He goes by the nickname “Krakonoš”, after the Czech mythical mountain deity who protects the wilderness. It’s because of his hat and long beard – the style is identical to that of the deity himself. He’s been confined to a wheelchair for many years, having lost both his legs to diabetes-related gangrene. He lives on welfare and panhandling, although he is no longer homeless, and in the past he served an 8 year prison sentence for manslaughter after killing a man who’d assaulted his wife. Some years ago he also saved an abandoned infant from certain death in winter after he found it in a refuse container, unceremoniously wrapped in newspaper by its heroin-addicted mother and left to its fate. He says he cannot tolerate violence to women, children or animals. Despite his diabetes, he still drinks heavily, and is often difficult to understand – brief periods of lucidity are interspersed with mumbled, disjointed apocalyptic prophecies and stories of his experiences with Jesus Christ back in the day. I haven’t seen him in a few months now and hope he’s doing alright.