Jerry has always surprised me with his nuggets of practical wisdom. One day I was admiring the giant industrial can opener we use at the store. “You know there’s a way to open a can without a can opener,” he chimed in. “Oh really? How?” I wondered. He explained that traveling kids open cans by scraping them upside down against a sidewalk. The concrete wears away the lip until the lid separates from the container, allowing it to lift off. On another occasion, Jerry recommended using zip ties to temporarily fix a gear that was falling off my bike. I was amazed that the fix not only worked, but held flawlessly for 3 hours, long enough to finish my shift and go to a bike shop.
These but a few examples of Jerry’s “punk wisdom.” His intelligence, curiosity and resourcefulness have given him an understanding of the world that never ceases to amaze me. He amazes me, in part, because I realize he could pursue more in life if he wanted to. Jerry has invested several thousand dollars in his own pedicab enterprise, hauling passengers during weekends and events and employing friends who use his rig while he works at the shop. “Working for someone else is kind of like renting out your life,” he said, explaining his entrepreneurial bent, “they make way more money off your time than you do.” But most of Jerry’s entrepreneurial projects are just that – side projects.
I’ve tried asking Jerry about ideas like the “highest good” and “moral imperatives.” “If someone wrote a book about your life, what would be the common theme?” I asked. Jerry paused for a long time. We sat under a car port at his place, and a storm had rolled in. I heard a thunder clap in the distance. Rain beat on the roof as half a minute passed. “I dunno…” he said finally, and paused to consider again. “Probably like, I have actually no idea what it would be about,” he said. He admitted he was still figuring it out. He said he was only 30, that he was trying to do better than generations that came before, but in his own way, with his own priorities. He lamented having to work multiple jobs, but said he appreciated the ability to do “fun stuff,” playing music, traveling and riding bikes. I suggested that his lifestyle could be described as bum life. “I guess someone on the outside could call it that,” he said, “but it’s hard to get a good look at it.”
The fact of the matter is that Jerry doesn’t think about life in terms of the highest good or any moral imperative. The closest thing Jerry has to a life goal is collecting experience. “I’m not into having shit. I’m into doing shit,” he told me. Money and things, for Jerry, are just tools for collecting experience. He said life is a work of art, and we shape life with our experiences. “You’d be wasting it if you’re not getting after it,” he said. “Live and let live. That’s kind of the unifying theme for me.”
One night after work, Jerry and I found ourselves sitting on a bench outside Common Market. We got to talking about his favorite places: half a dozen dumpster diving spots and the best times to visit them, a rooftop from which to watch baseball games for free, and three or four hole-in-the-wall joints to get food. He told me the Shell station on South Boulevard has great fried chicken, and that the best time to go is at night, when the Asian lady who makes it best is there. I asked him where he would take his girlfriend on a date. He described his typical “punk date.” He said he’d grab an inexpensive bottle of wine and some smokes from Common Market, ride bikes Uptown and climb a parking deck or a water tower. “That’s the classy version,” he clarified. The less classy version? 1. Buy cheap alcohol. 2 Ride somewhere. 3. Consume cheap alcohol.
While Jerry seems particularly at home in the pit at a punk show, he also finds amusement in other simple ways that I imagine most of our coworkers wouldn’t even consider. One of the times Jerry and I were both at Common Market (they’re all starting to blend together), I produced a counterfeit $20 I’d accepted on delivery. I complained that I didn’t know what to do with it. I wouldn’t feel right spending it, and I wasn’t ready to throw it away. “Does anybody have any string?” he asked. Jerry had an idea. In a couple minutes we were lying in ambush, fishing for suckers with the bill lying on the sidewalk, a piece of string taped to it and hidden in a crack in the pavement. “I can’t believe how many people walk over it without even noticing!” we mused. We had a few bites but mostly enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. I was delighted that Jerry had both thought up the idea and was as into it as I was.
Jerry doesn’t have what I would describe as a fully-formed ideology. In talking about his politics, he pointed out that talking about anarchy as a political system is akin to describing “not collecting stamps” as a hobby. But for all his prolonged adolescence, this much is true about Jerry. He lives his life on his own terms, and he has fun.