Web Exclusive: "Peanuts"

I met Lee in the fall of 1997. He squatted at the MUNI bus stop shelter catty-corner to my house on Haight and Laguna, across from the UC Berkeley Extension Center in San Francisco’s Lower Haight. The outbound 6 Parnasus, 7 Haight and 71 Haight/Noreaga lines all stopped at this corner.

Lee was a tall, exceptionally fit, dark-skinned brother, mid-to-late forties, with natty shoulder-length dreads, which he usually kept tucked beneath a soiled Rastafarian tam hat, and a long, scraggly beard to match. He was missing most of his top and bottom front teeth and half of his left thumb.

I was eighteen years old at the time and living in a sectioned off hallway in the middle flat of a three-unit ramshackle Victorian. The hallway was nicknamed “The Taco” because the walls were so narrow that my hand-me-down futon mattress folded up on both sides resembling a taco shell. The hallway cost me $150 a month, basic utilities included.

The living situation was actually quite suitable for me back then. I worked only part-time in the mornings at a bagel shop in the Financial District, making just enough to get by. Although I was broke, I was content. I had ample time each afternoon to skateboard with my friends, plenty of bagels and cream cheese to keep my stomach full, and a running tab at the local corner store.

Lee was without question one of the hardest working recyclers in all of San Francisco. He had Upper and Lower Haight, Hayes Valley, Panhandle, Western Addition, Upper Market/Castro and the Dolores Park area on lockdown, scavenging the recycling from these neighborhoods hours before the garbage men arrived. Afterwards, he cashed the recycling in at the buy-back center in the Safeway parking lot on Market and Church, and then spent his afternoons and evenings lounging at the bus stop shelter by my house, smoking rollie cigarettes and weed and listening to the classic soul and R&B station on his portable radio.

One evening, while waiting for the bus to Upper Haight, Lee told me that he had been living on the streets of S.F. for over fifteen years. I know he made decent money recycling, probably as much or more than I was making at the bagel shop, so why he remained homeless, I don’t know. I’m guessing he preferred it. During this same conversation, Lee added that the only three things he ever spent money on were tobacco, weed and batteries for his radio. That’s it. He said he scavenged everything else, including food, from out of the trash.

In the summer of 2000, my landlord sold the old Victorian to a real-estate developer from Southern California. The new owner, who planned to occupy the building while he remodeled, was quick to give me, my roommates and the other tenants in the building the boot.

I ended up couch and floor surfing for a month before finding an affordable room in a skate house in the city’s Outer Richmond District, about twenty blocks from Ocean Beach.

Close to four months went by before I saw Lee again. It was a Thursday afternoon. I had just finished eating a late lunch by myself at Squat & Gobble Cafe in Upper Haight. Lee was thumbing through a newspaper on the corner of Haight and Masonic, next to the 6 Parnasus/43 Masonic bus stop shelter. He had five large, heavy-duty garbage bags overflowing with recycling tied down to his cart.

I was feeling down this particular day because I had just received word two days earlier that my old skate buddy, Rubin “Peanuts” Grimes, died of a heroin overdose. The news didn’t come as much of a surprise. It was only a matter of time, really. He overdosed twice before. I was scheduled to leave town early the following morning to attend the funeral on Sunday.

Rubin and I were the same age. We actually started skateboarding together in the sixth grade. His nickname was “Peanuts” because he was obsessed with the Charles Schulz Peanuts comics. Growing up, he had a large bulletin board in his bedroom that was covered with Peanuts cartoon newspaper clippings. Senior year, after turning eighteen, Rubin took his Peanuts obsession to a whole other level by getting himself a tattoo on his right-shoulder of Snoopy (as “Joe Cool”) doing a wheelie on a skateboard. The tattoo was ridiculously corny looking, but at the same time fitting.

Rubin was a natural on the skateboard, definitely good enough in the mid 90s be sponsored, but stopped entirely our senior year of high school to shoot junk full time. He started dabbling with the drug the summer before, snorting a little here, smoking a little there. By mid-school year, he was shooting it into his veins. It was all down hill from there. He never did graduate high school.

Pretty much everyone had long since given up on Rubin, his family included.

Although Rubin and I lived in different states, we talked on the phone every so often. We’d reminisce about the old days, and he would always tell me that he was going to kick junk and start skating again, maybe even come visit me in San Francisco, but that obviously never happened.

Given the circumstances, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to socialize with anyone, but decided I would at least say “Hi” to Lee before heading back to the pad to pack for my trip.

“What up, Lee?” I said as I approached the bus stop.

An immense smile came over Lee’s face, revealing his missing front teeth. “How the hell are you, my man?” He replied, then folded the crumpled newspaper he was reading in half and tossed it in his cart.

We shook hands.

“I’m doing all right,” I said forcing a smile, trying hard not to look sad. “How ‘bout yourself?”

“I’m blessed,” he replied, pointing towards the bags of recycling tied down to his cart. “Too blessed to be stressed, my man. Business is good.”

“I can see that.”

“So where you been hiding?” Lee asked. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I moved. The landlord sold the building and the new owner -- some real-estate developer from SoCal -- gave us the boot. I’m living out in the Avenues now, Richmond side, near Ocean Beach. It’s cool. Much quieter than the Haight, you know.”

“Well, I’m glad I finally ran into you, my man,” he said. “I got something for ya’. Been holding onto it now for like two months.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Just a sec,” Lee said smiling, then dug deep into the bottom of his cart and pulled out an old beat-up skateboard.

“Here you go,” he said, handing me the board. “I found it in the trash over on McAllister, just up from Fillmore.”

All at once, I felt extremely emotional, like I was going to have a full-on breakdown. The skateboard was a Peanuts-themed Nash from the mid-80s. The faded, scratched and peeling graphics on the bottom were of Snoopy (as “Joe Cool”) sporting shades, a Hawaiian shirt, jam shorts and full pads, busting an ollie off the side of his doghouse, with Woodstock, also wearing helmet and full pads, stunting around on skateboard in the background. The die-cut griptape on the top of the board read “Joe Cool” in bubble letters. The trucks, bearing and bolts were rusty; the red wheels coned.

“So what do you think?” Lee asked. “I mean, I don’t know nothin’ about skateboards, but it sure looks like a pretty good one to me.”

So much was going through my mind that I could barely speak, but somehow, in a shaky voice, managed to murmur, “I love it.”

Says Lee, “Man, can you believe someone would throw a good board like that out?”