Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

When he got banged up from a confrontation, he made his way as quickly as he could to one of them. Both the Werbeloffs and Joe Hart became adept at sewing and bandaging him up.

Physically, he was starting to wear down. He had never fully recovered from the wounds he had suffered lifetimes earlier in Vietnam. Add in more than a dozen years of brawls with bad men who knew they were fighting for their lives and the picture becomes clear. Even when he wasn’t recently injured, Scott walked with a limp and he woke up to an entire menagerie of pains every morning.

He looked over the remainder of his list and knew he would likely never get to all of them. In the end, the body could only do what it could before it broke down completely.

Each time he went to Middle Falls, he and Joe traveled to the edge of town where their dream project had taken physical form. When Scott had made the initial suggestion, he hadn’t had a specific form in his mind, but long conversations with Joe had solidified the idea.

They had created a small village of its own, with tiny houses modeled on the guest house Joe had in his backyard. Those were for vets who needed solitude, peace, and quiet to get their heads straight. There were bunkhouses for those that desired company and socializing.

There was a huge community center with pool tables, card tables, an industrial kitchen, and a massive great room where everyone could gather to hear a speaker or watch a movie. There was also a counseling center, manned during the day five days a week, for those who wanted or needed someone to talk to.

Joe’s favorite part was the no-kill animal center he had built right in the middle of the complex. It served a number of purposes. It saved animals and helped them find their forever homes, of course, but it did much more. It gave the vets who were staying there a place to work and bond with the animals. It also gave the townspeople of Middle Falls a reason to come onto the property and learn that it was a positive thing for their community.

It all sat on twenty wooded acres with walking paths, a duck pond, and benches to sit and contemplate the world.

The one thing Joe couldn’t figure out was what to call the whole enterprise.

A few months before the place was ready to open, Scott took Sam aside for a meeting. They walked through the grounds, inspecting the finishing touches on the buildings and landscaping.

“Come up with a name, yet?” Scott asked her.

“Yeah, but nothing great. Nothing that quite fits.” Sam shot a sideways glance at Scott. “You’ve got an idea, don’t you? I know you.”

“Joe’s dad Rodrigo was a vet, you know. Korea.”

“Right. He did mention that one night.”

“So then, what about ‘The Rodrigo Hart Oasis for Veterans.’”

Sam stopped. She stared up into the tops of the trees that ringed the project. “The Rodrigo Hart Oasis for Veterans. Scott, you are a certified genius.”

“Nope. I have a lot of time to think when I’m traveling.”

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you. What do you do when you’re traveling? What are you looking for?”

“Peace, love and understanding?”

“Okay, fine. Don’t tell me. I still think you’re a genius. And now I’ve got an idea. I’m going to put a little side project together and get a sign made up for the Oasis. We’ll surprise Joe with it.”

“ You’ll surprise Joe with it. Me? I’m hitting the road again. I think this place is about ready for some occupants, don’t you? I’m gonna go look for them.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

As he had so often, he traveled to the four corners of the country, crisscrossing the middle states over and over. This time, instead of dealing out vigilante justice, he looked for veterans living on the fringes of society.

Unfortunately, they weren’t hard to find. The difficult part was picking the right person. The truth was, some of the homeless vets were homeless by choice. They never felt like they fit in when they returned home, or they didn’t fit in with their families, or a thousand other reasons. They chose to live without a roof over their heads every night and found a certain amount of freedom and contentment from the lack of commitment. On the other end of the spectrum were those who were almost beyond help—so mentally ill or drug-addicted that Scott knew a few weeks or a month at the Oasis wouldn’t be much help.

He looked for people more in the middle. Vets who hadn’t ever gotten a break, who had been abandoned by the system, but were still fighting to get back on their feet.

The only way to identify who was who was for Scott to live as they did. And so he did. He stopped flying, riding the bus, or staying in even the most inexpensive motels. Instead, he hopped freight trains, rode his thumb, and slept under the stars or tucked into a cramped space somewhere. The men and women who lived on the fringes of society looked out for each other and communicated through what they called the hobo network. Someone always knew something, or someone. Where to find a safe place to sleep, where the best place to hop trains was, or who might have an extra can or two of food.

When Scott found someone that he knew would benefit from a stay at the Oasis, he bought them a bus ticket to Middle Falls and gave them enough money to eat on the journey. He knew that some cashed the ticket in and smoked or drank the proceeds, and he was okay with that. He wanted to extend the hand of possibility to those who needed it. It was up to them whether they accepted the opportunity or not.

Enough did that a steady stream of “Scott’s people” found their way to the Oasis. Word of Scott’s largesse and scouting trips spread along the hobo network. No one knew his full name. They just called him the Angel.

Scott enjoyed his scouting trips more than he ever had his other life’s work, but he still did his best to combine the two.

By the spring of 1990, though, he was forty-one-years-old with the body of a seventy-year-old man. Sleeping in doorways or around a fire outside the city limits was fine, but he found he was having a harder time standing up straight after he did.

A reputation is a wonderful thing, though, and eventually word spread when he was in town and he found that he didn’t need to actually bed down beside them every night. He knew he wasn’t the only one who was hurting from that lifestyle, though, so that only increased his urgency in getting more people back to Joe, Sam, and the Oasis.

Eventually, Scott sent so many on that Joe and Sam had to apply for new permits and build more bunkhouses to accommodate the stream of veterans. They encouraged Scott’s evangelical work, though, and told him they would keep building more buildings until they either ran out of space or money.

Whenever he needed a break, he headed back to Middle Falls and stayed at the Oasis. When Joe saw that Scott was returning regularly, he built him his own cabin, placing it inside the trees that ringed the buildings for a little privacy. Scott only asked for one thing—a front porch he could sit on like he’d had a lifetime before in Vermont. Joe was more than happy to accommodate the request. The porch opened out onto a small meadow, then the tranquil duck pond. It finally felt to Scott like he was living his own Walden dream.

For the most part, Scott skipped the vigilante duties he had once embraced. His body was too broken to be able to do what he had once done.