Broadway Eric and the number 5 tattoo

As this was the first full week in which the weather did not threaten to return to the city with a chill, he thought it would be a good time to retake his favorite bench on Broadway.

"I like it here," said Eric, 32, who returned this week to his seat beneath a flag that flies the nation's colors. "It's a good place to people-watch."

Soon, he will bring out the congas upon which he will accompany other musicians during informal jam sessions in front of his bench during the day, or on weekends inside the drive through tunnel of the Adirondack Trust Bank down the block, which he said has some of the finest acoustics in town.

"This is a much different place than where I grew up in Newburgh," he said, recalling a main street that was defined by boarded-up windows.

"My dad moved here about 20 years ago, after he and my mom split up. I was 12 at the time. I finally moved here in 2000," he said.

"Here, it's nice. There's a real sense of community. Every day is different."

He was diagnosed with mental illness more than a decade ago, but with help of medication, he is able to live on his own and tend to his own domestic needs.

"I'm on disability, and I've been taking meds for about 12 years. I've kind of come to the realization that if I didn't take the medication, I wouldn't be able to live on my own like I do," he said.

The city has changed architecturally in the nine years since Eric has been here, but the self-professed people watcher has noticed other changes.

"When I first moved here, there were a lot more hippies and punk rockers. Maybe they all grew up and moved away," he said.

"Then in came the little hoodlums, the riff-raff. Them I didn't like, but now they've all gone somewhere else, or to jail," he said, rolling up his sleeves and displaying an extensive array of tattoos that he describes as the style of modern tribalism.

He said he regularly visits the tattoo shops in town, where every few months a new apprentice will be hired. In exchange for allowing the apprentice to try out some of their work on him, Eric has collected a lengthy string of tattoos, free of charge. "If it wasn't free, I wouldn't have so many of them," he said with a shrug, displaying colorful spider-like webs that cover both kneecaps, as well as a multitude of designs that cover his toes and fingers, arms and legs. In the center of his forehead, is the number 5.

"Why number 5?" he was asked.

"Because it's my favorite number," he said, "but my dad's not too fond of it."

"He doesn't like the number 5?"

"He doesn't like it on my head," he replies.

Thomas Dimopoulos, 5.02.09

Saratoga Bureau writer Thomas Dimopoulos can be reached at tdimopoulos@poststar.com.