He said hello back and then he called out-'I am happy today, I am so happy today. How are you today?'
This made me smile and feel happy, so I said- 'Well, seeing you so happy has made me happy.'
Then I walked over to him so I could hear him better.
'You live in that house?' he said.
I told him yes, that I did, and had just moved in.
'I'll see around a lot then,' he told me, 'I'm always up and down this road, I'm always working,'
His shopping trolley was a tower of what looked like recyclable material- a gigantic see through plastic bag of cans in the bottom, picture frames, a mop handle, a green rubbish bag on top and various things poking through the cage of the trolley.
'I'm not like those other ones down there,' he said, 'those ones waiting for handouts, I am out there getting my own thing, it's how I was brought up, it's the kind of man I am. I am that kind of man,'
Then, because he had seen the tattoos on my leg, I listened while he explained a tattoo he had on his shoulder.
'It's my name, Robert Di Rosa,' he said, showing me the tattoo-a cross with 2 small roses above it.
'My daddy was a white man with Italian and German in him, and my mother was Brazilian, Mexican and Indian,' he told me.
I spoke a little bit of Italian to him, calling him Roberto Della Rosa, and he laughed and told me that because his mother was Mexican he was given the Mexican version of his last name.
The he told me that he was not a thief.
'I always ask before I take something,' he said, referring, I supposed, to the content of his shopping trolley.
Then he told me a story about how he had learned to ask because the black people in his childhood neighbourhood would fill shotguns with rock salt and shoot intruders to their yards.
This, he said, had taught him to respect people's property.
Then, suddenly, he started to talk about spirits, about how he had good spirits around him.
'You got those good spirits too,' he told me, 'and you've even got my name on your neck,'
It was true, I have a tattoo of a rose on my neck and he told me for this I would never forget his name.
Then, when he was ready to go I tried to shake his hand, but he wouldn't.
Instead he held out his fist to me and we did that knuckle banging thing.
'I've been in the trash,' he said, 'I don't want to get you dirty, because you know, we get older, we get sick and we can't get rid of it, so I won't shake your hand,'
Then he told me to have a good day, and that he would be looking out for the house.
Then he started to push his trolley down the road and I said to him- 'You have been an inspiration to me today, Roberto Della Rosa.' and he laughed and said he would see me again soon.
I thought about the dignified Roberto Della Rosa all the way to a cafe where I was to leave some postcards for my tattooing, where I was going to drink a coffee and where I would end up seated at a table with a man called Mark, who, when I asked him what he did for a job, showed me a website for a new product he was selling-Swedish personal lubricant.
******
The tattoo above was originally an outline of an old skool rose.
Sarah, on whose arm it is, asked me if I would colour it in in my style.
I said yes, of course, I would love to, just up my alley.
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