Recalling a Man With a Family and a Home : A friend mourns William Lee Shubert, who died last week in the storm-whipped Ventura River.

“There are two words that have shaken up people in this family the most-- transient and homeless ,” said Jacque Shubert, whose son’s life was washed away last week by the raging Ventura River.

“He was neither,” Shubert said quietly.

To Jacque and Lois Shubert, William Lee Shubert was not the 31-year-old homeless man described so dispassionately by the media, the one caught sleeping in the river bottom when the water rose in storm-driven fury.

He was Willie, perhaps the brightest of their seven children. And he had a home--he just chose not to sleep there.

Willie could have lived with his parents in Camarillo, in the bedroom where he grew up. There were standing offers to stay with his sister in Ventura, or his brother in Camarillo, or even in his own apartment, with some assistance from his parents to supplement his Social Security payments.

He turned them all down for a tent, a gas stove, a Coleman lantern, milk crates full of books and communion with nature.

“I think it was his pride,” said his big brother, Jacque Jr.

It didn’t surprise me.

Most of my high school memories at Adolfo Camarillo High involve Willie, the sharpest mind in a clique of friends who loved to rebel against authority.

Our most notorious act made the Daily News. We Xeroxed dollar bills and inserted them into a change machine at a local carwash, only to be chased by the owner, who was lying in wait behind bushes. My car was towed by police, and we were forced to devise an alibi--one that absolved Willie of guilt and ultimately left me on probation.

That was Willie.

When he was a kid, his family marveled at how smart he was. “We used to tease him,” recalled his sister Jean. “He’d say something that sounded so smart, and we’d say, ‘Heeey, Mr. Scientist!’ ”

We were too busy making trouble to be popular in school, but we didn’t care. We were finding our way. Our group went through phases together. When skateboarding was the rage, we all bought boards and skated the ditch near Buckhorn Saloon in old Camarillo. Later came roller skating and karate. Willie generally picked up those skills the quickest.

“It seems whatever he wanted to do, he could do,” Jacque Jr. said.

Once we grew bored, we moved on to the next thing. When it was juggling, Willie and I practiced in his bedroom and often had philosophical conversations about our place in society. We were torn between nonconformity and acceptance.

One day, standing on his front porch, Willie looked around and said, “All these tract homes, all these people living the same lives, in the same houses, I’m never going to live like this.”

We were tortured comrades in teen-age angst. But Willie had a kind heart and a winning smile. Willie’s sincere interest in my feelings convinced me that I was unique, even though I had no outward proof at the time. Willie’s friendship instilled within me confidence, enough confidence to leave Camarillo for college. I eventually found a career and a wife who loves me and even a place in society. That was my next thing.

I believe Willie’s next thing was punk rock.

Later it was guitar, which he learned to play adroitly. He spent time in Hollywood as a gaffer on commercials and music videos. Word is that his name can be seen on the end credit of some production somewhere, although no one seems to know which one. Along the way, Willie turned to Christianity, carrying a Bible with him and sharing his faith with anyone who would listen.

Through it all, Willie’s parents never lost their faith in his potential. “We always thought Willie was going to be the one to do something, but he didn’t,” said his mother, Lois.

It turns out that was nobody’s fault. At the time I was listening so intently to Willie’s voice, what I didn’t know--what nobody knew until much later--was that Willie was listening to other voices, those inside his head, those he first heard when he was a child.

They came in the form of God, Jesus, the archangel Michael, Buddha. The voices contacted him and tortured him and prevented him from maintaining employment. He eventually came to believe that the destructive voices he heard were Satan’s.

After leaving Hollywood, Willie moved to Ventura and discovered life on the riverbed, where people kept well-tended gardens and lived in tents, some with portable TVs.

“He really liked living outside,” Jean said. “When we were young, we went camping every year in Zion National Park, and he loved it.”

At the river bottom, Willie found a daily ritual in feeding the squirrels and small animals that abounded. He lived there for eight months before his possessions were consumed by the 1992 flood that took a man’s life. Willie moved to a Ventura motel, where he was under the care of county mental health officials, who had diagnosed him as schizophrenic.

Last year, Willie went off his medication because it made him feel exhausted, and he moved back to the river bottom, with a promise to his parents that he would find an apartment when the rainy season began.

His parents tried endlessly to keep their son in their lives.

“We begged and pleaded, everyone did,” said his father, Jacque. “I swear to God that’s the truth. He had a home. What he wanted wasn’t here, wasn’t in society. It was out in the wild somewhere.”

Still, his family met him in parking lots at prescribed times for the occasional dinner and shower at home. They set him up with an ATM card so he could retrieve his Social Security money, which they deposited for him. But Willie seemed to have little need for money. During one visit, his father recalls how Willie handed $20 to a homeless vet at a traffic light, ignoring his own financial needs.

“He believed the Lord provided,” Jacque said.

In recent months, Willie’s calls became less and less frequent. His father had not seen him since Easter. “He was always welcome. He knew it,” Jacque said. “But he was just fading away from us, from society.”

They last spoke to him on Dec. 21, when he said he might be home for Christmas. The family bought Willie gifts--a new pair of Levis, among them--and set them under the tree. Willie never called, and the gifts remain unopened.

Last Tuesday, officials with bullhorns stood on the banks of the Ventura River calling its denizens up to safety before the storm waters hit. Perhaps Willie was sleeping, or maybe he was just accustomed to hearing strange voices. He never left his tent, which was most likely struck by a thundering wall of water formed by the canyons above. Willie’s body was recovered from the river inside his sleeping bag.

“Maybe he really does have a special relationship with the Lord,” his mother said. “I hope so.”

One thing remains certain, however. Willie was not homeless.

Funeral services for William Lee Shubert will be held at 1 p.m. today at Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary, 1075 E. Daily Drive in Camarillo. Burial will follow at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road in Camarillo.