Leonard K'ima

Leonard K'ima was a Native American of the Yurok tribe, or so he said. I took a picture of him on seventh and main, in the heart of downtown where buildings reach up to meet each other in the sky. The picture wasn't sharp enough to catch the reflection in his eyes, but they were there, those towers.

We don't like to live overshadowed by things greater than us, these days. But the skyscrapers were built by the billionaires, and they lived at the top. Suburbia crept away from them, ashamed, and became content to settle among the outlying hills. But who was left in the cities? The homeless. And so it sank into their hearts that they were small.

Leonard says his people are used to it. They made their plankhouses from redwood boards. They communed with sequoias older than the tribe itself. "Cities are nothing," he says, "Made of the same stuff mountains are, but a hell of a lot more fragile. They don't live and breathe like a forest." Personally, I felt that cities lived and breathed, but I didn't want to argue. I guess there's that difference in perspective, the very thing I was banking on with the article.

"The Indians," he says, "killed off all the big-ass mammals in North America. When you white men got here, there wasn't anything left. Someday, we're going to hunt down your skyscrapers and your stadiums and your giant newspaper headquarters and do the same."

When my sister Pat read the article she cut it out and posted it on the refrigerator. I told her that it was a little creepy to have a wild-eyed homeless man peering into your kitchen, but she told me don't be silly. "It's not every day my baby brother is published in an internationally renowned magazine." Sure I was fishing for a compliment, but there it was - justification; my sister had been published in just about every one of those internationally renowned magazines.

"Love you, early bird." Ask me about that one later.

Ms. Maruyama at The New Yorker loved the article. Said I should do another, explore "Mr. K'ima" and his background a bit more. I thought that was somewhat backwards, but I was happy to get back out on the street to find Leonard again.

"I used to be a sushi chef," he says. "Indians make the best sushi, because the fish are our brothers." Two weeks ago I didn't believe that he knew the first thing about sushi. He convinced me by chatting up a storm with the Korean chef, I forget his name, at Golden Sun Sushi. There's the angle, cross-culturalism on the streets. I finally found him behind Delhi Star - low-class Indian dining. You could eat at a different hole-in-the-wall every Sunday for a year and not hit the same ethnic group twice.

"Hey, Leonard. Stopped hanging in your old haunts, I see." He looked like he'd done well recently, but today he was wasted and more.

"Shit, I can't 'haunt' anymore. Got a woman, moved me off the streets." It took me a moment or two to stop gaping and respond. I mean, Leonard wasn't old, but he was by no means a looker. Add to that his street-grunge and five or six scarves, and I don't see who was going to hit on him. Yet someone had. And whoever it was, she'd cleaned him up a bit - no scarves.

"Some lady took you in? Who? Can I meet her?" A bit awkward, but he wasn't really in a state to notice.

"Uhh. I don't feel too well. Gotta go home." He stumbled away from the golden Ganesh that guarded the back entrance of the restaurant and into the dark jumble of streets. I didn't follow.

It was another couple weeks before I came upon Leonard again, though not for lack of looking. I didn't recognize him in the dark apron behind the counter at Golden Sun. But when I asked where Kim Seung was, remembering his name now, he replied in his gravelly voice, "Seung left me in charge tonight." And I was left gaping for a second time. Leonard-no, Mr. K'ima-went back behind the bar to prepare my order. I couldn't taste any difference in the sushi either.

I called my sister to ask her for some advice, but got nothing: "This is Pat, please leave a message." Not Monday, either. On Tuesday, nearing the deadline, I called The New Yorker to say I wasn't getting anywhere with Mr. K'ima, and what did they want me to do. Ms. Maruyama sounded disappointed but told me they'd push it back a few weeks, and please keep her informed.