Before the man had gone on a rampage prompting Kai to pound his head with a hatchet, it had been an uneventful journey. They chatted and shared a joint and then the man told him he was Jesus and the madness began.
That fateful day was also Reisbeck’s first day as a news reporter. Tipped off by the police scanner, he rushed to the scene of the crime. A homeless hero was too good a story to let slip by.
He arrived just in time. Spotting a young man with long hair and travel pack wandering off down the road, Reisbeck ran after him.
“What do you wanna talk about?” Kai asks, genuinely clueless, when Reisbeck catches up with him.
The interview is wild. He’d just almost beaten a man to death but he’s in a jovial mood. Animated, cheerful, and clearly eccentric. You can’t help but like him, with his carefree attitude, stoner philosophies and wide grin. Besides, he was a hero.
That night, Reisbeck uploaded his full interview to YouTube. The homeless hero became a viral internet celebrity literally overnight. Talk shows wanted him. News shows wanted him. The producers of The Kardashians wanted him to star in a new reality series. But no one could find him and only Reisbeck could get hold of him.
They met at a diner. Reisbeck laid his multitude of options out on the table. He could do whatever he wanted. Whatever he chose, he’d end up richer than he could have ever imagined. What Kai told him he wanted to do was go to California and smoke weed.
“Go back to him and say, ‘we’ll send him a whole limo filled with weed’,” the exasperated Kardashians producer says when Resibeck tells her. Deal sweetened, Kai signs his name in hieroglyphics on the dotted line of her contract.
From there the story only gets weirder. And a lot darker. People around him quickly sense that the charming drifter, this brave hero, is actually a deeply troubled young man. He’s abundantly generous but not able to control a ferocious and unpredictable temper. He says completely kooky things and can’t focus on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. He drunkenly skateboards through the bar at the swanky Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and urinates on the set of the Jimmy Kimmell talk show. A minder assigned to look after him realises he’s completely unmanageable.
Meanwhile, he’s getting more and more famous. He leaves Hollywood and wanders the Earth, coasting on his internet fame and the generosity of others. He gets an ill-advised facial tattoo and starts a band. He posts increasingly erratic and violent posts on Facebook.
And then, three months after shooting to fame by saving a woman’s life, the charismatic young drifter with the wide smile and carefree attitude becomes the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a 74-year-old man.
What’s apparent through the ample footage of Kai in the doco is that he has a mental illness. He recounts being locked in his room for days by his mother, a story backed up by his cousin and weakly refuted by her. He talks of various childhood traumas and being the victim of sexual assault as a teen. He tells stories that are so outrageously troubling that even if they’re only half true they’re still awful.
The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker is a fascinating watch and, ultimately, uncomfortable viewing. You celebrate Kai’s heroism and then watch as it deteriorates in front of your eyes. He needed help but never got it. All his positivity and generosity couldn’t protect him from the darker aspects of his psyche. He was a hero. He is a villain. It’s a really f****d up story.
