Coda to "The Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street"

Well, it has been three days and he is gone. I am convinced the Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street has moved on. Incredibly, since even before I first posted about his arrival on Thursday, September 20, 2007, he has been seated in just about the same spot, on the block outside the parking garage. His plastic trash bags filled with who knows what (cash ? trash ?) are still there for now, neatly piled, where he last left them, only now there are empty coffee cups and soda bottles stacked on them by passersby. Soon they will be gone.

He would be there every morning when I passed him on my way up to Court Street and every evening as I headed home. I wonder if the NYPD forced him to move to a shelter or a jail lockup for his own safety, when this most recent snow and cold snap started. Or did he just see that the weather was going from bad to worse and he picked himself up, scruffy and filthy, beyond ascetic, but always peaceful and reserved, and went---somewhere. Will he be back next year, when the construction of the latest coops and condos is completed, and when we will know who are the actual candidates for the U.S. Presidential election ?

I usually just passed him by as I hurried to and from my office but for some reason, maybe just his pathetic presence, maybe something in me, I was moved to let down my urban, life-long New Yorker shield, and so I gave him a couple of bucks when I passed him last week. He was eating something, he barely looked up but reached out a filthy hand to take my donation. I couldn't imagine anyone letting him into their store to buy anything. Maybe he lives on what he can buy from the hot dog carts on the street.

Although he seemed very inner-focused, I couldn't help but think that he was acutely aware of folks passing him on the street, as though he was attuned to the rhythm and regulars, like me, of Schermerhorn Street. But maybe to him, having staked out his spot, unmoving, it seemed that the world moved around him, and in this place he belonged and all the rest of us were the Wandering Strangers.

--Brooklyn Beat