People Watching
I don’t quite know how I ended up here; this place in my life. It just happened I guess. All those years of going to college, struggling in a job that I knew would get me no where, paying bills like the good consumer I was, worrying about the dwindling economy led me to this. The pinnacle of my existence and the very struggle for my survival. I thought that brokering stocks was tough; this is much harder. It’s much harder keeping food in my gut or a roof over my head by way of the very generosity of these bastards that pass by, throwing quarters in my hat when I play this here guitar.
Here, sit over there. You’re going to spoil my business. Move it, will ya! The train is coming in and you are standing in front of my hat! I don’t play this damn thing for free you know!
They’re bastards you know. These little, plastic, tie wearing bastards, stepping off the subway train as they shuffle between their perfect little lives. Bastards every one. They wouldn’t so much as even look me in the eye as they throw their lame ass quarters into my hat. Thanks for nuttin’, pal! What? Am I so low that I am not even worthy of acknowledgment when they are relieving the guilt they feel; the guilt for me being here and them being there?
They are afraid. I know it. I can see it written all over their plastic, little faces. They know that I represent what they could become. I am the “ghost of Christmas could be”. They know that they could easily be sitting right here next to me, with their plastic little hands outstretched begging for some change, when some high level management asshole waves their hand out of “the good of the company”. Poof! The next thing you know, your wife with expensive tastes is gone, the kids disown you and you are in the streets just trying to get by; just trying to survive another day.
I play this here guitar, but that isn’t what I peddle. Oh no! I absolve them of their guilt. With every quarter, I offer them a little less fear; that somehow some god will look down on them and say, “That is one generous bastard. I think I will not screw with his life today.” But what they don’t know, see they are too stupid or afraid to see, is that God is the ultimate corporate manager. Poof!
I provide a valuable service here, down in the bowels of this city. Nearly everyone who is anyone will pass by my store front and I am always open for business. I do the dirty work that God doesn’t want. I absolve guilt. See, God loves guilt. It keeps you honest, but at the expense of our freedom. I give them relief from this guilt for the simple price of their pocket change. They reach in their pockets, almost automatically, and toss it into my hat. Poof! Absolution! Isn’t that simple?
But the guilt addiction runs deep. One of them will throw a measly dollar into my hat, like they are doing me some big favor, and will magically feel guilty that they may have given me too much. I can see them start to wonder if I am going to spend it on drugs or alcohol. They grow concerned that their little god will perhaps think that they were contributing to my destruction and now will unleash the hounds of despair to reap havoc upon them. It is then that they make their solemn resolution that they will never do that again and continue on with their plastic little lives. You can see all that from their transparent faces. You learn to read people’s faces when you are sitting here day after day people watching.
But it isn’t easy living like this. I am growing tired of having to look over my shoulder every second. Particularly when the street urchins wake from their drug induced coma and crawl out from the blackness of the subway tunnels. They are prowling for any cash that will get them another fix and they are more than willing to break a bottle over my head to get my days take. They are foul little creatures that would sex up anything that crawls as long as it has any amount of money to give them. They are the truly ruthless of my world. They would just as well cut some freak’s throat just as they would suck him off. I guess that is the true irony of this world. Out here, everyone is prey and everyone is predator.
You don’t want to hear about all of that though. You strike me as a good person and shouldn’t be here listening to such things. You know, the way the world really works. There isn’t much hope down here and that just doesn’t seem to be something that you should be burdening yourself with. Go back up to the street. You’ll be safe there in the light.
And thanks again for the dollar! You are absolved.
