NO STRANGER DANGER
Abir Mahmud, Class : 9
Reading the newspaper today on the sofa made me laugh out loud. It also pulled out the remnants of an
old memory I had sought to bury deep in my mind, a fragile memory which I had thought had been put
down forever.
It was roughly 6 years ago on New Year’s Eve. I was staying for a brief holiday in Queens, NYC for a short
visit to my relatives. Snow was pouring outside like cotton falling out from a pillow. The air was
incredibly cold. The sky was dark like a cave but the street lights were on thankfully. It wasn’t like the
skin-seeping pinch of a morning Alaskan breeze. I was standing outside a shopping mall while Mother
was browsing for dresses, fidgeting with my new toy watch as well watching the high spirits of the
shoppers swarming around me. I suppose I was 10 years old.
There was a homeless man in the middle of the street, finding his way among the stream of cars. I could
only assume that he was homeless in his outfit, which was smelly and bizarre. He held a brown paper
bag for spitting cough. The other hand was being used to make rude gestures and to thumb the bonnets
of the parked cars nearby the parking lot. All the while he was letting out a string of loose vile curses and
words. Not just the everyday curses either. This guy threatened the locals that milk would turn sour on
their fridges; food would go stale and would make them infertile for eternity. He was like a one-man
comedy show with the outrageousness of his performance.
He had a strange appearance, almost as if it was made up. His hair was wizened and straw-like, nearly
fossilized that it was so dry. He had the sad eyes of a basset hound and a distinctive beard. It wasn’t so
thick like an Arabian captain’s beard but rather like something a lunatic might have: bushy and spittleflecked. His face was toil-worn and tanned from exposure to the elements and he walked with a weary,
sad air until he would explode in a burst of rage. His fingers were gnarled and knobby and the clothes he
wore were musty and smelly judging by the reaction of the people passing by him. I don’t want to sound
past remarkable, but he was truly an unpleasant character. What made the situation a lot worse was
that he was making a beeline for where I was standing.
I shuffled uncomfortably as he approached. He seemed to have a piercing gaze on me and laser-pointed
me as if I was his prey for the day. His voice was surprisingly a gravel-and-gravy mixture of coarse and
educated English accents.
“Hey kid, got a dollar to spare for me?”
He seemed very gentle and modest, compared to his rude behavior, a complete black-and-white
contrast to the North End character I had witnessed earlier. I normally don’t entertain a vagrant or
weirdoes but I felt so compelled and grateful for not pushing me to the edge for some money. And as
you may guess, I pulled the first note out of my pocket. It was 100 dollar note. And instantly I felt a pang
of regret since it was a part of my birthday money as I handed him over the note. He looked at the note
and I seem to remember that he said: “You’re generous, kid. God bless all kind people.”
With that, he was off. He zigzagged his way across the street, screaming out loud if anyone honked him.
The last I remember of him was that he was going across a shop front and an old man gave him some
money and entered a dark alley.
As soon as I went through the memories, my eyes drifted to the New York Times obituary corner. The
caption was ‘New York’s Unlikeliest Billionaire.’
Died Saturday, aged 56: Lloyd Sterling, heir to the Mecosta-Reiner Oil Company, and notorious practical
joker. Lloyd, who was a dedicated actor and keen observer of human life, liked nothing better than to
dress up as a vagrant and shout insults at fellow New Yorkers. Although knocked down twice as a result
of these escapades, he played out his role till his last breath. His last words were known to be: “You’re
generous, man. God bless all good-looking people.” Indeed, these are the exact words which shall be on
his epitaph as per his wishes.
It is believed that Mr. Sterling left an estate worth $2.6 bn. As he does not have any immediate family,
speculation is mounting as to who shall be named after his will. Rumors are rife that he had a team of
private detectives ready to trace all of those who had paid him. They would discover the identities of
people who were particularly generous to Mr. Sterling’s alter ego. It might be of another urban myth, of
which New Yorkers are particularly fond, but sources in New York Times are adamant that Mr. Sterling
intended to pay back those who had a generous spirit.
I laughed out loud again as I finished the article. He was most definitely a character, this guy. I had to
hand it to him. He knew how to get a kick out of life.
I thought nothing more of it until the mail came from an unknown detective three months later. But this
time I didn’t laugh at all. I cried with happiness.