Hey Jimmy!

There are some weirdos out there. I know a few myself. But in the city, some of the weirdest ones are complete strangers.

Every now and then, a stranger does something so strange that it lingers with you longer than it should.

This was one of those moments.

I left the office late last week. Not super late, just later than usual.

It was a normal walk home. I had my AirPods in, was people-watching, and all the walk signs were hitting. The walk usually takes no more than fifteen minutes.

I turned onto my street and had two blocks left. The homestretch.

As I rounded the corner, I saw a group of five or six young white dudes and an older white guy seemingly walking together on the sidewalk across the street. The dudes trailed closely behind him. The dudes all looked like they were in high school or college.

The older guy looked like he was in his fifties, old enough that I assumed he had to be one of the dude’s dads.

He was also holding a little girl’s hand. She was tiny, wearing a bright pink coat, and couldn’t have been more than three or four years old.

As soon as I came into view, the dad yelled across the street:

“Hey Jimmy!” he hollered, looking directly at me.

I didn’t flinch. I stared at him and kept walking. Then he did it again, louder this time, and waving.

“Jimmy! Hey Jim! Hey!”

He kept waving at me while still holding the little girl’s hand, which somehow made the whole thing even weirder.

The younger guys trailing behind him didn’t seem bothered that the dad was yelling at a stranger in the street like he’d just spotted an old friend.

They may have been smiling, but I didn’t hear any laughter. Nobody really reacted at all. They just kept walking.

After I didn’t wave back or acknowledge him, the older man leaned down and said something to the little girl as we passed each other.

One of the dudes tracked me with his eyes and turned his head as we passed, like he wanted to see how I’d react. And yes, I absolutely turned my head too and watched them walk away. I needed visual confirmation that this had actually happened.

I even looked behind me to see if there was another person he could’ve been calling.

There was not. So unfortunately, he meant me.

Naturally, I spent the rest of the walk home trying to process what exactly that was.

Was he drunk?

Maybe he was trying to be funny. Some kind of awkward white dad humor?

Did his brain short-circuit when he saw a young Black man in business clothes walking home late from the office?

Or did this man genuinely think I was a Black guy he knew named Jimmy?

Anyway, let me know your thoughts in the comments, because this was one of the stranger interactions I’ve had in the city in a while.