Colorful character

It was once suggested I occassionally post about people in my hood because there's so many interesting people who live here. It's just like any other neighborhood, if you live there long enough you'll start to meet other people who've lived there for a long time too. And when I say a long time, sometimes I mean a long time.

Meet Carl. Carl is cool enough, but he scares me sometimes. I know this is mean, but he looks like that Tales from the Crypt guy. I was taking this photo on the sly so I couldn't used my flash, hence you can't see all his blackheads and many lines in his face. He claims to be 65 but I'm thinking he's probably 80.

Carl walks to the store (one block away) every day to buy something, whether it's a can of beans, a lightbulb, a bottle of Icehouse, etc. When he does, the guys start going thru their pockets cause they know what Carl is going to say. Sure enough, once he gets close enough he starts talking about how he only has .73 cents and he needs another quarter to buy green beans. He'll even pull all the change out of his pocket to show you how little he has. Of course, nobody minds. But it's funny because he's predictable.

Carl often complains that his conservator steals the money the government sends and doesn't buy him anything. We later found out this was a lie, as he told on himself when he was talking about all the new clothes his conservator keeps buying him. He doesn't like new clothes or clean ones for that matter, he prefers the ones he has on, thank you very much. We all think his conservator is smart, Carl would definitely drink away his money if he had control of it.

Dont' get me wrong, Carl is smarter than he looks. He lives in building full of seniors. He makes trips back and forth to the store buying things for the other seniors so he can keep their change. Doesn't that sound like the sneaky plan of a child?

Word on the street is Carl's upset about the Walgreens that's being built nearby, even though it's closer than the other store he visits. Why? Because "they don't sell booze!"

What else can I say about Carl? Well, not much. He really likes talking to Apollo and Big Mac plus his blackheads freak me out. So I end up staring at them the whole time he asks for money, talks about his cat, booze or well, asks for money. I didn't know people in his age bracket could have blackheads.