Back Bay's Dog Man

When they found Richard Harmon that morning last week, it looked as if he had been praying. He was on his knees, his arms splayed forward, his head bowed so low that it rested against the ground in front of him.

He was in an alley behind Newbury Street, a homeless man living and dying in the midst of so much affluence. A contractor painting a women's boutique saw him around 9 a.m. and called 911. Police and medics declared him dead at the scene. They labeled him another John Doe and then carted him from the frigid streets to a refrigerated room at the state medical examiner's office. Sometimes it seems impossible to get warm.

There wasn't a reason in the world why anyone who handled Harmon's body would have known about the hundreds of creatures who would be heartbroken by his absence.

Harmon was a lot of things in life. He was as big and imposing as his native Maine, with a barrel chest and a scraggly gray beard. When he napped on a Commonwealth Avenue mall bench, you could hear him snoring a block away.

He was gruff. Words lurched from his mouth, especially when he told stories about an old manslaughter conviction, his time as a POW during the Korean War, or his former wives.

He was fiercely independent. He refused medical help in the days before he died, never stayed in a shelter, and "preferred to go through the dumpsters than take the sandwiches from us on the van," said one homeless caregiver, Dr. James O'Connell.

But what he's best known for, what he'll always be missed for, is this: Harmon was the Dog Man of the Back Bay.

Some street people spend their days begging for money. Others struggle toward normalcy or drink themselves into oblivion or find a bench and stare at things no one else can see.

Harmon gave out dog biscuits. He gave them out to every dog who came his way, and come they did, urgently, their masters struggling to grip the leash. Some days it looked like he was leading a canine chorus, with bulldogs, retrievers, shepherds, terriers, all sitting rigid in front of him waiting for their treat. There's not a dog in the neighborhood who doesn't spend the better part of his or her walk thinking of Richard.

"That's my 72d customer today," he'd say to the owner as he handed a biscuit to his admirer. "They're out in force."

Put it in perspective: A 78-year-old man living on the absolute edge was spending money he barely had on the pampered dogs of wealthy people.

Didn't matter. Some days, he'd search for dogs as they searched for him. The reunion was always joyous. He often awoke from a nap on a bench to stare into the eyes of an entitled mutt who couldn't comprehend the delay.

When Harmon wasn't giving out biscuits, he slowly pushed his cart up and down the back alleys collecting bottles and cans so he could afford the treats. He refused most offers of money, unless it was all but forced on him. "I don't need it," he would say.

When dog owner Mary Kaitlin McSally gave him a Christmas gift, he quietly said, "I never get anything wrapped anymore."

He told people that he spent his nights in a rented room in the South End, but that appears to have been a lie born of pride. Yesterday, in the alley where he died, a homeless man named Paul said Harmon slept for years beneath the overhang of a sealed doorway behind the Jasmine Sola store. When it rained, he taped a plastic tarp across the brick. On cold days, he sat in the public library reading large-print editions of spy novels.

Other stories may or may not have been a stretch. There's no record of any manslaughter conviction in his past, and homeless advocates were having little luck confirming that he was a Korean War veteran, which would allow for a proper burial.

Meantime, hundreds of disappointed dogs continue to look in vain for their departed friend. And this city has lost another small piece of its fading soul.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.