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"Have you got a pen?"


 Boys, I gotta tell you about this guy I met today. Some hipster hobo in his fifties, walking along the street past my work while I'm out front having an afternoon cigarette. "Have you got a pen?" he asks, waving a scrap of paper in his hand. "You wouldn't believe it, I've found two pens today, a red one and a blue one, but I went home to change my jacket, and I've left them there." Well, maybe I do have a pen, I tell him, just hold on a minute. So I rifle through my pockets, but come up emptyhanded.

Meanwhile, we've been talking at total ease with each other. He shows me some ornamental pine cutting he's found and had tucked away in the wallet pocket of his jacket. “When the words come, you've got to write them down,” he says. I know what you mean, I say. 

Then he's talking about holidaying in Blackpool and writing poems to gift to strangers as thanks for the good time he had there. Tells me he's a retired gentleman's tailor and is now a beard grower. Be proud of the beard, he says.

Another guy walks by, looks kinda like a homeless type fella. Friendly enough. Asks where he can get a bus ticket (but doesn’t ask for any money; highly unusual for someone on the streets of this town). “Try the bus ticket shop,” my acquaintance suggests. Now it comes: “But I got no money,” says the homeless guy. “Why, how much do you need?” the beard grower asks. “A pound,” comes the answer. “Alright, I'll give you a pound,” says the beard grower, “Gimme it back next time you see me.”

The ticketless guy has a Walkman and a handful of tapes with him. My enquiries reveal them to be a selection of children’s TV theme music and the soundtrack for Breakdance 2. With a pound in his pocket, he's on his way without saying thanks. Our beard grower jokingly shouts after him, “Thanks for the pound”. “Oh yeah, right, sorry...” mumbles the Walkman guy as he slopes away.

My new friend then tells me about a bi-annual beard-growing contest he's thinking of entering. It’s in Berlin this year, apparently. He starts explaining the seventeen different categories you can enter and how it’s not just about the beard, but about how you present it—whether you’ve chosen the right style for you, what attire you’re wearing, how you carry yourself (your gait, no less).

Then we're talking music, and he mentions Leonard Cohen. I respond affirmatively, which leads to us singing a tender duet of Bird on a Wire while standing at the top of the steps outside my workplace. 

We end up parting with me saying to him, "If you ever see me on the street, stop me and say hello, or rather… please don’t pass me by,” which creases him up. He tells me to do likewise before chuckling off, still in search of a pen.

 

- June 2005 -


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