Casual
Casual Derek Richardson, Where Are You? People don't usually rap on my car window at red lights, so I was a little startled when, on my way to work a few months ago, I turned to find a man peering...
...No civilized nation would have issued this guy a driver's license, much less let him drive...
...As I walked back to the car after paying for the gas, a man in his 30s in a ratty-looking parka sidled up to me...
...And I really appreciate it...
...Please send back the money," I said before dropping him off near the DMV...
...Instead, I forked over the money, along with my address, written on the back of a parking stub...
...It turned out his car, a rusting heap parked across the street, had just blown a distributor valve...
...No doubt, man...
...Think you'll ever see your seven dollars again...
...He looked surprised I'd even question him...
...He hadn't, but his name certainly had been a lot of places...
...she asked, the familiar pity creeping into her voice...
...It didn't take long to discover that he was hoping to borrow money...
...And he talked too fast, managing to come off as demented and sly at the same time...
...He'd mail me a check as soon as he got back to his house...
...We drove on and my new friend explained his recent travails, but I wasn't really listening...
...He looked dirty and shaky and short of teeth...
...For one thing, this guy didn't look like a drug addict...
...After a few weeks of waiting for the check, I decided to track him down...
...At Georgetown...
...Not a trace of Derek Richardson...
...Or a Johnson ring...
...Derek Richardson seemed to be everywhere...
...To nobody's surprise, he wasn't...
...He had been in Washington on vacation for less than 24 hours when his car, which contained his wallet and passport, had been carted away by over-zealous parking police...
...I wanted to believe I had found Washington's one honest beggar...
...Derek Richardson, it turned out, was a fireman in Louisville, an astrophysicist in Toronto, an employee of a dog-food company in London, a high-school debate champion in Atlanta, the chairman of the National Farmers' Union in England, and a referee in the NBA...
...he asked...
...More telling, he appeared to have a legitimate job...
...So I lent him $48 to get his car out of hock...
...I guess they never do...
...So I ran his name through Nexis, in the hope he might have cheated somebody else in a newsworthy way...
...I called the State Department personnel office, scanned the federal employees' directory, harassed the lady at the registrar's office at Georgetown...
...I should have known it would happen," he said...
...His story didn't make sense...
...A replacement would be cheap and easy to get, but unfortunately-and this was the worst part, he said-he had left all his credit cards at home that day...
...I should have walked away then...
...The woman I spoke to seemed confused, both by the name Derek Richardson and by the institution he had claimed to work for...
...His name, he said, was Derek Richardson, and he worked as a teacher at the "Foreign Service School in Bonn, Germany...
...Pretty convincing stuff...
...There's no such thing...
...Several years ago, he was a murder victim in New Orleans...
...Can I talk to you for a second...
...He spoke with a mixture of pity and fascination, in the tone one reserves for the truly stupid...
...Finally, I called the American embassy in Bonn...
...He promised...
...Or a fribulator gasket...
...I went to school here...
...I'm sure he's good for it...
...That was the one identity he didn't seem to have...
...My car got towed," he said once I'd rolled down the window...
...My editor and I had pulled into a service station in a seedy part of northeast Washington, D.C., for a fill-up...
...All he needed was $7 to get his car going again, and could I lend it to him...
...my editor asked when I got back into the car...
...The Foreign Service School...
...But I didn't walk away...
...No question," I said...
...My thoughts had turned back four years, to the last time a "stranded motorist" hit me up for a short-term loan...
...The con artist at the gas station and the fellow I had just picked up seemed to have little in common...
...You'll wreck my faith in this kind of thing if you don't...
...Normally I would have given up, but by this point I was determined to catch up with Derek Richardson...
...I stepped back to take a look at the man...
...The light was changing and the man was reasonably well-dressed so I told him to get in...
...Needless to say, that was the last I heard from Derek Richardson...
...Or some other vaguely esoteric but absolutely vital piece of engine equipment...
...People don't usually rap on my car window at red lights, so I was a little startled when, on my way to work a few months ago, I turned to find a man peering in at me and mouthing what seemed to be an urgent message...
...Tucker Carlson...
...Except where he really was, cadging money from dummies like me at red lights...
...Can you help me...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 22
