Michael Gray
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
In a voice that sounds roughened by years of hard living, he says he is Bob Dylan.
She's seen pictures of Bob Dylan, of course, but this scruffy, rain-soaked man doesn't match any image she remembers.
Perhaps noticing her uncertainty, he explains that he is in New Jersey to play a show in nearby Lakewood.
For all the strangeness of the encounter, there seems to be nothing threatening about the man.
If anything, he has a quiet, disarming charm.
Christie stops a passerby and asks him for a second opinion.
The young man gives him the once-over, then shakes his head and moves off, as confused as the officer.
Just to be absolutely certain, she asks the stranger to repeat his name one last time.
He smiles as if privately amused by something.
He says that he was actually born Robert Zimmerman.
Christy sighs, then gestures to her patrol car and asks him to come with her.
He lifts a hand in silent ascent and climbs into the backseat.
When Christie asks where he's staying, he tells her he's at the hotel by the sea.
She knows the one and pulls away from the curb, the passenger chatting amiably as they drive.
Asked where he's from, he says he has houses all over the world, adding casually that he'd been thinking of buying the empty place he'd been peering into.
Christy glances at him in the rearview mirror, wondering how much of this can be true, if any, considering that he looks for all the world like he's homeless.
But as she slows to a stop outside the hotel, she sees the string of tour buses, and doubt begins to creep in.
The moment she pulls up, an officious-looking man strides over and opens the car door.