The Fiddler under the Roof

The inside of my case doesn’t get wet when it rains. That’s what I like best about playin’ here. On the street, you’re fightin’ the skydrops, and the curbspray, and the splashes from sloppy folks’ shoes. Stains the leather outside, mats the plush inside, and it doesn’t do much for the fiddle, either.

So when it’s wet or cold, I take the show to the skyway. That’s where the audience is, anyway. And the dollar bills don’t blow away in the breeze. It’s embarrassing to have to stop during one of them old Scottish reels to go chasin’ after a five, since you know it’s the difference between White Castle and Arby’s tonight. It’s never a problem in the skyway.

I always stake out this spot by City Center, where I can look out over the mall and watch the buses allemande around the jaywalkers and the bicycle delivery boys. Ain’t none of that crap up here. Piles of people passing on their way to somewhere else. Al, with his old Martin 12-string that madly needs to be refretted, likes the out-of-the-way pincorners where he can jam on some obscure Pete Seeger thing, and mindmeld with the 2 or 3 people who accidentally stop to listen. Me, I like the anonymous hustle and bustle around my hallway. I like touchin’ lots of ears.

You got your important suits with important places to go, takin’ their livelihoods for a walk. They pay when they catch yer eye. You got your leprechaun kids with too much time and too much snarly purple attitude. They pay, too, more than you’d think. My favorites are the moms and the kids. They don’t pay, but I like the tiny ones lookin’ at me, slackjawed—I always give ’em a sly little wink like I know what they’re thinkin’ about me—and I just play ’em some incidental travelin’ music. The little ones dance like they on fire while the moms drag ’em away. Cracks me up.

I hold court in my climate-controlled corridor here and just watch ’em flow past. Ebb tide, high tide. Some ya recognize, they migrate like geese. But mostly it’s just a mass of people, coming together by accident, slanting away on their tangents, connected by the rhythms of my fiddle. They circulate like blood. They come back to me, tapped out, tired, for a fresh jolt of oxygen, and I send ’em back through the capillaries with a smile on toppa their chin. Don’t know if I’m the lungs or the liver of this deal, but it don’t matter. I just saw my tunes and sing along if I’m feelin happy, or obnoxious.

So let it rain, outside. I’m inside with my people. What do ya want to hear? I know it all, and if I don’t, I’ll fake it and you’ll never be able to tell. Dollars and spare change graciously accepted with a smile and a song.