Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Guest What?

A piece of paper fluttered to the floor in the hallway, after I opened my door to see about a noisy child just outside my door.
It was about 4 PM, on a Tuesday when I had woken up at almost exactly the time I wake up if left to my own devices.
These devices usually were the beginning of the consumption of alcohol just after sundown.
The setting sun makes me crave a drink.
This might be due to the 12 years or so that I was homeless and slept outside in various locations.
I made my living (or my alcohol, if you want to look at it that way) by busking, and so, with the setting sun, the world became that much more dangerous as the creatures that only come out at night did so.
And so to fight back, I would begin to steel my nerves with Steel Reserve, if I were pretty broke, or something much nicer like Torpedo IPA ale, by Sierra Nevada Brewery, I believe.
This would run the typical course of having me set up and jamming away at the spot near the Lilly Pad that I had to knock off playing at at 10 PM, as per an agreement between myself and the guy who slept in a room right behind where I played in front of a lamp post. It was an old fashioned "period" lamp post which had a gas light in it, and which was out of commission for more than a year at one point (after a drunken reveler had shimmied up the post and stolen the light, or some part of it to take as a souvenir) because the replacement had to be the same exact replica of a 1770's era light which the stolen one had been.

But, I would have to start playing around 8 PM under the replica, so that I could get a solid 2 hours of playing in before the guy went to bed behind me.
This would give me an average of about 30 bucks, as I was at the earning level of 15 bucks an hour, in that spot, at that time, using the harmonica skills that I had at the time (after I made a marked improvement in the harmonica playing, which also included buying more expensive ones than the glorified toys [Hohner Ol' Standby's] the average rose to $18 an hour; though that improvement also coincided with my moving over to the stoop of Lilly's where I played the different time slot of 9:30 PM until 12:23 AM).

The "12:23 AM" became just like the waking up at 1:30 PM without the aid of an alarm clock.
Night after night, after having followed the routine which was regulated only by the first alcoholic beverage being cracked open at the crack of dusk, and then further cemented in place by the ritual of smoking a bowl of weed while tuning the guitar at 9:30, there would come a time when, after playing hard for x amount of time, I would discover, upon having the first impulse to knock off for the night, that it was 12:23 PM, according to my phone.
This was the biological clock that was set with the consumption of alcohol, beginning at sundown, and then the bowl smoked at 9:30 combining to fuel 173 minutes of spirited busking.
There were times when there were still so many people out at 12:23 that I would "reset" myself by drinking a Bang Energy drink and smoking a second bowl. This had lead me to busk for up to an additional 2 hours on some of those nights, and to sometimes make 3 times as much in those last 2 hours as I had done in the first 173 minutes of playing.

None of the above would be of any interest to anyone other than a busker, I realize, but I guess it's in keeping with the theme of the blog.

The subtitle used to be "Can a guy remain sober enough in the French Quarter to make a living busking?" or something.
Before that, it was: "Documenting my ascendance from street musician to superstardom" or something.
Right now, it is "A journal blog that will hopefully shed light upon what it takes to make a living with just a guitar and a tip bucket" or something.

But, old habits die hard, and it was right after waking up at 1:30 PM almost to the second, without having had the aid of an alarm of any kind, again, that I heard the child fussing in the hall, and opened my door to see the piece of paper flutter to the floor and land not far from the nice Sonia, who was wheeling the source of the fussing towards the elevator. We exchanged pleasantries.
I see Sonia often at the Family Dollar, where I am not sure that she doesn't shoplift, using the same baby stroller and fussy baby as a means of exporting merchandise from the place. She may go in there with the stroller laden with artificially inflated "dummy" packages of diapers, and then swap them for real ones, once in the aisles.

There seems to be some sort of human right to not have your baby searched by store security people, or maybe it is in our DNA to not persecute i.e. prosecute the lowly single mothers of the world.
But, what is a human right if it can't be abused by the likes of the illegal immigrants, whose acumen is keen when it comes to treading upon the lives liberties and happiness of others by wielding their own such rights as a weapon.

There was a Puerto Rican lady that I knew from when I lived in "the projects" in Massachusetts, who would enter K Mart pushing a carriage that you would never know had a baby in it, unless you walked up to it and looked down into the bottom of its well (baby holding area).
But, after she had pushed the thing around the store for a while, she would leave the same way she came, but by then the baby would be propped up as if he were the infant king of some country.
He would be riding high, at least 3 feet higher than when he was pushed in, atop neatly arranged items of merchandise from the store.

If you needed something from Cathy, as that was her "name," all you had to do was place an order with her, and then give her half of whatever the price was that was marked on the thing.
And this went for just about anything in the store.
One time I actually told Cathy that I was in the market for a set of 6" x 9'' speakers. I had run into her in the store.
"The only thing is, they have them all locked in a glass case," I lamented.
"That's OK, which kind do you want?"
Well, I wanted the very best ones they had, the Pioneer brand that was listed at $279 a pair.
So, Cathy (eventually, because it was K Mart) was able to get a red coat clad guy with a set of keys to come and unlock the case full of speakers.
He unlocked it, and then kind of lingered around, keeping an eye on her in a sense, but mostly just waiting for her to finish so he could re-lock the case and be on his way.
Cathy had pulled a few of the boxes out of the case, and then stalled by putting her phone to her ear and then having an imaginary conversation with someone to whom she started reading specifications off of the different boxes, placing a box of the Pioneer ones that I wanted very close to the baby carriage in the process.
After a few minutes of her saying things like "25 watts RMS, it say's..." or "These ones are round, they're not oval..." etc. the guy who had unlocked the case, within about a minute, had his attention momentarily drawn by another customer who had asked him a quick question, causing him to divert his gaze for a few seconds.
It had been the few seconds that Cathy needed because, using a side compartment that had been snapped open, she whisked the box into the compartment -the baby having already been propped up to accommodate this- and, in the same motion slid an identical box to the spot where it had been sitting.

The guy, who had only looked away for a few seconds, looked back to see "the same box" of $279 speakers, still sitting there, at the same angle and with the same side facing him. David Copperfield would have admired Cathy.

Then, apologizing to the red coat, and thanking him for his trouble; she told him that her husband was going to have to come to look at the speakers; that she was afraid of getting the wrong ones, or something, and off she went, pushing a baby that had a bird's eye view of his surroundings now.

Sheets and curtains and other "households" were popular with the Puerto Ricans, who all kept apartments that were decorated like rooms in a palace. Surroundings fit for the infant kings that lived there, I guess.

And, so I think Sonia, who used to live 3 doors down from me, but who has moved to a better apartment, is in the same racket.
I have seen her exchanging diapers for money at the door of other women residents who were raising welfare babies of their own.

But, the notice that had fluttered to the floor was to announce that, while the Sacred Heart management was striving to keep the apartments safe from the COVID19 thing, they also didn't want us to be isolated and lonely and so, with this in mind, they are going to start to allow us residents to have 1 guest per month.
At the end of the month, we can extend that guest or pick another one.
And then that person just needs to show up wearing a mask and be on the list.
They can't visit any other apartments, though, than the one they are listed for.

This is going to start soon -I must have tossed the notice out, maybe after having used it as a makeshift dustpan while sweeping up- but I will check.
Then, I just need to decide who my guest will be for the next month.
Maybe...


Or
Perhaps...

I don't think so...
Or
Monday, the 10th, the return of Jacob


No comments:

Post a Comment

Only rude and disrespectful comments will be replied to rudely and disrespectfully. Personal attacks will be replied to in kind, with the goal of providing satisfaction to the attacker.