I never say thank you or talk to the kids. I don’t talk to the adults unless they ask me something specific. I just play my music. Sometimes I sing, but I really don’t like to draw that much attention to myself. Except, today, I need to draw attention to myself. I had saved up three hundred dollars, which would pay for a place to sleep and that tattoo I thought I needed, but someone had stolen it while I was asleep at the shelter last night. I’d made the mistake of falling asleep with it in my pocket instead of tucking it in my bra. When I woke up, it was gone. I don’t know why they didn’t take my guitar. Probably because I was sleeping with it in my arms, clutched to me like a mother with her child.
I wish I’d gotten the tattoo yesterday. It was a useless expense, but it was my nineteenth birthday, and it’s been a long time since anyone has done anything for me. So, I was giving it to myself. And trying to free myself in the process. Who was I kidding? I’ll never be free.
This city is hard. It’s mean. It’s nothing like where I came from. But now it’s home. I like the noise of the city and the bustle of the people. I like the different ethnicities. I’d never seen so many skin colors, eye shapes, and body types as I did when I got here.
A girl reaches her chubby hand to touch my strings, and I smile and intercept her hand by taking it in mine, instead. Her hands are soft and a little damp from where her first finger was shoved in her mouth just a minute ago. I toy with her fingers while I make an O with my mouth.
Her mother smacks her hand away with a sharp, cracking blow to her forearm, and the girl’s eyes immediately fill with tears. You didn’t have to do that, I think. She didn’t mean any harm. But the mother drags the crying child with her toward the subway and picks her up when she doesn’t move quickly enough.
I draw a small crowd between subway arrivals, and one man yells out, “Do you take requests?”
I nod, and keep on smiling, playing with all I’m worth. He calls out, “I think you should suck my dick, then.” One of his buddies punches him in the shoulder and he laughs.
College kid. His mama never taught him any manners. I let my eyes roam over the crowd, and no one corrects him. So, I start to play “All the Wishing in the World” by Matt Monroe. The irony is lost on the jock, and they walk away as the train pulls in behind them.
The platform fills with new people getting off the train, so I switch to some more familiar tunes. Money drops into my case, and I see a dollar float down. I nod and smile as the person walks by, but she’s not looking at me. A big pair of scuffed work boots steps up beside my case next. I look at them for a minute and then up over the worn jeans and the blue T-shirt that’s stretched across broad shoulders. And then I’m looking into the same sky-blue eyes as the other day. My pick stumbles across the strings. I wince. His eyes narrow at me, but he can’t hear my mistake, can he? His head tilts to the side, and I turn my body to face the other direction.
My butt is freezing and my legs are aching from sitting on the cold floor for so long. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. My three weeks at the shelter were up yesterday. So, I have to find somewhere new to sleep tonight. I look down into my case. There’s enough there for dinner—but not for anything else. So, I keep playing.
Those boots move over so that he’s standing in front of me. I scoot to the side and look everywhere but at him. But then he drops down beside me, his legs crossed criss-cross-applesauce style in front of me. He has tape across the bridge of his nose, and it makes me feel competent for some reason. There are very few things in my life that I can control, and someone touching my body is one of them. I say when. I say where. I say with who. Just like in Pretty Woman. Only Stucky would never get to backhand me. I’d take him out first.
Tattoo guy leans on one butt cheek so he can pull out his wallet, and he throws in a twenty. He doesn’t say anything, but he points to my guitar and raises his brow. I don’t know what he wants, and he can’t tell me, so I just look at him. I don’t want to acknowledge his presence, but he’s sitting with his knee an inch from mine.
When I don’t respond, he puts a hand on my guitar. He points to me and strums at the air like he’s playing a guitar. I realize I’ve stopped playing. But he did put a twenty in my case, so I suppose I owe him. I start to play “I’m Just a Gigolo.” I love that tune, and love playing it. After a minute, his eyebrows draw together, and he points to his lips.
I shake my head because I don’t know what he’s asking. Either he wants me to kiss him or I have something on my face. I swipe the back of my hand across my lips. Not that. And the other isn’t going to happen.
He shakes his head quickly and retrieves a small dry-erase board from his backpack.
Sing, he writes.
I have to concentrate really hard to read it, and there are too many distractions here in the tunnel, so I don’t want him to write anymore. I just shake my head. I don’t want to encourage him to keep writing. I could read the word sing, but I can’t read everything. Or anything, sometimes.
He holds his hand up to his mouth and spreads his fingers like someone throwing up. I draw my head back, but I keep on playing.
Why does he want me to sing? He can’t hear it. But I start to sing softly, anyway. He smiles and nods. And then he laughs when he sees the words of the song on my lips. He shakes his head and motions for me to continue.
I forgot he can read lips. I can talk to him, but he can’t talk back. I play all the way to the end of the song, and some people have now stopped to listen. Maybe I should sing every time.
He writes something on the board. But I flip it over and lay it on the concrete. I don’t want to talk to him. I wish he would go away.
He throws up his hands but not in an “I’m going to knock you out” sort of way. In a “what am I going to do with you” way. He motions for me to keep playing. His fingers rest on my guitar, like he’s feeling the vibrations of it. But what he’s concentrating on most is my mouth. It’s almost unnerving.
A cop stops beside us and clears his throat. I scramble to gather my money and drop it in my pocket. I’ve made about thirty-two dollars. That’s more than the nickel I had when I started. I pack up my guitar, and Blue Eyes scowls. He looks kind of like someone just took his favorite toy.
He starts to scribble on the board and holds it up, but I’m already walking away.
He follows after me, tugging on my arm. I have all my worldly possessions in a canvas bag over my right shoulder and my guitar case in my left hand, so when he tugs me, it almost topples me over. But he steadies me, slides the bag off my shoulder in one quick move and puts it on his own. I hold fiercely to it, and he pries my fingers off the strap with a grimace. What the heck?
“Give me my bag,” I say, and I plant my feet. I’m ready to hit him again if that’s what it takes. But he smiles, shakes his head, and starts to walk away. I follow him, but getting him to stop is like stopping a boulder from rolling downhill once it gets started.
He keeps walking with me hanging on to his arm like I’m a Velcro monkey. But then he stops, and he walks into a diner in the middle of the city. I follow him, and he slides into a booth, putting my bag on the bench on the inside, beside him. He motions to the other side of the bench. He wants me to sit? I punched him in the nose two days ago, and now he wants to have a meal with me? Maybe he just wants his twenty dollars back. I reach in my pocket and pull it out, feeling its loss as I slap it down on the table. He presses his lips together and hands it back to me, pointing again to the seat opposite him.
The smell of the grill hits me, and I realize I haven’t eaten today. Not once. My stomach growls out loud. Thank God he can’t hear it. He motions toward the bench again and takes my guitar from my hand, sliding it under the table.
I sit down, and he looks at the menu. He passes one to me, and I shake my head. He raises an eyebrow at me. The waitress stops and says, “What can I get you?”
He points to the menu, and she nods. “You got it, Logan,” she says with a wink. He grins back at her. His name is Logan?
“Who’s your friend?” she asks of him.
He shrugs.
She eyes the bandages across his nose. “What happened?” she asks.
He points to me and punches a fist toward his face, but he’s grinning when he does it. She laughs. I don’t think she believes it.
“What can I get for you?” she asks me.
“What’s good?” I reply.
“Everything.” She cracks her gum when she’s talking to me. She didn’t do that when she talked to Logan.
“What did you get?” I ask Logan. He looks up at the waitress and bats those thick lashes that veil his blue eyes.
“Burger and fries,” she tells me.
Thank God. “I’ll have the same.” I point to him. “And he’s buying.” I smile at her. She doesn’t look amused. “And a root beer,” I add at the last minute.
He holds up two fingers when I say root beer. She nods and scribbles it down.
“Separate checks?” she asks Logan.
He points a finger at his chest, and she nods as she walks away.
“They know you here?” I ask.
He nods. Silence would be an easy thing to get used to with this guy, I think.
The waitress returns with two root beers, two straws, and a bowl of chips and salsa. “On the house,” she says as she plops them down.
I dive for them like I’ve never seen food before. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember if I ate yesterday, either. Sometimes it’s like that. I get so busy surviving that I forget to eat. Or I can’t afford it.
“How’s your brother doing?” the waitress asks quietly.
He scribbles something on the board and shows it to her.
“Chemo can be tough,” she says. “Tell him we’re praying for him, will you?” she asks. He nods, and she squeezes his shoulder before she walks away.
“Your brother has cancer?” I ask, none too gently. I don’t realize it until the words hang there in the air. His face scrunches up and he nods.
“Is he going to be all right?” I ask. I stop eating and watch his face.
He shrugs.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
He nods.
“Is it the brother I met? A the tattoo parlor?”
He shakes his head.
“How many brothers do you have?”
He holds up four fingers.
“Older? Or younger?”
He raises his hand above his head and shows me two fingers. Then lowers it like someone is shorter than he is and makes two fingers.
“Two older and two younger?” I ask.
He nods.
I wish I could ask him more questions.
He writes something on the board, and I sigh heavily and throw my head back in defeat. This part of it is torturous. I would rather have someone pull my teeth with a pair of pliers than read. But his brother has freaking cancer. The least I can do is try.
I look down at it, and the words blur for me. I try to unscramble them, but it’s too hard. I shove the board back toward him.