This is Andy.

His full name is Andrew Johnson — “Handy Andy,” as Tony comes to know him. He lives in Boys Town, Chicago. He knows everyone, fixes everything, and asks very little in return.

The first time Tony meets him, Andy looks him up and down with those deep-set eyes and says what he sees without softening it. He’s the kind of man who has been lied to enough times that he stopped being fooled, but not so many times that he stopped being kind. There’s a difference, and Andy knows it.

He’s lean in the way of men who have made do for a long time. His face is deeply lined, his hair more gray than black. He moves through the city with the ease of someone who has learned every shortcut — physical and otherwise.

Andy becomes one of the fixed points in Tony’s Chicago years. When everything else shifts and changes and disappears, Andy is there. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just there.

He is one of the wisest characters in Sycamore Boy, which is fitting — wisdom tends to live in the people the world overlooks.

— Les