It doesn’t take long at all. After a few morning walks when your time is your own and a pay check is occasional, you start to recognize our city’s street regulars. The silent hipster ever attired in a beret and black winter jacket even in the heat of summer — as dark as the shadows where he sits. The immodest athlete in sports bra and bike shorts, be-bopping as she cycles and sings and circles the Flats.

And Mohammed. I’ve been told he’s been seen embarking on a bus with his wheel chair under his arm, but whenever we cross paths, he’s always ensconced in a simple chair, cup in hand. Unexpectedly cheery. My son never let station or situation stop him from speaking to strangers despite the D.A.R.E. sessions at El Rodeo. How he got to know Mohammed, I still don’t know. “He’s not homeless. He teaches me things. He’s a good man,” the kid tells me. And how I decided to trust him as well, I don’t know. Maybe it was utter desperation mixed with fear and sadness that I turned to Mohammed for answers. Will my son end up on the street if he fails another class or comes home at 3 in the morning bruised after being battered in a mosh pit or … who knows what. (At least, he is still working on his Eagle Scout, I comfort myself.) After one such conversation when I saw him at his regular spot on the corner of Rodeo and Brighton, Mohammed scribbled his phone number on a torn-off corner of scrap paper. “Have your young man call me. I’ll tell him what he needs to know,” he said.

Today, there he was again, certainly not on the list of attractions touted by the Beverly Hills’ Visitors’ Bureau. With cup in hand about to ask for something from another stranger, he recognized me. “How’s our young man?” he asks. With my own mix of feelings as a newly minted empty-nester, I answer mostly enthusiastically with some relief. “He’s good; he’s in college. In Chicago,” I say. “Aw right! Give me a hug,” he shouts. And in turn I bend over and get a warm hug from Mohammed. From the stranger. The con in a chair, perhaps, but right now, the good man. Who worried about a kid in Beverly Hills and his mom. “Thanks. It’s expensive,” I say, making that universal sign for money. Mohammed nodded his head. He understood. And today he didn’t ask for anything. Except for a hug.