by Geoff Gouveia

“You’ve seen him around town, dude.”

“Seen who?”

“The Incredible Hulk. You’ve seen him.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The homeless man, the one who punches the ground!”

I have seen a man punch the ground while walking on Main street, past the antique shops and towards the Mission Inn right before a lunch meeting with my father. In the middle of the street, between Main and Mission, a bald man in a yellow shirt held himself upright, but only just. Swaying, he had no hold on his own mind and the eyes in his head roll, mirroring the flailing of his arms. At the end of his trance, the rolling of a head on a loose neck, the sunburned baldhead stooped low as his arms swung towards the ground. I guess he has a name... the Incredible Hulk?

“Brian, wait - you’re right – I have seen him! He’s got a nickname?”

“He’s crazy, right?!” Brian grins and folds a napkin over his plate.

“Sure is.” I sip the coffee I had laced with honey. Sweet at first, the tip of my tongue curls the coffee back, swirling it before letting the bitterness coat my throat.

“I saw him yesterday. I was sitting right there.” Brian points at the seat behind us, next to the window. It faces the street and provides a vantage point of the old courthouse. “He was walking towards the shop. Elizabeth was here with me. We were talking about… well, I don’t remember. But we were talking and the poor lad came along on the street. I remember trailing off my conversation and Elizabeth looked confused. I was staring straight ahead at the Incredible Hulk. He always wears yellow, have you noticed that?”

“Now that you mention it- like warning sign, no?”

“That’s right. Anyways- he was walking towards us. Doing his routine. Elizabeth said it and I busted out laughing. She said, and I quote, ‘he’s batshit crazy.’ A sweet mouth letting out a word like that. I near spit my coffee out.” Brian chuckles as he lifts the remnants of his cup into his mouth. His elbows make their home on the table as he shifted his weight forward. With a rock backwards, he gathers his backpack in one swoop and stands.

“I’ve got to go mate. See you tomorrow?”

“Sure. I’m gonna stay a bit, draw for a second.”

“You and your drawings. See you.” Brian turns on his heels and waves to the baristas as I place a headphone in my right ear and then my left.

The table I sit at wobbles when I apply pressure from the pen into my grey notebook. A heightened tempo in the music forces the ink to flow faster onto the page, my hand becoming the sounds in visual form. Time flows through the ink, track after track plays before I pause to rest my wrist. Staring into the distance to refresh the focus of my eyes, a flicker of yellow drifts like a buoy past the break.

Is that the Incredible Hulk?

In the distance, the figure begins his weird rituals in the street.

Why do you do this?

Zigging from the left of the street through the middle to the right, he walks with stumbling steps. The yellow shirt overlays a longsleeve black one that bunches on the right elbow. His left arm holds a wadded sleeping bag that is a dirty white. The kind of white that looks lived in: slept on, abused, travelled. On his right side, the arm swayed like a tree branch in the wind. The branch-arm ended with a swollen stumpy hand. Holding nothing, it remained limp as a bud on the end of a snapped branch.

The swollen hand drooped lower than his waist and looked lame. When he closed the distance, the shiny smooth skin that bubbled up around the knuckles gave away the condition: the hand was broken.

I had that same hand in the fourth grade. Broken when I fell off my bike, the hand swelled twice its normal size. Looked like a glove filled with water but burned to the touch, flushing blood to the surface in a shiny red ball.

The Incredible Hulk’s broken hand swayed violently over a jello foundation. The feet carrying him had gelatin properties in their awkward, fluid steps, forcing his entire body out of rhythm. The shockwave begins in feet covered by busted white shoes that lead up through bloody shins into cargo pants, swaying through a skinny torso into a flimsy paper-mâché neck struggling to support a balding head. The eyes roll like a broken slot machine and the mouth hangs agape in a puppet fashion, spewing jumbled words. Though the window separated us, I felt the spazzing words translate into a conversation in my mind we would never have in person.

How did this happen to me? he asks.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

The conversation plays with the music, but interrupts when I turn back towards my drawing and rip the left earphone out. The ear, now naked, picks up the real life banter from the couple sitting at the adjacent table.

“How do you get to that point?” The man in the black beanie asks with inquisitive eyebrows.

“What point?” The woman in ripped jeans returns with half enthusiasm over her phone screen.

“Walking in the street like you’re…like you’re… what’s his name? The super hero. The big one?” He points through the window.

The woman’s head peers up from the phone and catches the glimpse of yellow swaying in the street. At first her mouth opens, then shuts with a shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t know. He’s just crazy. Crazy is as crazy does…”

Music explodes into my ear. He wanders past and the white bundle looks gray. The black under shirt vibrates against the yellow, a cautioning tale to all who pass. The swollen hand needs attention but I’m not convinced an interaction would help. He snarls towards me and then snaps back, the words letting loose from lips that have no control. As he walks past the window, the yellow floating body is an unwanted lemon marmalade that sticks to my soul. In my head, I resume the conversation between us, questioning him behind the glass:

Why are you not me? I ask.

I don’t know. I don’t know.