The
old man shuffled along West 10th Street on Thursday toward the police
station in Manhattan. He has lived next door for decades. He had a
question.
He
paused before the decorative iron fence marked “6th PCT,” and the
plaque naming its donors: “The Camacho Family.” That was his extended
family, with whom the man, Jose Cardoso, has lived on the block since
the 1950s.
He
entered the police precinct house, walking past uniformed officers,
sticking his head into a detective’s office and shouting, “Is Jimmy
here?” The detective he was looking for greeted him, and Mr. Cardoso
asked him when he was expected back in court. He had forgotten the date.
Almost
three weeks earlier, on Aug. 21, a man in a West Village flower shop
grabbed a pair of pruning shears during a dispute with another man over a
lottery ticket. No one was hurt, but the police were summoned, and an
officer handcuffed the man accused of waving the shears: Mr. Cardoso.
He was charged with menacing. He is 81.
“I’ve got six grandchildren,” he said on Thursday. “I was in Vietnam.” He shook his head when he thought back to that day.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
Mr.
Cardoso was born in Portugal in 1935 and moved to New York 20 years
later. His family bought an apartment building on West 10th Street, and
he worked in a deli downstairs, then became the building’s super, he
said.
He
is retired and lives in an apartment on the fourth floor with his son.
He and his wife separated many years ago, he said. He does not sleep
much, and he goes out and walks around, a vestige of the city from when
it was a city and not just a word that comes after “Sex and the.”
He plays the lottery.
“You lose more than you win,” he said.
He
was a regular at the Hudson Flower Shop, itself a member of the old
guard on a block with few left. The owners have been there 20 years.
They sell many other things in the tiny store, including lottery
tickets.
When
Mr. Cardoso entered the shop last month, he saw what looked like a $25
New York Millions scratch-off card sitting on the counter.
“I
thought it was a sample,” he said, referring to the cards that are used
only for display. He picked it up to check. “I start scratching,” he
said.
Turns
out, it was the real thing. Suddenly, a man appeared behind him in the
small shop and became angry, saying the lottery card was his, Mr.
Cardoso said.
Mr.
Cardoso said he offered to pay for the ticket, even though he thought
the man was a con artist who had been lying in wait for someone to pick
up the card.
Things escalated.
“The guy threatened to hurt me,” Mr. Cardoso said. So he grabbed a pair of shears used for cutting stems.
The police arrived and an officer he didn’t know — “a rookie” — handcuffed him.
“I’ve
got nothing against the cops,” he said. “I get along with everybody.”
He was released with a summons and told to return to court in October.
A
woman who owns the flower shop recalled the incident on Thursday; her
husband was working there the day of the dispute and had told her about
it. She gave only her first name, May, because she said she did not want
to get involved.
“Very nice guy,” she said. She was not referring to Mr. Cardoso. She meant the other man.
He is a regular customer, maybe a bouncer at a nearby bar, she said. He has helped her.
The
shop has been the target of a series of nighttime break-ins, with the
thief stealing cigarettes. She has hidden the cigarettes in the bathroom
before locking up at night, but the thief still finds them.
She
knows the neighborhood, over all, is safer than it was 20 years ago,
but it does not feel that way to her. “I think worse,” she said.
She told the bouncer this assessment, and he gave her some advice and suggested which local officials to contact.
The
day of the dispute, the bouncer had asked for the New York Millions
scratch-off card. But he then realized he was low on cash and turned to
an ATM next to the front door. Mr. Cardoso had apparently passed him
without noticing.
“The
old man came in and sees the ticket and starts to scratch,” May said,
adding that while he could be argumentative, she did not see him as a
threat.
This
version of events was relayed to Mr. Cardoso. He listened as his
con-artist theory crumbled. He said he learned something from all this.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” he said. “I shouldn’t have touched that ticket.”
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