Kent was a caring hippie—the Charlie Manson of High Street with a dirty ski jacket and a prison moustache.
The year was 1992, and as the black toxic smoke billowed through the window of my truck from the burning 50-gallon barrel of God-knows-what in front of his house, he promised in all earnestness that he would pay me back for the ride. And for the linoleum flooring of my Eugene rental house that his dog had taken a disliking to.
“I’m getting the first check Tuesday,” he said, with those raised eyebrows like someone who means it.
Kent, or Kenny “Cool” or “Kind” or whatever jacked-up alias he was going by at the time told us he was the heir to a vast fortune from his well-to-do family back East. A big settlement tied up in the courts for years, you see.
But day to day, Kent had no money. Kent had no girls, looks or credentials either. But Kent had dope. And Kent had promises.
And when you’re a young rider new to the Western frontier with the haze of dread-locked pipe dreams and peace and love idealism fogging up your view of the real world you’ll be blind to a lot of shakedowns, I suppose.
“Alright then, bra, stop by when you can,” I told him. “Where’s you’re housemate anyway?”
“He should be home, his P.O. signed off on him today.”
“OK, Stay kind, brother!” I sped off through the no man’s land of Glenwood back into the night.
Soon old Kent is knocking at the door asking for a bus ticket. For a beer. For a signature for the parole board. Then for a place to stay soon making my house his home away from home.
He was the kind of guy that you avoid contact with on the street, ’cause he won’t stop

talking in your face, and will follow you right back home without thinking, like a lost puppy. Except with more of a smelly old man, rather than cute-puppy, kind of helplessness.
Next thing we know, the crusty bastard’s been there three days, then a week, offering nothing but stories of hanging out with Kesey and the gang or backstage with Jerry - stories which of course our clouded minds lapped up with eager naivete, as he indulged our stupidity to trade more cash and beer for his stolen food stamps.
But the money was gonna come. The Payoff, the Big Enchilada. Or so we believed.
“What if it’s true? What if he’s really going to come through with the fortune?” we’d occasionally muse.
Sometimes he’d whip out the court documents, the bank statements, swearing any day he was about to reap the vast millions.
But then it got old. And I’m no heartless son of a bitch, but dang, a man has his limits. The “open door” policy was not working. The close talking and street stench was scaring off the chicks and tapping our own meager 21-year-old resources. And then there was the endless parade of excuses:
“Sorry ’bout the scabies.”
“Those warrants are outdated.”
“I’m a friend of The Family.”
“Drop me off up in Sherwood. You know what they say, ‘Wanna smoke a bowl? Sher - wood.’”
“I’ll be right back with the weed.”
In the end, though, we came to realize this was not some slick con artist that was out to take advantage of some poor college students with his sophisticated chicanery. This was a petty street criminal disguised as an old hippie. Or an old hippie who’d gradually turned into a petty street criminal—a type I would soon find out constituted a sizable portion of this town formerly known as Skinner’s Mudhole.
Eventually my housemates scattered, and we escaped the vortex of Kent the caring hippie, moving to other parts of town—and finally escaping Eugene altogether.
But it was not too long ago, while cruising by a street corner in Southeast Portland, I swear I saw that familiar filthy jacket. I gunned the gas and took a chance, running the stop sign before I could make out the scrawl on his cardboard sign.