This is the story of the good corner boy. As stories go it is as true as any. To some it may seem improbable but I can counter this by stating that most true stories seem that way anyway. Enough, however, of the preamble. Let us proceed without further ado.
On 20 December 1971, Madgie Crane withdrew some of her savings from the bank. A tidy sum was involved: two hundred pounds no less, but then as she might say herself she had many calls. There were sons and daughters and grandchildren. There were neighbours and there were friends and relations. Of husbands she had none. There had been one but he had passed on some years before and she had come to terms with her grief in the course of time.
As she turned the corner which would take her to the post office she bumped accidentally into another woman who chanced to be returning from the same venue. As a result Madgie Crane’s purse jumped from the grocery bag where it had been securely wedged between a cabbage and a half-pound of rashers. It landed at the feet of the corner boy in residence and that worthy immediately fenced it between his waiting boots where no trace of it remained visible to the searching eye.
The minutes passed but no move did our corner boy make. He looked hither and thither from time to time but if there had never been a purse between his feet he would have looked hither and thither anyway and he would have looked up and down anyway but he would never have bent to tie his shoes for in all the years that I have spent studying corner boys I never saw one bend to tie his shoes.
As he pretended to look after his laces his delicate fingers quickly opened the purse and his drowsy eyes looked inside. Two hundred pounds if there was a penny! Deftly he flicked the purse up the loose sleeve of his faded raincoat and rose to his feet. Even if somebody had been watching, and he was sure that nobody had, his actions could not possibly convey anything of a disingenuous nature.
It was no more than a formality to insert his hands into his trousers’ pockets with the purse still up his sleeve. A gentle shake of the sleeve in question and the purse fell downwards into the waiting pocket. It was precisely at that moment that he was addressed by Madgie Crane. There was a tear in her eye and a quiver in her voice.
‘I suppose,’ she opened tremulously, ‘you saw no sign of a purse.’
No answer came from the seemingly mystified corner boy. It was as though she had spoken in a strange tongue.
‘Every penny I had was inside in it,’ she continued.
Still no response from the resident corner boy. He blew his nose and he looked hither and thither. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and he looked secondly at Madgie Crane. He noted the weariness and the confusion and he watched without change of expression as the tears became more copious. Her brimming eyes discharged them aplenty down the sides of her withered face. His hand tightened on the swollen purse and he inclined his head towards the channel which ran parallel to the pavement.
Hard as he would try afterwards he would never be able to explain why he did what he did because he needed money at that point in his life as he had never needed money before. He needed it for his widowed sister with whom he lodged and he needed it for her children whom he loved and he needed it to pay his bills. He needed it so that he might embark on a comprehensive drunk for a day or two for he believed that this was his entitlement because of the season that was in it.
Having inclined his head towards a particular spot in the channel he moved swiftly in that direction and pretended to retrieve the purse. Lifting it aloft he enquired of Madgie Crane if this indeed was the missing article. Madgie chortled with delight and clapped her dumpling hands together soundlessly. She stood on her toes for the first time in twenty years and graciously accepted her property from the hands of her benefactor.
She opened the purse and she proceeded to count her money. Never was there such an assiduous reckoning and never did anyone count so little for so long. Assuring herself that every note was present and correct she instituted a second count and finally, when that was satisfactorily concluded, she started a third count. It was during the middle of this count that she moved off in the direction of the post office where she had deposited her grocery bag with an obliging clerk.
The corner boy stood amazed. He had been stunned and shocked many times in his life but he had never been amazed. It was a strange and unnerving experience for a man of his years. A giddiness assailed him and he collapsed in an ungainly heap at the corner where he had stood rocklike for so long.
A half hour later he woke up in a nearby public house just as an ambulance arrived on the scene. He refused all forms of aid and was told that a doctor was on the way. He declined the publican’s offer to wait in the snug but he did not decline the medicinal brandy tendered to him by the publican’s wife. Exactly forty-five minutes after his collapse he returned to his corner and took up his usual position.
Word of his good deed spread and the community was shocked to learn that he had received nothing by way of reward from Madgie. No wonder he fainted, some said, and he was right to faint, more said. An ad hoc committee was formed and a collection made. It amounted to eleven pounds two shillings and seven pence half-penny. He wrapped it in his handkerchief and instructed a neighbour who chanced to be passing to deliver it to his sister. For the rest of the day, because it was Christmas time, he answered all queries from passers-by, directing strangers to the post office, the banks and the churches, often accompanying them to the extremes of his bailiwick and imparting his blessing on all. Also because it was Christmas he led the old and the feeble across the busy roadway, cautioning them to alert him whenever they wished to cross back again. Only at Christmas do corner boys involve themselves in the activities around them.
Then a second giddiness assailed him but this time it was accompanied by a sharp pain in the chest. He fell to the pavement where he immediately expired. When word of his passing spread, all who knew him agreed he had been a good corner boy. He never scolded children and he was the last refuge of wandering tomcats who took shelter behind him at night when cross canines might tear them asunder. He was devoted to his corner. Those who knew him would testify that he lived for nothing else and that it was because of his corner he never married.
When drunkards fought or scuffled on their way homewards he never interfered, thereby assuring the impoverished and the curious of free entertainment, unlike others who spoiled the fun by coming between the contestants. His corner would never be the same again nor would we look upon his likes again. Truly it could be said that he died at his post and surely it would be right and fitting to call him the good corner boy.