Perkinswood

I was living in Columbia, MO at the time when I met Ann. Late 80’s. Worked some nights at a rock club, most days at an institution -Missouri’s final destination for its' strange. schizophrenics, the severely retarded, autistics, obsessive compulsives, the anal expressives. There was plenty of violence to go around. Lots of restraining. Funny thing, there was also a lot of restraining at the rock club due to self-inflicted retardation, but that’s another story.

Anyway, each caseworker had around five clients. All in all around 10 groups of 5 under one roof in one big room. Everybody was either on the way to or on the way back from going apeshit.

One guy in my group was Jeff Dubbs. When I met him he was sitting in the corner wearing a football helmet fumbling with a bin of nuts and bolts. He got paid a piece rate for threading each nut onto each bolt. In between seizures, he was making about three bucks a week.

After we got to know each other he began telling me some of his favorite stories: Star Trek, Superman and Dracula. They were amazing.

Jeff thought he was just retelling the plots from some of his favorite movies; but these accounts had been completely altered by his unique vision, his own take on pop culture. Captain Kirk was a cheat and a liar. Superman was a victim and a split personality in a confusing world. Count Dracula desperately wanted to be human.

I said, “Look Jeff, during break you tell me one of these stories and I’ll write it down word for word, quickly draw a cartoon panel, and you can color them if you want. We’ll make comics.”

Jeff Dubbs said, “I’ve already tried it. It doesn’t work.”

My reply was “It will work, and I’ve got all kind of friends that would pay a dollar a copy for these.”

And we were off.

Over the next 6 months during his break time we had completed five comics and he made about 20 bucks a comic.
Before Ann and I left for Atlanta, I told Jeff that it was my last day at the institution. He said, “Before you go I need to tell you the story of my life. So for the remainder of the day we penned his autobiography, “The Devil is Trying to Kill Me.”

A lot of people think that I’m Jeff Dubbs. But I knew him and he really exists.