He walked up Lafayette toward my wife and I at about 5:15 AM.

Here came a tall black man with salt and pepper beard wearing a black North Face jacket with the hood pulled over his head and a blanket draped over his shoulders.

He gave a small, somewhat wilted, bouquet of flowers to the lady and asked for a cigarette in return. She gave him one, he broke off the filter and accepted a light.

Our hand shake, prompted by talk of Jazz, surprised me with fluidity. Hands together, thumb over thumb, drawing back to a four finger pull and then a light fist bump.

He was very easy to talk to once I got used to the way he drew associations. It seemed he would start with lists that would turn into stories. Names and places popped from his mind until something sent us in a  more detailed direction.

Pretty soon, my wife decided to go back up to our room and I stayed and talked with the man. We sat on the wet bench in front of the hotel and I shared the remainder of my cigars with him as we jumped around in topics. He knew something about everything and his list of names is still a river in my brain.

He frequently used the phrase can you imagine?

I asked him his name and he said Kushamaro – The one that god smiled upon

He dubbed me Juwallah – Father of the Earth. I told him that I thought I could deal with the responsibility of that and he chuckled.

We moved from Jesus being a carpenter to Marvin Gaye’s death to Krushev beating his shoes upon the table. We talked about how people do not acknowledge each other on the subway and how good it feels to get older. He hailed several folks who walked by and they not only smiled at him but at me as well.

The sun came up and I figured I had better rejoin the family upstairs. He listed about six different phrases for going including move on and bail. I threw in a couple of my own cause it was so easy to do with him.

I clasped his hand once and we said goodbye. We stood and I gave him my hand one more time. He took it but then looked away from me and down Lafayette. He had melted back into the thickening morning crowd and our connection was gone. I walked away and took the escalator to the second floor.

Later, I saw a car covered in crochet and then drove back to Delaware.

a colorfully crocheted car in Soho