Osgoode - October 19th

This morning I went to Osgoode Station (on the University Line, near City Hall and the court buildings) because I had bought an amp to use while busking, and it needed to be tested and approved by TTC management.

I decided to get an amp because a recent passer-by (an Italian or Portuguese man in his sixties) had stopped, pointedly, to lean in close to my guitar and tell me he couldn’t hear it.

Having made his point, he left without contributing.

So I decided to get an amp.

But before you can use the amp, you have to get a permit for it and agree on maximum volume levels. Over the years, subway musicians have at times attracted negative attention for playing too loud. Remember the guy in the movie Spinal Tap who insisted that his amp "goes to eleven"? He wouldn’t be approved. Unfortunately, the man from the TTC was running late, so I decided to play until he got there. (Without plugging into my amp, of course.)

Only seconds had passed before one of the last people I’d want to see me busking came swishing through the corridor. She was a former friend, a talented and ambitious singer who had parted company with me after a misunderstanding. I was sure she’d see subway busking as beneath her (no pun intended).

I knew that she wasn’t on my e-mail list, so seeing me here would be a complete surprise.

A pleasant one, apparently.

She smiled and said hello, eyebrows raised in interest. And breezed right on by.
I felt proud of myself for maintaining a posture of confidence, success and joy as she passed (despite the fact that I was freezing, waiting for someone and not collecting much money here anyway).

Of course I tried to sing better than ever...and flubbed the high note.

I hoped she’d already passed through the turnstiles and couldn’t hear me.

+++

I stayed at Osgoode a half hour. During that time, a disabled man shuffled extremely slowly down the corridor. His clothes were hanging awkwardly off him and he seemed to be looking straight down, watching his feet take every difficult step.

As I sang, I saw him dig in his pockets. I realized that in order to stop him from giving me money, I’d have to stop in the middle of the song and turn his donation away. That would surely embarrass him, so… I decided to sing directly to him, not to the rest of the station, for just those few seconds, and to sing as beautifully as I could.

Slowly raising his arm, he dropped a dollar into my case.