She was just another nobody with acute mental issues, scratching it out in Skid Row squalor, among the many whose lives had taken a deep plunge off the high dive somewhere along the way. A dirty, stocking-capped loser-in-life pushing supermarket shopping cart #38, heaped with hopelessness, down Figueroa Street. #38–the supermarket shopping cart had more of an identity than she did.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyUbKLbq56D
He was a hedge-fund manager, with an office on the 68th floor of Wilshire Grand Center, in the financial district of downtown Los Angeles. With 73 gleaming stories of glass, it is the tallest building west of Chicago and occupies the entire city block between Wilshire Boulevard and 7th, Figueroa, and Francisco streets.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEWu5Ju0jZQ
Mark “Tony” Thompson peered down at the tent-and-refrigerator-box sidewalk-city below and thought how lucky he was: he had a manse in Beverly Hills on the other end of Wilshire, a chef, and housekeepers–but no nannies because he never had children because he never got married. He was still waiting for a long lost love, he sighed, whenever asked, usually by his mother or by potential gold-diggers.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQLEwT1HIm
Except for the lack of matrimonial bliss, Tony’s life was 24-karat, platinum-plated until the economy took a deep plunge off the high dive somewhere along the way.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn9w0egziTi
The Maserati was the first to go, replaced by a German mid-size, replaced by a Ford Fiesta, replaced by Bus Line #3. The Beverly Hills address became a rental in the Los Feliz neighborhood, then a one-bedroom, third floor walk-up in Glendale, finally a shared room at the YMCA in downtown LA, at 7th and Figeuroa. His libatious taste went from Cristal champagne to Grey Goose to Smirnoffs to Mad Dog in a brown-paper bag. He was down in the dumps, literally and figuratively.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gITjL0pw1
Tony’s mind and body went to hell quickly from flop house living and gallons of rot-gut drinking until his break with reality was complete. He became a twenty-first century Joshua Abraham Norton, a San Francisco resident in the 1800s who proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.” Similar to Tony Thompson, Norton made a successful living as a commodities trader and real estate speculator, but was financially ruined following a failed bid to corner the rice market during a shortage prompted by a famine in China.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS1KcpFqtI3
Nobodies deserve an identity, so Thompson, delusional, began to proclaim himself as Marcus Antonius (his moniker in Latin), and became, in his newly minted persona, the ancient Roman politician who played a critical role in the transformation of the city-state from a constitutional republic into an autocratic Roman Empire. Wrapped in a dirty bed sheet for a toga and palm leaves for an olive wreath around his head, he strode Skid Row panhandling for change and babbling in Latin gibberish on street corners.
Today, “Marcus Antonius” was “addressing the Roman Senate”—pedestrians at the corner of 7th and Figueroa waiting for the crosswalk light to change—orating near shopping cart #38. When he saw another nobody wearing a dirty stocking cap poke her head out of the refrigerator box she called home, his heart leapt. 167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuVKWZB0gBW
“Cleo?”167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRc9na65SjU
In their 12th reincarnation, the ancient lovers had found each other once again—like every other time before–and love strung eternal at the corner of 7th and Figereroa in downtown LA.
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