The Little Surfer

The Little Surfer. Or is it a Skateboard Boy? About 2016. A gift from Bryce, who was due to appear in Songs & Places, after a note he'd sent me--from Evans Hall, I think--about his life, his work. A year or more on the streets--he'd made himself into a vagrant--or rather, a member of a community of the displaced. In Oakland. No money, bad teeth, the whole deal. Photos he showed us of blasted warehouses where they'd camp, or the Bart yards. His sister rescued him once--it was that same evening--he'd been heading for class, driving a car, when someone ran into him--near Jack London Square. Vehicle totaled. He sent me a photo, as if to verify. Like a "David will miss school" note, or a doctor's affidavit--a way of making the inadvertent official. His sister went to help him. Always someone stepping in from the side... Diosa ex machina...

He was from San Diego, a neighborhood I didn't know. Surfing connections. I always feel a connection when I encounter a landsman. An immediate sympathy--as if we'd already known each other in some earlier time.

He was about to graduate. I kept finding him on my class roles, but rarely saw him. Happenstance, fate. Cut him a lot of slack, too, because I always felt he had something important to say, even as the world seemed to want to impede. He showed us landscapes made from photographs, cut by laser on small sheets of thin plywood--the grain of the wood becoming part of the burned image. Should have felt distant, but they were extremely personal. A kind of redemption.

That's what he was involved in, always, seemed mystified when the world went the other way. As when he tested positive for tuberculosis. The whole class was exposed--he'd been with us the first night.

And in the end, he graduated--I saw his picture online, wearing one of the stoles but no hat. Smiling.

I enjoyed our talks--always sensed that he understood a lot things, in his own way. One evening he gave me the wooden emblem above. Also made by laser--from a street image. Said he liked to do them as gifts for friends. There's a small safety pin on the back. I put it up on the edge of the wall in the kitchen, alongside my paintings. I see it almost everyday. Saint-Exupéry, Le petit prince. The Little Prince of the South Coast...

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