I don’t believe anyone knew his actual name but as kids we called him Smiley Jesus. You would only see him bare foot leisurely wondering through my and surrounding neighborhoods in summer. Besides the bare feet he also preferred to be shirtless wearing a red pair of 1970 high school gym class shorts like a personal uniform. Obviously looking like the traditional white version of christianity’s Jesus along with his penchant for constantly smiling earned him the nickname Smiley Jesus.
I found out from my father years down times long twisting road a basic backstory biography about Smily Jesus. First off he didn’t find ANY OF THIS OUT for Smiley Jesus NEVER spoke a single word as far as any of us knew he just paced around smiling and not bothering anyone at all.
My father had found out from some of our neighbors that Smiley Jesus occasionally mowed various peoples lawn for cheap. My father admitted he had hired Smiley Jesus to cut our lawn BUT said it was by far the strangest social interaction of his life. My father went on to explain that Smiley Jesus only spoke a sentence or two max and was unable to answer basic questions pertaining to cutting lawns he would just stare vacantly not saying a single thing. Also in spite of the reference no one told my father Smiley Jesus’s real name ,and he never found it out on his own. Some how the two of them managed to do business so to speak a few times over the summers.
Now a friend of our next door neighbor was in fact also a dear friend of Smiley Jesus’s family and knew what his story actually in fact was. Again his actual name was not mentioned as he was referred to during the conversation as he and the story’s bottom line was this. Smiley Jesus was a strait A student (that was a member of even fucking club and School events) a well rounded over achiever who upon graduating high school was accepted to Princeton University back in the late 60’s. Smiley Jesus excelled in chemistry (on a rocket scientist level) and had access to a full laboratory ,and he for some unknown reason started manufacturing LSD. That was until one batch he made was systematically fucked up, or in plain english a “bad batch”. Apparently Smiley Jesus didn’t know about or decided not to use a volunteer genie pig and tested his product personally. Needless to say he totally fried his fucking brain and destroyed any possible future he had.
I’m ending the story there with no wise life lesson or tragic hero sob story, or cautionary tale shit. The guy made a bad life decision and fucked over his life.