets. His greasy dark hair is slicked tight to his forehead while his whiskery jaw rapidly gyrates while chewing up his food. Boney fingers busily chase the last remnants of tuna around the inside of the circular tin and, hours later, he's naked and rolling around on the trailer floor convinced he is going to die.
Ol' Mick was a rare breed. To say he was a legend is a little overboard, but everyone in the small mountain town and surrounding areas knew him. Mick lived a peculiar life, calling home to a tiny trailer that was made even smaller by his hoarding tendancy that steadily tried to evict him out the only door. Parked far from town alongside the dirt road, Mick would sit in the doorway chain smoking cigarettes while gazing at the surrouding San Juan mountains with their soaring, jagged peaks.

Being a ditch rider during irrigation season provided a small seasonal wage and Mick took his responsibility very seriously. Each ranch has historical water rights and Mick patrolled the ditches to ensure each user was taking out their allocated amount; no more and no less. He carried a handgun on his hip and a 30-30 rifle that he referred to as his "Dirty Thirty." Laundering his few articles of clothing was ignored and was apparent as the grease and grime and body oils made his pants appear slick and his thin button-up shirt translucent.  He bathed himself as frequently as he did laundry and chain smoking cigarettes permanently stained his moustache orange from all the smoke and nicotine filtering though the whiskers.

To top off the ensemble was his trademark, antique miner's hard hat. Mick had been a hard rock miner in his younger days and the hat was dented and awfully filthy. Even during hot summer days, Mick wore his signature lid despite sweat running down his face from the heat generated on his skull due to the metallic dome.

Wintertime had Mick hole up in his trailer like a wild animal patiently waiting out the snows. His only heat source was a portable, propane fueled space heater that people knew would ignite the highly combustible hoarded mess inside the trailer and light oily Mick up like a giant wick. With no running water, his hygeine standards dropped to a sickening level during the winter months when he relieved himself in bags and simply pitched them out the door and into the snowbanks. 

Come spring, no one knew who cleaned up the mess, Mick sure didn't, but the litter would vanish.  He liked spring. Not only was his job as a ditch rider soon to begin, but he liked picking wild flowers and delivering them to many ranch wives that he had a crush on up and down the valley.

"You steal anymore water and I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!" echoed from behind the tree.

My buddy Andy had turned some water into his irrigation ditch and spun towards the voice and met Mick for the first time who was leaning out from behind a cottonwood tree while looking down the barrel of Dirty Thirty. Despite the rude, gruff and incredibly stupid first impression, Andy found a soft spot in his heart for the misfit old hermit and would stop to check on him from time to time.

One day, Mick reached up on his windowsill to finish off a can of tuna that was opened for an indeterminate amount of time. Soon, he was naked and rolling around in the trailer convinced he was about to die. Andy stumbled across the putrid mess as Mick begged to be taken to a hospital. Reluctantly, Mick was hauled to town in the front of the pickup truck where hospital employees cleaned him up and stabilized his severe food poisining.

While recovering, he convinced Andy to smuggle cigaretttes into his room where he had rigged surgical tubing from his bed and out the window and through a hole in the screen.  He'd strike a match and fill his lungs to capacity with cigarette smoke and exhale through the tubing.  This crude experiment reduced the amount of smoke, but the burning cigarette in the room quickly alerted hospital staff to Mick's shenanigans and he was busted.

Like all of us, Mick aged and his trailer was hauled into town where he sat in the doorway smoking hand rolled cigarettes and watched motorists drive alongside the trailer park.  He passed away years ago, but people still talk about quirky ol' Mick. Every time I see anything that resembles a metallic hard hat, interesting memories flood my brain while a smile takes over my face. 

Ol' Mick, you had to meet him to believe anyone like him even existed.  Maybe that does make him a legend...