I first encountered Moses (he was also Howard Hughes) on the sidewalk one morning on my way to work.

An apparently unremarkable derelict turned around in a doorway—and there, not ten feet from me, stood Michelangelo's Moses.

I would have known him anywhere:  the flowing silver beard and mane, the high, furrowed brow, the strong but finely-chiseled nose, the resolute jaw;  most of all the eyes—eyes that, even though they never turned to look directly at me, showed an intensity that made them seem capable of piercing stone.

What do you say to Moses?  What do you even say to Howard Hughes?  I kept on walking.

But I began to see him almost regularly after that.