Bayshore Loop 20.5miI’ve been receiving dispatches from The Evie Man since we moved into Seminole Heights eight years ago. The first things that we received were hand written notes stuffed into our mailbox without envelopes or postage. As a young interracial couple in a new neighborhood, the often blatantly racist tone of the letters was especially disturbing to us, and without any evidence to the contrary we assumed that they were directed solely at us. I didn’t save any of these early letters because I didn’t see any connection for awhile, but eventually I began collecting the strange communiqués. Soon the letters began appearing in a standard format; a strange, obsessive accordion fold photocopy distributed throughout the neighborhood in a seemingly random fashion. After realizing that I was not the only one receiving the letters, whenever I found one in my yard or driveway I would set out to canvas the neighborhood in search of others. Sometimes they were all the same, but usually there were several different versions distributed at one time, or the same basic letter would have subtle changes made to it in the other versions that I found.
Eventually, what may have begun in the mind of the Evie Man as a simple neurosis and a bit of paranoia about the changing demographic of the neighborhood had slowly morphed into a full blown psychosis. “There’s a giant spider in my mind,” began one of his more ominous messages. These delusions finally gave way to the classic paranoid schizophrenic notion of persecution at the hands of Hollywood celebrities. The Evie Man felt especially oppressed by the Rolling Stones and a Norwegian gospel singer named Evie Tornquist.
One morning several years ago I found an unmarked cassette tape lying in my yard carefully packaged in Saran Wrap. I popped the cassette into my truck’s tape deck and immediately I knew where it had come from. “An eye doctor put drops in my eyes that blinded me, however, I went on a twenty-five day water fast and I can read the bible again…this is a song by Evie.” I sat transfixed and listened to the tape in its entirety. The depth of psychosis and the rhythmic repetition of delusions was dizzying. This man was the John Coltrane of paranoia. A few months later, when I had a copy of the tape burned to CD, I took Mike L. out to my van to listen to it after we’d had a few beers at New World. We sat in the parking lot listening to a twenty minute tirade about “Hollywood Queers” and The Evie Man’s twisted logic spiraled in on itself faster and faster until Mike opened his door and vomited on the asphalt (Listen To The Evie Man's Audio).
I have never seen The Evie Man. His deliveries always come in the middle of the night, and they are spaced far enough apart that I have usually forgotten to be on the lookout before the next one arrives. I had always assumed that he lived somewhere in the area until I mentioned him one evening during an appearance on WMNF. A listener called in to say that they had received dispatches from The Evie Man as far away as Valrico.
There must be some kind of a pattern here.
A comprehensive GIS study of The Evie Man’s movements could provide a valuable insight into the cartography of psychosis. The Evie Man exists somewhere in the nexus of points occupied by The Rolling Stones (Audio), Evie Tornquist (Audio), and an Australian surfer named George Greenough.
For the first five miles of today’s run I’m consumed with the details of the Evie Map. I find a few more of the papers as I run west on Fern Street, and I stuff them into the pocket of my Camelback. I’m keeping close tabs on my pace and forcing myself to slow down until I finally lock into an 11:30 pace. I know the mile markers for about the first ten miles and I’m able to stay right where I want to be. After running this pace for the next two hours I’m locked in the groove and I can tell where the mile markers are by looking at my watch. But I’m not there yet.
At mile six I round the corner onto Hillsborough and I notice something strange about the house to my right. The palm reader’s house has a gaping hole in its side as if someone has driven their car through it, providing me with a clear view of the kitchen and living room. I don’t see any tire tracks or other evidence of an accident, just this huge hole in the concrete block wall. I snap a few pictures with my camera phone and I am putting it away when I see a skull capped biker eyeing me suspiciously from around the corner of the house. He glares at me, glares at the hole in the house, and glares back at me again. I give him the perfunctory runner’s nod and quickly run across the street. From the median I hear someone yelling from behind me and I turn around to see another mustachioed ne’er-do-well standing on the sidewalk and screaming in my general direction. The confidence that I have in my ability to outrun most construction workers over long distances does me little good when I have anything less than a three mile head start. Plus, you never know, this guy could be pretty swift. That mullet does make him look like a horse. I decide to try my luck and the mullethead stays where he is, pawing the dirt at the edge of the street.
The next fourteen-and-a-half miles flow by with comparative ease. My strict attention to pace has paid off.
People must be making up for the time lost to the holidays as everyone seems to be working today. The UT campus is bustling with construction workers, the bleachers are being set up along Bayshore for the Gasparilla parade, and downtown is gridlocked with minivans full of circus goers.
Gradually the crowds thin out and it’s just me again, putting things in perspective and ticking off the miles twelve minutes at a time. “It’s sort of like being on a mountain and looking down at a farm, and then you see what others don’t see, a giant spider.”
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