AND THIS ISN’T THE HALF OF IT
Hanging Out with Haji
I knew the minute he arrived
Haji’s name came from Jonny Quest, a 1960s cartoon. Jonny’s Dad was a government scientist and an adventurer. He took Jonny and his son’s best friend, Hadji, on various explorations.
Hadji wore a white tunic and turban. When I was a kid, I assumed he was from India. My friend, whose name I altered to Haji, was from the Central Valley of California. He had watched a later iteration of Jonny Quest as a kid.
A Mexican family had adopted Haji as an infant. He wasn’t sure about his birth parents’ origins — his father was likely Spanish. He never looked too deeply into his past.
If such a thing as a friend at first sight exists, it was Haji for me.
I knew it the minute he walked in the door of the non-profit where I worked — I was raising money by cold calling names off a political list and writing grants.
The non-profit was a gardening-based program that helped street youth earn a wage and access other resources like food, medical care, and housing. We were looking for a garden manager for the youth program. There were several applicants. None of them wowed me — until Haji.
He was passionate about gardening and working with street youth. He had been on the streets himself as a teenager. I made up my mind immediately. He was our candidate. It was clear the youngsters would easily relate to him and have fun while working.
Haji was outrageous, bright, and compassionate. He spoke openly about being gay and an artist. Maybe he reminded me of my beloved gay Uncle Cal.
In any case, I spent days arguing with my two non-profit team members, who preferred another candidate with a fancy resume and an East Coast education. I thought the guy was uptight. All the candidates were from AmeriCorps.
My team members thought Haji was too rough around the edges, a risk, a fly-by-the-pants kind of leader.
So did I, but he was to become the garden manager who would make the project shine. He would teach the youth solid gardening skills. When they sold their products at a Saturday outdoor market, he would motivate and teach the kids tricks for attracting sales.
At some point, my two team members agreed Haji was perfect for the job. I thanked them, resisting the urge to strut and gloat—for Haji’s sake.
Over the years, Haji and I developed a strong friendship. We both liked dancing at a downtown gay club. Sometimes Haji took off most of his clothes and danced in the alley behind the club. He always pushed limits.
He crashed at friends’ houses or pitched a tent in their backyards when he was between places.
He would get into fights with neighbors who were aggressive towards him. One angry neighbor ended up throwing a brick through the window of the house where Haji had been sitting for a few weeks.
Haji had a notable ability to befriend animals as if he were Seattle’s Dr. Doolittle. All the dogs I have adopted in the last twenty years have been crazy about Haji. He took them on long city walks; along the way, they ate hamburgers from Wendy’s.
Haji was also magic with cats. He fed the feral ones around his neighborhood on a nightly basis. He has taken in friends’ cats — and dogs, including mine—when the owners have gone on vacation or away to school.
These days, Haji has a menagerie of birds and Siamese fighting fish with luminescent fins and elegant tails. He leaves his window open, so any bird passing by can drop in for food and water. His two cats leave the birds and the fish alone.
My last vignette about Haji is about the night he offered me and a friend three devil balls each. They were concentrated weed — one would have been way too strong for my system — but Haji and our friend metabolized them fine. We were in a bar. I excused myself to go outside and throw up, then wandered.
When Haji and our friend found me, I asked to see the dead blue parakeet Haji was carrying in his pocket. I gushed repeatedly about it being the most beautiful bird and how handsome Haji was, “Like a god!”
The two friends forbade me to drive my car, which I was later grateful for. We took a taxi to our friends’ home to chill out. She had this enormous mattress of two king-sized beds pushed together.
We all sat on that bed and watched the film The Exorcist on video cassette. Both Haji and I, having grown up Catholic, were terrified of Linda Blair and her ghoulish manifestations. Haji hadn’t seen the movie since he was a kid, when he had concluded he had the devil in him.
We couldn’t stop laughing about the movie. It seemed less frightening and more appropriately absurd — the spinning head, the horrible voice, and Linda Blair being flung around on her bed. Haji and I lifted lines from the film, which we have continued repeating for decades.
Like, “Why you do this to me, Demi?”
I suppose being high helped me and Haji reframe the horror story into a farce. Despite my Catholic epiphany, I decided marijuana and I were not well-suited.
Haji and I have remained friends for over thirty years. My family adores him too.
