In the bustling heart of Bridgetown, amid the vibrant pulse of street life, the beating heart of an enigmatic, sometimes-beloved familiar figure has stopped.
Ninja Man – real name Anthony Fitzpatrick Lynch – the street character known for his unpredictable antics and unmissable presence, died on Tuesday. His absence hangs heavy over the vendors and passersby who knew him best, especially around the lively stalls and sidewalks of the capital where he often roamed, slept, and shared his quirky wisdom.
Barbados TODAY hit the streets to capture raw reactions from those who crossed paths with him most, revealing a tapestry of fondness, frustration, and urgent pleas for better health awareness amid the grief.
Vendors opened up with stories tinged in sorrow, painting Ninja Man as “everybody’s boy”, a man who brought laughter even as he tested patience. Their voices carried a quiet sadness, reflecting on a life lived boldly on the edges, now gone too soon.
Vino Williams, voice thick with emotion, captured the affection many felt. “Give you enough trouble when you’re ready, but it’s everybody boy, you don’t care what darling, you know about him,” he said. “Because he is everybody’s boy, no matter what, he is everybody’s baby.” Yet, there’s a poignant undertone in his words: “We don’t know him. We don’t accustom to him. We don’t understand him. So that’s how I like. That’s very good, thank you.”
Frankie Browne, a self-employed entertainer hustling for survival in The City, shared a deeper worry, his tone laced with regret over what might have been prevented. “Continuously, I don’t think he would make it to himself,” he reflected. “One shot to give him another chance to bring me out again on the road, and then I tell myself. But you need to talk to everybody I met friends but you can come in here in the bathroom and then.” Hearing the news hit hard: “And that’s, it’s funny today when I get to town that I hear that he passed away because the life that he is living, I don’t know. You can’t live this life now and don’t get no, no no medication or go and check your health and that kind of way.”
Browne’s concern extended beyond Ninja Man, turning into a heartfelt call to action for everyone on the streets. “So I think, I think that all of the all of the vagrants on the streets to go and get a health check and then kind of way so you can know actually how other people’s status stand,” he urged. “That’s the main thing I think that everyone, not only the vagrants, I think everyone that alive now in this time, to go and get the status check because it’s important to get your health checked so you can know how your status is. So don’t wait till when something happened then to rush to go and get the status check. It’ll be everyone that here living in Barbados to get the status check.
“So all vendors, everybody, vagrants, everybody alive in Barbados still got the viruses that’s coming in nowadays. They don’t know what it is. So all the medical positions could really be clear what we have illnesses and then to help you. But if you don’t go and get none, you can’t get the help. So I put that as a problem.”
Two other voices from the streets blended in a nostalgic duet, remembering Ninja Man’s joy-sparking oddities with a wistful smile through the pain. “He wear the jokiest things, he put on dresses,” a lady recalled. A man chimed in saying: “Ninja Man de love the courthouses, Parliament building. He would sleep all round government places, lay down naked, sometimes he got on a dress, sometimes he got on a jacket. He was a character. He was not a violent person, he was a person that used to make me laugh. That’s just looking at him.”
Recalling a recent memory he said: “I see he last week, he come there. I was sitting there and he come here telling me all kind of thing with a friend. And he got on a nurse dress that long… but I ain’t know he ded jus so, he didn’t look sick tho.”
Ricardo Maynard offered a compassionate lens, his words heavy with understanding of life’s unseen struggles. “Ninja man, I feel Ninja Man has some challenges from his past, and I guess it affect his future,” he said softly. “He was unpredictable. Sometimes he good today, then sometimes he move a little crazy the next day, so. He was OK, but people deal with him because of how he was as a person. And I guess he has some challenges. I don’t know if it’s from childhood. Different things can happen with people along the way. They could lost a family member. I don’t know what was his portion, but I know he had a mental challenge. That’s what I understand. As far as I’m concerned, he a little troublesome in between, I guess, because different things and that’s what I remember ‘bout him.”
Not everyone painted a rosy picture; a man known as Foxx voiced a sharper edge to the mourning, frustration mixing with the collective sadness. “A nuisance to the society. He’s mek people miserable,” he said bluntly. “The same people that he’s mek miserable. They’re just so ignorant, right?
“He dead now and he’s the best man in the world. People glad to get rid of he for making a nuisance. You know how dirty he’s got here. Look, look, look, you see that building bar ‘round, bar ‘round there (pointing to the barricaded former Treasury building), he’s who make them do all of that.”
He was accused of entering the Museum of Parliament/National Heroes Museum in the west wing of the Parliament Buildings in late 2023 and stealing a range of historical artefacts, including armorial badges, ceremonial weapons, clothing and other items valued at around $100 000.
The state property included the boots of National Hero Errol Barrow.
It later emerged that the items were inadvertently destroyed by the police in sweeping up a loitering Ninja Man.
The street-side commentary, gathered amid the capital’s everyday hum, underscored the complex life of a man who danced on the line between joy and chaos, law and disorder, now leaving a gap in the streets he called home.
As vendors ponder his empty spots by the stalls, the conversation inevitably turns to health, with Browne’s plea ringing loudest: no one should wait for loss to prompt a check-up.
Now, one of the city’s most singular souls joins Tallah-Lallah, Gearbox, and King Dyal in the passing parade of unforgettable street icons who mark each generation’s memory.
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