Willy the Greater - Hero to Zero in 30 seconds

I grew up in England in the late '60's and early '70's. As a child one of my favourite shows was a puppet show on the BBC called "The Wombels of Wimbeldon". When I first met Willy the Greater, it was like seeing a wombel come to life.

Why Willy the Greater? Mostly to distinguish him from wee willy, but also because he was definitely a legend in his own mind. Willy was totally old school, one of the last of the post-war homeless men who filled the shelters still when I started but who are now mostly gone.

Willy had a crew, and in the hour before the shelter opened I could stand on the second floor and look out the window to get a bird's eye view of the complex interactions between him and his followers. For a long time I thought that his reign would outlast me. I was wrong.

Working a day shift one, day in the summer of 1994 one of Willy's minions came into the office and said Willy needed help. I went over to the bus stop at Queen and River

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and found Willy slumped on a bench in the TTC shelter outside the bank. His crew were gathered round, uncertain what to do in a suddenly leaderless world. Like the Death of Nelson, the moment seemed frozen in time, a moment of transition that held us all spellbound and frozen momentarily in time.

Willy was large in personality, spirit and body. If you have ever tried to move a completely limp body you will know how anti-easy it is to lift a body from prone to standing without the bodies cooperation. We got him up and carried him back to the steps of Dixon Hall, were the ambulance was just arriving. A flurry of activity and then Willy was gone to the hospital.

Willy's crew was lost, a crew without a captain is one of life's great tragedies. For the next few weeks I watched the crew from my second floor vantage point, a formally complex set of interactions and negotiations replaced with a despondence and apathy that seemed ominous.

Turns out Willy had a heart attack. Released from hospital he showed up one day about 20 pounds lighter and 20 years older. At first, seeing an unfamiliar shape moving slowly down the street I didn't even recognize him. When he got to his former court (a stump of log under a tree) it was like he had a weight lifted off his shoulders. He was alive, he was back, he was ready to resume his leadership. He was wrong.

From the day he returned from the hospital Willy was alone until his death. As though his crew knew he was too weak to lead them, and having had the weeks to adjust to the new reality, they had moved on.

Day after day I watched him struggle to regain his former glory, and every day it was like you could see a part of him slipping away. In time he faded into the background, no longer the larger than life figure he had been he became one more aging dying shambling shadow amongst a rag tag band of shadows.

I have never seen a ghost, but I have seen a person pass into death in a moment, though it took a long time afterwards to die.