STOCKTON, CA (KTXL/CNN) - Jack Walcott is just hungry, just trying to make a couple bucks and just balancing a bicycle upside down on his head.
Standing on a concrete island at an intersection, Walcott, also known as "Jack Jack," is arguably the most obscure local celebrity you’ll see in Stockton.
"I multi-task with it," Walcott said.
He can kneel down and then stand back up. He can tip toe in between cars to collect cash.
Walcott can steady his neck walking backwards in traffic and throw up a peace sign at the same time. He can bob and weave his body as the bike leans without breaking a sweat.
"There’s the, 'Oh my god, he’s going to drop it on my car,'" Walcott said. "There’s the, 'Look at this weirdo.' There’s the, 'Oh my God, that’s so awesome!'"
The more he’s been seen, the more he’s been posted about online.
People post pictures of Jack Jack balancing all kinds of stuff: water bottles topped with backpacks, inverted traffic cones, towers of Tupperware.
His routine is sparking an online debate about whether he’s a skilled street performer or just a panhandler with a strange skill.
Dona Rivera, an admin for the "Stockton WTF Moments" Facebook page, said people use the same rhetoric for him they use for drug addicts in comments. She said she sees Walcott as a "person with a lot of potential who has fallen."
He's the first person to admit that, and he admits that he’s a recovering addict.
"It makes it really heard because when I bust that out; they're like, 'OK, later,'" he said.
He said he's taking doctor-prescribed methadone to wean off opiates.
"I starting using opiates, thinking I’d be able to quit that as easy as amphetamines, but hit a brick wall when I tried," Walcott said.
The 30-year-old has been homeless now for four years.
"I felt really just alone," he said.
He finds himself holding a sign and holding more than the weight of a bicycle on his shoulders.
“It's not anybody's fault, except for mine,” Walcott said.
But he's finding something in his balancing act that he hasn’t found elsewhere. He said it’s “relaxing,” and it’s the least of his struggles.
Copyright 2018 KTXL via CNN. All rights reserved.
