Untitled by Protea

Unfinished, but as much as I'm going to be able to do by the end of today.

The platform hosted more pigeons than people. One, splashed gray on white, humped erratically past the busker’s heavy boots to peck ineffectually at a shard of brown glass. It spun around on one reptilian leg, using the toeless stump of the other for balance. How it could have its toes severed by the wheels of the train, no nub even to mark their passing, without suffering any other disfigurement held the busker’s imagination for the few minutes before the Blue Hills arrived.

The stretch from Lake to Sawyer was just about perfect, seven minutes until the doors opened again. Two songs and some change. Some lines warranted a little longer. Some he stayed away from completely. Even on the Blue Hills, a captive audience could get restless. If he could catch a couple of lazy smiles, some wiggling back from the edges of seats, crossing of arms and shutting of eyes, he might stay a little longer. Once or twice on Sundays, he had ridden the Blue Hills from end to end. A girl, college aged he’d guessed, had clasped his hand as he got off and said, “Right on.” She was through the turnstile before it registered. He had shouted a thank you and she spun around, devil’s horns on one hand and thumbs-up in the other. On the return he’d decided not to play.

Like crossing the street, he looked both ways as he boarded. No immediate alarms. Three times as many seats as people, though a couple remained standing. The door closed with the hiss of released pressure. He reached into his bag with one last glance and saw one of the standers, a lanky kid with Asiatic features and light tattooing on his arm, lifting a ukulele off his back. The busker pulled his empty hand out of his bag. He sat in an empty seat near the doors. Two on one train did not work. He’d have to get off next stop and catch a different one. He couldn’t really complement a ukulele anyway.

The ukulele kid tried a couple of strings with his thumb. There’d been more of those on the trains in the last couple of years than the busker had seen before in his life. Another trend, but style was the important thing. The dialogue between the player and the instrument. Some people just let the instrument talk, never getting in a word of their own. Or they talked over the instrument with the same awkwardness and discomfort of trying to have dinner with an old and gradually discontinuous couple. The kid hit the first few chords of a lazy island riff, and it was good enough. His timing was his own, stretching the edges of each measure to the brink of disaster, and then plunging skillfully into the next. It put an unnatural curve on the bouncing lightness of the instrument. Once he dropped the chords entirely and picked deftly with his fingertips.

The train was slowing. The busker watched the doors open and close without moving. He’d stay until the end of the song, which was still developing despite its length. His tastes did not run to the upbeat, but the timing, the tension, was addictive. Like holding a deep breath. The ecstasy of the release dependent on how long it was delayed, how desperate it became. He let it out at last, a little light-headed. A pigeon, emboldened by the sparsely populated train and a dropped donut hole, had snuck in the door and made its way down the aisle. It had all of its toes, but stumbled back and forth with the lurch of the train. It flapped its wings once as if to take flight, but kept its feet on the floor.