My neighborhood is like most in Marin, suburban-sedate, a combination of young families, working people, the elderly which, of course, includes me and my wife of sixty-two years. Architecturally, we live in a mix of modest, pre-War, owner-built houses and modest post-War building-boom houses erected by licensed contractors. Up through the 1960s most housing in Marin went for well under $40,000.
There are, as the nation knows, Marin enclaves of very wealthy people whose cumulative fortunes put Marin in the top national tier of annual average incomes. But most residents are people of modest means and, in my neighborhood, there's a morning exodus of paycheck commuters replaced all over Marin by an influx of Mexican housekeepers and landscapers from the dense poor neighborhoods of the Canal and from Richmond and Oakland. (Canal housing is much like the crowded immigrant apartment buildings of South Ukiah and rent gouges the same Hispanic demographic.)
Here in the Brookside neighborhood, it's so quiet even a barking dog is an anomaly, although much of Marin is an open-air dog park and also something of an open-air game reserve, with deer and turkeys strolling the early morning streets, and coyotes a common sight. The human fauna is silent round the clock.
Except for Phil.
At least I think his name is Phil. I've seen notes on curbside piles of free stuff asking “Phil” not to make a mess out of the give aways, and one morning I heard a woman yell, “Phil! Leave my garbage cans alone!”
I've since learned that Phil lives about a half-mile north of me in a “Prop 13 house,” meaning he's inherited his modest home because property taxes were frozen at a time people were being literally taxed out of their homes to fund burgeoning public bureaucracies. Ordinary home owners benefitted mightily from Prop 13, although it was mostly a tax give away to corporate property owners.There are lots of Prop 13 properties in Marin, out of which you'll see an ancient flower child like Phil emerge who might otherwise be homeless.
Phil's place is a rather jarring sight among the scrupulously maintained properties of his immediate neighbors. In fact, his lot is a jumble of abandoned vehicles and dying vegetation offset by several American flags. Assuming his house — a two-bedroom, one-bath faded blue clapboard — is still habitable, the house and its large lot are worth well over $1 million. The lot by itself would bring a cool mil, such is property inflation in one of the richest counties in the country.
A wiry, eclectically clad six-footer, Phil's bouncing gait carries this living West Marin landmark great distances every day.
Some of us know him from wild personal encounters.
Phil is at the corner, booming at two people working in their yard: “Happy Anniversary, my fellow citizens!” He unbuttons his coat and sticks his chest out: “See what's on my shirt?” Skulls? the man asks. Phil beams: “Two skulls. The pirate life. I graduated from Drake in 1969, and have been pillaging the high seas ever since!” He thrusts his coat shut, as if he said too much, and continues hollering and marching down the street. Phil never lingers. He always moves quickly on after saying what he has to say.
I encounter him often because I'm up early when Phil is also often on the move. One memorable morning, as I mutely tried to explain the hole in my throat, Phil impulsively hugged me.
Another morning, Phil is strutting down the middle of the road like a drum major, and shouting: “I was at Jack London's old place, and fell into an artesian well. They had to use a whale bone to fish me out!” It’s before dawn. Phil is headed away from Fairfax and towards his house. Suddenly he appears like a sprite in the dark, cackling and clutching a box of some kind. He sees me and says, “There you are! Eight miles, I've been walking. All the way from a homeless encampment where my friend is living.” He makes a face and theatrically shivers. “They were drinking vodka, vile stuff! Anyway, they pass me the bottle so I take a swig, being polite. Then a gust of wind came outta nowhere and blew my friend’s tent down, and now he’s scrambling to tie it all back down, all his stuff is blowing everywhere, and they’re drinking that cheap vodka. And then another guy gives me these boots.” He extends the shoe box he’s holding and takes off the lid. “Pristine, and just my size!” It’s five in the morning and he’s shouting in a friendly way. “Eight miles I've been walking! Man, I hate vodka, but I got these boots!”
There are locals less amused by Phil. Upon watching a woman bend over to pick up her German Shepherd’s waste, Phil yells: “Dog shit, full of shit, you're a shit!” Never once breaking stride. In Marin, NorCal’s dog capitol, Phil’s canine condemnation is rare blasphemy. And a visiting nurse told me she felt “absolutely terrified” by Phil one morning when he suddenly loomed up at her car window with a maniacal grin on his face. “I think he should be locked up,” the nurse told me.
I didn't agree, although I sympathized. When women feel menaced they usually are menaced. But I think Phil is a local treasure, a rare bit of animation and humor in a county that can seem more like a mausoleum than a place where people live out their lives.
Be First to Comment