Oh, the warm winds blow

The other night, the weather was criminally pleasant. Nice enough for me to park myself at a sidewalk cafe off Tompkins Square for a little catch-up people watching. I don't like winter. The people are in too bundled up and in too much of a hurry for good recreational observation. The first thaw came the other night, and with it, people.

One of those people was dressed head-to-toe in black. Black wide-brim hat. Black suit coat. Black Pants. Black pleated skirt. (Yup.) Black chukka boots with toes like icepicks. The sun was well down, but his eyes were covered by black wrap-around sunglasses. Even his hands and the lines in his face not covered by a black beard were etched black. He staggered in front of me, trying to eat a slice of pizza and maintain forward movement at the same time. He was drunk. He failed.

Somewhere in the course of this aborted attempt at walking, he managed to spot me. He stopped. His eyes tried to focus. He advanced on me. There was a nasty gash on his left cheek. The blood was dried black, but it hadn't had time to completely scab up yet.

He was close enough that I could smell dead alcohol and old skin in the breeze and he said something in a blurred whisper that was so soft, I couldn't make it out.

"What?"

"You look like a writer. You a writer?"

"That's what some people call it." He was good, I'll admit. Top notch observation skills. I hadn't taken my notebook out. My pen was concealed and my computer holstered. And he still called me out. I wouldn't have pegged him.

"I could tell," he said. "I'm a writer too."

"Oh, that's great," I said. Just great, I thought. Me and you, brother. Me and you. Kindred spirits. It hurt a little.

Just as I braced for the "you got any spare change?" line that wino writers like to close with, a small man with a large voice shouted from the corner. "Al! You fuck! You look like a Goddamn ninja. Where you been?"

My brother of the ink turned away from me. Old friend trumps new comrade, I suppose. "I been busy," he said as the two men split the distance between them and collided in a free-form hug.

I wasn't sad to see him go. I'd been spared the need to tell him to fuck off about the money.

But part of me figured I owed it to him to write about our little moment.