Kirk Reeves was a street performer here in Portland, Oregon. If you ever saw him you would never forget-he was a tall African American in a white tuxedo and Mickey Mouse ears who juggled, told jokes and was always ready to listen to you and try to cheer you up. I think he was the happiest person I’ve ever met in my life. He has always been a fixture at Orycon(and he almost got onto America’s Got Talent), but he was a no-show last weekend at the Con and nobody knew where he was. After I got home from work on Monday my wife told me that he was found dead, but there were no details because they were trying to locate any relatives he might have had back in Boston.
This morning they contacted the relatives, and later today they told us who had took him from us. It was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Forget what anyone tells you about panhandlers making hundreds a day and taking a cab home-life on the street is fucking harsh. This guy had good talent and a good outlook on life…and still, the street chewed him up and spit him out. Imagine what it is doing right now to those of lesser fortitude and determination than Kirk had. The street almost killed me, and it did kill him.
I haven’t been here long enough to know who he is, but that’s no way to go. I often see a guy on the bus who paints his skin silver, wears a metallic looking outfit, and makes his living standing silently and manipulating large silver balls with amazing dexterity. I always wonder what his life is like.
If you google his name and Portland you’ve find news about him. All the local channels reported his death, and some had videos on their websites. I still remember watching the Portland episode of America’s Got Talent and seeing him trying to get on. He told me later that contestants were treated rather well and that the hosts would go out and greet them and chat for a bit before the start of the show.
It’s been my experience that many of the people with lifelong, severe depression take a great deal of comfort from making other people happy. Maybe it’s vicarious. Maybe it’s the idea that by lightening someone else’s load, you pay a little of your kharmic rent. But, I also know that it doesn’t cure depression, and those bleak, horrible times come back in, rising up in the soul like toxic tide. I wish he’d been able to find some relief. I hope he’s not in pain anymore. I would have liked to have known him.
That’s probably true for some people, but many of those who are depressed also learn quickly to hide their depression. No one wants to hear about it. Just be yourself; unless you are are depressed. Nobody wants to be around Debbie Downer, and that is what depression feels like. Put on a happy face, let a smile be your umbrella, laugh and world laughs with you, turn that frown upside down, don’t worry, be happy; those are messages we send to people with depression. So we should not be surprised when the depressed among us suffer in silence until they cannot take it any more. We told them to.