I've got some good news.

After some four months of indescribable effort, I've finally made a friend in Albany.

He seems to spend his days hanging out on the steps of Emmanuel Baptist Church on State Street. If he's not there, he's probably sitting on one of the benches across the street. But he’s always alone.

He looks like a modern day Walt Whitman, with a shock of white hair and an even more shocking long, white beard, even though Walt Whitman probably spent less time drunk and had fewer urine stains on his pants. That's just a guess, though; you can't really tell from the pictures.

Our friendship started a few weeks ago. I was walking home from work and he stopped me to ask for a cigarette. I gave him one, and as I fished around for my lighter, he asked me how I was doing.

"Not too badly," I said to him, making sure my grammar was correct. "How's by you?"

"Man, it's rough," he said contemplatively as he tried to run his fingers through his knotted beard. They got stuck halfway down, and as he tried to tug them out, his head kept jerking downward. "I lost m'best glove the other day. Don't have any idea where th’hell it is."

I looked down at his hands. The left one was safely enclosed in an old snowmobile glove, stained with chicken grease and what smelled like whiskey. He had his right hand in a new looking, pink knitted mitten, and had the hand and mitten hidden in embarrassment in the pocket of his jacket.

He took his hand out of his pocket, pointed at the mitten, and said, "Now I gotta wear this ridiculous fucking thing. I got it on New Year's Eve."

I'm always curious what people with social lives do with their time, so I asked him what he did on New Year's.

"Man, it was fucking lovely. The church here throws a little get together so I get to meet up with s’m nice god-fearing folk and have s’m ‘telligent goddamn conversation. The little kiddies put on a little play. And th’church pays a little more for work I do around here on big holidays, so all in all, it wuzza great f’cking day. What'd you do?"

"Actually," I said, "I didn't do all that much. Sat around here mostly. Got some dinner. Watched TV. Went to sleep."

"Nice, man. Nice," he said. "Don't sound t’bad at all. Where'd you get dinner from?"

"Nowhere spectacular. I picked up a burrito."

“From where? Bombers? Man,” he said, the two-dollar whiskey blowing from his mouth with each syllable, “that place is fucking great. Fucking GREAT! Doesn’t beat the Biltmore, though. That place has the best fucking lobster EVER, man.”

He jabbed his finger with each of the last six words and almost tripped over one of the four steps leading up to the church.

This guy rocked, but I was cold and wanted to keep moving. I offered to buy him a drink.

“Love to, love to, love to. But I got me a hot date tonight with this guy. He’s gonna swing by here in a little bit. I’m excited cuz that’s the hardest part ‘bout this city: the loneliness. Everyone’s lonely. Good’f you to ask, though. What’s your name?”

“Dan,” I said. “Albany Dan.”

“Albany Dan? Like the city, huh? That’s f’cking civic spirit, is what that is. I’m James.”

He slid off his stiff snowmobile glove, and extended his hand, black with all manner of street nastiness. I shook it and went on my way.

For the rest of the evening, questions I should have asked him kept popping into my mind. Where does a guy like him go on a date? What kind of guy does he go for? Does he clean himself up beforehand?

By morning, I’d completely forgotten about it.

I left my house and headed for the coffee joint where I picked up my usual breakfast. The old guy with the Dali moustache and the walking stick who’s out there reading poetry every morning with his coffee wasn’t there. I was always curious about him, but never actually spoke to him.

The poetry guy had always looked, well, ancient, with papery skin and the baldness not of someone who went bald genetically, but who went bald over time. Regardless, this was the first morning I hadn’t seen him there so I figured he had probably died.

I was upset but late for work, so I kept going without thinking about it too much longer. I hung a left on State and after a few blocks, came to the church.

Sitting on the steps was James, with his head in the poetry guy’s lap. The poetry guy was reading aloud, and they were happily passing a bottle between themselves of the cheapest bottle of whiskey made. James saw me, smiled with his brown teeth, and gave me a big ol’ thumbs up.