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After climbing the escalator out of the Powell BART station, Pink Man immediately leaves the Rollerblading reporter and photographer in the dust. He twirls his way down Market, flapping his arms, chasing pigeons, and making his signature sound, "Doo, d'doooo!" Finally he stops at a fire hydrant and pretends to take a piss on it, but loses his balance and falls off the unicycle. Laughing, he gets up and tears off, crossing streets with abandon, dipping in and out of stores and instructing passersby, "You gotta keep your eye on the pink."
He wheels by Market and Montgomery, where crowds of construction men, bike messengers, and office workers are sitting on the marble steps, eating their lunches. One fan, a bike messenger named Mike, gives him a big welcome. Mike loves the fact that somebody out there is determined to be the best part of people's days, dressed like a maniac, and not asking for money (Pink Man never does that). "There's room for him and a lot more like him," he says.
Although plenty of people are snapping photos and others are cracking up, one guy in a business suit seems disturbed. "That's uncomfortable to watch," he says. "I wasn't raised that way." When asked exactly what he is referring to, the guy says, in total seriousness, "Pink."
Apparently even some people who know nothing about Maxfield's history are turned off by his appearance. His color of choice, flamboyance on the wheel, and graceful dancing have a way of convincing some people that he's gay. Even in the Bay Area, some people appear to be put off by him.
In Berkeley, people have tossed batteries and beer cans at him. One day, somebody in a car leaned out of the window and grabbed his sweatshirt, and he got dragged about 50 feet. He reported the incident to the police and gave the car's license plate, but says that after the owner was tracked down and denied doing it, the matter was dropped.
Making matters worse, about ten years ago, Maxfield suspects somebody in Berkeley looked up his past on the Internet, and soon everyone seemed to know. People began yelling at him in the street, calling him a molester. Sometimes a car would pull up, full of smiling people, and he'd start to dance for them. He'd spin around a few times, and then stop and look back at the car, and their faces would all be like this, he says, giving a cold stare. "It affects me to have people think the worst," he says. "I'm a really sensitive Pink Man."
Although Berkeley has been tough, it's where Maxfield found his high-profile sponsor. One day while he was pinking University Avenue, he met a man who said he was a friend of computer game designer Will Wright (who created The Sims) and that Wright was a big Pink Man fan. Maxfield wondered if there was something to gain in that, but did nothing.
Then in 2002, his brother Andy died of complications of muscular dystrophy, and his mother died of cancer. Maxfield was devastated, and began to reevaluate his life. What did he really want to do with his talent and his passion? The answer was easy. He wanted to pink the world.
Soon after this revelation, Maxfield tracked down Wright's home number, asked him to lunch, and gave Wright a proposal. "How about Tokyo?" Wright asked. Maxfield immediately reached across the table and shook his hand.
Wright also sponsored a trip to Paris for Maxfield. "He's the only real superhero I know," he says. Pink Man's whimsy, his emotional empathy, and most of all his playfulness also appeal to Wright, who believes playing is underrated in American culture. "It has a lot of value," Wright says. "It opens possibilities you didn't see before. It can solve real problems." Wright says he's aware of some of the details of Maxfield's past, but believes the guy handled it as well as anyone could: "Other people have life stories that aren't that dissimilar, and the way he chose to deal with it was such an optimistic approach."
At the end of the day's adventure in San Francisco, Pink Man runs into a man who recognizes him from Eugene. That could be a stressful situation, but regardless of how much the man might know, he expresses delight. The idea that somebody might know Pink Man's past, but still want him around — well, what could be better than that?
When asked why he likes running into people from Eugene, he takes a long pause, then says, "It holds a special place for me in pinkin' history," and carries the unicycle the rest of the way down the escalator.
On the train ride home, Pink Man peeks intermittently at his gut in the train window and jiggles it disapprovingly. He needs to lose that, he says. He also needs a new unicycle, and some new suits. He has every intention of continuing his superhero double life for as long as he is physically able.
He once briefly considered retiring Pink Man and living a less public life — one removed from the scrutiny of his history — but that just feels like giving up: "It doesn't sit right with me to not be who I am because of what I did in the past."
With the Obama birthday connection, he believes now may be his time. There's a San Francisco–based documentary about him in the works right now, and its producers are aiming for Sundance next year. His autobiography is almost ready to go. He has other ideas, too. A Pink Man pizza-cutter. A Pink Man pop-up book. Pink Man bubble gum, with a comic strip wrapper. That way, when people are rude to him, he can toss them a piece and yell, "Blow me!"
