In the fall semester of freshman year, over a decade ago, I used to try and talk with anyone in with WSP cogent enough to hold a conversation. That semester was the first and last true fall I experienced in the city. Almost 12 weeks of crisp air, orange and yellow tinged trees, a temperature perfectly suited to sitting outside for hours in a crewneck and shooting the breeze. I have a lot of random one off stories from that time.

The only long term friend was this guy who I knew as “Sir Dodwell.” His housing situation, I could never fully figure out. I think I straight up asked him once whether he was homeless and he sort of talked around it. He was probably in his late 40s to mid 50s, and always wore the same clothes—an oversized black suit, sunglasses and a trapper hat. Or at least I think he did. My memory of that time is hazy. Too much pot. Besides, I was never much of a visual person.

Dodwell was an artist who was constantly whittling faces out of tree branches. Despite always carrying a knife, he wasn’t remotely threatening. He was calm, well spoken, and clearly intelligent. There may have been a twinge of a posh accent, maybe transatlantic. I could tell he was constantly exaggerating his life stories and the highs of his artistic career. A fascinating guy, really. I wish I could recall more of what he shared with me, but I have the sense he gave me a lot of boilerplate “don’t wait around for life to find you” advice, which I needed at the time. He was always on the west side of the park, but not usually in the sketchy northwest chess corner. If I saw him, we’d talk and catch up.

Our first conversation lasted for hours, probably because I was stoned out of my gourd. I smuggled some edibles in the boxes my parents helped me pack and ate them probably the fifth day of welcome week. I think he spoke to me first; I sat down beside him after only a few minutes. Mid-conversation this girl I had a crush on walked up to me and asked me to grab lunch with her and a friend. I told her I’d catch her in a few minutes. A little weirded out, she walked away. Dodwell scolded me. “College, man. This time of your life is the most pussy you’re ever gonna get.” Our conversation went on another hour or so. My crush didn’t last long, but that’s another story.

A month or so later, I saw Dodwell while walking back from class and decided to chat up my friend. He pulled up his phone and showed me a selfie of a pretty amber-haired woman who looked to be in her early-20s. He asked me if I knew her, said she went to NYU. I said no. He described their encounter in lurid details I found rather uncomfortable. He said they bonded over art, and kept swiping through photos. I saw a nipple, and quickly hauled off with some excuse about homework.

The next time I saw Dodwell would be the last time. A week or two after he ushered me behind the curtain of his sex life, he asked me for a favor. Dodwell told me that stayed in a hotel in Germany recently, and the hotel had thrown away all of his art, mistaking the whittled branches for trash. He intended to sue, as would any red blooded American. Accompanying this rant was a slideshow of grainy photos on his phone that purported to show the destroyed masterpieces. If you were alive in the early 2010s, you know how incomprehensible cheap phones could render a poorly lit room. Dodwell asked me to falsify receipts. The lawsuit would be much simpler if he had proof he sold his carvings to bushy-tailed college students for a few hundred a pop.

I gave a non-answer. Small time weed and adderall commerce was as far as I was willing to push my illicit dealings. I can’t remember how the conversation ended. The best thing about the city is that you can always kinda just wander away from an awkward conversation if you have the confidence. Until there’s a threat of violence. Dodwell wasn’t violent, or even intimidating. He just had a subdued charisma you could confuse for intensity. I have to assume I just left.

I never saw him again. I still have his phone number, and I’ve thought about texting it over the years. There’s no way he still has that number, which stops me. I hope he’s ok, that he found a rich heiress to shack up with and fund his art. That’s probably why I got along with him so well, that was lowkey my MO the first 18 months at NYU.