The Acceptable Face of Vagrancy

Perhaps he once played pan flute in one of those ubiquitous Peruvian busking bands that used to fill city centers with South American sounds. Or perhaps he is an Eskimo who set off polar bear trapping in a blizzard but lost his way; aimlessly wandering from Arctic Circle to traffic circle, confused and alone, his brown face more cracked and worn than the many leather bags slung over his shoulder, until he came to a stop on Boston Common.
Huddled and hunched amongst these numerous parcels and cases, he now perches on the same park bench every day, cradling a paper bag full of stale muffins and bagels, from which he feeds his daily congregation of pigeons and sparrows. Maybe he even sleeps there.
"Good morning," he says to each commuter as we march past. "How are you? Happy today! Yes. Thank you." Then he cackles, claps and waves, and extends the same greeting to the next person rushing by. But this cheerful, recurring greeting is the only thing he extends, never his upturned palm. He never asks for money.
Most mornings, on my way to work, I too am laden down with bags, but other mornings I don't carry any at all. He always notices when I'm not, pantomiming my lack of burden with his wiry arms and shaking his head: "No bag today?" Bags are obviously very important to him, the greasy vessels into which the water of his life has been poured, even if it is stagnant and reflects nothing.
He keeps his distance from the other vagrants that litter the park, whom morning reveals hidden under their coarse gray blankets, sprawled across the grass like dead men on a battlefield, until they awake with wolfish eyes and mouths filled with bile. These rowdier, violent bums will surely find him one day, however, when some kind soul has given him something that they want. And I will feel an absence when he is gone, a missing edge piece from the jigsaw of humanity.