Queer Guy for the End is Nigh
Two summers ago I had a run-in with the Coolidge Corner Animal Abuse Lady. Since then I have learned that no matter what, there will always be a craxy person yelling at people in Coolidge Corner. It’s just too good of a spot. I haven’t seen the Animal Abuse Lady in a while but that doesn’t mean there’s been a lack of yelling going on.
Meet Milton Kapner, aka Brother Nathanael. He was born into the Jewish faith before converting to the Orthodox Church in the late 1980s. He brings a whole new meaning to the term “crosswalk,” now that he spends his time doing The Last Supper big arms thing while screaming about Jesus in public places where people don’t want to hear it - anywhere. I’ve seen him in various spots around Boston but up until the other day, I always found myself without a camera.
You can’t miss him. He’s always dressed in black with a blinging big cross dangling from his neck and a big fuckoff beard right out of the bible. Besides his divinity, he welds two weapons of mass distraction: a giant crucifix and the most devout weapon of them all, the American flag.
Upon preparing this post I turned to Universal Hub, a Boston community weblog that carried a few of my posts in the past. I didn’t expect to stumble upon the mother load of information on Brother Nathanael. I never even expected to learn his name. I was wrong.
My path to righteousness, or perhaps the opposite (lefteousness?) started at the Overheard in Boston post, Trader Joe’s may not love Jesus. Apparently two days after I saw Brother Nathanael, he was at the Trader Joes in Brookline yelling at patrons. His Jesusantics did not go unnoticed and the Brookline police were called
You do see why the customers might feel threatened or harassed when they enter or leave the store and you’re shouting at them about Jesus… and why they complained to the staff, who had to call us…
- Brookline police officer to Brother Nathanael
From there I followed the trail to Involuntary Slacker which had more information and some pictures on the disturbance, including a comment posted by adamg that lead me to Universal Hub’s Brother Nathanael node. Apparently he gets around. Back in January the Brookline Tab reported that Brother Nathanael had been shot at in Colorado. Just a few days after the drive-by BB gun shooting, Brother Nathanael was harrassed by Warren W. Smith, a Dillon Valley, CO man who was later arrested. Apparently Smith also has a knack for dramatics:
At the time, Smith was holding a flagpole with both an American flag and a pirate flag on it. A 3-foot sword and a skull were also on the pole.
It didn’t take long for Brother Nathanael to flee Colorado since, according to talonvaki’s LiveJournal, he was back in the Boston area in early February, shouting outside South Station at the intersection of Summer Street at Atlantic Avenue.
As it turns out, Brother Nathanael is no stranger to LiveJournal. He has his own LJ, Nathanael Speaks! “and everybody listens” which includes a timeline of his path to righteousness on his profile. His archives indicate that he’s been posting since 2005.
Now back to my encounter because it has a surprise ending….
I wasn’t able to get any great shots; mayhaps because I spooked him with my camera, though that’s highly unlikely since you typically can’t spook a spook, or because I have no photography skills whatsoever. (For some professional shots of Brother Nathanael, czech out Sara Piazza’s Photography.)
I must have come across him just as his shift was ending (around 6:00 pm) because he put away his crucifix and went over to pack up his stuff from underneath one of the median street signs.
Then Brother Nathanael took off across Harvard Street, in front of traffic mind you, in what I assume was an attempt to make the train.
Just before he jetted across Harvard Street, I noticed that he dropped something, so I went over to czech it out. What he dropped was this:
He didn’t just drop it like it was hot, he dropped it like it was gayhotmovies.com. What Brother Nathanael dropped was a prepaid card with a scratch box for 30 free minutes from a gay adult website. Now there are many reasons as to why he could have had the prepaid card: It could be a prop he uses when he preaches that everyone is going to hell, or just something that was handed to him by a random solicitor, or maybe it actually was his. (Though I suspect he might prefer gayhotmonks.com.)
I’m curious to know the answer but not as curious as Brother Nathanael appears to be.