It was Charlie more than Harpo channeled by the Ethiopian lad here, the softness and inner sweetness easily intuited. Black baseball cap with high crown and springing dark locks were minor elements. A true, living tramp in this case, almost entirely mute; almost all his conversation with his guys was without any turn of head, asides without movement of lips. Hearing his voice suddenly for the first time was as if an oracle had spoken; a breakthrough of talkies which rather detracted from the larger effect of staring and downcast eyes. The African regulars at the tables told of a US$5mil family home back in Addis (good families sliding like that being a wonder for these people). Observing the pantomime, the old sage heads from childhood around the kitchen table in their visiting clothes were recalled, men who had survived the war and whose whole burden was revealed in their gestures, nods and unblinking eyes. Still in his early thirties the Ethiop, smooth young cheeks, carrying his trials deep inside. Earlier in the year the man had been locked up for a number of weeks and his absence noted by a number of regulars. On Nicholson he roamed sixty or seventy metres from Paisley to Irving corners, the heart of African Village.
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