On Bums
♠
“Hello everyone, I want to play you a song.”
Anyone who has taken a city subway knows this scenario. The bum plays his song and then walks the length of the rocking car, pivoting left then right, holding out a hat or a tin can or a sock. The commuters stare at their magazines or their books, gaze at some indeterminate spot on the ceiling, or wheel through the thousand-plus songs on their iPods that are more to their taste. Occasionally, a commuter will extend a hand containing a pocketful of change to which he, the bum, will say, “God bless you.”
I am of two minds when it comes to giving money to bums. On the one hand, I can reason that the petty change I accumulate during the day—mostly from excursions I take from the office to purchase coffee, which are entirely unnecessary because we do have a coffee machine in the office kitchen, but also entirely necessary because one simply can’t stand the office—could easily be parted with considering I hate carrying change and the bum is much more in need of it than me. On the other hand, I am not one to show off a proclivity for charity, and when you give change to a bum in a crowded subway car that is exactly what you are doing; because surely you will be in the minority, and a solitary hand waving a nickel is the watered down equivalent of the righteous man raising his fist for social equality. Furthermore, I find that when the situation arises, that is, when a bum asks me for money, I am torn between the guilt I will feel by not giving him the money, and the guilt I’ll feel if I do. For we all know that we do not give bums money for the sake of the bums: we give it to appease our own conscience, and, in a sense, bribe our way to the haloed status of altruists and saints even though we know we are nothing of the sort.
So when I heard these words—“Hello everyone, I want to play you a song”—I was instantaneously paralyzed. I could no longer read the words on the page in front of me for my mind had shut down into two opposing factions: the gives versus the give-nots. Of course, I continued to stare at the page as if I was reading, because it gave me some cover, allowing me to pretend that I was so engrossed in my novel that I didn’t even hear the bum. Additionally, it gave me some time to let the two devils in my head duke it out: when it comes to bums one must be decisive, one can’t be of two ways. It is terrible to look up at a bum with eyes that betray an urge to give, as he walks by unrewarded and looks back at you with eyes that reveal a number of things—sullenness, shame, anger, hunger. It is equally terrible to betray a hint of irritation when thrusting the change in his can, and I believe in those situations the bum would throw it back if only he could, if pride would fill his belly. One must either stick to the page, or offer one’s hand out at the exact moment he passes and give him a respectful, yet brief, nod of acknowledgement (yes, it is farcical, but the nod goes a long way in maintaining the illusion of common decency).
I also became increasingly annoyed. Hitherto I had been snugly fit between two fellow passengers, indulging in one of the few genuine pleasures afforded by a day invariably misspent in the confines of an office cubicle, and now was destined to suffer through a musical number that would not only break the soft lull of the page but fling me into the throes of a moral dilemma, another problem, another means by which to question and examine myself. I do not envy those who live in the suburbs, protected from the sights and sounds of human suffering by a bubble of affluence, a bell jar of censorship. However, it seems not too much to ask that we be spared reminders of our failures, our inadequacies, and the very downfall of western civilization every time we step out of our homes. And so I directed all of this—my weary resentment, my narrow self-obsession—at this man whom I had not even laid eyes on.
The sound of the violin caught me completely unawares. I had heard a myriad amount of instruments in the bowels of this city, but never the violin. The mournful wail of a saxophone, the voice of a lone blues singer: these are the sounds plucked straight from an old movie and for a time feed the city neophyte with a sense of romance. The Chinese lute, the Russian immigrant’s accordion: these suggest the city’s eclecticism, its diversity, and remind us that the poor come in all stripes. The acoustic guitar: somewhat affecting when played by an old mariachi, but close to provoking a bloodbath of mayhem when played by a scruffy, young trust-funder. And so much more, the Casio tone, the electric bass, the tuba, the steel pan drum; all of these I had heard, but never the violin.
I looked up and was surprised once again. In front of me was a young black man, wearing baggy sweatpants, Nike sneakers and a do-rag, standing in the middle of the rocking subway car, and furiously playing violin. I had not heard the instrument in the subway before, so I shouldn’t have had any expectations, but I admit that this vision was the last I expected. Perhaps it’s because when we had to choose instruments in music class, the girls scattered to different parts of the room picking up, among other things, the violin, while all the boys lined up either behind the drum or the triangle. More seriously, perhaps this was my Joe Biden moment, my way of inadvertently being surprised by a clean and bright and articulate and in-anyway-talented-in-something-other-than-basketball-or-rap black male. Forgive me; I only had my experience to work with and my experience, as variegated and wide-reaching as I like to think it, had not prepared me for such an image. But as a man once said, our perception of things is as much a fact as the sun, and if I told you, truly or otherwise, that my best friend is from Zimbabwe or that I’m a man of color myself, it would not make a difference—so take from my experience what you will. And anyways, how many times have you seen a young black man dressed up like Nelly playing violin in the middle of a subway car?
And the sound, my God, the sound! I cannot do it justice here. Music was not meant for words, it resists the strictures of form, and a single note from this man’s violin would be immense enough to cause my little vessels of words to overflow. But I can say that it was not a slow, delicate tune. It was a veritable blitzkrieg of notes, an onslaught of power that subsumed the howling of the subway car. No matter how hard the subway jerked and swayed, he stood firm, holding the tiny instrument fast between his chin and shoulder, while rapidly guiding the long bow back and forth across the strings. His face was taut with concentration, his eyes scoured the fret board, and his fingers moved in a blur, deftly touching here, there, and everywhere seemingly at once. The passengers in the car were mesmerized. This was not your standard subway musical fare; no, this was a demonstration of pride and face-melting virtuosity that simply blew our hair back.
He ended on a long, swelling note, one of the few sustained notes of his performance. There was a moment of silence before a woman at the back hooted loudly, and the entire car erupted into applause.
Amidst the whistles and the clapping, the young man bowed and held out a knitted hat and extended it first left, then right, as he walked slowly down the length of the car. The awed passengers clamored to stuff change and even dollar bills into the hat. He was no longer a bum; he had transformed into a humble savant exacting a smaller due than what people would normally pay to see in hushed theaters. He played his role well, smiling slightly and knowingly, thanking each and every person who dropped money into the hat. I eagerly pulled out the coins from my pocket and held it ready for him.
After he passed me, I was too excited to continue my novel. I wanted to talk to someone about it, for I felt this incident reinforced the reasons I moved to the city—after all is said and done, it really can be an interesting place.
“I’ve seen you before.”
Heads whipped around. The young man was standing in front of a black woman with his hat extended. She was thirty-ish, with a smart afro and a tan leather jacket. Her voice was calm, yet slightly condescending as if she was unimpressed and knew something he—and we—didn’t.
“We’ve met before. Do you remember?”
The young man smiled and shook his head, still casually holding the hat in front of her.
“I work at the symphony. I heard you play on the subway six months ago, and I gave you a number to call. Did you call that number?”
“No.”
“Do you still have it?”
For the first time, the young man looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he murmured.
The woman sighed, reached into her purse and drew out a notebook. “Nobody thinks that a black or a Latino can play an instrument like the violin,” she said, speaking to all of us as she tore a piece of paper from the notebook. She clicked her pen and jotted down a number. “We have a try-out on the sixteenth, but if you can’t make that, call this number and we’ll schedule something for you.” She folded the piece of paper, handed it to the young man, and looked him straight in the eye. “You will call this time, right?”
The young man looked at the paper and his back slumped. The mask of easy grace with which he had accepted our money dissolved, and in its place emerged a pained, well-worn expression. His eyes, which had flashed like a toothy grin, were suddenly dulled. He then angrily reached for the paper and snuck it into his pocket. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He walked down the length of the subway car collecting the rest of his money. When he finished, he stood sullenly next to the subway door, staring at the ground just past his toes.
“Shit, I should have got his number,” the woman said to the man next to her, and shook her head. My fellow commuters soon returned to their magazines and iPods. The train hollered and screamed.
I stole glances at him every few seconds, desperately searching for a glimmer, a hint of the virtuoso, the savant who had been in front me only moments earlier. I kept thinking: Call the number! I could not understand why a man with such natural talent would forsake it to play in a creaking metal tomb that the rest of us—the tired masses, the shamefully mediocre—rode to jobs we hated, jobs we would leave behind in a fraction of a second if we only had the opportunity, the skill, an ability that is nothing less than what we used to call a gift from God. But the clock had struck midnight, the transformation was reversed, and slumped against the subway door, he became a bum once more.
The train squealed to a halt. I gathered my things and stepped off, and as I climbed up the stairs to the exit, I saw the young man in the next car over and could almost hear him say, “Hello everyone, I want to play you a song.” The train pushed off, and through a corner of the window I could see him furiously playing his violin and the passengers’ surprised and delighted faces as they turned up to look at him.
At that moment, it was my firm belief that he would not call that number. I hope I was wrong and that he and Yo-Yo Ma are shredding on classical instruments and bumping chests as I type. But I doubt it. I can’t envision it, because when I looked at him, I recognized someone crippled by the bum’s mentality. Perhaps the prospect of a chair in the orchestra would place too many expectations upon him. Perhaps he considered playing in a hushed theater too good for him. Put simply, perhaps he was afraid. After all, the subway, while certainly noxious and vile, is also safe and comfortable: it is what the city-dweller takes every day; it is his habit, his routine. Collecting money in a hat, no matter what form it takes, no matter what must be accomplished to get it, no matter how degraded one feels, no matter which principles one compromises, no matter what dreams are sacrificed, just feels right. Perhaps the bum shares more in common with the rest of us than we like to think.
—RS