The Lonely Guy

When he finds a fishing pole, he bends it over his knee to break it. He carries the split rod and a blue milk crate up the hill to a dumpster.

In the parking lot outside the Hanover Pancake House on Kansas Avenue, David Owen explains why homosexuality is wrong.

"You see, people like me, sometimes they get so lonely and desperate, they'll find a relationship, even if it's an inappropriate relationship, like with another guy. That's not right. All right?

"Girls scare me to death," Owen confides. "Have you ever watched that show Beauty and the Geek? I love that show. If there's hope for them, there's hope for anybody. But some people, because of their fear, are more comfortable having an inappropriate relationship with somebody they feel comfortable with."

The restaurant is bustling just after noon.

"This is a nifty place to eat, I'll tell you," Owen says. "Democrats love to hang out here, too. Since I'm a Republican, this is where I love to eat, because I love to pester Democrats, since they pester me."

Owen says he's a Republican because he's a Christian. Over a lunch of coffee and pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon and whipped cream, Owen explains his conservative agenda. His latest interest is the anti-abortion movement. Owen vividly remembers taking a road trip to St. Louis with Operation Rescue to protest an abortion clinic. "Don't kill your baby! Don't kill your baby!" he says a woman from Operation Rescue yelled at a woman entering the clinic. In the middle of the restaurant, Owen mimics her cries.

A few diners look at him, bewildered. Owen doesn't notice. His story ends in victory: The would-be patient decided to keep her baby.

"Man, that was such an emotional time for all of us," Owen says. His companions took her inside an Operation Rescue "Truth Truck" (a truck emblazoned with billboard-sized images of aborted fetuses). "And in the back there, they have a sonogram. And so the girls in the group gave the girl a sonogram. They found out she was going to have twins.... And those twins are good-looking boys, I'll tell you. That was a blessing. It really was."

Owen is everywhere in Topeka. Being unemployed, he can — and does — attend whatever rally or meeting he wants.

Owen claims that he spies on pro-choice rallies for Operation Rescue and Kansans for Life. He says he did so most recently in January, during the Kansas Choice Alliance's lobbying day.

"I spied for the other side," Owen says. "And Troy [Newman] was pretty proud of me, too, because they were looking at a bill that they didn't know about."

Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, doesn't claim Owen as a secret operative.

"I don't know if he spies for us," Newman tells the Pitch. "David is a great guy, and I wish him well."

Owen's constant presence is unappreciated even among those whose causes he claims as his own.

Children scamper around the second floor atrium of the Capitol. They leave their winter coats in a pile as an adult tries to keep them in line.

Owen stands next to the Kansas flag as a Pitch photographer snaps photos of him. Owen pays no attention to the children around him. He talks about how his hometown representative, Melvin Neufeld, inspired him to move to Topeka and lobby, and how he wrote Hillary Clinton in the early '90s, telling her that federally funded health care was a bad idea and how he received only a form letter back from the then-first lady.

As Owen talks, a uniformed Kansas Highway Patrolman and a statehouse security guard approach to watch the photo shoot — and Owen.

Owen notices the extra attention.

"What's David up to now?" Owen asks no one in particular.

Owen doesn't believe he's a safety risk in a building where children frequently run around.

"I'm safe," he'll say later. "Security looks over me quite well."

"That's not who we have to worry about," Kilpatrick says. "It's the ones who we don't know that are failing to register. It's the ones that have molested 50, 60, 70 times and have never been caught and are continuing to molest children. That's the ones we have to worry about."

Lt. John Eichkorn of the Kansas Highway Patrol would not say how actively Capitol security monitors Owen.

"We're aware of the situation," Eichkorn tells the Pitch. "Of course, there are those that are concerned in the building and have shared those concerns."

Legislators may be acting on those fears — and Owen is finally getting their attention, just not in the way he craves.

On February 23, the House Committee on Federal and State Affairs put a bull's-eye on Owen, introducing a bill that would prohibit registered sex offenders from lobbying the Legislature.

"I'm sure they're thinking about me," Owen says.

If legislators believe this bill will get rid of him, they're wrong.

"Even if I'm not a lobbyist, they're still not going to keep me away from the place," Owen says. "I mean, it's a public building."

As an adult leads the children down a hallway, the guards leave. And Owen sets off on his mission.

"I want to get some work done," he says. "I want to get somebody home."