A Handshake With a Man Wearing a Helmet.

This morning as I left the gym, a wild-haired though tidily-dressed man, pulling a small, wheeled, carry on luggage and wearing something similar to a hockey helmet, stopped me and began looking me up and down.
'Where'd you get all those tattoos?' he said.
'England,' I said back to him.
'Whereabouts in England?' he said,
'Oxford,' I said, lying.

Then, not wanting to be unsociable, I stood there letting him look me up and down for a bit until he suddenly stopped, stared right into my eyes and said- 'I think there's an English professor from Oxford.'
And then he began to tell me a story that I could not understand.
A story that might have been about a trip he had taken to Oxford and that might have involved something about his family.
I stood holding my bicycle and saying 'uh-huh' until he finally stopped talking and held out his hand.
I  took his hand and shook it until he let go.
'God bless you' he told me 3 times.
'Thank you,' I told him, 'very much.'

I thought about that meeting most of the way home, about how I'd immediately wanted to wash my hand and about how the skin on the man's hand had been so much softer than I'd expected.