Fanciful Adieu for Victim Who Saw World's "Hidden Magic" They quietly buried the man who had no business dying. The next day, friends wearing fairy wings extended their own goodbyes. Intermingled glimpses were shared. He was infectiously kind, cared deeply for his mother, revered steam locomotives, was enthralled with comic books and fairies. A modest life that stayed out of the public face, unnoticed and unremarked upon, the way it is with most lives. His unfortunate end got him the attention. On the afternoon of Sept. 4, in Union Square, near the comic book store and gothic shop that he frequented, Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, was approached by an assailant who punched him in the face in what authorities deemed a random attack. The police said the attacker declared that he wanted to "punch the first white man" he saw. Mr. Babbitt fell and struck his head hard on the pavement. He died on Sept. The police arrested Martin Redrick, 40, a black man with a criminal past. The funeral service was brief and small. It was just a graveside ceremony on Tuesday at the Beth El Cemetery in Paramus, N.J., where the family had a plot. A half-dozen mourners assembled under a luminous sky. There was his mother, Lucille Babbitt, 94; Reva Weiss, a family friend who accompanied her; Gwen Billig, who knew him as a fellow member of a railroad club, New York Railroad Enthusiasts; a casual acquaintance; and finally two strangers, spurred to come after reading about his death. Ms. Billig showed a necklace with a fairy clipped to it. She said Mr. Babbitt had given it to her. For no occasion. He did things like that. Mrs. Babbitt is a small woman with plaintive eyes, her vision and hearing diminished, her mind plenty sharp. She had been good and bad of late, and just the night before she was agonizing over how she was going to endure this day. By no law of mercy should a mother have to bury her children. Lucille Babbitt was forced to do it for a second time. Last summer, she buried her daughter, lost to cancer. She was in the Paramus ground, beside her father and awaiting her brother. Mr. Babbitt, a retired train hostler, the person who moves engines around railroad yards, lived with his mother in a brick apartment building in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He regularly visited Union Square, where he would linger for hours. He was well liked by the employees at his haunts: the Forbidden Planet comic store, the Gothic Renaissance store and the Halloween Adventure shop. Some of these workers wanted to make the funeral. The logistics were difficult. So they would honor him the next day. Beside the grave, Rabbi William Golub broke the quietude. He said, "This is like a puzzle, like a puzzle you find in a store and you open it up and it's a mess." He added: "Life is a puzzle. We don't understand anything that is going on, especially something like this. He said, "A perfectly normal, functioning man going about his business is struck down by a senseless hate crime." New Jersey earth was shoveled over the coffin and that was that. In the late afternoon on Wednesday at the entrance to Union Square Park, his other world flared to life. A scattering of friends amassed, wings on their back in deference to Mr. Babbitt's fairy fascination. Raine Anakanu, the assistant manager at Gothic Renaissance, was especially fond of Mr. Babbitt and had arranged the service. "He saw the world in a different way," Mr. Anakanu said. The hidden magic in the world. The beauty in things. Mr. Anakanu and his wife, Shonda Lynch, wore wings and held magic wands. They had a stash of spare wings for mourners wishing to adjust to the prearranged theme. Lauren Anderson, who also works at Gothic Renaissance, had made magical charms with Mr. Babbitt's initials, available for the taking. "He was so sweet," Ms. Lynch said of Mr. Babbitt. The last time I actually saw him he kissed me on the cheek and ran away. Diana Varga, who works at the Halloween store, said, "He would always talk about how fairies would make him happy and make him feel young." Mr. Anakanu asked one woman if she would like some wings, and she said, "To eat?" Winged attendance was moderate and sporadic. Competition was severe in the park. Line dancers were performing behind them, as well as the musicians, as well as the rows of chess and backgammon games, and the guy offering free hugs. Mr. Babbitt had been at Gothic Renaissance on the day he was attacked. He often bought fairy figurines and ornaments there. At Forbidden Planet, he purchased comic books. His favorite series was Grimm Fairy Tales, modern horror versions of classic fairy tales, infused with dark humor, that are published by Zenescope Entertainment. Having learned of his devotion, Zenescope plans to dedicate a coming issue to Mr. Babbitt. Mr. Babbitt traveled to a lot of comic book, science fiction and fairy conventions, including the big FaerieCon festival. One of his important life moments, he had told Mr. Anakanu, was when he was baptized with fairy dust by Twig the Fairy, a character who appears at conventions and Renaissance fairs. Imagine if Twig the Fairy came to the little memorial. Mr. Anakanu made an attempt to see if the actress who plays Twig could somehow squeeze this in. She was busy in Minnesota.