06.09.06

“Wild thing…you make my heart sing…You make everything groovy. I said, wild thing…” The Troggs

Posted in Uncategorized, life's stories at 2:03 pm by Deb

Before we could actually take off, we needed to make a little money to travel with. I had applied for and was getting WIC and Food Stamps because I was pregnant, but would be leaving my stable address and might lose them for a while. X started working the night shift at an all night coffee shop on Market St. Yikes! The guy he replaced left because he had been shot on the job. It was a little bit creepy. We were used to some pretty hard-core people, but this was too much. He didn’t last long. We went back to busking. (See May 26th) We stood out there day after day making barely enough to buy X cigarettes and coffee, though, in addition to money, we often got food stamps, food and pot. As a matter of fact, one day a boy, about 9 or 10-years old, dropped a joint in our case. it was a little heartbreaking. One day we were singing our hearts out when a younger middle-aged man came by, set up right next to us and started banging on his guitar and yelling out songs. It was so bad it hurt. We were pissed because he had invaded our spot. There are all kinds of unwritten rules about busking that cover invasions like that and also hogging a spot if someone is waiting. We hadn’t been there very long at all, and he certainly hadn’t waited at all. He just walked right up and started doing his thing right in the middle of one of our songs. Anyway, X started getting revved up to go say something to him when we noticed how much money he was getting. This guy was a musical nightmare, but he had already made more money than we had made all week. There was a lesson in this. The next morning, we took off for Market St. to work for the day. It was overcast and gloomy, but we wanted to make some money and get out of the city. Before long it started raining. We ducked into a corner doorway to stay dry. All of a sudden, X started singing “Wild Thing” at the top of his lungs, rasping it out, banging away on his guitar and jumping out of the doorway at people as they walked by. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open as person after person dug into their pockets and dropped not just change, but dollar bills into the case and rushed away, looking back over their shoulders to make sure he wasn’t following them. I went off to find a little market. On my way back, a street person asking for spare change accosted me. Normally, I don’t feel accosted by these requests, but this guy was really pushy. When I insisted I didn’t have any spare change, he told me that if all I had was big bills, he could change them for me and pulled out a huge wad of money to show me. After asking him to give me some of it, as I really had no money, I hurried back to X, deciding that I had had enough of the big city and wanted to get out. When we got back home that afternoon, my tax refund was waiting for me. This was our ticket out. I was starting to feel an urge to settle down and think about our impending family.

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