Man with a Guitar on the Train

"It's taken me 11 years to figure out how to play this thing and avoid the police."

"I love all the people--the Puerto Rican people, the White people, the Mexican people, the crackheads."


The middle-aged, black man sitting across from me with the Nike fitted and blue hoody jacket is laughing his ass off. I am, too.

"Who can guess who sang this song?" Then he starts strumming that old Latino favorite and belting out, "Poh-lice Navidad, Poh-lice Navidad. . ."

I wanted to say, "Richie Valens." But I was almost positive that was wrong. And then it would come off as racist or something because that's the only old, famous Hispanic singer a white girl would know. And then I would be drawing attention to myself. . .

So this other guy shouts out, "Jose Feliciano" Was that a mistake or what? Especially since he said it in a serious sort of way. Most people know better than to play into these people's games. The rest of us watched on, always interested to see what'll happen.

But the man with the guitar responded, "You didn't hear what I said? Police Navidad."

A man gives him some change. "You got the idea, man."

Then he starts walking up and down the aisle with his bag open. "I take Mexican, African, food stamps, turkey leftovers, weed (if you have it), college credits, school lunches."

He sits back down at the other end of the train from me. "This is for the white lady with the brown coat on," as he looked at me. (There was only one other white lady on the train.)

"I've got Sunshine
on the #2 Train.
I guess you say,
you must also do cocaine.
My girl, my girl
Talking about that white lady, my girl."

"I love all the people. This is for the Chinese lady standing in the middle of the train. I learned Chinese songs. I checked out 2 books from the library. This is what they taught me."

"And they were Kung-Fu fighting. Dahnnanana, Dahnanana"