“This is your stupidest idea yet,” Binks begins and I can already visualize myself putting the boot in to his whiney keister. I don’t of course, mates and all and besides which I’ve got to maintain my reserve for the passers by. There’re a couple of khaki-shorted tourists approaching that look like they might drop a dollar or a cigarette or two.
“Just shaddap and play,” I respond in low tones, thumping out a sharp little number on the bon-go drum I’ve got tucked between my legs. I’m thinking Charade meets Ginsburg playing Lucien Carr, fast-tempo and exhilarating. Binks is trying to keep up, strumming out some cool bass lines and beatboxing a bit of fake trumpet à la Hugh Laurie.
The tourists pass us by with a wide berth, pausing their conversation – their very breathing – and avoiding eye contact as they do so. “Help the homeless? Sirs? Sirs?” Not even a look as they sashay to the crosswalk and jay across. I stop my drumming. “That was awful,” I’m glaring at Binks, who has likewise stopped off on playing and is sipping from his paper sack.
“How can it be anything else when you can’t hold a beat?” he shoots back all barby. “Besides, nobody’s going to believe we’re homeless, even with this milk carton banjo and your pathetic coffee can.”
“Do you know how long it took me to string that carton?” And I mean, it did take upwards of fifteen, twenty minutes. It may not be climbing Everest, but time is money. “And don’t even start on talking beats. You’ve got the rhythm of a walrus having to, I dunno… play with its cock or something.” And we bicker on, comfortable enough in the shaded parkway of the eponymously-named Park Avenue. It’s a hot day, bordering on the muggy if not for the steady breeze bustling through the trees.
We pause and take thoughtful sips from our respective sacks, grimacing a tisch over the lukewarmy tang of Hurricane backwash infused with a couple nips of gin. Clearly the band thing isn’t working out, having spent the majority of the day playing without hardly any payoff. At one point some fresh-mouthed teenager offered us a dollar to stop. And a couple passing JWs left us copies of their Watchtower periodical, which eventually got picked up by the breeze and left dismally tossed about in the roadside shrubbery.
“Maybe you’re right, Binksie. Bohemian folk music is old hat, dime a dozen and all. We need a new gig, something unique.”
“Can’t we go scouring for cans again? That paid off nicely.”
I shake my head. “The can bums,” I remind him, men and women of the street who make their dime filling grimy shopping carts with cans they dive through the bins for. They’re a mean lot, a sort of informal guild that doesn’t take to tin-poaching lightly. “That one promised to take my thumbs if he ever saw me near another recyclable.” A weighty threat, nearly always having a can of some sort in hand. I try holding the bag with just my palm, nearly dropping it. I’d probably have to switch to bottles, living sans thumbs.
“How about palmistry?” I suggest. “Like, fortune-telling! I learned how to do it once back in college. We could set up a bench down by the Pearl…”
“You can read fortunes?” Binks sneers, and once again I’m thinking about thumping him one.
“Nobody can read fortunes, you nit. But any dumb shit can read a palm. You just have to know which lines mean what, and sort of embellish on from there. Gimme your hand.” And I take his resisting arm and spread his hand palm-up on the top of my bongo can. It’s sort of awful, touching Binks’ clammy mitt, vaguely and quite uncomfortably sexual in a way. But eventually he quits struggling and I get to looking over the lines.
“See, now this is your life line, by the thumb. It’s a shrimpy little thing, meaning you’ve got no joie de vivre, no lust for life. No head line to speak of… actually, maybe your hands are just too doughy. Probably bloated from all the drink-”
“Give me that!” he says irritably, pulling back his arm as I’m having a laugh that’s sort of turning to a disquietingly wet cough fit. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Besides, that idea’s dumber even than the folk band. We might just have to get jobs, Hoff. I know, I know, don’t look at me like that. I’m just saying that the checks’ll be drying up soon and money doesn’t just come, you know?”
“Money doesn’t just come,” I agree, “but who’s going to hire the either of us? Spotty records, at best. Scant sobriety, at best. Ours is destined to be the life of the streets, man. Of freedom!” And with a sweeping gesture I point out the trees et al above and around us, we masters of the open spaces. Feeling inspired, I start to tap out a rhythm dedicated to our Mother Nature, evocative of peace and joy and solidarity and-
“Stop, stop, stop!” Binks stands abruptly, shaking his head and squeezing the bridge of his nose. He wrests the can from me and throws it into the grass with a soft tum. “You have no rhythm, you crazy bastard! Soon to have no money. No place. No future! We’re not characters in a goddamn Kafka novel.”
“Kerouac,” I correct him.
“Whatever! It gets cold at night, Hoff man. And sometimes it rains. People aren’t birds; they need apartments and rent money and groceries. They need something fucking soft to sleep on, something that doesn’t smell like piss. Because they have pots for that, too.” He begins to walk off down the Park Avenue, arms out and incredulous like the Monopoly tycoon on a tax day.
“You’ll be back, Binks!” I call after him. “It’s written in your life line!” He shouts back something indefinably obscene as he jays at the cross. Blinking red hands everywhere, it seems. I lay back in the grass, cradling my head in my hands and admiring the twisted branching limbs of the oaks stretching out above me, wondering if there’s a science to arboreal palmistry. Some passing mug flicks a quarter at me as he walks. “Bless you, sir!” I say after him, not deigning to right myself and fetch it. After all, it’s only a quarter.
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