An unlikely encounter

We recently watched a movie in which a character was named Mikey. That’s a little kid’s name made famous in an old cereal commercial, ‘Look Mikey likes it!’ In this movie, the character, a 22-year-old, actually introduced himself by that name. Supposedly, it made him lovable, though immature.

That character brought up a memory of another Mikey from our past. At first, the nickname was said fondly, later, sarcastically. This Mikey was a former NASA engineer who gave up his stable job after the Challenger disaster and was living in his VW van. He worked as a handy man and would not only fix what we asked, but go out of his way to repair other things, usually without asking for pay. He would house-sit, though he preferred to sleep in his van in the driveway.

He became a friend and would hang around for weeks, then disappear for weeks or months, only to return and tell us stories of meeting celebrities while working as an extra on movies. We once saw him sweeping the floor in a movie and nearly fell off the couch laughing. He also did a lot of volunteer work with animal and environmental groups. Even though he was well qualified for a lot of regular, well paying jobs and was offered full-time work on occasion, he rejected that life, preferring his vagabond style.

Our relationship with him worked out fairly well for years. Mikey was incredibly adept at fixing anything and saved us money, or so it seemed. He was also good with older people serving as a companion and helper. Trish’s father really liked him.

That was the good Mikey. He was a friend, and a lot of help. Later, the other Mikey took shape, one that gradually shifted from being a helper to a self-appointed ‘manager.’ We noticed that he would no longer do what we asked,  but do other things around the house that he thought were more important. He would also leave a lot of his stuff in our garage. Then he started telling us what needed to be done, attempting to run our lives.

Well, that didn’t last. We realized that we had created a monster, we were depending so much on his help – especially with Trish’s parents – that he was taking advantage of us. He was living off us and bossing us around. But we didn’t become freelance writers in order to hire a boss. So we told him to leave and lost a friend, who was no longer a friend, but an annoying pest.

It was a great relief to have him out of our lives. Then, months later, I started thinking that I was going to encounter him somewhere. I figured it would be at Home Depot. He would be working in someone else’s home and buying supplies. In fact, after one of the hurricanes I thought I spotted him from a distance in Lowe’s.  Then he was gone.

A couple more years passed. I still thought of him from time to time and without exception was glad he was out of our lives. Then one day I ran into him face to face in the most unlikely location.

A friend and I were on a three-day wilderness hike in a rural corner of Palm Beach County. It was mid-morning on the third day and we hadn’t encountered any other people since early on our first day. The trail led out of the forest and across a meadow. But because of heavy rains, the trail was flooded. We stood at the edge of a small lake and looked across to the forest where the trail began again about a hundred yards away.

We heard voices coming from the woods as we stepped into the shallow waters that rose quickly to our calves. One voice grew louder, cracking jokes, including one about alligators pursuing the two guys coming across the meadow. The voice sounded familiar and  I looked up to see three men slogging toward us. The guy in the lead with the loud voice was Mikey. My hiking partner, another Rob, recognized him before I did. He had worked for both of us. So there we all were in the center of soggy meadow, water nearly to our knees.

We talked for a few minutes. Mikey and the others were working on trail repair for the Florida Trail Association. He was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. We talked about getting together, though we both knew it would never happen. Trish and I didn’t want to take a chance at re-opening that door. After that surprising, but long awaited encounter,  he fell off my radar. Since then, I’ve rarely thought about him…until another Mikey showed up in a movie.