“…but as it is, I am simply conscious; an animal in pajamas.”
From Night Letter to the Reader by Billy Collins
I was perched on the steps of an open air entertainment block in Fort Lauderdale last week and, for the first time, playing guitar for passersby’s sticky bills and coins. A platinum blonde darling beelining directly toward her next engagement marched three steps more hastily than her handsome beau. He had this not entirely unfamiliar countenance – a combination of uncertainty, apathy, and a misdirected determination to please her. For instance, if Captain Blood had whispered this chump aside, beckoning, “we need a healthy, scurvy dawg as y’self aboard, lad. The Arabella Bishop awaits ye!”, I think this cat would’ve thrown the keys to his shiny whip at the back of Barbie’s head and gone dipping and soaring with the wind.
Yeah, so I’m playin’ and singin’, which I enjoy immensely and will now do about anywhere. More than the experience of people putting money in my guitar case, I enjoyed the wondering glances. I don’t, well, I didn’t look like a bum – blue jeans, button up shirt, and my favorite hat. But there’s an association with the practice of performing on the street. It’s a bum’s occupation, I suppose. Call me a bum, if it is; I’ll own it. Making eye contact with the well-to-do, their heels knocking the concrete like prized ponies ready for the state fair, I feel assuredly more unfortunate for them than I do for myself.
I remember the handsome beau’s eye contact mostly. I was reminded of the prophecy scribbled on the rancid wall of The Replay in Lawrence: No matter how beautiful she is, somebody, somewhere, is tired of her shit. Forgive the presumed misogyny in this timeless trinket of toilet philosophy, but that was the look on this dude’s face while his vixen left him in the heavy cloud of her designer perfume. He cast a wary glance at her and strayed from his path for a couple steps to drop a folded dollar bill in my case. I nodded, smiled, and continued to sing.
When the song was over, I anxious unfolded his dollar bill and, to no surprise, in thick black marker, the inside of the currency read, “HELP ME!” Quickly, I flicked a quarter at a real bum sleeping lightly on the steps. His mouth open, the heavy coin bounced off his tooth – or his gum, maybe – which stirred him awake. I hollered back, “Watch my axe, bro!” and ran in hot pursuit of the bimbo who had greedily nabbed the adventure straight from the heart of this innocent bloke.
Okay, that didn’t really happened. And that cat’s situation was probably not as hopeless as it seemed to me. But.. [unfinished]
