Not About Breaking Even

Sunday, I basically broke even,

-maybe lost a dollar.

I started the day around 11 a.m. with a $2.17 Heineken, and a pack of $3.37 smokes at Uniques, playing the optimist; telling myself that I could be such a productive day that I would scoff at the expense and be glad that I didn't have to pick up butts (but would anyway, to put in an "auxiliary" box).
The Sponge

I found my way to the spot, where I was playing a song of mine called "Monsters" (about Catholic High School) when, someone that I thought was a tourist sat and listened. 

He complemented me on the song, shook my hand and introduced himself, and then asked me if I wanted to go in a dollar each on a beer; so much for him being a tourist, despite the touristy shirt and shorts that he was wearing. 

I gave him the seed dollar in my case, which he in retrospect probably had his eye on from the start, replaced it with another one, which probably didn't escape his notice, then I played for about 45 minutes, before he returned and handed me a tall can of Busch.

It crossed my mind that he had used my dollar as a means of buying one beer at the store, to divert attention from him putting the other one in his cargo shorts. I'm sure that he didn't just break even on my dollar and done me the service of running to the store;  hustling is NOT about breaking even. 

He may have panhandled another couple dollars and then bought a 4-pack, spending only 75 cents on each beer that way, and turning a 33% profit on me -that would explain the 45 minutes it took him to walk 5 blocks...

He then told me about the "feeding" at "The Oz" center on Camp Street; said that it was going to be "a good one," it being the first Sunday of the month or having met some other criteria for creating a good one. 

I took out my pack of cigarettes, and in almost the same motion, the guy said "could I get one of those." 

Then, he started to ask people for money as soon as they approached, while I was sitting there playing.

I looked at him; seeing a hustler now, and not a tourist -one who had gone the whole route of complementing my music and acting like a gentleman so that he could curry favor and plop himself right down on a spot that took me 7 months to get- and told him "I'm not really into having someone spanging at my spot." 

He didn't act offended. In the manner of the truly professional beggars who have learned to keep smiling, even after someone has been rude to them (because some people will reconsider giving the dollar that they had just refused you, after seeing how humbly and gracefully you accepted their answer) he just smiled. 

"I'm not doing very well at it, am I?" he said, which wasn't really a response to my telling him that I didn't appreciate beggars interfering with the natural flow of tourists past my spot, putting them on the defensive, or making them feel rude in throwing money in my case, but not helping out the poor guy five feet away, and so, doing neither. I don't care how "good" they do, either.
He kept on spanging, which was in effect, his actual response to my comment.

It was time for me to take a break at that point and isn't the good feeding at the Oz starting soon...so I told him that I was taking a 20 minute break; implying that I would be back, and that it would become "my" spot once again.

I didn't have to tell him that I had permission to play there; he probably divined it from the fact that I WAS sitting there. The panhandlers know where you can only sit on Bourbon with the blessings of whomever rents the condo behind you at $2,500 per month.

"Yeah, I gotta get over to the OZ," he said, and the situation seemed to be diffused.

My Connections

As I walked towards Sydney's I thought about the business card in my wallet for Barnaby, the therapist who lives across the street from the spot. 

If the panhandler was sitting there when I got back, I would call him from the payphone down the street and ask him the favor of running the guy off.

Barnaby wouldn't get any backtalk from the guy, any more than a goose that lays golden eggs would, rather, a profuse apology and gratitude for the fact that he hadn't called the police, and then feigned ignorance over the restrictions in effect in the "residential" end of Bourbon Street. 

The panhandler would be none the wiser about my involvement, and would probably lament "I knew I should have waited until guitar man came back, so it would look like I was with him, or just sitting and enjoying the music.."

That's just the best way to handle things here. If you have any kind of political clout, then, by all means use it first, instead of trying to handle it "street person" to "street person."
A tourist could get most of them to drop and do 20 push-ups at the snap of a finger, with only the shadow of a promise to remunerate them.

Monday Decision

I have enough money to hop on the Baton Rouge bus, arrive there with less than ten dollars, and with the best prospect of coming back to New Orleans next weekend being to play downtown on Friday night, hoping to come up with at least the five bucks to travel early Saturday morning.

My computer books are there, my studio is there, and I really want to take the next four days to work on both. Howard is there, too...

I think, since it is 1:09 p.m. I will play somewhere up until the time that the last bus is to leave here 5:20 p.m. and then just get on the bus with whatever monies that I have at that point in time.

My food card goes from 71 cents to $200.71 at five O' Clock tomorrow morning.