Riley Shepard Brown

His name was Tally, short for Tallyrand, as I was to find out later.

I hadn't thought of him for years until a few weeks ago.

He used to hold forth in front of a bar not far from the advertising agency where I worked.
Summer and winter, he would stand on a grill in the sidewalk, under where the trains rumbled
to and from Jersey. He always wore a long black coat that was incredibly greasy. In the
wintertime, he rustled as he moved, so you know he had newspapers wrapped around his
body to help ward off the chill.

I guess I was one of his favorite marks, because I could never pass him without handing
out a dollar or a bit of change.

He always smiled and said, "Thank your, friend." there was a strange dignity about him
that was out of character with cadging money for drinks.

Frank, the bartender, thought so, too. He'd heard, he said , that Tally came from a rich
family somewhere out in Chestnut Hill. He didn't know about that, but he'd seen a black
limo pick up Tally a couple of times and take him away. In a couple of weeks or so,
he'd be back, doing business at the same stand.

You can't stop a wino from being a wino unless he didn't want to be one, Frank
said; which I thought was pretty good philosophy.

Once I took Tally by the arm and led him to a nearby luncheonette. At the
waitress placed food in front of him, he grimaced and said, "A terrible waste of good
drinking money." He ate, but he didn't act as if he enjoyed it.

When he had finished, he said solemnly, "What you have done, my good
friend, is to destroy a perfectly good buzz. Surely you must feel guilty about
that, don't you?"

I must have, for I remember giving him a couple of dollars to start another buzz.

I think that was the last time I saw Tally. They knocked down the bar to make way
for a parking lot, and I supposed he moved on to another grill in the sidewalk, or perhaps
one in the sky.

But I was wrong. Tally was not out of my life for good.

Not long ago, I received a telephone call from a gentleman with a cultured voice,
his accent slightly tinged with sadness.

Once satisfied with my identity, he said, "You may be interested to know
that Tallyrand is dead."

"Tallyrand?"

"You probably knew him as Tally. A lot of his - er - associates did. When he was
picked up, he had a notebook with your name in it. He desecribed you as a friend
and - ah - a soft touch. There's to be a memorial service for Tallyrand. Would you like
to come?"

I said I would and I did.

I sat in the back with the few "associates" Tally had left. Frank, the bartender, was
there, much heavier than when I'd last seen him, sweating and uncomfortable in a
black suit. What I took to be Tally's family was up front.

After the brief services, I stood outside in the darkness. I felt good. It isn't
often that one is called a friend and a soft touch at the same time.

Note:
Although my father, I am sure, took some literary license in the telling of this,
there was a "Tally" in Philadelphia who was a true "wino". He belonged to
a very rich family, and was a sort of legend in the city.

My father did, in fact, make friends with him; and honored him at his
funeral services.

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