Being a sucker for flattery, I also refrained from telling her just how cheap I came and how often. Why burst her bubble when we hardly knew each other?
“I’m prepared to pay the price, your price, so long as I think I’m getting quality.”
For my part, I was prepared to let her live with her illusions, especially this one. I asked her to tell me what she knew.
Her father was a Vietnam vet. He met her mother while they were students at a small upstate college after he came back from the service. They were together a year when she got pregnant. He took off. Her mother said he just couldn’t handle the stress, that he was never quite right after he got back from Southeast Asia. According to her mother, he suffered from terrible nightmares.
When she was finished telling me what she knew, I asked the appropriate questions.
Did he ever come back to visit?
Not that she was aware of.
What about his family?
He was from Ohio and she checked the web for the family name, Osborne, but she came up empty.
When she was finished, I shook my head. “I’m not a miracle worker,” I said.
“There is something else,” she said, her eyes dropping from me to the half-empty cup of joe.
“What’s that?”
“I do have what I think is a good lead for you.”
“What’s that?”
“I think he may be hanging in or around Grand Central Terminal. Maybe he works there or maybe…” – she paused a moment – “he’s homeless.”
“How do you know this?”
“When he was in the service he received a Bronze Star. Not long ago, it turned up in Grand Central.”
“What does that mean?”
“It was found amongst the belongings of a homeless woman. You know, the kind who wheel all their possessions around in a shopping cart and plastic bags. Obviously, it wasn’t hers, so the authorities tracked it down as belonging to my father. Donald Osborne.”
“She could have gotten it a dozen different ways.”
“She could, but she said she got it from the man who owned it. The authorities couldn’t find a current address, for him, I mean, my dad, so they could return it to him, but they did contact the Veteran’s Administration, and I found out about it through them when I began searching for him. I would suggest you start there.”
When I’d exhausted all the questions I could think of, she took out her checkbook, wrote me a check for a retainer of $1,000, which would cover two days’ work, and I was off and running. I promised a two-day turnaround. If it took longer we agreed to negotiate the additional cost.
Grand Central Terminal, not Station, which is a common error people make, is smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan. You start there or end there, and in this case it was the end or certainly near the end for many people who were and are so down on their luck that they have made GCT their home. Technically then, they are no longer homeless – they are simply unwelcome.
This was where I was to begin my search for Karyn’s father.
But first, I learned as much about him as possible.
His name was Donald Osborne. He was born in Ohio, a small town outside of Columbus. He enlisted in the army right out of high school, in 1968. He spent two tours of duty in Vietnam and was wounded, which is how he got the Bronze Star, saving three men by holding off the Vietcong for three hours, until help arrived. He served his time and then when he came back to the states he enrolled at Alfred University on the GI Bill, where he met Karyn’s mother. There was no record of them ever being hitched, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t the father.
His trail went cold soon after that. Karyn’s mother wasn’t alive, so I couldn’t get anything from her, and I couldn’t find anyone left close enough to be called family. I was able to dig up a photograph from an article in the college paper. Over forty years old, would be difficult to go by, but it was better than nothing. Osborne, dressed in his Army uniform looking stoic and proud, was standing in front of student services. Of greater interest was an article in the paper following his first week of attendance, showing protesters sitting on the school lawn holding signs. “Baby Killers NOT Welcome Here.” And “Give Peace a Chance.” Apparently the schools anti-war club didn’t think Osborne deserving of a hero’s welcome.
That was it.
The rest I’d have to learn by visiting where things started and ended.
Grand Central Terminal.
My first stop was security, where I asked about the found medal. Initially, I was met with blank stares and quizzical looks, but eventually I was able to track down the officer who’d found the woman who had the medal. Fortunately, he happened to be on duty that evening and I found him patrolling the downstairs area, where most of the homeless now congregated, sitting at the café tables intended for commuters. At first glance they might seem like anyone else traveling through, but after watching them for a while it was clear they weren’t going anywhere. Many of them sat without their coats on, surrounded by plastic shopping bags, newspapers, and empty coffee cups.
Lined with fancy restaurants like Junior’s and Zocalo, the place was just emptying out with the last of the commuters headed home for the night. I hadn’t been there for a while and it took me by surprise that the large, comfortable leatherette wing chairs had now been replaced by benches, obviously meant to keep the homeless from becoming too comfortable. Tables meant for the public to eat take-out food from several of the non-sit-down eateries, were mostly empty now, except for the homeless.
I spotted the cop, whose name was Doyle. He was kicking the soles of the feet of an old man, slumped over and sleeping, arms wrapped tight around a dirty plastic bag bulging with unidentifiable items. “Sir! Sir! You can’t sleep here, sir!”
“Excuse me,” I said, “I wonder if you could help me.”
“Information booth’s upstairs,” he said, still focused on his work.
“That’s not the kind of information I’m looking for.”
“You’re in a friggin’ train station, what other kind of information you want. Where the toilets are?”
“Wearing my Depends, so I’m good there. I’m looking for a homeless woman. Do you remember the woman you picked up the other day who had that Bronze medal in her cart? Don’t you think it should be returned to its rightful owner? Maybe if I can find who I’m looking for you’ll have one less person to roust.”
“She was shipped off to a shelter, but that doesn’t mean she’s not back here by now. They all come back. They complain the shelters are dangerous, and maybe they are. This is like home to them.”
“But it’s your job to get them out of here.”
“Personally, I couldn’t give a shit. So long as they don’t bother anyone, it’s fine with me. It’s just that we can’t allow them to sleep, make a mess of themselves, or bother the customers.”
“They have favorite spots, don’t they?”
“Yup.”
“And hers?”
“Over there, back table,” he said, gesturing behind me. “In fact, I think that’s her. Grey hair, pinned back, black sweater.”
I looked over my shoulder, and there, sitting at a small, round table, covered with newspapers, a water bottle and Starbucks coffee cup, and surrounded by three shopping bags, a coat on the back of her chair, was a surprisingly elegant looking woman.
“Her?” I said, nodding my head in her direction.
“Yup.”
“She looks almost… ”
“Normal?”
“Yeah, if there is such a thing.”
“She’s not bat-shit crazy, if that’s what you mean. But she probably has an alcohol problem, or she’s not on her meds. She’s lucid. At least she was the other day.”
“She got a name?”
“Lucy.”
I excused myself and headed over to Lucy’s table.
As I approached, she looked up and a look of fear spread over her face.